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Address Book sync a mess since upgrading RU server

Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 8:23:55 am EDT
Support level: Starter
I recently upgraded my client (6.10.8) and RU server (2.7.8) to the latest version. When I clicked on a connection in my address book,  it disappeared. I checked my server address book and the connection was still there. So I deleted the synced address book ( I tried in the client GUI and manually from the folder) on my client and re-added it. The connection is still missing on my client address book, but does exists on the RU server address book (see attached images).

To make matters worse I tried using previous version (6.10.5) of the client  running on my laptop. When I try to connect to the RU server it does not work. If I look in the event log in the client I see it failed with a socket error and a stack dump is generated.

All of this used to work perfectly until I updated to version 2.7.8 of the RU server.
Attached Files
Address Book sync a mess since upgrading RU server Address Book sync a mess since upgrading RU server
Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 8:33:40 am EDT
Support level: Starter
The laptop running 6.10.5 was a connection issue , but now its having the same issue with the missing connection entry that exists in the server address book but not on the clients after the RU server upgrade.
Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 8:37:38 am EDT
Support level: Starter
I just tried uninstalled RU 2.7.8 and re-installing 2.7.6 but the issue is still there. Whatever the 2.7.8 upgrade did to the RU server address book seems to have stuck  around with the uninstall.
Pauline, Support (Posts: 2872)
Apr 16, 2019 8:47:25 am EDT
Hello Steven,

Thank you for your message.

We will try to reproduce the issue and will get back to you today.

Could you please also clarify which module of Remote Utilities you updated first?

When you update Remote Utilities, please make sure that Viewer and Host/Agent are the same versions. Please note, that version mismatch between Viewer and Host/Agent may lead to performance issues and some features not working. Also, if you use the self-hosted server (RU Server) update it to the most recent version too.

Looking forward to your reply.
Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 8:53:52 am EDT
Support level: Starter
I got the address book sync working again by uninstalling 2.7.8,  reinstalling 2.7.6 then restoring a previous version of my /data folder (which has all my config and address book info).

This verifies the problem is the RU 2.7.8 update. Both clients 6.10.5 & 6.10.8 seem to be OK now that I went back to the previous version of the RU server.
Conrad Sallian, Support (Posts: 3061)
Apr 16, 2019 9:03:31 am EDT
Hello Steven,

We have just quickly tested a scenario where we updated Viewer, then (without doing a sign in on the server) updated server, then signed in on the server and got the address book synced normally. There were no issues.

Now we are testing different scenarios, e.g. updating server first, Viewer second, and with different sign in states. That is why we asked in which sequence you updated the modules. Perhaps, the order was different in your scenario and we could thus try to reproduce it.

Looking forward to your reply.
Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 9:23:58 am EDT
Support level: Starter
In this case the client and host were not the issue. The address book entries just started to disappear when I clicked on them.  

I try to keep the client and host versions in sync, but its not easy because the client will prompt for an update regardless of the host versions on the backed.  Since the client is the main interface it usually gets updated first. I have 50 connections in different locations so updating the host first is a challenge.

In this case the client got updated first, then the RU server.  The connection that got deleted was an older version (6.10.5) of the host software.
Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 9:52:56 am EDT
Support level: Starter
I did a compare against the address book xml file the had the missing connection issue before and after the upgrade. It looks this could be a permission issue as a result of changes made to the address book by the 2.7.8 upgrade.

See the attached screenshots images of the windiff of the files. The left side is the 2.7.6 version of the address book. The right side is the same address book after the 2.7.8 update. It appears the 2.7.8 update made some changes to the address book that may have caused the account I was using to lose access to the connection entry.
Attached Files
Address Book sync a mess since upgrading RU server Address Book sync a mess since upgrading RU server
Conrad Sallian, Support (Posts: 3061)
Apr 16, 2019 10:45:28 am EDT
Hi Steven,

I try to keep the client and host versions in sync, but its not easy because the client will prompt for an update regardless of the host versions on the backed.

This can be disabled in Viewer Options -> Update. Besides, the update is never mandatory, the program just notifies you that a new version is available but it's always up to you whether to update or not.

In this case the client got updated first, then the RU server. The connection that got deleted was an older version (6.10.5) of the host software.

The Host version shouldn't be affecting the sync mechanism in any way. An address book record is just a record, its contents doesn't really affect how the sync mechanism works. We tried the same update order but didn't notice any issues.

See the attached screenshots images of the windiff of the files. The left side is the 2.7.6 version of the address book. The right side is the same address book after the 2.7.8 update. It appears the 2.7.8 update made some changes to the address book that may have caused the account I was using to lose access to the connection entry.

Yes, this is interesting. Could you tell me how exactly you set permissions for that book? Did you enable full access to the entire address book at the top level or was it more granular (folder- or even connection-based)? The more details the better - this will help us better reproduce the problem if it's somehow related to permissions.

Looking forward to your reply.
Steven Coleman, User (Posts: 21)
Apr 16, 2019 11:15:05 am EDT
Support level: Starter
The permissions are more gradual per folder. However the admin account I was using does have permission to everything. I can share the two address books with you if that helps.

BTW... I upgraded the RU Server back to 2.7.8 and so far I have not lost the same connection entries from the address books that was a problem before.

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