[horde] ActiveSync: Contacs disappear after initial sync

[Michael J Rubinsky]

Quoting Robert Müller <tastenmann at chorwurm.de>:

> 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?

Possibly, but only once we figure out *why* the client is doing this.  
It's obviously something that the client is doing since the data the  
server sends does not change for Android version 5 vs version 6. My  
first, very very very wild guess is that it might be looking for a  
specific type of mail folder that you don't use, like a sent items, or  
trash folder. Otherwise, I've no idea right now.


> I'd be willing to help, if someone points me in the right direction.
>
> Best,
>   Robert
>
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-- 
mike
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