Q. What operating systems are supported?
A. FavoriteSync is theoretically compatible with all Windows versions with Internet Explorer 5 or later. FavoriteSync has been verified to work well on Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 and XP.

Q. How do I change the time between the automatic syncing?
A. Right click the icon and choose Options... | Sync | Time between syncing. Set to desired time between syncing.

Q. How can I view my Favorites on the web?
A. Use an FTP server that publishes its content on web. Point your browser to http://<your webservername>/<your directory>/index.xml

Q. How can I make that webpage fancier?
A. Change the index.xsl file in your FavoriteSync directory and use the XSL stylesheet upload feature from the system tray. XSL can be a little bit tricky to write but there are good examples on Microsofts website.

Q. It takes a looooong time to sync. Why?
A. You might have a large number of Favorites and / or a slow connection to the FTP server. Each Favorite needs approx 0.2 kb storage space. If you have 1000 Favorites and a 28.8 modem a sync may take 1000 * 0.2 * 2 / 3 = 133 seconds.

Q. How do I know that I'm running the latest version of FavoriteSync and how can I upgrade?
A. Rightclick the icon and choose "Check For Update". You will see if a newer version is available and can automatically upgrade. FavoriteSync will also check for new versions itself on a daily basis.

Q. Can I sync a computer against multiple FTP servers?
A. No, you can not.

Q. Can I sync multiple computers against the same FTP server?
A. Yes, you can.

Q. How do I delete my Favorites from the FavoriteSync server?
A. There are two methods of doing this:

Quick and active method.

1. Export your Favorites in Internet Explorer by using the File | Import and Export...
2. Delete all your Favorites in Internet Explorer
3. Sync against the FavoriteSync server. This deletes the Favorites on the server.
4. Change to sync against your own FTP server or uninstall FavoriteSync.
5. Import your Favorites in Internet Explorer by using the File | Import and Export...

Slow and simple method.

1. Stop syncing against the FavoriteSync server
2. Wait three months without either looking at your Favorites online or syncing.
3. The Favorites will automatically be removed from the server

Q. I'm behind a firewall and have problem connecting to the FTP server?
A. Make sure the Options... | FTP | Passive Mode checkbox is checked. Passive mode means that FavoriteSync only connects out to the FTP server instead of also accepting incoming requests as FTP works when not in passive mode. Firewalls often prevent incoming connections for security reasons.

Q. How can I avoid the warning to show up?
A. The warning tells you that your computers clocks are out of sync or more exactly that another computer has synced with the FTP server and marked a Favorite with a timestamp that is later than the current time on the current computer you are using. It will go away if you keep all clocks on all computers approximately in sync.

Q. Is there a way to automatically keep the time of my computerclock correct?
A. Yes, you can sync your clock against any time server. A good free automatically syncing client is Automachron that you can sync against for example the server timer.sunet.se (using TIME/TCP port 37).

Q. How can I troubleshoot FavoriteSync if it doesn't work as expected?
A:

a) Open a DOS window from the Start menu by choosing Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt

You will get something like

b) Type ftp <your servername>, for example

C:\>ftp ftp.myhost.com

if you get connected then you are sure that the servername is right. If you can't connect then you need to check your network connection and / or make sure that the server is running.

c) When you get connected you will be prompted for your username. Type it and hit enter.

d) Now you will be promted for your password. Type it and hit enter. If you get an error message then your username or password is wrong.

e) Type cd <your FTP server directory> for examle

cd john/fs

If it doesn't work then the directory may not be created or you might not using the right path. Note that some FTP servers doesn't leave you in the root directory after you login. You can check this by typing "pwd" and hit enter. The command pwd prints the working directory. If you get something else than "/" then you need to prepend the path with the string that pwd returned. If the directory doesn't exist then you can create the directory with the command:

mkdir <name of directory>

f) When you jumped into the directory with cd you can examine the contents to get a few hints. Type ls and hit enter. If it prints index.xml, among possible other things, then you know that you have successfully synced against this directory before. One of the things that still might be a problem is that the FTP server might lock the file for writing. This might be due to another computer writing the file at the same time. You can resolve this by changing the sync interval in the Options dialogbox on the Sync tab.

g) If you still have a problem then you may eventually get help by emailing the following information to johan@bluenine.se.

1. Operating System (you find it by clicking the Start button)
2. Version of Internet Explorer (you find it by choosing "About Internet Explorer" on the Internet Explorer Help menu)
3. The tooltip string.
4. How far you came when you tried to do debugging
5. If there were an index.xml file in the directory.
6. The log.txt file in your FavoriteSync directory. Make sure that you have turned on Debug logging under Options... | Verbose and tried to sync at least one time.

This may look like this

1. Windows 2000 Advanced Server
2. 5.00.2920.0000
3. Failed to upload into directory
4. Could not remove or overwrite the index.xml file on the server
5. Yes, there is a index.xml file on the server

Q. I'm getting the error "Failed to write back removed...". What shall I do?
A. The error is caused by some other application that has put a writelock on a Favorite so FavoriteSync can not modify it.

To find the application you can use the free program Process Explorer from SysInternals. Download, start it and click the search handle button:

Search for ".URL" and you will find which application that is preventing FavoriteSync from updating the Favorite.