Goosync Gets Upgrade – Free Users Left Without Access
I was getting frustrated over the weekend because I couldn’t sync my phone calendar with Google Calendar and iCal. I didn’t know how important my calendar was until it stopped working. I’ve been doing this synchronization thanks to a free Goosync account reminding me with due dates or appointments. Lately I’ve been getting login failure. If you are also a free Goosync user, don’t worry it will be back up soon.
Goosync announced on their forums,
Please accept our sincere apologies for the recent disruption in the GooSync service.
We have recently experienced accelerated and unforeseen growth, this has inevitably brought with it some “growing pains”. The results of this mean we are currently reaching the capacity of our current hardware configuration long before expected. The recent disruptions to the GooSync service have all been linked with these hardware issues. Read more.
In regards to the free users not being able to log in, they explained,
Due to server performance issues we have decided to limit the service to just paid users overnight. We aim to restore our free & paid service asap. Thanks for your understanding.
UPDATE:
Thanks for the patience you’ve all shown whilst we’ve been busy working on updating our servers. We’ve made some changes today to improve performance for paid users, we will continue to work throughout the weekend and fully expect to have a full (free and paid) service running on Monday.
While I’m happy for Goosync for “growing,” I’m a little irritated that I wasted time checking my phone settings and checking my login password at their website because the error told me I had wrong login information. I did not know about the whole issue until I searched their Support forums after 2 days of confusion. An email would have been nice. An accurate application error message would have been nicer.
What About You?
Do you synchronize your calendar? Are you a happy Goosync user or use something else?
James on 2 February 2009:
I’m a paying user and I can’t say I’ve experienced any problems. My cal and contacts have been syncing without any problems.
I’ve been using goosync for a couple of years and really rate the service.
Although apparently Seven Beta Push Email have apparently launched free syncing of Google cal and contacts, so it will be interesting to see how this affects goosync’s service.
Coen on 2 February 2009:
I don’t use goosync. I used it with my Palm Treo, but the free version only covers 30 days ahead. I synced scheduleworld, but that doesn’t seem to work anymore. Don’t know what the problem is. In a former version you could sync scheduleworld with Google calendar. But that service was cancelled. It only works with Contacts now.
Now I only sync with Lotus Notes calendar at work, I use OneBridge to do that. Ik would love to have a good free sync method to sync with google calendar also.
michael on 2 February 2009:
Like you I was frustrated. Didn’t find the post you referred to so i deleted my account and started a new one. Works now but as you said bad policy not give a better error message or notification. i was thinking about getting the premium service but now I’m not so sure…
I have started to look for options
Sebastian on 2 February 2009:
Me too, but now its running and i´m lucky about this service. Server may be down sometimes. So what, if it will run most of the time!
Hannes on 2 February 2009:
Premium Lifetime subscriber here.
Personally, I did not notice any interruption to the service, but then again, I don’t sync constantly so if there were problems, they were resolved before I noticed.
How about paying up when you rely on a service? That way you may legitimately complain when it goes down?
Mark Guim on 2 February 2009:
looks like it is back running again.
Rahul Goswami on 2 February 2009:
I’m wondering if anyone has used CalSyncS60…it’s a freeware application and does everything smoothly and effortlessly…I used GooSync and CalSyncS60 and removed GooSync because CalSyncS60 served all my purposes.
Let me know what you think about this app:
http://s60addons.com/calsync/
Rafi Ton on 3 February 2009:
try vufone.com it allows sync of calendar and contacts to Google and much more.
http://www.vufone.com
Rafi Ton on 4 February 2009:
try vufone.com – it allows full sync of your phone (contacts, calendar, messages and files) to the web + outlook and Google.
There are many more features to explore. give it a try – its free for a year during Feb 09.
Rafi
Andy B on 23 February 2009:
@Rafi Ton, thankyou for the heads-up on vufone!
I thought Goosync would be ideal but it relies on Nokia’s apparently rather temperamental sync function and I just faced constant “system error” on my N95 when I tried to use it. Information seems scarce for this problem and the suggested fixes I found were drastic and not guaranteed. While I acknowledge the problem lies with Nokia and not Goosync, I need to know that a synchronisation/backup service IS working and WILL work when I need it, not if it feels like it.
Vufone doesn’t use the native sync it bypasses it with it’s own client so it just works and offers a lot more functionality. The web interface is clean and easy to use and on top of that, a free year of full (not “lite”) service is too good an offer to pass up!
Thanks Rafi, thanks Vufone I’m sold
Andy Button
SebG on 1 March 2009:
Goosync seems to have closed their (useful) forums for a “Helpdesk” which is down today….
very bad news, they try to silence their unsatisfied customers…
(paying lifetime subscriber speaking)
John F. on 6 March 2009:
@SebG,
Maybe shutting down the forum was a cost cutting measure. If so, it’s short-sighted. I went looking this morning for a solution to a problem I’m having with goosync. Most likely, someone else has had the same problem and the solution was posted on the forum.
But the forum is gone, now, so I had to enter a support ticket.
So now they to pay a small staff to solve my problem instead of letting a large user base help solve it at almost no cost. To make matters worse, they’re now getting tons more support calls like mine that wouldn’t have been filed if the forum were there, so their staff is probably are overwhelmed and calls are going unanswered.
Patrick R on 21 March 2009:
Mmm – this Blogpost relates to the early March downtime, but alas, just to tell you now though, that GooSync has now been down TWO DAYS now for me, these last two days (20th + 21sth March), and I am a fully PAID UP customer.
This is an awful LONG downtime for their site, with nothing on the frontpage other than “Down For Maintenance”
I also notice it now says that the support forums are also now GONE and to use the new Helpdesk tool instead – what? All those useful member support posts deleted, just like that, with no warning…?
Oh, and for clarity, it is not just the website that is down – I cannot SYNC for the last two days either, of course!
Frightening, given that we were all recently contacted to say that they were doing planned maintenance this coming TUESDAY, for this to happen early instead.
Oh dear…
maxis on 4 June 2009:
Goosync gives “Server error” for my E71
Saleem on 4 June 2009:
Dear, Google Sync service is switched from normal sync to new service. for which you have to isnatll Nokia exchange server by downloading from Nokia site. then configure it with google and it will sync all ur calendar and contacts.
Saleem on 4 June 2009:
Dear, Google Sync service is switched from normal sync to new service. for which you have to isnatll Nokia exchange server by downloading from Nokia site. then configure it with google and it will sync all ur calendar and contacts.
wil on 2 May 2010:
I'm a very happy goosync user for 3 years now, today is 'my' first time I can't sync.. I guess it's an allover problem as the website isn't even available…. does anybody know what's happening?
Bojan Djordjevic on 8 May 2010:
I still don't get it what does it do… and I got trobules instalizing it…
Lord Swarovski on 8 May 2010:
I still don't get it what does it do… and I got trobules instalizing it…