Thunderbird CardBook Books no longer shown as a sync option

[joefriday]

I believe the issue is caused by the Thunderbird CardBook add-on, but am posting here to see if I can obtain some technical info that I can pass on to the CardBook developers.

This problem started a few weeks ago. I Have been using MyPhoneExplorer 2.1 since Feb - hence my claim this is not a MyPhoneExplorer issue.

Previously when configuring Contact Sync with Thunderbird, the Advanced tab allowed me to choose from Thunderbirds Personal Address Book, Collected Addresses AND all CardBook address books. The Cardbook address books no longer appear. This prevents a sync with the CardBook address book that I have been using for several years.

My claim is that an CardBook update (I get them regularly) has broken the ability for MyPhoneExplorer to locate the list of CardBook Address books. The list of standard Thunderbird address books still show up.

In order to open a useful bug with CardBook, I would like to be able to tell them "where / what type of address book lists" that MyPhoneExplorer looks for.

Thanks!

[icke1954]

The problem is known with Thunderbird version 128.4.
Look Problems with CardBook

[joefriday]

The problem is known with Thunderbird version 128.4.
Look Problems with CardBook

Thanks for the pointer. This other thread was started over 3 years ago and described a different issue - until a few weeks ago when there is a post reporting the same new issue I posted about.

I have updated the title of this post to reflect the new issue: CardBook address books are no longer available for selection.

[icke1954]

Yes, FJ’s post is relevant:
'I've looked into it. It seems as if Thunderbird has been completely blocking access to other add-ons since version 128.4. I'm working with the developer of Cardbook to find a way to get around this problem.'

[joefriday]

Yes, FJ’s post is relevant:
'I've looked into it. It seems as if Thunderbird has been completely blocking access to other add-ons since version 128.4. I'm working with the developer of Cardbook to find a way to get around this problem.'

Thanks for the quick feedback. If you need someone to perform sanity tests once a solution is available then I am happy to try stuff out.

My current less than fully useful workaround is to sync to a standard Thunderbird Book, but this looses the Android Contact "Labels" value which gets stored as a CardBook "Categories".

Cheers...

[dvhttn]

Saw this and tested as I use Cardbook with T'Bird. I have TB 128.4.2 (64 bit) with Cardbook 94.4 and created a new contact within one of my existing categories and it sync'ed to the phone with no problems. I had a 'given name', 'display as', phone number and email and all worked as it should so I'm failing to see the issue here.

Or have I missed something?

[icke1954]

@dvhttn
This still works for you because you still have the old Cardbook version 94.4 installed!
The problems described occur with the current version 96.7.
However, with the combination of Cardbook version 94.4 and Thunderbird 128.4.2 I cannot create new contacts in Cardbook?!

[dvhttn]

@dvhttn
This still works for you because you still have the old Cardbook version 94.4 installed!
The problems described occur with the current version 96.7.
However, with the combination of Cardbook version 94.4 and Thunderbird 128.4.2 I cannot create new contacts in Cardbook?!

Ah, I see. Just checked and I had thought I was auto-updating my TB extensions but apparently not ... I'll stay on this version for now then ....

[dvhttn]

.... However, with the combination of Cardbook version 94.4 and Thunderbird 128.4.2 I cannot create new contacts in Cardbook?!

Seems to work for me ...

There's a 97.1 version out. Anyone tried it? I'll try myself later but I have work first so it won't be for another 12+ hours ....

[dvhttn]

.... However, with the combination of Cardbook version 94.4 and Thunderbird 128.4.2 I cannot create new contacts in Cardbook?!

Seems to work for me ...

There's a 97.1 version out. Anyone tried it? I'll try myself later but I have work first so it won't be for another 12+ hours ....

Finally managed to test this. Upgraded to CB 97.1 and could add a new entry as before (though adding an address isn't too clear. You need to add individual fields then hit the 'tick' to validate it ..... not obvious - to me anyway). But MPE didn't see CB as an option to sync to.

Downgraded CB to 94.4 and all was well again.

Just in case anyone was wondering ....

[joefriday]

Finally managed to test this. Upgraded to CB 97.1 and could add a new entry as before (though adding an address isn't too clear. You need to add individual fields then hit the 'tick' to validate it ..... not obvious - to me anyway). But MPE didn't see CB as an option to sync to.

Downgraded CB to 94.4 and all was well again.

Just in case anyone was wondering ....

Confirmed as working. CB 94.4 manually downloaded and installed into TB 128.4.3esr.

BIG NOTE: I need a slight hack to get things working again. Removal of CB from TB removed the CB address book I was using. I recreated an empty CB address book in TB, set the sync to be force phone to thunderbird and MPE sync failed: MPE reported that it failed to load contacts from Thunderbird. So I added a temporary contact to the CB address book. Sync then worked as expected.

[dvhttn]

There's a CB 97.5 been out for a week or so. Anyone tried this?

[FJ]

There are huge changes to make, you can go back to the last supported version or you wait until Cardbook AND the Addon of MyPhoneExplorer is updated so they work together again. I will place a information in this thread as soon as the adaption is finished and the sync is working.

[dvhttn]

There are huge changes to make, you can go back to the last supported version or you wait until Cardbook AND the Addon of MyPhoneExplorer is updated so they work together again. I will place a information in this thread as soon as the adaption is finished and the sync is working.

Thanks for the update!

[FJ]

The sync with cardbook should work again now, please test the Thunderbird Addon Version 4.4: https://www.fjsoft.at/mpe-addin.xpi

[Sepp71D]

Thank you very much and a happy new year!
I have tried it with Thunderbird Addon Version 4.4 and Cardbook 97.7 but could not sync. ("Einträge konnten nicht aus Thunderbird gelesen werden"). In the MPE-options for sync I could not find CardBook but only default user and default addressbook.
Sepp

[FJ]

I just updated the addon to Vedrsion 4.5, please update: https://www.fjsoft.at/mpe-addin.xpi
There is also a small glitch that MyPhoneExplorer does detect a empty Addressbook as error, so please create a dummy contact in your Cardbook adressbook. Is your problem fixed now?

[Sepp71D]

Thank you very much!
Now it's working fine again.
Sepp

[dvhttn]

I just updated the addon to Vedrsion 4.5, please update: https://www.fjsoft.at/mpe-addin.xpi
There is also a small glitch that MyPhoneExplorer does detect a empty Addressbook as error, so please create a dummy contact in your Cardbook adressbook. Is your problem fixed now?

I've installed the addon to 4.5 and CB to 97.7 and now MPE on my PC does see the TB CB address books and calendars. However, on first sync it wanted to update a load of contacts from the phone. I clicked on a few in MPE and compared the entries on phone and TB and there seemed to be no difference. However, the next sync wanted to download loads of contacts to the phone from TB. Again, there seemed to be no difference except, in both cases, some minor formatting issues between the postal address on phone and in TB.

I then noticed that one contacts postal address in CB had some spurious characters in it - '\n' between lines of the address, but not all lines! I checked and several had this - but not all. Also. one of the contacts has some notes attached to it (a list of opening times) and this shows fine on the phone but has '\n' in the notes in CB at the start of each line.

I see that this is the 'newline' character and thus is in the right place but .... why is it appearing now? Is this an MPE issue or Cardbook issue?

[FJ]

I then noticed that one contacts postal address in CB had some spurious characters in it - '\n' between lines of the address, but not all lines! I checked and several had this - but not all. Also. one of the contacts has some notes attached to it (a list of opening times) and this shows fine on the phone but has '\n' in the notes in CB at the start of each line.

You are right, Cardbook encodes a newline in postal addresses as comma. Its a bug inside Cardbook, i have sent already a message to the author of Cardbook.