Active Sync Issues with Exchange Contacts and iPhone 4s
First I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I didn’t want to leave any details out in hopes someone can help me with this issue. I am currently experiencing a very aggravating issue with a user on an iPhone 4s. The original issue began in the form of contacts replicating in the hundreds on exchange (we are using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007) and spiking the CPU usage up over 90% on a regular basis after swapping out his iPhone 4 (32GB) for an iPhone 4s (64GB) on 12/14/11. His outlook on his laptop was incredibly slow and if you went into his contacts it would say “Updating 3.2MB (or whatever the size was that day)” and take 45 minutes to finish the update in contacts. I assumed it was an activesync issue with the laptop and phone so I gave the user a new laptop, blew away the iPhone 4s, and resynced the device on January 4th. All appeared to be OK. A couple days later the user began to see contacts just disappearing out of his phone and favorites. Contacts once in his address book were missing and the contact number at the bottom of the address book was changing randomly up and down. I also noticed that the “busy” wheel in the upper left hand corner next to the 3G logo was constantly spinning as if it was trying to sync with the server. At this point I felt as though we must have a bad device (since the laptop was replaced). I ordered a new iPhone 4s (32GB). I wasn’t sure if it was a size issue since the 64GB was new to the iPhone world. Last night I blew away all of his contacts in his Exchange account and turned the 64GB phone off to turn off contact with the server and deleted the device within the mobile devices section in OWA. I then imported his contacts from a backup. I tied the new iPhone 4s (32GB) to my wifi (since there wasn’t a SIM in it yet) and connected it to the Exchange account. Everything synced perfectly. I watched it all night and there were no issues. I met up with the user at 7am and put the SIM card from the 64GB device that I thought was the problem into the 32GB device that I thought was working. All seemed to take well. I watched it for an hour and there were no CPU spikes on the server and the “busy” wheel in contacts was not spinning. Exchange on the laptop was even syncing without any delay. Success right!!! NO. At approximately 12pm today we received a spike in CPU usage on the Exchange server and phone was in a death spiral again. I was told by the user he did not add any apps. The only thing he did was delete 2 contacts. I am at whit’s end with this. As a side note we also have 4 other users in the organization with 4s’s and they are running fine. They all came from iPhone 3g’s or Blackberry’s. This process caused us to port their numbers to a new SIM loaded in the iPhone 4s. The only thing that has remained a constant in this whole process is the SIM card from the original iPhone 4. We received the new device and upon making the transition we were told there was no need to port the number to the implanted SIM but rather to just take the SIM and move it from the 4 to the 4s. This SIM has traveled from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4s (64GB where all the issues started) to the iPhone 4s (32GB where the issues continue). Is there any chance that a SIM card could cause this issue? I am not sure what else to even look at considering we have reloaded 1 device, replaced that reloaded device with a new device, reloaded contacts on the server, and replaced the laptop with a new laptop. I am considering moving the user back to the original iPhone 4 we switched out in on December 14 if I can’t get this issue resolved today. ANY suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated and I apologize again for the length of this post. Thank you in advance!!
