As long time users of BES for Domino we have always replicated BlackBerry user's Personal Lotus Notes Address Books to the server and set the BES to synchronize this with the Handhelds.

I have noticed recently that contacts are not being synchronized anymore. On checking the PIM Synchronization setting on BES for selected users the relative path for the Address Book had changed from the replica of the personal address book on the server to the person's mail database. I changed some of them back to the replica of the personal address book but still the contacts were not synchronizing between the personal address book and the handheld. On checking the PIM Sync settings again they had reverted back to the mail database.

I know with Lotus Notes 8 I can enable Syncronzation of the contacts in the mail database with the personal address book on the replication page so that it is performed with a scheduled replication. However, I still have people on Lotus Notes 6 who would have to manually syncronize the contacts between the mail database and the local address book.

Not sure when this started happening. It could have been when the Domino server BES is installed on was upgraded to Domino 8.01 or it could have been when BES was upgraded to 4.1.6 mr4.

Does anyone know a way of setting BES to use a database other than the mail database and remember the selection?

I have had this issue. Let me just find the thread... brb

Really odd Domino BES behaviour

Read the whole thread as it will help you to understand the issues here, but in a nutshell:

From you original post, I am assuming that this user-in-question is NOT an iNotes or a roaming-profile user.

Chances are they have a profile document present in the mailbox called "inotesprofile".

That profile gets created if anyone ever uses the Action - Synchronize Address Book agent in the mailfile. There might be other ways for that profile to get created, but that's the one most likely.

If they are not setup properly for iNotes, but have this profile in mailfile, BES is effectively looking for something that doesn't exist in terms of address book config.

You have 2 options:
a) delete the dodgy profile doc from user mailfile, delete user from BES, re-add, re EA, all good.
b) change a registry version on the server to stop these fields from auto-populating. Plus side, don't have to do (a). Downside, you have to manually populate new user fields on BES, even for roamers etc.

Thanks Jadey, that was it.
I set the registry key and all is working again.

We've been having an issue lately where the address book from the mail file is not synchronizing to and from the device after the end user is upgraded to a Notes8 template. Everything is set correctly on the BES, but still not automatically replicating.

I even ensured the end user set the Notes Client correctly...

1. Open the mail file with IBM Lotus Notes Client.
2. Click File > Preferences.
3. Click Contacts.
4. Check "Enable Synchronize Contacts" on the replicator.
5. Click Replication.
6. Check "Replicate at this interval for normal priority." Be sure all of the days of the week are checked.
7. Click OK.
8. Click the Replication icon on the toolbar on the left.
9. Make sure that Synchronize Contacts is enabled.
10. Click Start Now.

And yet still no replication.

Seems as though there is a setting on the mail file that a Domino Admin needs to change.
Uncheck "enforce consistent ACL from Mail File"
Once we did that, all address book sync functions work normally.

Go figure.