contacts on client machine suffer from disk I/O errors

I don't think this is correct in the context of this problem - given that this issue was not present in all previous versions of lion and only is manifesting itself in mountain lion

It is possible there is confusion of what the actual issue is.

Prior to ML, everything was fine under lion I.e. Lion Server with multiple Lion client macs all happily logging in and out of a centralized server where each users home directory is stored (documents, photos, music, personal data - dock, preferences, contacts, email etc) and at the same time personal details were synced with iCloud (contacts, email etc) all fine so that users could keep their iOs devices in sync with there Mac logins and so on

All perfectly fine - no issues what so ever. This is for a small home network of only 5 people so nothing at all complex or fancy - just a central server that users logged in and out and sync with iCloud. S if you made a change on your iPhone it was synced via iCloud to your Mac and onto you user account, no problem

However all of this changed with ML client (ML server with Lion clients is absolutely fine as I have this setup now). Using ML on a client Mac -and whilst music, docs and photos etc are just fine) it seems that contacts/mail is broken - causing multiple and significant IO errors in the logs. 10.8.2 seems better but still is not acceptably stable to switch from lion to ML on client macs.

So something is clearly broken in ML

iDash wrote:

So something is clearly broken in ML

That's exactly what I said.

But you had asked specifically about the support state of iCloud and Versions with server-based home folders, which is a very different issue. I answered your question although it is off-topic.

Coming back to the original problem, we can summarize that Apple attempted a fix regarding the AddressBook corruption, but this fix only works partially. Other aspects of the very same problem, in particular the SQL database features of Safari, are not fixed at all yet.

I experienced the same issue since the very first beginning of OS X Mountain Lion. Apple Support told me that "some Applications" does not support Network Homes and asked me to switch to Mobile Accounts which is not a solution for me.

With 10.8.2 this problem seems to be solved.

I'm not sure it's solved. Contacts are still wiped from all Mountain Lion Clients, 10.6 Server here. All Mountain Lion Clients have to switch to Mobile Accounts which is not a solution for me either. Are there any news on this?

For me it is solved with 10.8.2. Does your clients work with 10.8.2?

Yes, they do. I talked to Apple (got Apple Care Premium) yesterday and they also agreed on the problem persisting. The problem is only still there if you are using 10.6.8 as a Server-System with 10.8.2 for the Clients.

So..where does this stand? Am I to infer from the fading of this thread at the beginning of 2013 that the problem reallty is solved? I would swear I'm still having the problem, but haven't thoroughly tested as I haven't had any optimism since...2011 (unwarrented, in retrospect).

This thread appears to be the definitive conversation re: network home directory and mail/contact trouble. Other indications of the problem are iCloud-synced contacts broken, and no access to iCloud documents. In fact, when working in a Network Home environment (10.8.3 client/server and earlier), when an iCloud aware open/save dialog box is opened (Pages, Preview, etc.) clicking on the "iCloud" nav button redirects to a location within the users home tree (can't remember specifically where at the moment).

Am I describing the same problem this thread is about?

The iCloud Contacts corruption problem is a particular nuisance because OS X Server Contacts doesn't really work as a multi-user service. Creating one shared account for all contacts and all contact users, as many on this forum recommend, eventually corrupts data, as Apple has promised. I've been so deep in Apple-world for the last several years, that I am not really aware of easy alternatives. Is there a Google service available for small businesses that can sync contacts for multiple users, and would ideally integrate with OS X Mail?

Out of breath...thanks all in advance.

Hi. The Problem is not solved at all and – according to apple – is not likely to be solved ever. Marcel Bresink described the problem with sqlite databases and afp on several places all over the net. All i have heard from Apple (got Apple Care Premium) is: Don't use this configuration.

This means: Don't use either AFP or NFS to mount network homes if you haven't got the same version numbers between client and server operating systems and one of them is younger than 10.6. It works ok if you use mobile home directories, but this is a mess and i'm working hard (together with apple) to end this mess for my workplace.

can I ask what is preventing you from getting everything on 10.7 or 10.8? is it old hardware on incompatible software, or something else?

Hmm, good questions. It's a couple of things. Clients are mixed 10.6.8/10.8.3 at the moment, 45 on 10.6.8 and 35 on 10.8.2. We don't use outdated software at all, hardware is ok, too. Oldest machine is a 2008 XServe. I have 180 users, loads of other things to do and I am basically alone. If anything goes wrong with the migration of the OD or the AFP Server, nobody will work until i fixed it. I tried to migrate several times and every single time something fatal went wrong. But so far: No serious outage for more than a couple of minutes.

Additionally we want to have less cooling problems. So we want to host everything on minis instead of several XServes. We're evaluating Promise RAIDs with their TB-FC-Adaptor for our data but we are not very far in this process. We started to talk to Apple (got our first Apple Store one month ago) weeks ago. Migration to 10.8 Server will start in early July I think. Crossing fingers.