If you have seen this error, chances are you have read, called and otherwise researched everything you can think of to solve it, and discovered, as I have, that it’s a pretty common and unsettled question.  Until now. 

 I experienced this problem, and like most power-users, I messed around for a while trying to fix it myself.  I thought, “I’m smart enough, this shouldn’t be a biggie”.  After wasting a bunch of time, I started calling all the vendors involved (Microsoft, Palm, Verizon, my ISP).  They all suggested solutions that further frustrated me:  Reboot your computer, replace your router, check your external phone lines, restore your Treo, reinstall your operating system, and so on.  I am not kidding, sometimes I just had to say no.  I sit 3 feet from another computer configured exactly the same way, and the error is only haunting me.  So I just KNEW they were, for the most part, as clueless as I was.

 

I thought there might be hope at the Verizon Wireless support FAQ page (http://support.vzw.com/faqs/Wireless%20Sync/faq.html#item52), since they list my error code by name.  This is an exact reprint of the topic there:

What does “Error occurred sending changes – Communications Error 80040207″ mean?

This error means that the PC Monitor was unable to establish or complete communication with the Wireless Sync server.  To troubleshoot, first verify your proxy settings and also verify that the Monitor is able to connect to the Internet.

Verify the Proxy Information for the Windows user account:

  • Open Internet Explorer and go to Tools-Internet Options, Connection Tab- LAN Settings.
  • Verify that those settings match what is in PC Monitor.  If “Automatically Detect” is selected then no changes are required to the PC Monitor.  If “Use a Proxy Server for your LAN” is checked then copy those settings and enter them into the PC Monitor.

Verify that the PC Monitor is able to connect to the Internet:

  • Log into the Wireless Sync WebPIM.  Go to View and select Activity Logs.  You are looking to see if any connection is made to our servers from your Monitor.  If so then you know they are getting outside the firewall.
  • Alternatively, when the PC Monitor does its first initialization for a user, do you see blue arrows going in a circle during the initial first time sync?  If so, then the Monitor is able to communicate with the Wireless Sync server.  If you don’t, then it is not going outside the firewall. If it’s not going outside the network, you will have to troubleshoot your firewall timeout policy and the amount of simultaneous connections that can be made through the firewall. Also, check your company policy for this type of software to transmit large chunks of data through the firewall.

That’s all great, and I am sure that it will occasionally lead you down the path to resolve your issue.  But, for me, it was complete hogwash.  Yesterday everything worked fine, and I woke up this morning to this error.  I changed nothing, touched nothing, but SOMETHING changed to break the circle of trust.

What could that something be, if it’s not my Internet Options, which worked fine before, it’s not my sync connection, firewall, company policy, etc., which all functioned up until now? 

I will tell you:  Open the Sync software, which is sitting in your tray with a blinking X on it, telling you about your problem.  View your activity, and under the error message, READ the text of the error.  Could it be that simple?  Yes…unfortunately, it can.

The error description SAYS 80040207 – the owner sid on a per-user subscription doesn’t exist.  Assuming it SAYS what it MEANS, and some brilliant programmer planned the information to be helpful, but the guys answering the phones never got the memo (oh, in 2009, perhaps the programmer got laid off before he sent the memo, new company policies prohibit using resources to create a memo, help-desks are manned by new outsourced operators that didn’t understand the memo…), then it’s up to us to read the tea leaves.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Kenny Kerr has a brilliant discussion of SID over here:  http://alt.pluralsight.com/wiki/default.aspx/Keith.GuideBook/WhatIsOwnership.html.  Basically, and as it relates to our error message, he says “If I create an object, I become its owner, and ownership conveys certain inalienable rights: the right to read and change the object’s access control policy.”  These rights belong to the Owner SID. 

When PC Monitor notifies you that your Outlook did not sync with the Verizon Wireless Sync storage facility, www.wirelesssync.vzw.com, it tells you in this language:  The owner sid (as discussed above, in this case, is Verizon’s permissions to read/write/modify, etc.) does not exist on a per-user subscription (you, trying to modify something Verizon doesn’t give you permission to do).

Get it?  To use Kenny’s analogy, I own a car, and I have a set of keys.  One of them operates the car, and the other just opens the trunk.  Verizon gives its users a key to store junk in the trunk, but when you try to start the car with your key, you get an 80040207 error.  The thing is, you won’t know what you did – but back to the analogy:  when you need to store more junk than the trunk can hold, it won’t close.  You’ve reached it’s capacity, it knows something’s wrong and it’s telling you (with blinking lights, see?  Because, um, cars can’t talk) that you need to to fix it.  So…it’s up to you to remove some of the contents that you tried to store.  Hint:  the error didn’t really occur gradually, only when you just now attempted to stuff a baby elephant in there.

GREAT.  BUT WHY?

If you open the error in your tray application, you will notice that you can get details under the error code.  It may say “Subject of bad email: tool for hire”.  This is your clue…that email is jacking you.

There could be a variety of reasons that PC Monitor dislikes this particular email.  To find out, though, go to www.wirelesssync.vzw.com and log in to your account.  Go to the settings page and click on the performance option.  You should find the clues you need there, if you compare the rules of your account to the email indicated in your error message.  An example:  Perhaps the evil email, “tool for hire” sitting in your Outlook inbox has attachments and is over 9 MB.  Doesn’t pass the rules test, so the PC Monitorit can’t push it to www.wirelesssync.vzw.com.  OR, it’s only 2 MB, but your performance page tells you there is only 1MB of storage available in your inbox.  OR it’s a complete mystery and none of this gives you any useful information, and you don’t care and just want to get the problem fixed.

SO WHAT DO I DO?

Simple.  Delete the evil email from your Outlook inbox.  If you leave messages on your server (GMAIL, etc.),  you may want to log in and delete it there too.  Save it as a draft if you really can’t bring yourselve to hit the button.  Then, Re-Sync, sit back and watch the magic. 

Oh, and ask your sender to quit hogging your resources.

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