"can't find host" on iPhone 3G
 

I think I got webdav set up and working. At least when I ran "apachectl -t" in the terminal and got a system ok message. I'm just doing the local wifi thing, I guess. I have airport extreme base station and the iphone is using that.

In the OF (vers 1.1) sync prefs on the Mac, I entered "http://localhost/webdav" in the text box. And the "sync now" seemed to finish happily in OF on the Mac sync prefs.

Now I'm stuck on "Sync with Mac" on the iphone. When I click "Share settings" on Mac, the iPhone OF sees the signal, but I get "can't find host". I also tried the email settings route, but got nowhere. Please tell me what to try next.

I spent days getting all my info into OF on the Mac and my trial license is about to run out. Now I can't get the db sync'ed to the iphone.

All this is pretty daunting for a mere mortal mac user like me. Omni should be ashamed for not supplying better how-to documentation for folks who know nothing about networking beyond sending email and sms.

I'm going to guess that your iphone is trying to look for a server at "localhost" which isn't right since that's pointing to the iphone where there's no server running. Try putting in the full hostname in OF for the Mac, or set up the sync manually on the iPhone with the full hostname.

Ok, that seems to make some sense, but what is my mac's hostname? (Like I said, I'm just an average joe, don't assume I know anything.) Does my mac's hostname change all the time if it's set up for dynamic dns?

ok, I've got past the "can't find host" problem, I typed in a 10.x.x.xxx number I found in somewhere on my mac. Now I get "timed out" messages. Why?

Am I the only one having the "time out" issue? I googled and didn't find anything.

Another question: next time I reboot my mac, will I have to manually launch apache or webdav before I can sync again?

Here's another question...
In OF sync prefs, the button says "Share settings". Does this mean that the button only shares settings (preferences?), or does it share the whole OF database?

My understanding is that it just briefly broadcasts the necessary settings for your iPhone to capture to configure itself to sync. Sort of like pairing a bluetooth headset or keyboard.

You shouldn't have to manually launch apache if you have personal web sharing turned on in the Sharing preferences panel.

Ok, so why then does it time out? And how do I tell it to sync the database - does that happen via iTunes?

I don't know why it is timing out.

The database gets synced a minute or so after you make a change, or every hour if you don't do anything (assuming the app is open). I don't know how you force the phone to do an immediate sync, though I imagine there is a way. The only syncing that happens during an iTunes sync is the iTunes stuff, I believe.

Open up the console application and look at the httpd log files in /var/log/httpd - there should be an access_log and an error_log. Is anything added to either file when you try to connect? And is the desktop OmniFocus app able to connect to the WebDAV server and sync using the numeric version of the address?

Thanks for educating me. Maybe we are on to something. When I type on the static 10.0.1.xxx in to the "Location" in OF prefs on mac, it doesn't sync to webdav. Only localhost works for me. So I probably don't have the correct number. How do I query the mac for what my number is? My wifi is via airport extreme base station.

The closest files I found were:
var/log/apache2/access_log
var/log/apache2/error_log

go to System Preferences->Network->Airport, and type in the number that's in the IP Address field. Note if you have dynamic IPs through your ISP that this number will change if you reboot or something most likely.

Yes, that number matches what I've been using. Could it be some firewall setting on the airport? my iPhone tells me that it's using the wifi (icon at top next to "AT&T")

In System Preferences, click on "Sharing". Right under your computer name, it will say something like "Computers on your local network can access your computer at: MacName.local". You should be able to use that "MacName.local" address in your Sync URL.

Hope this helps!

Here's my /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-dav.conf
Does it look right?

#
# Distributed authoring and versioning (WebDAV)
#
# Required modules: mod_dav, mod_dav_fs, mod_setenvif, mod_alias
# mod_auth_digest, mod_authn_file
#

# The following example gives DAV write access to a directory called
# "uploads" under the ServerRoot directory.
#
# The User/Group specified in httpd.conf needs to have write permissions
# on the directory where the DavLockDB is placed and on any directory where
# "Dav On" is specified.

DavLockDB "/usr/var/DavLock"

Alias /uploads "/usr/uploads"

<Directory "/usr/uploads">
Dav On

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all

AuthType Digest
AuthName DAV-upload
# You can use the htdigest program to create the password database:
# htdigest -c "/usr/user.passwd" DAV-upload admin
AuthUserFile "/usr/user.passwd"

# Allow universal read-access, but writes are restricted
# to the admin user.
<LimitExcept GET OPTIONS>
require user admin
</LimitExcept>
</Directory>


# The following added by DEI on 7/12/08
Alias /webdav "/Library/WebServer/WebDAV"

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/WebDAV">
Dav On

Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all

AuthType Basic
AuthName WebDAV-Realm
AuthUserFile "/usr/webdav.passwd"

<LimitExcept GET OPTIONS>
require user deivers
</LimitExcept>
</Directory>

#
# The following directives disable redirects on non-GET requests for
# a directory that does not include the trailing slash. This fixes a
# problem with several clients that do not appropriately handle
# redirects for folders with DAV methods.
#
BrowserMatch "Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "MS FrontPage" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^WebDrive" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^WebDAVFS/1.[0123]" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^gnome-vfs/1.0" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^XML Spy" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^Dreamweaver-WebDAV-SCM1" redirect-carefully

Ken, thanks for the tip, I had never noticed that url. I can type the url (form of [url]http://xxxxxx.local[/url]) into the browser of any computer on my local network and it shows an apache default page -- but I don't get anything on iPhone safari (it says "Safari could not open the page because the server stopped responding"). What does that tell me?

Hmm, good question! At least you've determined that the problem isn't specific to OmniFocus, which means you might be able to get some more help from an OS X sysadmin resource (like Omni's [URL="http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-admin"]MacOSX-admin[/URL] mailing list).

One thing you could check are the apache error logs (in /var/log/apache2); they might have some more information that could indicate why the server stopped responding to your iPhone.

Sorry I couldn't help further!

Your IP address isn't in a file, it's in your network control panel. Go to System Preferences->Network, click on your Airport, and it should either say "Airport is connected to (your network name) and has IP address (something)", or, if you're running Tiger, you might need to click to the TCP/IP settings and find it there.

Or, you can go to a Terminal and run ifconfig. Then you'll have to look through a list of stuff that looks like this:
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet6 fe80::21b:63ff:fec3:dfe7%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x6
inet 192.168.2.101 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
ether 00:1b:63:c3:df:e7
media: autoselect status: active
supported media: autoselect

That's my airport, the name at the beginning of the group will probably be en1, and the IP address here is 192.168.2.101

If you have vmware or parallels installed, you might have a bunch of interfaces with 10.something addresses, these are not what you're looking for.

The number I get is one that I've already tried without success (it happens to start with a 10...) My xxxxxx.local at least gets me a response (mac not iphone).