Q: CardDav sync issue after upgrading to 10.11.2

That's all well and good but what about those of us using Baikal, ownCloud, Synology or other "do it yourself" CardDAV servers.  This was never a problem in 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 ....... not sure how such an annoying bug has persisted for so long without getting someone's attention.  <sarcasm> But hey, at least we've got Pizza emojis. </sarcasm>

According to https://github.com/owncloud/contacts/issues/1058 this is a bug in 10.11 that affects multiple services (e.g. OS X server as well as OwnCloud, etc) but the bug is just in the configuration dialog box where it's not properly setting up the right path on the server.

I'm using OS X server and was playing around with some tests, I tried this:

1. Open Contacts.app
2. Go to Accounts / Account Information
3. Click Server Settings
4. Take a look at your "Server Path:".   On mine it was empty, but if I manually entered

          /principals/users/username 

          (replacing username with my actual username)

Then it seems like it started working again.

It's certainly possible there is more than one bug here.

You can do some rudimentary debugging yourself just using Safari:

1. Enter the URL for your CalDAV server (for most people using OS X server, it will be https://example.com:8443/ where example.com should be replaced with the domain name (or IP address) of your OS X server.
2. Log in using the username & password associated with the CalDAV or CardDAV account.
3. You should then see a page which looks something like this:

If you are not able to reach your CalDAV server in step 1, 2, or 3 then it suggests the problem is server-side, and you should probably focus on looking for error messages on OS X Server instead of on your client.

Perhaps you can help provide some more information.  When I uncheck the Contacts under the associated Google account and then select Add Account, it tells me that the account already exists (as it does because I am using it for Calendar, Mail...etc).  When I choose "Other", rather than Google, the CardDav option comes up, but then it does not recognize my Gmail account under the Automatic option.

Yes....spinning ball and unuseable Contacts.  Contacts are fine on my iPhone and iPad.

This is what I did. The beachball delay stopped and the constant console errors related to this issue ceased.

First, disable the built-in Google contacts sync selection. Then:

1.Add Other Account.

2. CardDAV account.

3. Account Type: Advanced

4. Username: full gmail address

5. Enter your password

6. Server address: google.com

7. Server Path /principals/users/[your gmail username before the @ sign]

8. Port: 443

9. SSL checked

We have been using a SOGo carddav server for the past couple of years with no problems in 10.9 and 10.10. SOGo is the only caddav server we found that can do read only and read/write in the Contacts application.  Upgraded a few machines from 10.10.5 to 10.11.3 and it completely broke carddav. We found no way to fix this issue in 10.11.3.  Amazing the poor software programming coming out of Apple vs the company making so much money.

However, in 10.11.4, public release 3 we got it working (though a bit slower then previous operating systems) by following the well-known documentation here and configuring using the Advance option in Contacts upon installing the account.

https://github.com/fruux/Baikal/issues/401

Update: although I could get Contacts.app to read from OS X server (by altering the pathname to /principals/users/<username>  I find that when I click to Edit a card, I get a beachball.    So my solution only seems to work halfway.    Can anyone else confirm that 10.11.4 fixes these bugs on the client?

10.11.4.  If I edit a CardDAV entry (connected to OS X Server) I get the beachball.  Sometimes as long as 30 seconds.  Works, just really slow.

I just heard back from Apple:

Engineering has determined that your bug report (24791301) is a duplicate of another issue (21691359) and will be closed.

So it sounds like Apple knows about this, but at the current time the older bug report remains open, so it doesn't seem like they've fixed it yet. 

Hello Humans!

Yesterday I switched to Fastmail.com's IMAP / CalDav / CardDav service from Microsoft's Exchange-based Office365.

Today I am experiencing the same behaviour described throughout this thread (open a contact, click 'Edit', Contacts app freezes, spinning beachball of death for up to a minute, Mac then thaws out so i make the edit but then it freezes again, followed by spinning beachball of death: repeat). Fastmail has a support document on their site stating that the issue is due to a bug in OS X 10.11.2+

I left Microsoft's Exchange-based mail/calendar/contacts service because OS X's Mail.app doesn't handle read/unread flags properly - and HASN'T handled it properly for over a year. Sure, thats a comparatively small complaint but Apple's attention to such details has been sliding since the release of Snow Leopard - to the point where I'm forced to try many mail services in an effort to find a reliable mail / calendar / contacts solution for my IT business (sole employee, self-employed).

25-years (so old...) of experience has repeatedly demonstrated that anyone running a business on a free email service deserves whatever **** they find themselves in.  So while Mail.app may work well with iCloud, alternative mail services are distinctly second-class citizens - in every respect worthy of that cliche. Apple is doing their best to make it difficult to use a Mac with something as simple as a vanilla (i.e. non-proprietary) CardDav-based service. The reliability is nowhere near as bad as a Windows-based computer but the Mac is a lot closer to the sorry state of Windows than it was 10 years ago (again, during the Snow Leopard era).

The read/unread flag issue is even smaller than this 'freezing spinning beachball of death' Contacts app issue so I'll switch back to Exchange Online if this isn't fixed soon. But the Exchange issue has been around for over a year and the CardDav issue has been around for almost six months.

Life is not worth living in a Google Android environment; living in a Microsoft windows environment is even worse; iOS isn't mature enough to replace the Mac yet.

Posting about these bugs in places like this may not get the issues fixed but then, sending feedback to Apple and calling Apple's telephone support isn't getting them fixed either. You guys are listening, Apple listens during my phone calls - but no one is doing anything about it!

<sarcasm> Its almost like depending on the world's biggest public corporation for happiness is a stupid idea! </sarcasm>

Details:

- OS X 10.11.3

- Fastmail.com CardDav service

Rock on!

Peter

I also use FastMail, and have had CardDAV issues since 10.11.2. The problem is still not fixed as of 10.11.4.

I downloaded the trial version of BusyContacts and it worked perfectly with FastMail's CardDav service. So I purchased a license immediately and have been very happy.  FastMail's IMAP service has been working very well with Apple Mail.  I'm not missing ANYTHING about Microsoft Exchange: I used it for five years because it has long been the reliable email/calendar/contact sync service across all my multi-platform devices. But FastMail's service is turning out to be a suitable Exchange replacement for my simple needs.

It's good to know that BusyContacts is a workaround for this issue. However, Apple's Contacts app worked perfectly with FastMail's CardDAV (and fruux's) before 10.11.2 was released. I have an issue with having to buy a 3rd party product just to fix something that Apple broke with a "free" update.