Duplicates on iPod, Email Address missing in Thunderbird

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TruthObs
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:37 pm

Duplicates on iPod, Email Address missing in Thunderbird

Post by TruthObs »

BirdieSync is looking like it will be awesome, once I workout this little issue.

I'm using WinXP (w/ latest updates), an iPod Touch 4th gen (w/ the latest iOS), Thunderbird & Lightning (latest versions).

Over 500 contacts synced on my first sync. I've got a lot of duplicates on my iPod. I used BirdieSync's "Remove Duplicates" function in Thunderbird, but it found none.

On closer inspection, the two duplicates in iPod have email addresses in two different fields ("other" & "home"), but in Thunderbird, which only shows one instance of the contact, there is NO email address in any field. When I added an email address in Thunderbird, it synced to the "home" field in the iPod's instance that showed an email address in the "other" field. So now this instance of the contact in the iPod shows two email address, one under "other", the other under "home".

Any ideas how to fix this?

Birdy
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Re: Duplicates on iPod, Email Address missing in Thunderbird

Post by Birdy »

Hello TruthObs,

Usually when you create a contact on the iPhone, you can choose whether your email is a "Home" email, a "Work" or "Other" email. BirdieSync only synchronizes "Home" and "Work" emails with "Email address" and "Alternative email address" in Thunderbird. So if the email address is in "Other" email field, then it is not synchronized.
But if the contact is synchronized from an Exchange server for instance, the contact loose its ability to choose the type of the email, and this one is "Other". So it is not synchronized in Thunderbird.
Do you know how the contacts with emails in "Other emails" fields were created ? Was it manually ?
Thanks.
Birdy

UlliB
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 10:39 pm

Re: Duplicates on iPod, Email Address missing in Thunderbird

Post by UlliB »

I had the same problem with missing email addresses in synchronization between my iPad 2 and Thunderbird. The problem stopped when I switched the synchronization of the iPad address book with the iCloud off. Since then, the address book is no longer synced with the Windows contacts but the changes from "private email " to "other email" no longer occur.

Regards,
Ulrich

TruthObs
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:37 pm

Re: Duplicates on iPod, Email Address missing in Thunderbird

Post by TruthObs »

I don't know the origin of a lot of these contacts, as in how they were entered.

Playing with it further, some of my duplicates aren't syncing at, while others are. On the iPod, they look identical, but if I make changes to figure out which is which, one of them will change in Thunderbird while the other will not.

For contacts created on the iPod, the "Name" column in Thunderbird isn't displaying "Last, First". Instead, it prefers to use Company, and if that's empty it uses the first part of the email address. Then with another contact, it chose to use "FirstLast" instead of "Last, First". In many contacts, the "Name" column is just balnk. Opening the contacts in Thunderbird shows all the right data in all the right fields, but the list of contacts shows inconsistent results.

Any ideas what I should check next?

Birdy
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Re: Duplicates on iPod, Email Address missing in Thunderbird

Post by Birdy »

So if I understand well, you have duplicated contacts on the iPod but not in Thunderbird ?
Since synchronization makes a one to one matching between mobile device contacts and Thunderbird ones, that may mean that for some reason, BirdieSync doesn't see some contacts on the iPod.

Can you confirm that the BirdieSync option "Don't synchronize contacts on the mobile with groups matching no address book" is unchecked ? (Thunderbird menu "Tools/BirdieSync/Options...", "Contact" panel, "Group" tab)

Right after you have the synchronization, could you send your logs to support ?
First, transfer the mobile device log to the desktop with "Help/Transfer mobile device log" while your mobile is connected.
Then build the log archive BirdieSyncLog.zip with BirdieSync menu "Help/Archive logs..." and send it to support(at)birdiesync.com.
Thanks.

Regarding the display name in Thunderbird, how do you sort your contacts in Thunderbird (Address book window, menu View/Display name as) ? By Display name, Last name First name, First Name and Last name ?
Note that there is no notion of "Display name" field on the iPhone although it is present in Thunderbird. So this field can be automatically generated by BirdieSync with a dedicated option: Thunderbird menu "Tools/BirdieSync/Options...", "Contact" panel, "Miscellaneous" tab.
Birdy

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