Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

MailEnable Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) - for EAS enabled devices (including iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Android, Nokia, etc).
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sagelike
Posts: 324
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 4:58 am

Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by sagelike »

I've been trying to configure Apple Address Book to sync contacts with ME EAS and haven't any luck at all. I've googled and search everywhere without luck and documentation seems thin here.

Lots of info on caldav and I was able to get iCal to sync and it works quite well so I assumed Address Book would work similarly. Apple Address Book generates no feedback, no errors, nothing.

Here's the screen shot:

Image

What is the path I should be entering?

I also added some SRV records for carddav though not sure if I have this right either.

Are SRV records absolutely necessary?

Will this work if I simply enter the correct path into Address Book account preferences and have no SRV records?

Image

Our email server is separate from the web site so I assume the Host should target the mail server URL. Yes, no? I also have a carddavs SRV record.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

G

sagelike
Posts: 324
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 4:58 am

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by sagelike »

Does anyone from ME have any advice or insight on this? Does EAS work with Apple Address book or am I pointlessly banging my head against a wall?

Some guidance on this and other interesting questions would be greatly appreciated.

MailEnable
Site Admin
Posts: 4441
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2002 3:03 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by MailEnable »

The option to "Exchange Synchonization" does not use ActiveSync/EAS; You need to configure a cardDAV connection to MailEnable.

You should verify that CardDAV is listing and responding to requests. This can be done with your browser.

In your case, the url would look like this:
http://mailman.e-mediait.com:8008/contacts
or
https://mailman.e-mediait.com:8008/contacts

Here is an example of what the page should look like: http://www.mailenable.com:8080/contacts

It should respond with a web page explaing what CardDAV is. (when I tested, it did not, so - perhaps firewall is an issue).

The SRV records are not absolutely necessary - but they make it simpler to configure clients.

When you attempt to configure cardDAV on the Mac (under Preferences/Accounts), it should prompt you for the username, password (and possibly server/e-mail address - I dont have a Mac with me at the moment to verify the exact fields, but I configured a cardDAV account yesterday and thats what I recall).

You should end up with a URL under the properties of the account that looks like this:
https://mailman.e-mediait.com:8008/contacts

Your SRV records look fine, so your HTTPMail logs should show the client connecting to the server.

Maybe check the firewall and do the browser test I mentioned, then configure a CardDAV connection to the server.
Regards, Andrew

METom
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by METom »

HI,

I am on ME Enterprise Premium (Eval mode), on Win2008 SP2 32 bit.
I tried the very same, but without any luck.
I am on Mountain Lion and no contacts will get synced to my Apple contacts app.

I have set up Sync Service to use ssl on port 8443 (port 8080 is _not_ available form outside, so only https on 8443 is accessible.)

If i try the URL https://myservername.domain:8443/contacts I am getting the pager referenced earlier in this thread, so i t seems the ME config part is OK.
After entering the user account and server info into the contact creation dialog, the resulting config info shows serverpath as /mailenable/principals/user%40postoffice/ (which I can't edit).
But I will get an Alert-Sign in apple contact app nearby the named account and no contacts gets synced or will show up.
In Addition i am getting the following error in console log:

26.12.12 22:10:43,304 Contacts[50684]: [CardDAVPlugin-ERROR] -_handleAddsOrModifies:https://user%40postoffice@servername.do ... /contacts/ Error Domain=CoreDAVErrorDomain Code=3 "Der Vorgang konnte nicht abgeschlossen werden. (CoreDAVErrorDomain-Fehler 3.)"

Should it work this way, or do I have to enter/setup other details?
Please advice on how to get it working.

METom
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by METom »

Hi,
can anyone form MailEnable comment on if syncing contacts with Apples Contact app (Mountain Lion) by CardDav is known to work?
If so - is there a readme/KB about (was not able to find one).

MailEnable
Site Admin
Posts: 4441
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2002 3:03 am
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by MailEnable »

Yes, it works - I just connected and verified the same - although I only tested on port 80 - it should not really matter though.
Is there anything in the HTTPMail log files to indicate connection from the ML client?

Perhaps if you PM me details for a mailbox and the server/port I will review and test connectivity with my client.
Regards, Andrew

METom
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by METom »

Hi Andrew,

many thanks for your info.

I can now confirm, that I am able to add/configure a CardDav account in Apples (ML) Contact app and this is not a configuration issue any more, BUT....:

The configured acount will go immediatedly showing an error/exclamation mark and no initial sync seems to happen.
If I close and restart the calender app, the configured account will show a working process and will show an error dialog and an exclamation mark beside the conigured account as well.
But now there were 100 contacts (out of 631!) of my ME-Web/OL-Contacts showing up in apples calendar app.
So the basic connectivity and config seems to be OK -> (not a configuration issue any more)...
Any other attempt to get more contacts synced will end up the same way: Error after some trying and no additional contacts were synced.
So I think there is some contact-data that will cause the CardDav Sync to fail (which is not failing between OL->ME, ME->EAS, EAS->ME)

To make it even worse, The sync handled german umlauts (:=special chars like ä, Ü, ö, ...) differently during sync (for those contact that made it through!
Mores specific:
- Umlauts in Address fields get synced OK
- Umlauts in the Notice field gets totally messed up with strange (seems like chinees or arabic) chars.

So the CardDav Implementations seem not to sync correctly if german umlauts are used in data sitting in ME (or some other Data that's otherwise syncable between OL, ME-Web, ME-EAS...)
I will PM you with an test account/credentials and a link to a published ME-File-Folder where you will find the contact database used to synced-in from outlook, alongside with some screenshots showing/explaining the 'misbehavior'.
Hopefully this will help you/your lab to further investigate with the faulting data and to takle it down to fix.

Best regards and many thanks for your continued support.
Thomas

METom
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Apple Address Book & ME CardDAV. How do I connect them?

Post by METom »

Hi,

A short notice to others who may follow this thread and/or are facing similiar problems.
Andrew took care and development tested and adopted ME sync (Great Jog - Many thanks to ME for quick reaction) and made available v6.76 and v6.77
After having updated to ME v6.77 everything is 'back to normal' now!
So for me all my contacts synced fine now - even the ones formerly breaking/stopping the sync.
All my contacts are now showing up in my MACs contacts app and stay in sync later on on edits in OL, ME or MAC.

Configuration of MAC Calendar app is/was straight forward and easy:
a) configured DNS to have a service record '_carddavs._tcp.mydomainname.com' for my domain/server
b) then added a new account in MAC contact app as:
Account type: CardDAV,
LoginName: postoffice-login-name,
Password: password,
Serveraddress: myserver.mydomainname.com
Et voila - sync started and after a while all conatacst show up.

Easy and straight forward now (as it should be) :D

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