[horde] ActiveSync disappearing and reappearing contacts

[Matthias Marx]

On Mon 13 Jul 2015 05:00:55 PM CEST, Michael J Rubinsky  
<mrubinsk at horde.org> wrote:

> Quoting Matthias Marx <mmarx at netdmon.de>:
>
>> On Mon 13 Jul 2015 02:15:58 AM CEST, Michael J Rubinsky  
>> <mrubinsk at horde.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Quoting Matthias Marx <mmarx at netdmon.de>:
>>>
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>
>>>> I have a strange problem with ActiveSync since a while but  
>>>> ignored it since CardDav syncing is working as a workaround.  
>>>> Maybe someone has the same issue or could point me in the right  
>>>> direction what's wrong with my installation.
>>>>
>>>> I have a very small horde installation where I used only one  
>>>> account since a couple of years, this account is working fine.  
>>>> Recently I added more user accounts, including a brand new test  
>>>> account, and they are experiencing the following issue.
>>>>
>>>> When I add the test account as and Exchange Account on a Nexus 5  
>>>> or Nexus 9 device the setup process is working fine. I'm using a  
>>>> self signed certificate so I accept all SSL certificates during  
>>>> the setup process and I'm currently only testing contacts syncing.
>>>> The contact syncing seems to work correctly and the contacts  
>>>> appear in the devices address book but on the next sync operation  
>>>> all contacts vanish from the device, they are still on the  
>>>> server(horde webinterface) though. On the next sync all contacts  
>>>> reappear in the address book, it's like toggling between "no  
>>>> contacts" and "all contacts" between sync events. I also tried  
>>>> creating contacts on the device while it was showing "no  
>>>> contacts" or "all contacts" but after the next sync event those  
>>>> contacts are gone and they are not synced to horde.
>>>> I have even seen, when I have a lot of contacts in the address  
>>>> book, that the horde contacts appear one by one in devices  
>>>> address book while it is syncing and at the end of the sync  
>>>> process, at the moment it is finished, all contacts disappear  
>>>> from the device.
>>>>
>>>> On a side note, for the calendar it is something similar. While  
>>>> the device is syncing I see(can select) the test account calendar  
>>>> appear in the calendar App but as soon as the syncing finishes  
>>>> the calendar disappears from the device.
>>>>
>>>> Here is the ActiveSync log of two syncs:
>>>> http://netdmon.de/public/2015-07-08_horde_active_sync.txt
>>>>
>>>> There are no errors in the horde logfile, just the notice that  
>>>> the user login succeeded.
>>>>
>>>> If you need more information please ask. I can also provide  
>>>> access to the test account and the ActiveSync log but not publicly.
>>>
>>> This works fine locally on all of my actively tested Android  
>>> devices, as well as a 5.0.1 emulator. Your log shows a normal sync  
>>> cycle of requesting and receiving a single set of contact data  
>>> consisting of 2 contacts.
>>>
>>> I noticed that you don't have any email folders being synced. Some  
>>> clients don't behave very nicely when you do that so you might  
>>> want to try synchronizing email as well to see if that helps.
>>
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> thanks for looking into it. I tried enabling the e-mail sync as  
>> well as a result the behavior changed. Now, while the device(Nexus  
>> 5, with Android 5.1.1) is syncing the two contacts appear, then  
>> disappear, then appear again and finally disappear, then the sync  
>> is finished. I tried it a couple of times, here is the log, but I  
>> see no obvious errors there either.
>> http://netdmon.de/public/2015-07-13_horde_active_sync.txt
>>
>> Also my primary horde account, which is also enabled on this  
>> device, is working fine, btw. there I don't have e-mail syncing  
>> enabled, only calendar and contacts.
>
> Oh, you have two accounts on the same device, connected to the same  
> Horde install? There may be some strange interaction there I'll have  
> to test when I have time. Would you know if the same issue occurs on  
> one of your new accounts when it's the only account set up on the  
> client?

Sorry for the late reply ... I'm in the process of migrating my server  
from Debian 6 to CentOS 7 ...
I wanted to do that anyway and thought that maybe some kind of odd  
behavior of the old php5.3/mysql5.1 version could cause this, but I  
still see the problem with php5.4/mariadb5.5.

Back to your question I didn't explicitly test my test account as an  
only account on the Nexus devices but I remember that I had the same  
issue with a new account when I first setup the device, my workaround  
was then to use CardDav for the contacts and no calendar syncing  
because that's not used on this device. But now the user on that  
device would like to use calendar syncing as well, so that's the  
reason I'm trying to fix the ActiveSync stuff.
Could you point me in the right direction for the Android emulator you  
are using, I could set it up and try to recreate the same behavior  
with my test account.

Thanks

Matthias