Mac Address Book groups cause duplicate Contacts

[deepblue]

Hi all,

some of our users make use of Mac Address books feature to create Address Book Groups. If you create entries in a Address book group (on the mac) each sync to the zimbra server causes the entries in the address book group to be duplicated on the server side.

If you have a couple of users in one address book group and wait for 1 day, you end up with ~10.000 identical address book entries. I have tried with isync connector 5.0.18, 5.0.19 and 6.0.2 (Server Version is 5.0.18). All with the same result.

How to reproduce:
On the Mac, create an address book group
create a new entry in that group
create a second entry in that group
sync to server
sync to server again

you will find the second entry to appear twice on the server (check in the Zimbra Webinterface).

Is there a known workaround? Can somebody confirm this behavior?

Regards
Thomas

[scohol]

We are experiencing the same issues as above. Have upgraded to Zimbra NE 6.0.4 and problem can still be replicated.

Is this a known bug? I couldn't find anything on Bugzilla.

[ewilen]

I have seen problems with duplicated contacts in my account and other users' accounts. It sounds like your observation may apply in some cases, although I haven't tested. So--good work. I'd suggest, if you post a bug, post the number here, too.

[Rodi]

Hi,
Please note bug 42352 that deals with contact groups causing duplicated when synced.
The bug was resolved on version 5.0.21
I think it may explain at least some of the problems mentioned above.

Rodi

[ewilen]

Here's a link to the bug that Rodi mentioned: Bug 42352 – Very large contact groups cause sync to fail on "out of memory exception"

Since that's fixed/verified for 5.0.21, if you are seeing a problem involving server 5.0.21 or later, and iSync connector 5.0.21 or later, then I'd suggest opening a bug on bugzilla and/or via support. Although iSync is being deprecated in favor of CardDav, bugs are still supposed to be fixed. See Bug 42448 – EOL Connector for iSync

Also, if you go to bugzilla and search on iSync, there are a few other open bugs that might be relevant such as Bug 53090 – A contact with a custom phone label and no phone number breaks the sync and Bug 54310 – creating a new contact inside a mac addressbook group breaks the sync

[fyd]

Hi Elliot,
We have a customer who is getting duplicated contacts after using iSync. We are running 6.0.13 on server, and the connector is from the downloads page. Is there any server timeout configuration that can be set to prevent the disconnection?

I think this is happening while a large chunk of contact is synced and when the connection is reset. So the user tries again from the start only to reach the very same point of syncing. The outcome is duped contacts (1000s). I searched bugzilla for any new ones filed but didnt find any results. Should I proceed filing a new one?

Thanks for taking the time to post the bugs above, but I coudn't find anything related to what I am facing.

Anyone else facing this problem with the latest isync connector?

[Rodi]

Hi fyd,
A case of network connection reset should not result in duplication of contacts.
If you can add iSync logs that capture the problem, I'll have a look at the problem.

Thanks,
Rodi

[fyd]

Originally Posted by Rodi

Hi fyd,
A case of network connection reset should not result in duplication of contacts.
If you can add iSync logs that capture the problem, I'll have a look at the problem.

Thanks,
Rodi

Hi, Sorry I am running late now but I will get back with the logs tomorrow. I hope you will be connected. Thanks for getting back Rodi.

[ewilen]

The last time I dealt with a duplicate contact issue, I did the following and it seems to have solved it for good. (Or at least for a while; I haven't heard back from the user.)

0. Make sure the iSync connector is up to date.

1. Identify the duplicating contacts (in Zimbra Web Client) and export them from Address Book on the Mac to a folder called "Problem Contacts". You can right-click a contact to export it. Then delete it on the Mac and in Zimbra.

2. Use Zimbra web client to export all contacts. (Prefs > Import/Export.)

3. Delete all contacts in ZWC.

4. Import contacts in ZWC.

5. Sync iSync.

6. Select all of the contacts exported into "Problem Contacts", open them, and import back into Address Book.

Double-check by syncing isync a few times.

[scottharwell]

Hi Eliot, I responded to another post earlier today and you sent me to this one. The answer here assumes that we are using the iSync connector. We only started using Zimbra in recent months, so we've always just used the default CardDAV support. There's no iSync connector installed. I will try to do the import/export parts of the post to see if it helps...but this is happening without the iSync connector.