Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

[Update: This post reflects the status of sales release, not PR1.1 and later. Check MfE Heartbeat and FAQ for the current status of N900 MfE]

Hello to everybody here!

I am one of the (technical, not marketing) Maemo guys who is behind "broken", "buggy", "not working" etc. Maemo MfE implementation :-)

Could you post your feedback (better negative and constructive) to this thread?

At first, Let me put the FAQ.

- It does not work with google!
- Yes. And it should not. The release of the software which you can find in the box you have received was not designed to be compatible with google.

- OK, dude. What your piece of smth. is compatible with?
- MS Exchange server 2007. Period.

- Ohoho! What about Exchange 2003?
- Wait for sw. update.

- Ohoho! But what is the problem with google? I really want to have it!
- Google implementation of ActiveSync protocol and MS implementation of ActiveSync are different implementations of the protocol. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/p...statement.mspx

- Can community do something to get the google support on board?
- Yes. Influence Google (to be compatible with N900) and Nokia (to be compatible with google).

- Does it support several accounts of type ActiveSync
- No.

- Importing self-signed certificate does not work for me! I see my certificate in maemo certification manager but MfE fails to sync.
- Yep. There is a bug in MfE. Workaround.

So, guys, I am waiting for your feedback. What are the worst problems you experience with MfE solution for Maemo?

Update. Maemo 5 MfE features wish list online poll is closed

Update2. Mail For Exchange (MfE) Heartbeat and FAQ

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

How exactly did you not think to test it with Exchange 2003?

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I hope this thread stays well-focused. My questions (not an N900 owner, at this time):

- why isn't the M4E functionality built-into the Email application
- global address book and inbox/sub-folder search isn't there; is that coming, if not, what are the limitations on this feature (could it be a secondary application such as what Symbian devices had at one point)?
- +1 on the testing with Exchange 2003 (though that might really be something way out of your hands, I deal with similar day to day)?
- does M4E also pull the status of the user from the AS domains and make this information available from the contact screen?

I personally need to get my hands on a device to ask some more questions, but I'm sure a few folks with it are coming and will ask those.

Thanks for stepping into the forum to address this.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I really appreciate that you're here on the forums! I've had to deal with this sort of thing before, where there is supposedly a definite protocol but different vendors implement things very differently. So I can understand where you're coming from.

I'm wondering, what is it about the Google implementation that causes issues?

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Could you clarify a bit more here? mfe is about mail, calendar and contacts. mfe is integrated into the platform fully - it uses maemo mail client for mail handling, maemo calendar for calendar sync and maemo address book for contacts sync. I was always sure that this the best way to go - utilize platform components rather than invent our owm wheel.

mfe is visible as mail account inside maemo mail client. And it looks in the ui like a native part of the mail client.

We always prefer to integrate the mfe into the system rather than go with separate applications.

We knew that it is incompatible with 2003, it is not about "forgetting to test". Obviously, the communication to the users was not done in the best way and a lot of people were disappointed as they expected maemo mfe to work with 2003 from the very beginning (sales package).

No.

Thank you for your interest!

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I am a little confused at the moment. Some people who got their N900 already, are posting that they successfully synched Google Mail, Contacts and Calender. But it is said here that Google sync is not possible? How can that be?
Thanks in advance for clarification. :)

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Possible to add mail searching?

Also, unlimited email storage capacity? (Not just 1 month)

And unrelated, but are there going to be a lot of Maemo Project developers who post here? :D

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

+ 1 .

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

MfE used to work on my N900 with Google. In fact, I unpacked it in Amsterdam, setup WiFi and MFE settings, and had all my contacts and calendar on my device a few moments later. It was a fantastic experience, really the way it should work.

Unfortunately, a few weeks later, MfE stopped to work on my N900 :-(
This really is a showstopper for me - but I guess for MANY people out there, too.
I mean - it was working, then someone changed something - now it's broken? Please be flexible and make it work with Google again, it's a killer feature!
(bold phrases directed at N900 product management to immediately order this feature to be implemented by the technical guys and have high priority so we can get it in the christmas update :-)

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

As not being marketing guy, can not communicate the plans for the features, sorry. However, I can promise that I will deliver all the feedback about missed features in mfe and related components (mail client in this case) to the guys who make the decisions on investing into new features' implementation.

You can sync "everything". This setting is already in. Is it what you wish?

Can not speak for others. I will be here if my managers would not prohibit this activity. But i don't think that it is possible as everybody in maemo seems to understand that the only way to deliver quality is to communicate with the real users and collect their feedback.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Exactly, do not(!) reinvent the square wheel.
That's an anti pattern and definitly how it shouldn't be done, if we have mail, calender and contact apps already, using them for MFE is the right idea.

I srsly had to laugh at this point. You made my day.

Good luck that everything works out well in the next fw updates.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Check the FAQ in the first post:

This is really the case. It means that you can be lucky (sync is successfull) or unlucky (it is not). You can be lucky today and unlucky tomorrow. Software is the same but the data transmitted over the protocol is different.

By the way, i am lucky with google sync but my colleague sitting next to me is not :-)

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Ahh, ok. Well then I hope that there will be changes to make this work in the future. If directly by the Maemo Team or by a third-party doesnt really matter..but i hope this is done soon. I think this is a key feature..

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I guess the thing to take from here is that Google-sync doesn't work and that MfE 2007 is supported.

Lack of communication raised expectation of users who created bugs assuming that the features of Symbian MfE would carry over to Maemo. And the fact that Google was working intermittently was a side-effect probably due to changes on the Google-side. Google-sync worked fine yesterday btw :)

Thanks for coming to the forums and clearing things up a bit.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Thanks for the heads up, vitaly. It's good to get some honest feedback on this, and I know it must have taken some courage to step up like this.

It is appreciated!

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

MfE is useless to me except for the possibility that it might (eventually?) let me sync gmail & calendar. I would really really like to be able to do this :p

Thanks for the info

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Hallo Vitaly,

could you give me a hint, where I can find a complete feature list of MfE for Maemo?
As soon as the N900 is available in Germany I'll test every detail of MfE and post suggestions.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Are there any plans to implement Google's idea of MfE for the N900? The interest from the users certainly seems to be there.
I don't know the difficulties of doing this but I think it would be a very welcome addition.

It was always very comfortable with my last three mobile phones to only put in my Google exchange details and immediately have my contacts and calendar items (later even mail) synced.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I submitted bug 5835, the one archebyte pointed out. I guess I am lucky that my calendar stays in sync with my Google (Apps) calendar. Syncing is sometimes problematic though. Contacts just does not work. There is an internal bug on that one as well.

Thank you Vitaly for taking the time to use the forum. As a user of a high end mainstream phone, I *expect* integration with Google, as both of the main competitors, to my knowledge, can. As an end user, I am not really interested in whether Nokia makes it compatible with Google, or the other way around. But it does *have* to work. Otherwise some fine print is required on the claim that MfE and ActiveSync support is present on all end-user facing documentation, specs, etc.

And again, thank you for opening this thread and involving yourself in the community!

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I think it’s very useful to have sync with Microsoft. Google it would be nice too. But what I don’t really understand is why don’t we have sync with ovi calendar and ovi mail?

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Hi vitaly,

are you saying that mfe2007 is supported. ie. can we see subfolders of the inbox and it syncs all emails. Sent items etc, populates?
Are you saying mfe2003 is not supported? is there any functionality at all? will it be fully supported in the next firmware if not available at the moment?

thanks tom

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Thx Vitaly, we all really appreciate having you here to provide information and taking feedback.

As google currently doesn't work, are you aware of other mail/calendar/contact service providers who do supports mfe2007? (preferably free)

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Please read comment 10 again.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Please read comment 1 and comment 10 again where this is already CLEARLY answered.

No need to ask the same again and again...

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Calendar sync with google seem to work, sort of.

Somehow i didnt get all the entires (only parts a bit random dont know why)
and i did add an entry through the N900 once (all day, yearly with alarm) and that one did vanish on both ends after a sync
But other entries that i add through the N900 do popup just fine in google.

Mail also seems to work, only problem is that i dont get my inbox but all my other labels seem to work i see there "x new messages' and i can browse to them just fine. But where is my inbox! :)

Contacts i didnt try, because those are horrible if you ask me, last time i did that on ,my E90 the merge that google did didnt go quite right, this is because googles contacts are way to limited, They have limited fields for phone numbers, complete address is just a big field by itself.
And now with the N900 having that much more info (skype,gtalk,msn fields and so on) i dont dare to sync that and then get complete rubbish back!

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Hey andre,

i am not sure if you are aware, but there are some users who are saying they get mfe2003 working, depending on firmware. NOT SUPPORTING does not meen it does not work. I finally have someone here who can give a definitive answer, do you mind if i at least try for clarification.
Thanks tom

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I have set up my google contacts and calendar with the N900 fine. It has all calendar entries and contacts with pictures. So no problems here.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Re M4E 2003 what do you mean by "wait for sw update"? Sorry I am a simple user not a teckie

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

it means that Mail for Exchange will support Exchange 2003 Servers in a later software update.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

hmm mail sync is really weird now i have in all mails my chats, still also inbox is nowhere to be seen (everything that could be the default inbox is empty)

so mail is not really working.

But gmail through imap does work i only miss imap-idle compared to my E90, now i just pull every 5 minutes.
the gmail app that i have on my E90 is the thing i mis the most. Because the default email clients all are not really good.. I miss the threaded view, searching should be done on the server, archive button, it should only download X number of headers and Y number of bodies should be cached. And for mobile use the bodies should be compressed. So the java GMail app is so close to what i see as the perfect mail client.... (all data on the server, searching on the server, caching on the client, nice threaded ui build on top of that)

mklass: if you sync your contacts, how are they stored at the google site, do you really have all your emails addresses there and all your info? Dont you suddenly loose email addresses or phone numbers from a contact that has 3-4 of those?
How does google store the skype and msn addres?

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Sorry just worked it out sw update is obviously software update - apologies.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

are u logging into exchange 2003 or 2007?

Thanks Tom

i asked the above question to a guy on another forum, his reply was,


"Exchange 2007 - my provider is Sherweb. Very reliable, excellent service, and cheap. "

He says he cannot see subfolders in exchange 2007. Therefore

he is lying (very doubtful)
he is telling the trut
His provider has not got exchange setup correctly (very doubtful)
Or the n900 does not support exchange 2007 fully.

Can someone at nokia or an owner please provide this info, surely there must be someone out here who uses this thing for business???

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

You can sync with Ovi mail and indeed Gmail (not calendar and contacts) using Nokia Messaging, which is also included on the N900.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Yes I really need to know this too, I don't want to go from 2003 to 2007 and then find it doesn't show all folders!

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

That would not suffice as I need calender, tasks etc etc

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

How are you syncing at the moment?

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Hi, I am with Exchange 2003 on an old Nokia E65. Awaiting my pre ordered N900 but not sure whether to buy it if I can't have comprehensive email folders/calender/tasks etc on pc and phone.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Sounds like its best to wait for firmware upgrade. Vitaly hinted 2003 support would be on a future firmware upgrade, though not which one.

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

I am aware of this.

"Not supported" always means that it definitely was not tested, that it is officially not supported (with regard to customer support), that it most probably does not work, and in case it does work for you you are a lucky guy. :-)

Re: Mail for Exchange (MfE). Blame me here, pls
 

Exact URLs are always welcome as I can also post anything to any forum...

Probably the N900 tries to support Exchange 2007 fully, but there's something that's called a software bug... It's quite likely as I have not seen an application yet that was completely free of errors. ;-)