Build 7859 - Problems with iOS mobile device connected with Activesync

Problem reported by FrankyBoy - 7/9/2021 at 3:14 AM

Submitted

Hello All,

I had to spend a sleepless night after trying to update from Build 7817 to Build 7859. The update went well, but a major problem occurred after this update : Any addition or modification made in the calendar of my mobile device (iPhone X, iOS version up to date) connected with the Activesync protocol refused to synchronize correctly with the server and vice versa. There were also email synchronization issues. I restarted the device, erased the account completely from the device and reconfigured it, nothing to do, the synchronization could not be done correctly.

Since the majority of our customers are businesses and their mobiles are connected with Activesync protocol, I really couldn't stay in this situation. So I had to take out my backup and downgrade to my initial version, which is Build 7817 (we can't roll-back between these two versions). It's a shame because I wanted to update to take advantage of the latest fixes ... because we are currently having problems with the files attachments containing accented characters (We and our customers who use our e-mail service are all French-speaking). When we attach files with accented characters, the recipient receives a file with a changed extension. Have any of you experienced an issue with this update ??

Sorry for my poor english!

9 Replies

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Nathan Replied

7/9/2021 at 4:19 AM

ActiveSync seems to be somewhat broken for us with Boxer too. Boxer periodically stops synchronising, removing the profile via webmail works again for maybe a few more hours then the problem occurs again. Are we beta testing at the moment, feels like it...

Thomas Lange Replied

7/9/2021 at 9:04 AM

We are still on build 7852 - I planned to update to 7859 because of included calendar/all-day-appointement (UTC+01:00) fix for EAS-protocol.

Due to your issues/experiences with build 7859 I just did a quick test with calendar on buld 7852 that we are running @production:
I can create new calendar entries @iphone with EAS, they are synced to SmarterMail (and appearing in eMClient EWS-protocol). But any CHANGES to already existing entries @iphone/EAS is not being synced/updated to SmarterMail (I checked Webmail/WebGUI, too - changes/updates not showing up!).
So probably calendar/EAS is still broken under some conditions - at least I am a little bit afraid updating to latest SmarterMail build 7859 :-(

Anybody else "brave enough" to update to build 7859 and can give feedback concerning calender-issues/updating across all available protocols?

and what about the email-syncing issues FrankyBoy mentioned? Dies emailsyncing work as expected/stable in latest build 7859? I do not want to update from 7852 to 7859 in case latest build "introduces" email-syncing-issues with EAS-protocol - we need EAS for our employees and their mobile-devices (iPhone + Samsung devices).

Build 7859 is announced/released as a "publicrelease" - so in my eyes such a build shoudl be tested and stable. hmmmm - now I am unsure what to do.

Ben Replied

7/9/2021 at 5:35 PM

I updated to 7859 Thursday night, then woke up Friday morning to a load of complaints that email wasn't arriving on mobile anymore (EAS on Android using Outlook)

Employee Replied

7/12/2021 at 10:19 AM

Employee Post

FrankyBoy, Thomas Lange, Ben, Nathan Y, I recommend that you open support tickets and provide Detailed EAS logs from when you upgraded and the affected user(s) so that we review the traffic between the server and client devices.

Nathan Y, I am unfamiliar with the Boxer app, but will install this on multiple EAS clients to assess have it behaves.

In nearly all cases that we've encountered, the devices themselves have resolved the issue whenever it did a folder resync, all items were pulled afresh. In certain cases, the following steps resolved the issue if it didn't self-correct:

Remove the account from the device;
Remove the device from the Synchronized devices page in User settings > Connectivity > Synchronized Devices (this step cannot be skipped); and,
Re-add the account on the device.

Thomas Lange Replied

7/12/2021 at 12:42 PM

@Robert: right now I am still running build 7852 - with UTC+01:00
so I really could need running build 7859 with EAS/all-day-apointment - one day offset fix.
What I notice in build 7852 is that on iPhone newly created apointments are not synced back to SmarterMail.

Your comment states, that there are not any known issues yet in build 7859 and EAS-protocol - so far so good I hope.
I can give build 7859 a try tomorrow after our business hours - that would be shortly after your business/office-hours are starting. But due to the fact that other users already mentioning at community syncing-issues starting right after updating to 7859 it could be that we will have 57 EAS mailboixes (of our 100 licensed) that will not be able to sync anymore :-( In case of EAS-syncing-issues: and after collecting EAS-detailed-logs as you requested: Can I downgrade back to 7852 and will EAS-syncing be working again - or do I need to touch each of our over 50 smartphones to get it back running/syncing?
I am aware of the steps to remove account, delete device-connectivity-entry and then re-add the account -
but this would be a pain in the ass to do for all of our 57 accounts manually. We do not allow our employees to manuelly delete/add accounts by themself - so it will be much work for our IT-stuff to "repair" all EAS-devices :-(

Before doing SmarterMail upgrade tomorrow on Tuesday evening European/German time I will check back here if I find any other comments stating that EAS/syncing is working for them or is not working for them with build 7859 - and then decide if I can and will give this build a try for our production system.

Employee Replied

7/12/2021 at 1:00 PM

Employee Post

Thomas, in Build 7845 is when we introduced the EAS 16.1 protocol version (previously SM was using EAS 14.0). All folders (mail, calendar, contact, task, note) and items previously used a guid but to follow what we're using in EWS and MAPI, we now reference/sync the id (internally a long value rather than the string guid). Though we never recommend rolling back build versions, as long as you do not rollback prior to 7845, you should be fine.

ActiveSync uses a system of SyncKeys between Server and Client to know which items it needs to update. If the client responds with a SycnKey that is older than what the server has, it knows that it needs to request those changes. These SyncKeys are stored per device in the xxx_ActiveSync.xml file in the user's folder. If a device does not sync properly, you can try only removing the device from the synchronized device (step #2 I mentioned above). This deletes that xxx_ActiveSync.xml file, and because the server no longer has references to SyncKey for each folder and item, it essentially causes the client to resync all items.

Thomas Lange Replied

7/12/2021 at 1:18 PM

Robert, ok thanks for your explanation. In case of EAS-issues I would only rollback to our actual build 7852 to get it up and running/syncing again (7845 has other issues - Outlook 2016/EAS ;)
The automatically folder-resync we had on our first update from 7817 to 7852 (we did not install 7845), that took some time for all accounts :-)

Concerning your 'three steps' to re-sync an account I send you a private message, perhaps you can check and answer my question there.

Concerning build 7859 I probably give it a try Tuesday evening at our local time/after our business hours and see what happens...

Gabriele Maoret - SERSIS Replied

7/12/2021 at 1:53 PM

I have tried to only use the step 2 (Remove the device from the Synchronized devices page in User settings > Connectivity > Synchronized Devices) and it seems to work to force a resync to the device without the need to remove and recreate the account on it...

Gabriele Maoret - Head of SysAdmins and CISO at SERSIS

Currently manages 7 SmarterMail installations (1 in the cloud for SERSIS which provides services to a few hundred third-party email domains + 6 on-premise for customers who prefer to have their mail server in-house)

Thomas Lange Replied

7/13/2021 at 1:02 PM

I now updated from build 7852 to 7859,
As for now at least my own company-user-accounts @iPhone are working and emails are syncing by EAS-protocol to my mobile device/iPhone. What happs with our employees accounts and EAS I will have to wait until our next morning.

concerning calendar-entries: newly created appointsments are now synced to SM server, but editing/changing @iPhone will not update/sync to server-content :-(
and yes, I removed/deleted/re-added my acocunts @iPhone

right now this issue is reproducable - so I will create a support-ticket for this issue and add screenshots of iiPhone and SmarterMail and add EAS-detailed-logs. But probably this will take some until tomorrow.

I just wanted to post a short update with my actual status/experience with EAS-protocol and syncing of build 7589. For me it looks like calendar and changing/editing/updating existing appointments @iPhone has some issues.

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