Duplicate contacts only on my iPad from exchange server

Hi your idea of a ghost or back up would appear to be the same reason why Outlook 2011 for Mac was sync with some file in background then they appeared in my Contacts for Mac on Air

I'm so bored of apple. I have been using ms exchange on windows phones then office 365 on windows 7 htc and never had an issue been so stable. First switched to iphone4s and duplicates started, daily deleting from handset and getting angry.. Not content with the iPhone hassle decided to get an iPad and really regret it. Apple you are not a business tool more for the school play ground and people who play with phones. Still have the trusty htc windows 7 phone seriously considering going back so I can fill my life with other tedious things other than Apple. RIP Apple!

Has anyone tried updating to iOS 5.1.1 to resolve this issue? I am reading on other forums that this is fixing the issue. Apple doesn't verify that the updated addresses this issue (probably because they don't recognize this as an issue at all) but there are others that have had pick with the update. My user with this issue is out of the country right now so I can't verify. Can anyone else verify if updating helps?

I just got iOS 5.1.1 and it did not resolve the duplicate contacts issue. Maybe if I kill the outlook account and restart the process?

I've been wrestling with this for one of my clients, the CEO of course😀 Iphone 4S - Office 365. He has 1000+ contacts and this was a severe problem from the beginning. Adding/removing account or turning contacts on/off does not help.

We took the drastic step of starting over with IOS(using a tool to only restore the bare minimum of his data, not a full itunes restore which was tried previously and did not help at all) and that seemed to have solved it. That was 2 months ago and I just found out the dupes are back. It's not quite as bad as it was but still frustrating.

Some observations:

Based on what I am reading here it only seems to be happening with devices that shipped with IOS 5. I don't think I have seen anyone reporting it happening it on an iphone 4 and it is being reported on ipad 2s, many of which shipped with IOS 5. In fact I have put my users account on my iphone 4 IOS5 and ipad 2 IOS5 which shipped with IOS 4 and it does not happen on either of those.

I can get the dupes to go away manually with the following process. In Outlook, move offending contact out of Contacts folder. On iphone, wait for one of the dupes to go away. Then manually delete the rest of the dupes on iphone. In Outlook, move the contact back into the contact folder and let is sync back to the phone.

I hope that by sharing this info someday we can have a solution. IOS 5.1.2 perhaps?

Could it be the number of contacts? I have issues but my collegue does not and never has. I have 1347 contacts and he has just over 300 So here is what I have done. I moved all my contacts from outlook, stopped the sync on my ipad2, which deleted all contacts then synced with exchange, still leaving it empty. Then I populated my contacts with about 300 contacts and on my ipad and outlook we seem to be ok. Now I had not done those steps to my iphone 4s and it is a mess... I have duplicates up to 11xs! . I am going to tackle that today. This is so fustrating! I am also office 365.

Lisa,

When did you buy your ipad2? Before October 2011? If so, then I don't think you will see the problem on it if my theory is correct that this only happens on devices that shipped with IOS5.

What devices does your colleague have? If ipad 2, when was it purchased?

the devices are starting to blurr as to when I purchased what, my collegue has a iPad3, and the iphone 4s, we purchased our iphone 4s at the same time, my iPad2 is over a year old because it purchased the additional warranty just in the nick of time. The other tech in our office has a ipad2 and iphone 4 and his are not duplicating either. They both think I am crazy.

The one day I actually SAW my contacts duplicate right there on the screen. I did not appear to have a crash as other have reported. I am really leaning towards the number of contacts with office 365. My husband has over 1800 contacts but is syncing to Exchange 2003 and he does not have a duplicate problem.

I would second the hunch that it is something that comes with devices that were sold with iOS5.0 installed. I have switched from an iPhone 4 to 4s and immediately had the problem on the 4s - never having seen it on the 4. Same iOS release and the 4s was created as a restore from the 4. I then had to switch back to the 4 and the problem went away. I have 4995 contacts - yah, I know too many... but it has worked fine for years and it is the reason I left blackberry - which would fail due to memory crashes. My "new" iPad has the dupes problem - and of course it also shipped with iOS5.

OK, I think we are getting closer to identifying who this is happening to.

- ipad or iphone that shipped with IOS 5 (ipad 2 after October 2011, iphone 4s, ipad 3)

- Office365 Exchange online

- Large number contacts

If anyone has any exceptions to this, please chime in.

Also please chime in with how many contacts you have. My one client with this has just over 1,000. I only have one other client with 4S/Office365 and as far as I know she has not been having any problems. I just asked her to check for dupes and also let me know how many total contacts she has.

Is clear the problem is in the iOS side, the question is how can we solve:

We have "solve" in a Mac + Ipad + Iphone user using the iCloud to sync the Contacts and Calendar and NOT by Office 365 this can be done if the user is 100% Mac if they use PC you can't sync by iCloud locally the Outlook 2010 info or I can't find how to do it.

We have open a case in Apple and please all the people has problems open also to get a more quickly response they response the problem is not in his side 😟

There is a way to use icloud to do the sync on a PC, however, you will be required to move your contacts out of your exchange mail box and into the PST that is created by the windows icloud sync software. Not a great solution at all and really not workable at all if, like my client, you have your Office365 account on 2 separate PCs and need the contacts synced between them. Perhaps you could rely on icloud sync to sync between the 2 computers also but this is not ideal at all to setup a whole separate sync system.

If anyone else has opened a case for this issues, please link it back to this thread, they might learn something from this.

I have open a Case 303589852 but the answer was the problem is not in the iOS 😟

My iPad2 is over a year old and I watched the contacts duplicate on it when I was trying to delete them.

Has anyone figure out the magic number of number of contacts. Two of the techs in my office have 300 or less contacts and it is not duplicating. I have over 1000. I tried to talk one of them to put my 1000 on his device but he wouldn't test for me! 🙂

We are all using office 365.

Ok here is the solution I have come to. I am using Office 365 Exchange contacts, email, tasks and calendar. Duplicated contacts resulted when I was sync with iCloud contacts turned on. I am using Windows Office 2010 on Vista, Office 2011 for Mac on MacBook Air, iPad 3 and iPhone 4S. I experimented first by migrating all Exchange contacts over to iCloud and turning off Office 365 Exchange Contacts. No duplicates occurred over week period. I then migrated contacts back to Office 365 Exchange Contacts and turned off iCloud contacts (on above Apple devices). No duplicates. So the solution is simple...the Microsoft 365 Exchange Server and iCloud Server cannot sync contacts. You have to use one or the other. My suspicion is due to field mapping during the sync process. Obviously when I was using the iCloud contacts server I could not use Outlook on Windows or Outlook on Mac.

I hope this helps.

Clive Baxter.

Milestone Financial Corporation