Solve the error: Sorry, CmisSync can not find a CMIS server at this address

Problem

Sorry, CmisSync can not find a CMIS server at this address.
Please ask your server administrator for the CMIS endpoint URL.
If you are sure about the address, open it in a browser and send
the resulting XML to [email protected]

Solution

1) Easy solution

1. Open a web browser.
2. Paste the CMIS endpoint URL in the address bar, press Enter and you will receive a file.
3. Let the download finish, then send the file by email to [email protected]. In the email, paste the CMIS endpoint URL, and also mention your server product and version (for instance Alfresco 4.2) if you know them. If possible, also include your CmisSync log file, which can usually be found at C:\Users\nico\AppData\Roaming\cmissync\debug_log.txt (replace nico with your user name. Note: Configure Windows to show hidden files, otherwise you might not see AppData).
4. The CmisSync team at Aegif will analyze the log file, and help you promptly.

2) Investigating the problem by yourself

It is highly technical, but if you want to investigate the problem by yourself, here are a few things you might want to check:

A) Checking whether the server answers

Repeat the steps 1 and 2 of the solution above, then check the file.

If no file gets downloaded, or you get an empty file, then try again with Internet Explorer: Some servers unfortunately rely on obscure IE-only authentication features. Also, try to prefix the URL with https:// or both http://.

If you still get nothing, then either the server's CMIS implementation is flawed, or the server was not expecting this CMIS URL. Contact your server's support, or post in your server's web forum, describing the steps you have performed above.

B) Checking both AtomPub and Web Service

Most servers have two URLs, one for AtomPub and one for Web Service. Ask your administrator for both, and test them both: One might work better than the other. If it is the case, please let us know and we will make CmisSync use the best one automatically.

C) Checking the server's answer

So, the file you have downloaded is not empty. Now this gets a bit technical. Open the file with a text editor. It should be an XML file, containing <?xml version="1.0" in particular.

Check it for XML validity. Opening the file in Firefox is a good first check. If you get a yellow screen like this then contact your server's support, or post in your server's web forum, describing the steps you have performed above.

(If you don't have much time, skip to the next paragraph) For a full check, you might want to use a real XML validator. Most online validators only accept a single XSD file, so we suggest using Eclipse (free). The official XML Schema files can be found at OASIS.

Finally, check the file's content directly. It should contain the same kind of information as the official example file: for AtomPub for Web Service.

D) Checking with CMIS Workbench

CMIS Workbench is the reference client for CMIS servers. Download it and use it to open your CMIS endpoint URL.

If it does not open, then it is most probably an authentication problem. CMIS Workbench supports the same authentication protocols as the free CmisSync (mostly HTTP Basic Authentication). Try the CmisSync Business plugin, it adds support more authentication protocols (for instance NTLM and Single-Sign-On).

If it opens, but you can not see your files, or an error occurs when you browse your files, then contact your server's support, or post in your server's web forum, describing the steps you have performed above.

E) Checking with TCK

Within CMIS Workbench, once logged in, press the TCK button. The TCK are unit tests designed to test whether a server is CMIS-compliant or not. After running for a few minutes, it will display the results. While getting a few failures might not prevent you from using CmisSync, getting more than 80% of failures is typically a sign of a flawed CMIS implementation. Anyway, if there are failures, contact your server's support, or post in your server's web forum, describing the steps you have performed above.

If the TCK passes with 100% success, and CmisSync still can't connect, then it is most probably CmisSync's fault. Send us an email at [email protected] or post a bug report at https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/CmisSync/issues

Thanks a lot for any feedback!