Deleted & Duplicated Contacts

[robsmarg]

I have been using MPE for several months now and it has been extremely stable up until about one week ago.

Running:
HTC Evo 4G
Gingerbread 2.3.3
MPE 1.8.2
Connecting via USB
Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit
MS Outlook 2007

About a week ago I turned on my phone and found that all my 2000+ contacts were gone from my phone. No panic. I figured I would just re-sync with Outlook. That is where the craziness began. I was running MPE 1.8.1 at the time. When I went to sync it was taking a real long time. Greater than 30 minutes. After the sync I went into Outlook and discovered that all my contacts were duplicated. Went into Outlook and deleted all dupes and synced again. Happened again. Deleted dupes again and resynced. Same thing happened only now instead of having 1 dupe some random contacts have 2 dupes. It appears like part of the problem occurred because the connection between the phone and MPE was dropping. I upgraded to 1.8.2 yesterday hoping the problem would get better, but it only got worse. Some recently added contacts are on the phone but not in Outlook. I am in sales and in some of my contacts I have 10 to 12 years worth of notes. Some contacts in Outlook have notes only up to 2008 while the same contact in the phone has current notes to 2011. The last few syncs I have done have deleted all the contacts on the phone and then copied them from Outlook.

I have tried manually deleting all the contacts on the phone using Contact Remover and setting the sync mode to have Outlook copied to the phone but that does not seem to be helping. I have tried deleting all the contacts in MPE on my laptop but they do not actually disappear. Some have a red "x" on them and some have what appears to be a sun icon next to them.

Prior to last week my syncs would take maybe 4-5 minutes tops. Now they take as much as one hour. Is there a possible date stamp problem?

I now have 2028 contacts in Outlook which I believe to be a good number but some of the last three years of notes are missing. I have 2753 contacts on phone because there are dupes on there that I have not deleted yet mainly out of fear of losing valuable data that I have built over the past 12 years.

Being in sales, my contact database is my lifeline. The integrity of that data is beyond crucial and I feel like it has been compromised and I do not want to make matters worse.

Please advise. Thank you.

[FJ]

Please install the current beta of the client in the phone, it has some fixes for problems which appeared on large phonebooks:

www.fjsoft.at/mpeclient.apk

Then remove the userprofile in MyPhoneExplorer (Menu-File-Users-<profile>-Delete

Connect again to the phone and set up your Outlook sync

From there we have a clear starting point without old problems which were maybe cause from 1.8.1 or the connection issues. Do NOT disable the Sync-Confrmation until you are think the sync does work good again

[robsmarg]

FJ,

Thanks for the response.

Just a couple things before I do this because my contact database is my business lifeline. I have duplicate contacts in Outlook, MPE on my laptop and on my phone. The total # of contacts including duplicates in each is as follows:

Phone - 2,753 contacts
MPE (on laptop) - 3,146 contacts
Outlook - 2,028 contacts

It appears that the most recent notes in Outlook are up to the end of 2008 where the MPE and my phone both have current notes. I can't lose notes anywhere.

Is what you're suggesting going to merge the contacts with the most recent notes?

Should I manually delete the duplicate contacts in Outlook and the phone before I perform the steps?

I also have some recently added contacts that are in my phone but not in Outlook. What will happen to those?

Please advise before I do anything as I am very nervous about losing any data.

Thank You,
Rob

[robsmarg]

FJ,

Are you there? Can you answer my questions so I can fix the contacts sync.

Thanks,
Rob

[robsmarg]

Anybody out there?

Can someone please respond?

[Jdville]

Sorry to ask what may be a simple question, but how do I load the Beta client on the phone (Samsung Galaxy 2)? When I follow the link given above for the Beta client, it gives me a zip file with .xml files.

[user_deleted]

@Jdville:
You have to open the link inside your smartphone, not on the PC.

best regards...

[robsmarg]

Can someone please answer my question from November 19th?

[aedmunde]

Can someone please answer my question from November 19th?

Hi, maybe this will help...

1. you can save your contacts from Outlook 2007 to a backup file (google "microsoft outlook 2007 export contacts"). Note that exporting the subfolders (if any) can be done if the destination file is also a .pst type.

2. If you have a massive number of contacts, one of the utility programs that will remove duplicate entries would be a good time-saver/investment. I use this: (www.easy2sync.com for 1-Click-Duplicate-Delete-Outlook)

Then, run the advised procedure as outlined in the previous forum post... worst case you still have your data. (You can also open the folder file and check to verify it)...
-edmund

[robsmarg]

Edmund,

Thanks for your response. I will try it.

I was really hoping that one of the moderators would have responded to my questions.

Rob

[dvhttn]

The easiest way to 'backup' contacts so that a sync using MPE doesn't delete/duplicate any is simply to create a sub-folder under the main contacts folder. MPE lets you select which of these folders to sync. Just copy all of your contacts to this sub-folder and sync away, happy in the knowledge you have a backup.

[aedmunde]

The easiest way to 'backup' contacts so that a sync using MPE doesn't delete/duplicate any is simply to create a sub-folder under the main contacts folder. MPE lets you select which of these folders to sync. Just copy all of your contacts to this sub-folder and sync away, happy in the knowledge you have a backup.

I'd still recommend an external backup. I don't trust Microsoft enough (experience!) to allow them to hold my contacts hostage. ALWAYS make some form of external backup of critical data. AND... Verify it.
(golden rule of data processing).

But, your way IS faster... < grin >

[Jdville]

I also have some duplication issues as the program is crashing before finishing the sync. With the beta, it now at least is solving some of the peripheral problems. If I set my Outlook view to "Phone List" ("View - Current View - Phone List") and then add a "Modified" column heading (right click on column headings bar; click "Field Chooser" - from "All Contact Fields" grab "Modified" and drag it to a the column header bar), sort by Modified to get the most recently "Modified" contacts at the top, and then delete the large group that are all dated at the time you synced (they'll all be on the same date & in a series over the time span that you synced). You can confirm that they're dupes by using "Search Contacts" for the last name - you'll find they are in fact duplicates.

[spile]

I can recommend ODIR a free plugin for Outlook that removes duplicates for calendar and contacts.

[FJ]

Phone - 2,753 contacts
MPE (on laptop) - 3,146 contacts
Outlook - 2,028 contacts

It appears that the most recent notes in Outlook are up to the end of 2008 where the MPE and my phone both have current notes. I can't lose notes anywhere.

I think this is the absolutly worst case of duplicates

I would backup all three databases. After this i would reload the data from phone into MyPhoneExplorer (the second button in toolbar). In case this works i would start to delete the dupes manually

[robsmarg]

FJ,

Thanks for your response, although it was not the one I was looking for.

I think I am going to have to go through all 2,000+ contacts and review the notes in each one to ensure that I have the most recent notes in each record.

This is going to be a long, tedious process. One that I was hoping I would not have to tackle.

Rob

[FJ]

I knwo its really a alot of work but how should a application decide which note is the right one ?

[robsmarg]

I don't know the technical aspects of how that would work. All I know is that MPE was reliable for 6 months and then I woke up one morning and all my contacts on my phone were gone and when I went to sync that is when the dupes occurred and then it has been a disaster since then.

It's too bad because I really thought MPE was working out real well for me until this happened. Now I have countless hours ahead of me trying to clean this up.

Man, this sucks!

[FJ]

I am very sorry

[jesgrid]

hi

Each time during synchronization, your contacts are duplicating and as you have lost notes from Outlook too, i think you can use repair Outlook software, which will not only repair corrupted Outlook but also recover the lost notes. All the contacts can also be retrieved from Outlook.

I have tried Remo Recover software when i have deleted few important notes and contacts accidentally and it worked perfectly okay. You can download the free demo version and give it a try.