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Recurring CalDAV login issues with iPhones and SLS (10.6 Server)

I have 10.6.4 Snow Leopard Server running on a Mac Mini and am having intermittent problems with various iPhones logging into CalDAV calendars. The iPhones are a 3G running iOS 3.1.3 and a 3GS running iOS 4.1.

iCal server works perfectly, with Push, on desktop clients.

The iPhones do work occasionally. Push is still not possible (AFAIK) but 15 minute fetch interval is acceptable for now (when is push coming to iPhones btw?). However, a few times per week, sometimes as many as 5 times in a single day, the iPhone will report "Password Incorrect." This happens on its on, presumably after one of the fetch intervals. Re-entering the password usually works, and is stored correctly for hours or days, but eventually it happens again. Sometimes password is accepted after re-entry but sync will silently stop working, which is even worse than the error popping up.

Each iPhone has 3 CalDAV accounts, one of which is a delegate, one of which is shared by all. The password issue happens with all of them, but far more often with the shared account. The password incorrect prompt does NOT always happen with all of them at once, sometimes just one of the accounts will throw the login error and the others will work for a while.

On the server, iCal has Authentication set to "any method", port 8008 and SSL on, Port 8443

The iPhones connect to CalDAV with SSL on port 8443 using "server" set to server.companyname.com

I have deleted the Calendar accounts on the phones repeatedly, hardware reset the phones, deleted all data and set up accounts again. This fixes the problem for a few days but then it comes back.

I don't see much in the iCal server logs, but I might not know what to look for. What should I look for or try next?

Thanks for any help.

Mac Mini 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 13, 2010 12:58 PM

Reply
151 replies

Dec 21, 2010 4:54 AM in response to Mike JM

Does Open Directory require one of the LDAP ports to be available, simply put does open directory require LDAP access? I applied the above fix and things worked great for awhile then the bug came back in fact the previous solution of entering your password would often fail. Now that I've unblocked port 636 I have not seen the bug. Anyway just trying to learn. Thanks again for the above solution.

Dec 30, 2010 12:43 PM in response to josephcorbett

I've tried all the solutions listed here - none fix the problem indefinitely...

This problem is SO ANNOYING...I find that I just reboot when I see the error. I guess I should count myself lucky - my problem only pops up every couple of days.

I just opened the LDAP port, but I don't know why it would only happen "sometimes" if it were a port forwarding issue.

I'm on a Mac Mini Server (new model) and have an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4 - both on iOS 4.1.

Jan 6, 2011 11:26 AM in response to JRM II

Jim,
I've implemented the solution outlined above with pretty decent success. The error now comes up once in a blue moon, and might be something completely unrelated to the original issue. That being said I have downloaded the update and I'm waiting till the end of the work day to restart the server so they can be installed. All I'll be able to tell you is if I notice any stability improvements in open directory authentications in anyway. Fingers crossed that this updated brings more than just the app store and whatever rDNS bug fix it mentioned. iPhone Push Notifications anyone??? yeah Right...

How many users do you have on non-ssl connections?

Jan 6, 2011 11:24 PM in response to e.f.

Got the Carddav server up and running as well last week. Both services show the same behavior on the iPhone 3GS; Login prompts at the most inconvenient times. Cancelling them is the fastest way out. Especially, If you want to access another program on the phone.

After the 10.6.6 release of SLS the problem wasn't gone, so I tried the plist 'hack' again described earlier. Make sure the services are stopped, because it looks like Apple re-writes the plist files upon stopping the services.

According the the Server Admin, the authentication method is 'Any Method'. Reopening the plist doesn't reflect the change I've made in the file. Could be I'm doing something wrong, but on the other hand; the login prompts haven't showed up in the last 24 hours or so.

Jan 10, 2011 4:51 AM in response to swithed2mac

Zach,
Try making a new workgroup and putting all of your users in it. I recently Switched everyone out of the "workgroup" to a new one called "coreteam" My services have been very stable lately, and this might be part of the reason why. Sorry I can't provide anything more concrete. Best of luck to you and let us know if the workgroup change makes a difference.

Jan 14, 2011 9:12 AM in response to josephcorbett

For the record everything seems to be running smoothly for all my users thought I can't pin point the exact steps for fixingt the issue as I had to several other things besides editing the plist. That being said i think its safe to say the bug is with iOS...

AFter hooking my phone up to the config utility and monitoring the console while I accessed different accounts I kept seeing the same one when the calendar app accessed data:

Fri Jan 14 11:51:26 Joes-iPhone dataaccessd[73] <Warning>: CalDAV|A refresh fired, but we're still waiting on a gatekeeper lock


Fri Jan 14 11:51:30 Joes-iPhone dataaccessd[73] <Warning>: Unexpected EOF, returning last token as fallback

After googling the **** out of that I found people using many different systems of calendaring (exchange 2003-2010, MobileMe, caldav, etc.) and all of them were having strange behaviors centered around their calendars and all of them had these warnings. I think our solution worked because we switched authentication to basic which I think never changes the "token" and just transmits the password in the clear. That makes sense to me... Oh well what do you guys think?

Jan 17, 2011 10:31 AM in response to dunnell17

Thats very interesting... This tips the scales in favor of Snow Leopard Server and basically makes this an iOS issue... I've run google apps on my iPhones before without issue. Sadly none of the info above will help you because you are working with a hosted service and not a full blown server. Do you have your users phones set up with Google Mobile Sync? It acts like an exchange server an has been pretty solid in my experience. http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

You probably need to be using Google Apps for Business which is $50.00 per person per year.

Jan 17, 2011 10:55 PM in response to e.f.

All my customers have the same problem. For me the only solution is to start again the iphone (or kill the App).
I don't understand why (on iPhone) AddressBook authenticate correctly and not iCal. AddressBook begin the authentication process after 6 seconds and iCal after 2 seconds (3GS). I don't know if this (perhaps too short) process make the authentication failed.
It is a very big problem because the people miss important appointments and thus iCal server loses any credibility...
For a business solution, this is not acceptable. The consumer product "Mobile Me" works correctly (and with push notification too).
Please Apple, help us.
Best

Recurring CalDAV login issues with iPhones and SLS (10.6 Server)

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