Duplication after syncing

[JohnS]

Android 4.4.2
MPE 1.8.6

All my contacts were fine and synced fine, however after sending my contacts to my google account within my phone, after I synced again, I now have 3 of most entries in my phone, and in outlook 2013.

If I go to View/Contacts I can see 3 menu items -
All - Now shows 3 items of every contact.
Phone - Shows 1 item of every contact
Google shows 2 items of every contact

and in Outlook of course 3 items of every contact

Ok I can see google should not have 2 items, so is wrong, and something I need to address

But why is MPE syncronising my google contacts with Outlook when I only want to sync my phone contacts?

[JohnS]

Well the temporary fix, was to delete my google account, which then deleted all the contacts under the google account, and then I resynced, which fixed outlook.

and of course not to download my contacts into my google account.

This may be a feature request, but syncing contacts in the phone associated with a with a google account, should avoid duplicates.

[gazzawazza]

Well the temporary fix, was to delete my google account, which then deleted all the contacts under the google account, and then I resynced, which fixed outlook.

and of course not to download my contacts into my google account.

This may be a feature request, but syncing contacts in the phone associated with a with a google account, should avoid duplicates.

hi JohnS

Some thoughts:

1) I sync with outlook 2010 (but deliberately not into my google account i.e. I use my phone's contacts db and a local calendar). You can configure MPE to force outlook to phone - that should keep outlook 'clean'. This does not prevent you syncing stuff from an account to outlook - you just need to keep an eye on what's being requested to be written to outlook.

2) I'm a little curious as to why you would want your list of outlook contacts on both your phone and on google?

I think what's happened is that MPE has synced both locally and to the google account. You can control which accounts you sync with in the MPE client on your phone. I would suggest that you DON'T sync locally to your phone. That should then mean that you are simply communicating between your google and outlook accounts.

3) Regarding why you have 2 sets of contacts in google. Has the sync from outlook (to google) joined an existing contact list in google?

I think you need (touching on my first point) to decide on a master list for contacts, etc, and then always sync from there to the destination account. This should not prevent new or amended contacts from passing in both directions but it should 'protect' outlook a bit more (assuming you make outlook your masterlist).

Sorry if my logic is askew or I've missed something - I'm a bit tired. What I said made sense to me!

I think the duplication is occurring because you're pushing unique contacts in both directions. If all your existing contacts are already in outlook, then 'push' your contacts from outlook into google (having deleted all your google contacts), which should then mean that you're replicating your outlook contacts solely. Any further changes, either on outlook or google, should either overwrite or create new entries, either in outlook or in your google contacts (and hopefully no duplicates).



Regards,

Gary

[dvhttn]

... I think you need (touching on my first point) to decide on a master list for contacts, etc, and then always sync from there to the destination account. This should not prevent new or amended contacts from passing in both directions but it should 'protect' outlook a bit more (assuming you make outlook your masterlist). ...

This! By synchronising 2 sets of contacts in all directions you're creating a perfect storm ... Have one master list and sync against this. So. say you use OL for that (as I do, then sync OL with your phone and OL with Google. But do not sync Google with your phone and then sync in the other directions.

[gazzawazza]

... I think you need (touching on my first point) to decide on a master list for contacts, etc, and then always sync from there to the destination account. This should not prevent new or amended contacts from passing in both directions but it should 'protect' outlook a bit more (assuming you make outlook your masterlist). ...

This! By synchronising 2 sets of contacts in all directions you're creating a perfect storm ... Have one master list and sync against this. So. say you use OL for that (as I do, then sync OL with your phone and OL with Google. But do not sync Google with your phone and then sync in the other directions.

I think you're agreeing with me?

Also, would syncing OL with phone AND with google not generate two sets of contacts (assuming you only synced contacts for both)?

[gazzawazza]

Well the temporary fix, was to delete my google account, which then deleted all the contacts under the google account, and then I resynced, which fixed outlook.

and of course not to download my contacts into my google account.

This may be a feature request, but syncing contacts in the phone associated with a with a google account, should avoid duplicates.

How to configure syncing:

MPE / File / settings / sync

then choose one of the "advanced" buttons to configure the relevant sync.

Hoped using the Img tag would allow me to embed a photo of where / what to select but it didn't seem to work (for me anyway).

This link should pop open a .png photo.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9oDPR ... sp=sharing



Cheers,

Gary

[FJ]

In the settings of MPE Client on the phone you can limit which contact accounts should be synced. The setting is called "Contact accounts to sync"

[JohnS]

Yes I realise that syncing with Google was a mistake, but I was thinking about all settings and apps at the time.

To me it was like another backup, as I need to sync both ways between phone and Outlook, as I quite often add things to the phone, while out and about.

a) Deleting the goggle account and re-syncing did not work - of course.

It did work in so much that after deletion I was able to force phone to outlook and fix all the double entries.

However as soon as I added my google account back it resynced all the contacts backed up to my google account, but as I was forcing outlook to phone, then my contacts in outlook remained clean .

b) So I deleted all Google Account contacts in Google and the phone.

Also did not work, because the MPE had synced those accounts and still had a copy, and when I forced Outlook to Phone - it also restored all my google contacts as well.

Then I made a mistake and deleted the contacts in MPE - of course I was sitting on ALL contacts and not just the Google Contacts so upon sync, MPE proceeded to delete all contacts in the phone, irrespective of the fact I was still forcing Outlook to Phone.

Because I was not forcing MPE to phone, I think the software should have restored the contacts, I had deleted in MPE, from Outlook. Anyway, as I did not let it fully run, I am not sure whether it would have righted itself. I was too worried about losing all contacts.

In the end I just started again
1) Deleted all Google Contacts in web page
2) Deleted all Google Contacts in phone
3) Uninstalled MPE totally, including any registry settings, phone details, etc - Thank You "Comodo software"
3) Reinstalled MPE and started all again.

Lesson learned

I think there may be a little hole in MPE though, based on the google account.
I have not fully thought it through, but settings that relate directly with google account contacts and syncing may be needed.

for example MPE actually syncs the google contacts with outlook although that is never actually specified anywhere.

On an Android phone you can have (on mine anyway)
All Contacts.
Google account contacts
Sim contacts
Phone Contacts

Again remembering I need to sync both ways, and although I would not mind Sim and Phone being synced back to Outlook I may not want to sync my google account contacts back, and if I did I would not want duplicates.

At the moment I have no choice, as MPE will take any contacts in the phone and sync them with outlook if I am syncing both ways.

Possibly settings based on your google account are required, or recognition of duplicates.

[JohnS]

In the settings of MPE Client on the phone you can limit which contact accounts should be synced. The setting is called "Contact accounts to sync"

OK well that helps my situation where it does not matter or I don't need the Google account syncing.

Thank you - already changed.