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

Sun Feb 14 23:56:58 UTC 2016

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

> 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.

Can you see if the following commit fixes this for you?

https://github.com/horde/horde/commit/e5389bac81fa6c6d922f9c610d7cd6da7abcce17

-- 
mike
The Horde Project
http://www.horde.org
https://www.facebook.com/hordeproject
https://www.twitter.com/hordeproject
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