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AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in Trash OS X 10.7.2

I have a 10.6.8 server that provides services (DNS, DHCP, OD, AFP, Mail, Calendar, Address Book, Web, and Push notification) to my home/business network. I use network accounts with AFP network home folders. All services and apps have been working flawlessly with 10.6.xx clients.


I recently purchased a new MacBook Air that is running 10.7.2 Lion. I also recently upgraded my Mac Pro to 10.7.2 Lion from 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.

After the upgrade, I am now seeing multiple copies of files appear in the Trash such as:


AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible


This happens whenever any app that accesses the Address Book database for autocomplete is launched (Mail, Skype, etc.). Emptying the trash fails because the files are in use. If I close all apps, sometimes the Trash will empty and sometimes it won't. Have had to clean out the .Trash folder with rm -Rfd * in the terminal; sometimes I have to ssh into my network account on the server to get this to work. Running the command in the terminal on the locally mounted network home does not work.


I have a CARDDAV account with all my addressbook entries on the 10.6.8 server; this problem seems to be worse if the CARDDAV account is configured in Address Book on the 10.7.2 client. I have tried removing the CARDDAV account and also moving the ~/Library/Application Support/Addressbook/ folder and relaunching Address Book. Neither results in the cessation of creation of the AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in the Trash.


Also, when the CARDDAV account is configured in Address Book on the 10.7.2 client, it constantly tries to sync with the 10.6.8 server, and makes substantial numbers of duplicated groups call "Addressbook" and "My Contacts." However, the contacts are not duplicated in the Address Book on the 10.7.2 client. The Address Book server log shows continuous connections and PROPFIND requests from the 10.7.2 client. The CARDDAV data on the server appears to be intact as it works perfectly with iOS 5 clients (iPhone 4, and iPad) and 10.6.8 clients and is not damaged or duplicated.


I am using the same network account on both my Mac Pro and the MacBook Air. On the MAcBook Air, the account is mobile, with a synced portable home directory. I am no longer logging into 10.6.8 systems with this account as I have migrated all the preferences to 10.7.2. I have the same issues when using either computer.


I'm not sure if these two behaviours are related? Is anyone else having similar issues?


All the other services are configued and working fine on the 10.7.2 clients (iCal, Mail, etc).

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Dec 5, 2011 6:01 AM

Reply
39 replies

Dec 5, 2011 1:20 PM in response to Randall Rodrigues

I made some significant headway with this issue this afternoon. The problem with the duplicated groups showed up on my iPad. I checked the Address Book data store on the server (have to do this via the command line as root), and there were thousands (~4000) duplicate "addressbook" and "My Contacts" groups as .vcf files in the data store.


I did the following to remedy the situation:


  1. Stopped the Address Book Server
  2. Replaced the Address Book data store on the server with a time machine backup from before I upgraded to 10.7.2 and initiated this mess.
  3. Deleted all CARDDAV accounts off all devices (Mac Pro, MacBook Air, iPad, and iPhone).
  4. Re-started the Address Book Server.
  5. Re-configured each device for CARDDAV access.
    1. Tested each device individually and made sure it could connect to the server and that the server reported good connections w/o errors (Address Book log files).
    2. Then ensured that the data store on the server was intact after each device was added (specifically, that the same number of .vcf files was in the data store before and after for this particular CARDDAV account; I used ls | wc -l from the command line within the data store on the server).
    3. Only after 1 and 2 were verified, would I move on to configuring the next device.


So far so good...


All devices have been configured for a couple of hours (10.7.2 macs, iOS 5 devices); no more duplications of the addressbook and My Contacts groups.


I'm not sure what the cause of this mess was?


I suspect that upgrading my Mac Pro to Lion got my network account/home folder on the server out of sync with the Address Book Server (different versions of the Address Book app before and after OS upgrade), which resulted in some type asyncronous updating of the CARDDAV account between my network account on the server and my iPad (the "My Contacts" groups were from the iPad).


It's also possible that this is a carry-over from previously having Mobile Me contact sync setup on all these devices prior to implementing my 10.6.8 server and switching services...


Suggestions for other folks:


If upgrading a system from 10.6.8 to 10.7.2 which has CARDDAV configured in the Address Book...and other devices (iOS, etc.) which are also configured with CARDDAV...and maybe previously was synced with Mobile Me...


  1. Before doing anything...ensure you have a good backup of your data on the Server.
  2. Remove all traces of Mobile Me accounts...this is especially important for iOS devices; delete the Mobile Me accounts from the iOS devices!
  3. Then, delete the CARDDAV accounts from all your macs and iOS devices (you won't loose your data, it's on the server).
  4. Upgrade your OS from 10.6.8 to 10.7.2 on your Macs.
  5. Add CARDDAV account to the recently upgraded 10.7.2 Mac.
  6. Perform checks 1 and 2 from step 5 above.
  7. If everything checks out on the Mac and the server, then reconfigure CARDDAV access on the rest of your devices.


Hopefully, this will prevent your devices from getting out of sync with each other and creating a huge mess with your CARDDAV address book.

Dec 5, 2011 5:56 PM in response to Randall Rodrigues

Update...a few hours later and the duplicate addressbook groups have started reappearing again! I can remove them in Address Book on the Mac, but I'm not sure how they're getting generated. They seem to duplicate in an exponential manner; 1...2...4....8....16...etc... So I suspect one of the devices is making a copy of all the group entries when it syncs with the Address Book Server. I think this is how I got ~4000 group entries in a very short period of time.

Dec 6, 2011 4:25 AM in response to Randall Rodrigues

I think I have narrowed this issue down to something related to portable home directory syncing. If I use my network account I have no isssues with duplicates, etc. I can log in and out and everything is fine. I can then log into the same account on a machine configured with a mobile account and synced PHD and everything is fine. Then, if I log out and switch back to the regular network account, voila, the first copy of the "addressbook" group is generated by the cardDAVplugin with a PUT command. Not sure why this happens. If I delete the initial "addressbook" group from within Address Book, there are no issues with duplication until the next time I log into my network account following a logout sync from my mobile account.


I have tried excluding ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook from the preferences syncing on the mobile account, but it has not fixed the problem.


Any ideas?

Dec 8, 2011 1:43 AM in response to Randall Rodrigues

Dear Randall,


I am already happy, that I am not the only one having that kind of problem. We had used server hosted addressbooks throughout the whole 10.6 lifetime in combination of 10.6 servers and 10.6 clients (iMacs) and even mobile devices like iphone, ipad, macbook pro.... Everything was really fine and I also recommended that kind of integrated services to other companies to use it. But now we have updated the clients to 10.7 . Since that update we face the same problems as you are talking about above. It is independent from addressbook owner / account and even PHD we do not use. I have deleted and reconfigured everything again and again and all the times the multiple entries and groups show up again. Now I have stopped everything. I have just the mobile me account in use with just one entry - my personal one. And guess what - after a while again I found multiple entries called "card" all showing my personal card. And additionally I have everyday several entries in the trash bin called "AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1 09-30-25-872.incompatible" or similar. I am not sure but I think, that carddav plugin of 10.7 is not working properly.....


By the way - I had also contacted the apple technical support. They told me, that this case is not to be supported. Thank you very much.


Anyway - in case of any solution you are able to find please let me know and vice versa


Best regards


Stefan

Dec 8, 2011 4:21 AM in response to Stefan Siebeker

Stefan,


The issues wit PHD syncing do seem to have been a red herring; I started using PHDs about the same time I noticed the address book issues, so I suspected they were related.


I have since excluded all address book data from PHD syncing and the problem still persists...


I beleive you are correct, and I have eventually arrived at the same conclusion based on the following:


  1. Everything still works perfectly with 10.6.8, and iOS5 clients.
  2. Duplicate groups are generated by CardDAVplugin on 10.7.2 via PUT command to 10.6.8 server without any user input; i've seen this in my server logs many times.
  3. Only way to stop the creation of duplicate "addressbook" groups is to not use CardDAV accounts on 10.7.x clients.


I don't know why Apple would not support this; CardDAV is an open standard and 10.7 clients should be able to talk to a 10.6 or 10.7 server without any issues.


I will try to post a bug report.


Hopefully Apple can fix this and provide and update; otherwise this severely limits CardDAV capability in 10.7.

Dec 8, 2011 5:55 AM in response to Randall Rodrigues

Randall,


thanks for your reply. I am with you. It worked on 10.6.x clients and started to do create entries with 10.7.x clients. But at the beginning it did not appear on our mobile devices same as you said. But now even my iphone shows the multiple entries.


The funny thing behind is if you call Apple technical hotline you will be always the first person talking about that issue. That's why I am happy to see, that I am not the only one.


I had looked already for 3rd party addressbook solutions but it looks like there are no ones. On the other hand there is another problem. If you clean your addressbook and stop the services to avoid from multiplicating entries your email service also shows no more recepients to choose. So you need to remember all the addresses. It is a pitty.


So it isn't a just limit at all but a serious problem in everyday work. Just for example our sales team used the same address book on the road via iphone as our back office team in the office - till the update. I am really thinking about rolling back the clients to 10.6.x....


B R


Stefan

Dec 9, 2011 3:07 AM in response to Stefan Siebeker

Stefan,


I have noticed something that may be significant towards resolving this issue.


I have two systems with 10.7.2 on them:


  1. A brand new MacBook Air that has only had 10.7 on it
  2. A Mac Pro that was upgraded from 10.6.8


I use both of these computers with the same network account and network home on my 10.6.8 server. The MacBook Air has a mobile account with a synced portable home directory.


I recently did the following:


  1. Deleted the CardDAV account from Address Book while using my network account on the Mac Pro
  2. Trashed all Address Book related folder/files/plists/etc. in ~/Library while using my network account on the Mac Pro
  3. Excluded PHD syncing of all Address Book related folders/files/plists/etc. on the MacBook Air (MBA)


So now I have two systems that use the same account that only differ in what Address Book related files are in ~/Library.


Standard network account = stock addressbook with no entries


mobile account on MBA = CardDAV account on 10.6.8 server


The results are interesting...


When logged into my network account on the Mac Pro, even though I have deleted the CardDAV account and reset the addressbook, I am still getting accumulation of AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in the trash; this happens even when there are no applications open. It occurs most frequently when Apple Mail is open. I suspect some background process that pings the address book is responsible.


When logged into my mobile account on the MBA, I still have the CardDAV account configured, and I am not getting duplicate addressbook groups created on the server, and I am no longer observing AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible related files in the Trash. I have used this system extensively with both the Address Book app and Apple Mail open in the background for the last 48 hours with no ill effects. No duplicate groups, no mysterious PUT commands by the CardDAVPlugin, and no mysterious files in the Trash.


My current hypothesis is that there is some remnant of 10.6.8 on the Mac Pro that is interfering with the Address Book app in 10.7.


Are the systems that you are having issues with upgrades from 10.6.8?


I am considering booting to the Lion recovery partition on the Mac Pro, doing a clean install of Lion, reinstalling all my apps, and then seeing if this problem rears it's ugly head again.


I'll let you know how it goes,


Randy

Dec 13, 2011 5:25 AM in response to Stefan Siebeker

Stefan,


Wiped the system drive and did a clean install of Lion over the weekend.


Sadly that did not fix the issues...I still had copies of the "addressbook" group accumulate and AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible in the Trash whenever I logged into my network account on my Mac Pro.


The addressbook group accumulations happen the first time the Address Book app is opened after a recent login; I can clearly see the PUT commands in the AddressBook Server log file. Also, there were entries in the console log on the client machine that indicated that the AddressBook had to migrate the data store on the local machine. There was still something funky going on, but I wasn't sure what it was.


The AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files were generated whenever I used autocomplete to find an email address from within the Mail app.


I did finally get the issue resolved and currently have both systems with CardDAV accounts configured in Address Book on 10.7 without any duplications or AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in the Trash.


I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly sure what the final "fix" was...I'll tell you what I did, and why I think it may be important to resolving these issues for other users.


Start by completely deleting all of the Address Book related files and folders from ~/Library

These include:


~/Library/Application Support/Addressbook/

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.abd.plist

~/Library/LauchAgents/com.apple.AddressBook.ScheduledSync.PHXCardDAVSource.D1992 817-8733-481E-8A32-272BD52CCD9A.plist

(the D1992817-8733-481E-8A32-272BD52CCD9A will be unique for each user)

~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.AddressBook.savedState/


Alternatively, you can move them to a special folder on the desktop if deleting them makes you nervous.


Next, open the Address Book app...this will recreate all the above files/folders with the system defaults.


Next, check to ensure that...


~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/


is empty...this is critical, as this folder location contains any configured CardDAV addressbooks.


Ensure that the Trash is completely empty; you may have to double check this at the command line.


Next, completely log out of the user account (I think this is also a critical step to flush any system caches that may contain old AddressBook data/plist/etc.)


Then log back in to the user account.


double check that...


~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/


is empty.


Open the Address Book app.


Then configure your CardDAV account.


Ensure that it syncs without any duplications...


Then Close the Address Book app.


Then log out of the system...to flush caches, etc.


Log back in and open the AddressBook.


If you don't have any duplications at this point, you're probably good to go.


Try opening Mail and composing an email and using the autocomplete feature to add a recipient that is stored in the CardDAV addressbook. If you don't get any AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in the Trash, again, you are probably good to go.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------


A couple other things that I did along the way that may or may not be related...


I rebuilt my mailbox in the Mail app (this may help with the AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in the Trash)


I had to restore my home folder from a time machine backup from earlier in the day before a sudo rm -rfd * was done in the root of my home folder...thought I was in ~/.Trash (I was forcibly cleaning out my trash).


My user account on the server has multiple short names; I used an alternate this time to configure the CardDAV access from within Address Book. I don't know if this makes a difference...the server still processes the requests with the primary short name for the user account even when an alternate is used (you can check this via the AddressBook Server log files). It may result in a different hex folder name for the local CardDAV addressbook data store in the ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/ folder on the client machine.


Anyways, some combination of the above cleared up the issue for me. Sorry I cannot pinpoint what the fix was.


Let me know if you have success in resolving the issues with anything that I provided here. I think that would be usefule for people to know.


Good luck,


Randall

Dec 13, 2011 5:28 AM in response to Stefan Siebeker

Stefan Siebeker wrote:


Hi Randall,


one more funny thing - although I am not using the addressbook service on my client any more, the incompatible files in the trash increase by qty from day to day. Today morning I have checked the trash and there are now files created during night and in the morning.......


B R


Stefan


Try rebuilding the mailbox in the Mail app.


Also, ensure that ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/ is empty; this is where the local copy of the CardDAV data store is located.

Dec 13, 2011 6:56 AM in response to Stefan Siebeker

Stefan,


I am the only one who uses my addressbook. However, I have it configured on upwards of 5 machines/devices including iphones and ipads.


I no longer think there is any incompatability between the 10.6.8 Addressbook Server and the 10.7 clients. You just have to completely clean out the old 10.6.8 Addressbook Library files on client machines; probably best to do this before upgrading to 10.7. Addressbook on 10.7 obvisouly does something different and does not like the data store from a machine that previously had 10.6.8 on it.


I think once you determine the machine(s) that is/are causing the duplicates, you'll be safe adding your shared address books to others.


Just do one machine at a time, test it and ensure no dups, then move on to the next. If you have multiple machines creating duplicate groups, they will multiply exponentially!


I think the critical steps are ensuring that you start with a clean default folder in:


~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/


specifically,


~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/


before adding any CardDAV accounts to the machine.


I don't necessarily think that deleting the CardDAV account from the preference pane in the Address Book removes the local data store in the above directory; then if you add the same CardDAV account later, it just uses the old data store, and voila, you get dups again.


That is my current hypothesis.


Let me know how everything works out.


Randall

AddressBook-v22.abcddb.1.incompatible files in Trash OS X 10.7.2

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