[horde] ActiveSync: Contacs disappear after initial sync

[Robert Müller]

Quoting Michael J Rubinsky <mrubinsk at horde.org>:

> Quoting Robert Müller <tastenmann at chorwurm.de>:
>
>> Hello list members,
>> I'm experiencing a problem I've seen discussed on this list before,  
>> but was never really solved.
>> A week ago, I got myself a Nexus 5 phone, installed the latest  
>> Android updates on it (running on Android 6.0 Patchlevel November  
>> 1). This phone is going to replace my Galaxy Nexus which is  
>> currently running with Cyanogenmod 11.
>>
>> On the Galaxy Nexus, I'm using ActiveSync to synchronize Contacts  
>> and Calendar entries from a Horde account. While this works fine on  
>> the Galaxy Nexus (most of the time), I'm just unable to get it  
>> working with the Nexus 5. What happens when I set up the account on  
>> the Nexus 5 is:
>> Contacts and Calendar start syncing. I can see the contacts appear  
>> in the Contacts app in small bulks (around 10 at a time). As soon  
>> as everything is synced, the contacts just vanish. Sometimes, they  
>> sync a second time (without me doing anything) directly after  
>> disappering, only to disappear again when the sync is done. After  
>> that, it stays like that until I trigger a new sync. When I do  
>> that, contacts appear again and vanish again after the sync.
>>
>> At first I thought it might be the data in the Horde account, that  
>> perhaps one of the entries that get synced last somehow disturb the  
>> phone. So, I created a test account. Just one contact (Name, phone  
>> number, nothing else) and one email in the inbox. I set up this  
>> account (after removing the other one) on both phones. On the  
>> Galaxy Nexus, the contact stays in the contact list, while on the  
>> Nexus 5, it appears, vanishes, appears and vanishes again.
>>
>> I've created logfiles for both phones when syncing to that account  
>> in the hope someone finds out whats going wrong here. They can be  
>> found attached to this email.
>>
>> I'm running Horde Webmail Edition 5.2.11 with Turba 4.2.11,  
>> kronolith 4.2.11, imp 6.2.11 and core version 5.2.8.
>
> Just spent about 2 hours of quality time with the Android SDK  
> emulator for Android 6. I had a VERY difficult time getting it to  
> sync at all initially until I realized that even though I repeatedly  
> set it up to use port 8080 and no ssl, the client would connect ONCE  
> on the correct port and load the folder list, then the configuration  
> would revert to SSL on port 443 and the account would automatically  
> reset. The only way I got it to work was setting up the dev VM I was  
> using with SSL.
>
> Once it started syncing I DID see the same behavior for a few  
> minutes. Everything would load, email, contacts, calendar etc... but  
> then the client would issue a new FOLDERSYNC with synckey of 0  
> (which to me indicates the internal state for the client was  
> lost/reset). Eventually, it stopped doing this and started working  
> normally. No change on my part, just let it run for about 15 minutes  
> and it started working.
>
> This leads me to believe it is something wrong with the client code,  
> and not the Horde ActiveSync code, as there are no errors or no  
> incorrect WBXML being sent that I can see.

Hi Mike, thanks for the effort.
I can rule out an issue with ports, as my server is using the standard  
SSL port 443.
I can confirm what you found regarding the FolderSync request after  
the initial sync - although I'm not very familiar with Exchange  
ActiveSync, it looks like what you described. Seems the original  
Microsoft Exchange is more forgiving here - I cannot reproduce the  
problem when I sync to the Exchange server at my workplace.
My issue is different in only one aspect - the contacts never stay. I  
let it run for a whole day or two - contacts never appeared, only when  
I issued a manual resync, after which they would appear one after  
another and then disappear again.
Would it be possible to implement a server-side workaround for Android  
6? I'd be willing to help, if someone points me in the right direction.

Best,
   Robert