v5.3.2

A modernized version of the EAS provider for TbSync for Thunderbird 153+

Stable release of the Exchange ActiveSync provider for TbSync v5. Requires Thunderbird 153 or newer.

Like TbSync itself, the goal of the rewrite is to be a modern WebExtension: the setup and settings dialogs are HTML instead of XUL, and the only legacy code left is what migrates accounts from earlier versions.

Before you update

Update all parts together. TbSync v5.3.* only works with provider add-ons from the modern v5.3.* family. A newer TbSync refuses an older provider and says so in the Event Log.

Accounts created with earlier versions (v4, early v5) get their settings migrated, but all resources are locked and cannot be migrated. Back up pending data, then disconnect and re-connect the account to start fresh.

Disconnecting deletes that account's local calendars and address books.

New

• Meeting invitations, end to end - the long-standing gap in this add-on, closed - #10
  • Accepting, declining or tentatively accepting an invitation reaches the server, and the organiser gets your reply - #8, [#66]
  • Answering no longer duplicates the meeting or re-invites everyone on it - #320
  • A meeting you create invites the people on it, and a change to it notifies them - #7, #25
  • The invitation mail and the calendar entry are recognized as the same meeting, so the mail stops offering to add an event you already have - #40
  • An invitation you have not answered yet no longer shows as accepted - #4
  • A meeting you received no longer becomes one you organise when you edit it - [#9]
  • An invitation is sent once, by the server, instead of once by the server and once by Thunderbird
  • Answering a single occurrence of a recurring meeting reaches the server too, not only answering the whole series
• ActiveSync up to 16.1 - initial support by Jarek Polok, recurring events by Niel Buys
• Attendee availability (free/busy) when inviting someone - #189
• Global Address List as a searchable, read-only address book - #344
• Formatted calendar notes survive in both directions - #347, #95
• Many issues fixed around recurring events - #334, #342, #343
• Subscribed calendars keep the right owner - #333
• An end-to-end test suite that runs against real servers, Microsoft 365 and Kopano/Z-Push, so every sync path is exercised against both before a release
• Out of office, from the account's new Services button - off, on, or on between two dates, with a separate reply for senders outside your organisation where the server offers one - #11
• Synchronize a calendar shortly after you change it, so an edit does not wait for the next scheduled sync. Per account, off or after 5, 15, 30 or 60 seconds of quiet
• The account status says so when recurrence synchronization is switched off, which is no longer necessary and is recommended to be switched on
• Meetings you organise now notify the people on them on ActiveSync 14.x servers - the invitation, later changes, and the cancellation. On these servers the server sends nothing itself, so until now nobody was told. Dropping one attendee cancels it for that person and updates the rest
• Answering an invitation now reaches an organiser on another mail system, on ActiveSync 16.x. Previously the answer updated your own calendar, and the organiser's tracking where they were in the same organisation, but nothing left the server
• Below ActiveSync 16.0 your answer is sent as an attendee status and the reply mail is sent by the add-on, which is what those protocol versions require. Answering works again on 12.0 to 14.0, and changing your mind about an answer works on 14.1

Fixed

• A folder stuck on "needs to be synchronized" - #336
• Sync failing with "unknown error", and no detail when the server rejected an item - #335, #319
• Provisioning failures, including Tencent Exmail - #337, #315
• Task lists offered when creating an event - #341
• All-day events shifting by a day
• Recurring events authored in another time zone drifting by an hour around daylight-saving changes
• A rescheduled or cancelled occurrence of a recurring event not updating - #317
• Re-authenticating an account, and recovering a username/password account after an authentication failure - #321
• A server-initiated resync duplicating every item in a folder
• Refresh tokens rotated by the server not being kept
• Several data-loss bugs in contact handling
• The add-on no longer asks for the "management" permission
• Editing a task no longer changes its recurrence settings on the server as a side effect - #15, #16
• Every request now states all of its options, so pushing a change no longer widens the calendar's date window and makes the next synchronization pull everything again
• A folder the server refuses twice is reported as failed, instead of being counted as synchronized
• Thunderbird's own refresh timer no longer runs on calendars this add-on synchronizes
• An item could be duplicated after the server asked to start over. A folder's record of which local item is which server item is now kept across such a restart, and rebuilt from the items themselves if it is ever lost. Contacts and tasks were most at risk, because those carry no identifier of their own in the protocol
• A folder's item index is reconciled once a day, so entries left behind by a deletion the add-on never saw cannot accumulate or address the wrong item
• An edit to an item the server no longer has is no longer lost - the item is re-created with your change, instead of the change being dropped and a dead copy left behind
• Editing a recurring event no longer re-sends occurrence changes the server already had
• A rescheduled or cancelled occurrence could disappear from your calendar moments after the series was created, while the server still held it correctly
• When the server keeps its own copy of an item instead of your change - which is what conflict resolution asks it to do, and has always been the default - that answer is now accepted and noted in the Event Log. The change used to be sent again and again until the server took it, which quietly did the opposite of the setting
• Pasting an event into one of this add-on's calendars did nothing at all, with no error to explain it. It now works, on every platform
• The Global Address List no longer stops looking once it has a hundred matches. In a large directory, everyone past the hundredth was unreachable and nothing said so
• Searching the Global Address List is much faster while you type, because an answer already received is reused instead of asking the server again for every keystroke - #344