"Unfortunately, Exchange Services has stopped" message on Android

PROBLEM: Frequently get the following message / error popup on your Android phone "Unfortunately, Exchange Services has stopped".

I'm running a Nexus 5 with Android 4.4.4 on it.  I have a corporate account set up with an Exchange connection type with my Calendar, Contacts and Email synchronised (I'm just using the default Android Calendar/Contacts/Email apps).

The problem started just after I upgraded to Android 4.4.4 but it may have been a coincidence (our work Exchange server had some issues about the same time and went down but I was getting the error even after it came back).  My email and contacts still synchronized but not calendar. When I disabled synching of my calendar the message stopped showing so the problem seems directly tied to synching of just my Outlook Calendar.

SOLUTION: The error has been reported in lots of previous versions of Android and there weren't really any posting about it specifically in relation to Android 4.4.4 so I suspect the problem is related to Exchange and Exchange Services.  The solution that worked for me was to remove the corporate account and re-add it:

• Take note of your settings to make re-adding quicker (Settings > Accounts > Corporate > Account Settings > [Your Account] > Settings on this page plus those under Server Settings > Incoming Settings sub menu.
• Delete your corporate account (Settings > Accounts > Corporate > [Your Account] > Top Right Menu > Remove Account (see below point first though)
• It will give you a warning about how it will delete all your calendar, email and contact info - so only do this if you're sure it is all backed up on your work server (it should be, I didn't notice any issues after deleting it and re-adding it).
• Re-add via Settings > Accounts > + Add account
• You will probably receive a notification asking for Exchange to be given extra permissions - grant these.
• Wait for everything to finish synchronising again and away you go, no more annoying alert!

Some people mentioned that perhaps Exchange was needing more permissions than what was originally permitted when first adding the account or perhaps some settings had been forgotten or lost (all weird I know but that is why removing it and re-adding it may work as it will prompt you when you re-add what permissions to give Exchange).  An approach that some suggested which I didn't try was to clear your data and cache (not sure if it would end up doing the same thing as removing your account or not).

• Settings > Device > Apps > Calendar > Clear data / Clear Cache

I'm open to any other suggestions but as far as I'm concerned it did the trick for me!

Error Code 2324 thanks to Sophos Anti-Virus breaks iTunes update

PROBLEM: Today I wanted to install iOS 6 on my ancient iPhone 3GS which required updating my iTunes (ugggh) to iTunes 10.7 - for some reason the "Check for Updates" feature in iTunes found the update but rather than downloading and installing it, it sent me to the Apple website to download it separately. When I tried installing iTunes 10.7 it got part way through the installation process before it came up with the following error and wouldn't proceed further:

"The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2324."

SOLUTION: So these are the things I tried (skimmed to the end if you want the final solution):

• Googled the error code and iTunes and came up with a few pages, none of which were really relevant (most were just fake page spammy sites) - one suggested running a chkdsk which while odd apparently worked for someone so I tried it - no affect.
• Finally I tried calling Apple support, who had never heard of the error code and didn't have any record of it - a very helpful lady called Katie tried to sort things out without much love.  She finally suggested uninstalling iTunes, but even that wouldn't work!  Yep, when I went to uninstall iTunes I got the same "error code is 2324" error... uggh!
• Apple support suggested turning off my virus scanner - "Hmmphh... how is that going to help, but ok..."... and what do you know... everything started magically working again!

So the final cause of the problem?  Sophos Endpoint Security and Control (Sophos Anti-virus) was updated on the 20th September 2012 with an invalid virus definition file which was blocking critical iTunes update files - details are here: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/09/19/sshupdater-b-fsophos-anti-virus-products/ and if you're an administrator here is some more info http://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/knowledgebase/118311.aspx - basically a bunch of exe files were flagged as threats (a threat has been detected by Sophos (“Virus/spyware Shh/Updater-B”)) and had been quarantined - including of course some critical iTunes update files e.g. c:\Program Files\iTunes\iPodUpdaterExt.dll, c:\Program Files (x86)\Apple Software Update\SoftwareUpdate.exe.  Ironically their own Sophos update files were also marked as a virus! (so the fix couldn't be downloaded automatically - yeah, pretty big stuff up).

So it just happened to be the perfect storm... a bad update to the virus scanner and an update required of software on the same day.

For those with Sophos who want to know how to turn it off temporarily (so you can do updates to iTunes etc):

• Start Sophos Endpoint Security and Control (from Start menu or right click the icon in the task tray).
• Configure > Anti-virus > On-access scanning... > Scanning tab
• Untick "Enable on-access scanning for this computer".

If you want to leave it enabled but just don't want to receive alerts every time it sees a threat (perhaps because you know it is getting a lot of false positives):

• Start Sophos Endpoint Security and Control (from Start menu or right click the icon in the task tray).
• Configure > Anti-virus > Messaging... > Desktop messaging tab
• Untick Messages to Send - "Virus/spyware detection and cleanup"
• Remember to tick this once you have an updated virus pattern/definition file so you can any real problems.

Some interesting things I learnt while talking to Apple tech support:

• Even though a new version of iTunes can be downloaded and installed while you have an old version (and in theory it will upgrade it/replace it) - Apple don't recommend this - apparently it can result in some file conflicts and general nastiness - they always recommend using the Update within the software if it is working, but otherwise uninstall iTunes totally first.  
• The uninstall process Apple tech support recommend is very methodical (here it is described for Windows 7 64 bit but it would be very similar for other Windows installations) - here are some links I found for Windows 7 - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923 and for XP http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925
• Uninstall 6 Apple pieces of software, in order:

1.     iTunes (may want to take note of any iTunes preferences you have first - though my preferences were retained after the uninstall and reinstall).
2.     Quicktime
3.     Apple Software Updater
4.     Apple Mobile Dev Support (or something like that)
5.     Bonjour
6.     Apple Application Support

• Verify that there are no related files left in the file system after the uninstall:

1. c:\Program Files\Bonjour
2. c:\Program Files\Common\Apple
3. c:\Program Files\iTunes
4. c:\Program Files\iPod
5. c:\Program Files\Quicktime
6. c:\Windows\System32\Quicktime
7. c:\Windows\System32\QuickTimeVR
8. c:\Program Files(x86)\Bonjour
9. c:\Program Files(x86)\Common\Apple
10. c:\Program Files(x86)\iTunes
11. c:\Program Files(x86)\iPod
12. c:\Program Files(x86)\Quicktime    
13. c:\Windows\SysWOW64\Quicktime
14. c:\Windows\SysWOW64\QuickTimeVR

•   Reboot machine
•   Redownload iTunes from http://www.apple.com/itunes/
•   Install iTunes!
• After upgrading to iOS 6 on my iPhone (now that iTunes was upgraded) I did have iTunes lock up (probably related to the anti-virus) and I did receive this error: "iTunes was unable to load data class information from Sync Services. Reconnect or try again later."... After restarting iTunes it worked ok (might have been also because the iOS 6 update had just been rolled out and everyone was downloading it/installing it at once).

So lessons learnt?

• The simple solution is often the right solution - think about what might have changed recently because that's likely to be your problem.
• iTunes phone support is surprisingly helpful (much better than their online help which never answers any of my problems) - note, I don't think I was entitled to phone support but if it's an interesting enough case they will hopefully try and sort out your problem.

Print "Actual" Size

Problem: You want a picture to print out to an exact size (in my case I wanted it to match another printed picture which was not of standard size) but when you print it only lets you print at standard picture sizes e.g. Photo, A4, A3 etc. (had this problem while using Paint.NET, a great program, and Windows... though the problem I think is more Windows related than Paint.NET).

Solution: Set your canvas size to a regular size that is larger than your image e.g. A4, A3 etc, then paste your image into the centre of that canvas. When printing choose output size that matches your canvas and be careful not to choose the "Fit to page" setting.  This worked for me.  Would be great if Microsoft just supported "Print actual size" (go figure!).

iTunes Podcasts not displaying all available episodes

Problem: You've added a podcast to iTunes and want to view all the episodes, not just the most recent one. You then tried the right click "Show all available episodes" menu option ... and... nothing happened! Arrgh!

Solution: You're most likely viewing the Podcasts as a Grid (iTunes > View > as Grid) ... in this mode it won't show the other episodes even after you click "Show all available episodes"... your choices are:
1. Simply use a different view e.g. Album List
2. Double click the podcast and you'll see a list of all the episodes - it's not intuitive because if you mouse over the episode you get a "Play selected" help tip.

Just another reason why I only use iTunes when I have to (they design pretty phones but iTunes is a complete fail in terms of usability!)

Closing a modal dialog box

Problem: Visual Studio (and perhaps other programs) has an annoying habbit of sometimes displaying a modal dialog window when you are perhaps loading the solution or getting the latest version from Source Safe, which you can't click on. If you don't happen to have Visual Studio in focus when the dialog box appears, it can result in the Visual Studio grinding to a halt until you can close that dialog box. You can alt-tab to that window/dialog box, but you cannot click Yes/No/Cancel/Ok... arrrgh!

Solution: Alt-Tab to the dialog box and press Escape (ESC). Even though you can't click on the dialog buttons or use Enter or the spacebar, pressing Escape will cause the Cancel/No button to be clicked and allow you to continue on your merry way. Happy coding.

Daylight Savings, Mobile Phones and Calendars

Problem: Daylight savings is a wonderful thing, even if it does fade the curtains. What isn't so wonderful is how little companies care about it. Without fail whatever company I'm working at has issues with the transition to/from daylight savings. This year was no exception (solved after 3 Microsoft patches and a chicken dance). What wasn't solved was the time on my mobile phone (a Nokia 6110 Navigator in case you were curious... I call it my iNavigator and pretend I have a fancy iPhone). There were two distinct issues:

1. Updating the mobile phone time
2. Getting calendar entries from my Outlook calendar to display with the correct time on my mobile phone

Quick Solution: Under Time > Options > Settings make the following changes:

• Network Operator Time: Change to Off
• Time Zone: Change to the same as what your currently in e.g. Melbourne, Australia is currently (with daylight savings) in GMT +11. Might require setting your location to a totally different country (e.g. Solomon Islands - Honiara!)
• Time: Now update to the correct time

Why it works / is required: Most smartphones have the daylight savings start/finish dates included as part of their firmware. So if a country/region changes these after your phone was built, and if they haven't released a firmware upgrade, then it will always think for instance Melbourne Australia is GMT +10 instead of GMT +11. Setting your timezone to a different country is fine because as far as I know, Outlook and your phone don't care what country your timezone is associated with, they only care what the associated GMT +/- value is. If you don't take off the Automatic Network Operator time, then of course it will update the timezone to be the current location which will be wrong. So follow the above steps until the phone recognises your area has started daylight savings.

Of course if you have a non-smartphone, it won't have GMT settings and so you shouldn't have any dramas. The only other high level information I found was here.

Welcome

You've probably found this entry through Google. This blog is about things I haven't been able to find through Google (irony).

99% of questions I can find an answer for through everyone's favourite search engine, but it's the 1% that annoys me.

So this is a blog of random problems and solutions... hopefully it will help others having problems with that last 1%.