[horde] [Same Problem] ActiveSync problem with contacts disappeared

Sun Feb 14 17:57:47 UTC 2016

Quoting Peter <horde at peter-b.org>:

> On 28/12/2015 18:38, Michael J Rubinsky wrote:
>> Quoting Peter <Horde at peter-b.org>:
>>
>>> No, the test log I attached only had entries for the sync that  
>>> took place during the addition and disappearance of the contact on  
>>> the device.
>>
>> If the contact disappeared during the time included in your log,  
>> then it's not anything Horde did. There was NO traffic from the  
>> device->Horde to show even the attempted addition of the contact on  
>> the phone.
>>
>
> Apologies for being away from this discussion for so long but I've  
> basically been trying to find the cause of this in-between "real  
> life". I've spent an inordinate amount of time on it, fiddling with  
> Horde EAS library code, trying different versions of various  
> components in the chain, comparing results from different systems  
> and devices. I've let this problem push back the rollout of the new  
> server by nearly 3 weeks.
>
> I'm writing this update for anyone else that comes across this  
> problem - I can't believe I'm the only one, though I suspect it may  
> only affect a small number of users - though apologies in advance, I  
> didn't find a solution.
>
> I can confirm that on a basic build of an Ubuntu Trusty server with  
> nothing but Horde requirements and Horde itself, this problem occurs  
> on Android 5.0.2 and 6.0.1 (no surprise, no real difference in the  
> underlying exchange library), on 3 different devices and 2 emulators  
> using the stock email client exchange libraries. Those same devices  
> can all connect to and sync with my existing Horde server with no  
> errors. I've tried several different iterations of the server,  
> having built a few internally in virtual machines with various  
> different configurations, though all based on Trusty.

I use Vagrant to build VMs based on both stable and development  
branches of Horde. I base one of them on Trusty and use it to test  
such issues. Unfortunately, I have not seen this behavior. I'm happy  
to continue to try to track this down, but I need some type of data or  
configuration information to help reproduce this.

> I've determined that it's something to do with the data sent by  
> Horde during the synchronisation sequence (as in I've tweaked the  
> EAS code to send the EAS packets with no actual data in them and  
> nothing gets erased anywhere) but when the data is sent the problem  
> occurs.
>
> After having had so much time elapse on this and put in so many  
> hours I balked at digging further into the code that constructs the  
> data to find out what specifically was causing the problem. The  
> reason? In less than a day I found an alternative solution to Horde  
> that just works. Admittedly, the solution is not as feature-rich  
> overall as Horde but has more than all the features that my (100 or  
> so) users are going to want.
>
> Sorry - as much as I love Horde (I've been using it since about  
> 1996, I think) and want to push it as a solution I simply can't  
> justify spending any more time on it. EAS aside it works, but having  
> had users using EAS for a couple of years I can't now take it away  
> from them pending a resolution to this particular problem and I need  
> to roll out the new server sooner rather than later.
>
> What I can tell you is that I suspect it's a problem with the  
> Android exchange libraries not handling something unusual in the  
> data received in a sync packet from Horde, i.e. it's not getting the  
> data in a specific field with the expected type or within the  
> expected range and so is throwing and exception, then behaving badly  
> afterwards and losing data in the process.
>
> I suspect that the duff data is the result of a misconfiguration on  
> the server rather than because of a code-bug in Horde; the data  
> being sent by Horde that relies on this configuration is malformed,  
> and the exchange library isn't handling the malformed data.
>
> Whilst I think it's more than likely it's an Android code issue it  
> seems that the alternative solution I've found doesn't cause this  
> problem, either because it's refusing to send malformed data despite  
> the server misconfiguration, or it simply doesn't use whatever field  
> is causing the problem.
>
> If I get time I'll come back to this, but having found an  
> alternative it's definitely a low-priority issue for me now.
>
> Peter.
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-- 
mike
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