After changing to e/os contact categories are lost

[Rudi-Mehl]

I used a Fairphone 3 with android and synchronising with davx5 worked well, for both of my adressbooks - one on posteo.de, the other on nextcloud.
Now I changed to e/os and implemented the same procedure, but I can't find the categories any more.

[cookesan]

In DAVx5 this depends on the contact group method, not only on whether contact sync is enabled.

The app has two group modes:

• GROUP_VCARDS: groups are separate vCards.
• CATEGORIES: group membership is stored in each contact's CATEGORIES.

For Nextcloud, DAVx5's login flow suggests CATEGORIES. In that mode, DAVx5 maps each vCard category to an Android contact group, and writes Android group membership back as contact categories.

So I would check this in this order:

1. First verify in the Nextcloud/Posteo web UI that the categories are still present on the server.
2. On the phone, check the DAVx5 account's Contact group method.
3. For the Nextcloud account, use CATEGORIES if the server-side data is stored as categories.
4. After changing the method, force a resync. If the local address book was created with the wrong method, recreating that DAVx5 account/address book may be cleaner than trying to repair the local provider state.

If the server still has the categories but the e/OS contacts app does not show them, that points more to the local contact app/provider view or the selected group method than to DAVx5 losing the server data.

[Rudi-Mehl]

Thanks for the explanation. After some more analysis the problem seems to be more complex.

I usually work with thunderbird and the cardbook extension, adressbook server on posteo.de for my private contacts and two nextcloud servers storing contacts of two associations. Works well including categories.

About three years ago I setup my Fairphone and my Samsung Tablet to be able to react in urgent cases.
I setup DAVx5 and used Simple Contacts (simplemobiletools.contacts) to show the contacts. Also worked well at the beginning.

Now during my analysis I have dedected, that on the tablet all contacts that have changed after end of 2024 miss their categories, older contacts still show the correct categories.
On the Fairphone I have installed e/os and therefore no old contacts are available.

In the attached file I have collected more details about my configuration and what I did exactly.

Of course I could provide more information if needed.

I hope there is a way to make this system work again.

ProblemAnalylsisDavX5.txt

[devvv4ever]

A potential fix for problems with contact groups will be added in the next version 4.5.18. Please try again once we've released the update

[Rudi-Mehl]

Thank you, now my problem is solved🙂