sync with outlook created dups

[dmahling]

Hi,

I am synchronizing my tasks between outlook and UR. I have a folder called TASKS that has my outlook tasks as URL. Every time I sync i adds another copy of the tasks. Why?

Dirk

[kinook]

Apparently the Outlook task's URL/GUID (unique identifier of an Outlook object and what UR uses to match up the same item when syncing) is changing between syncs (compare the URL attribute of the duplicate items in UR). I'm not sure what would cause Outlook to do that, but I think a couple other users have reported something similar (after moving items in Outlook IIRC). In order for UR to properly identify the same task when syncing, Outlook needs to keep the task's URL/GUID the same.

[dmahling]

I am using the GTD plugin for outlook. I aslo add a REFERENCE field in UR to the task template. So you have some fields that are unique for UR and OL. Maybe that creates new instances?

[kinook]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'add a REFERENCE field in UR to the task template,' but UR will never change a synced Outlook item's GUID. It's possible that an Outlook GTD add-in/plugin could be changing it, I suppose. The Outlook item's URL/GUID is actually the PR_ENTRYID (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms527627(VS.85).aspx) property, which should never change, but apparently sometimes does.

[dmahling]

I ran a little experiment. I switched off all GTD plugin fields. Created just one task in OL. synced. comes over. synced again. now I have 2 of the same in OL. synched again. now I have two of the same in UR. sync again. 3 in OL etc etc.
obviously the URL gets warped. but how?

[dmahling]

I just checked; both tasks have the same URL! so the URL does not change, still UR keeps adding the same task with the same URL every sync.

[kevina]

I assume you have a folder item in Ultra Recall that corresponds to a "tasks" folder in Outlook.

You then create a new task in this folder in Outlook, then sync this folder with the linked "Tasks" folder in Ultra Recall and a new linked (or stored) task is created in Ultra Recall. So far as expected.

You then sync the "Tasks" folder item in Ultra Recall (again), and another duplicate task is created in Outlook. If you then sync the "Tasks" folder item in Ultra Recall yet again, it then creates a matching duplicate task item in Ultra Recall. This behavior continues as you continue syncing in Ultra Recall?

This is certainly not expected or intended, nor can we guess what could possibly cause it since duplicate outlook urls should always be identified/handled...

Please create a new .urd file, then do the same steps to recreate the issue by creating duplicate Info Items with identical Outlook url values. Zip and email this .urd file, as well as the info from Help | About | Install Info, to support@kinook.com for our analysis.

If I have misunderstood the situation, please provide more detail so we can assist further.

[dmahling]

OK sending the zip file right now.
Observation:
as the sync happens the message identifying the synced item shows to different paths;
First the sync paths start with Mailbox://...
then sync goes thru the list again but without the Mailbox prefix in the path.

[kinook]

The URLs are not actually the same:

just one task

first:
outlook:EF000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA744 502700

second:
outlook:00000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA707 0083BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E558AA0000 83BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E5AF9E0000

third:
outlook:EF000000198262C0AA6611CD9BC800AA002FC45A06 0005000100000000E558AA0400000006666401


second task in OL GTD

first:
outlook:EF000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA764 502700

second:
outlook:00000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA707 0083BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E558AA0000 83BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E5AF9D0000

third:
outlook:EF000000198262C0AA6611CD9BC800AA002FC45A06 0005000100000000E558AA0400000006666402


third OL task

first:
outlook:EF000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA704 522700

second:
outlook:00000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA707 0083BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E558AA0000 83BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E5AF9C0000

third:
outlook:EF000000198262C0AA6611CD9BC800AA002FC45A06 0005000100000000E558AA0400000006666403


I doubt it will help for this problem, but I highly recommending updating to the latest version of UR (v3.2.6).

[dmahling]

OK, installed 3.2.6.
behavior still the same.

again from the top.

1. create a task in OL
2. I sync to UR
3. task appears in UR
4. I sync again; no changes to original task in OL or UR
5. OL now has two tasks.

Why? How to make UR stop putting dups into OL?

[kevina]

It sounds like one of two problems is occuring:
1) Ultra Recall is not obtaining a immutable (permanent) PR_ENTRYID value for the contact when you initially import/link it into Ultra Recall. When you later sync the item, it doesn't find the corresponding task in Outlook, so it consequently recreates the task (since the url it stored does not actually match that in Outlook).
2) Ultra Recall is obtaining the correct PR_ENTRYID value from Outlook when the item is imported/linked into Ultra Recall, but Outlook is later changing the PR_ENTRYID so the relationship (via the stored url attribute value in UR) is no longer valid.

If the problem is # 1 above, you should get exponentially increasing duplicates as you continue to sync (1,2,4,8...) and there may or may not be anything we can do about it (we will research further).

If the problem is #2, we can't fix Ultra Recall to address the problem since Outlook is changing the PR_ENTRYID value, which is a showstopper.

One thing you can do to test is use the Windows Linker (free) utility from Team Scope: https://kinook.com/Download/LinkerForWindowsSetup.exe Download and install, then choose the Outlook GUID format, then select the task in Outlook, and use the Linker tool to paste the "url" somewhere (maybe notepad). Then import the task into Ultra Recall, and finally compare the url attribute value of the imported tasks in Ultra Recall to the "url" saved in notepad.

If they are the same, then it would appear that Outlook is later changing the url for task (you can confirm by syncing the task in UR then using the Linker tool to re-obtain the "url" value. If it is different than Outlook changed the value).

If they are different than the issue must be #1 above.

[dmahling]

the sync seems to use two different paths.

for an item called Task1 I can see the following messages:

first: Outlook://Mailbox - Dirk Mahling/Tasks/URD Synch Tasks/Task1

then: Task1

thus resulting in 2 items in OL

[dmahling]

1. GUID for task1 in OL
<p><a href='Outlook:00000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2 AFA7070083BA6989657ED846B8C50E0056E6CCDF000000E558 AA0000DC45CF376AAF6B4FAC50E10585C6F70F000006666404 0000'>task1 in OL</a></p>



2. Sync into UR
outlook:EF000000EBFB679DB21F58408E3E146FC0D2AFA744 792700

the UR "url" is much shorter but seems to be a subset of the OL "url". Is there a switch in UR that governs URL sizes/representations?

[kinook]

1) Exit UR
2) Download and extract http://www.kinook.com/Download/URDebug.zip to the UR installation path
3) Start Windows Explorer and navigate to/double-click C:\Program Files\UltraRecall\UltraRecallDbg.exe to start UR
4) Create a new database in UR, add a URL attribute to the Tasks item with the URL of your Outlook Tasks folder (typically Outlook://Personal Folders/Tasks)
5) Record the Outlook task's GUID using Windows Linker
6) Sync the Tasks item in UR
7) Record the Outlook tasks' (for the original and new task) GUIDs using Windows Linker
6) ZIP and send to support@kinook.com:
a) %TEMP%\ks_trace.txt (literally type %TEMP% into a Windows Explorer address bar to navigate there)
b) the .urd file from above
c) a screen shot capture of Outlook showing the Tasks list
d) the before/after GUIDs as recorded above
e) the version+SP of Outlook being used

Thanks.

[dmahling]

Thanks for the instructions. The file was sent this morning. Enjoy. Hope to hear from you soon and thanks for the prompt, competent, and courteous support.

[inkognito]

i've encountered similar problems.
my system is:
exchange 2003, ol2003 on a terminal server and ol2003 on local machine ur on local machine, local machine running win xp.

after playing around w/ the settings i could track down most of the issue.

i switched my outlook to exchange cache mode. after that i could sync folders w/o duplicates after resyncing again.

the only duplicate that occures is when creating an infoitem in ur then syncing twice. the new created item comes up in ur twice. in ol only once.
after deleting the new item in ur, keeping the resynced second item. no more duplicates show up.
new created items in ol coming up only once in ur.

conclusion. ol-folder-sync works as long as u add new items in ol only, changeing items in ol and or ur works fine.

now i can use ol-syncing :)

[Chuck Chunder]

Have exact same experience as inkognito but can shed some extra light:

Created Task "Dog" in UR
Sync UR Task folder with OL
Matching long URLs ending E0000 (see zipped text file) - much longer than URLs of Tasks created in OL

2nd sync resulted in duplicate Task creation in UR
Original UR task and OL task retain matching URL (UR1 & OL1). Duplicate task in UR gains shorter URL (same length as Tasks created in OL):
EF00000008D4D2135DCCD511B3C2000255C834D9447D8D00

On 2nd Sync, the Item Attributes for the two tasks are quite different (see zipped UR1 and UR2 jpgs). UR2 looks like other tasks sync'd from OL. UR1 has less fields.

On 3rd Sync, the URL's remain unchanged but the Item Attributes of UR2 change slightly (see UR2_3.jpg).

Other points:
- After creating a UR Task, if only the Task is sync'd with OL rather than the whole UR Task folder, the duplicate is not created and the Item Attributes remain similar to UR1 above. But once the whole UR Task folder is sync'd, the duplicate then appears with additional atttributes like UR2.
- Disconnecting from Exchange Server (pull cable out) does not prevent duplicate creation (so duplicate apparantly not the result of syncs with both the server and local copy of Task)
- Permantly deleting in UR a duplicate with a short URL e.g. UR2, results in re-creation of the duplicate on sync with OL. The recreated duplicate gets its exact same original short URL.
- Permantly deleting in UR a duplicate with a long URL e.g. UR1, gets rid of the UR duplicate once and for all. The reamining short URL UR Task e.g. UR2 stays sync'd with the long URL Task in OL, and changes made to either side are reflected on re-sync.

Any help?

Using Outlook 2003 with Exchange Server Cache Mode and UR 3.2.6

[kinook]

It appears that Outlook is reporting different GUIDs. Could you try disabling Cache Mode and see if it makes a difference?

[Chuck Chunder]

Disabling Cache Exchange still resulted in duplicate Tasks, with different (length) URLs:

outlook:EF000000198262C0AA6611CD9BC800AA002FC45A06 0006000600000000B400D0010000001F3CB8D4

outlook:0000000008D4D2135DCCD511B3C2000255C834D907 009DF59A3097B1D511B3A1000255C834D9000000B400D00000 41B1AE351D9AA145852D836AB5F86C5700001F3CB8D40000