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bprater's avatar
bprater
Copper Contributor
Jun 18, 2019

Duplicate Contacts with Save Contacts option Outlook iOS

Hi All, my firm has recently migrated to o365 and are still rolling out, we're having some huge issues with regards to people personal contacts syncing from Outlook iOS to Native contacts,

 

Scenario:

We enable the Save Contacts option.  Outlook app then saves a copy of the contacts to the users iCloud account, that then syncs to their local device.   

 

The Problem:

Many of our users, mainly the senior ones who have x thousands of contacts  2-7k contacts when they enable this setting either have 1 or 2 or all 3 of the following issues.

1) Not all their contacts sync, the client gives up and becomes extremely slow even leaving for a day /night.

 

2) Duplicates, triplets or quadruplets of contacts all with the same information appear.. have many screenshots. 

3)The contacts that successfully sync to the local device have a note in under their emailed address called Outlook and links to the person in the outlook app. The address starts like this ms-outlook://people/<random number>. Well, these links do not link to the correct user in the outlook app.  e.g clicking Joe Blogs Outlook link -  opens the Outlook app and links to John Doe. 

 

Troubleshooting Tried

1) Disable Save Contacts wait for them all to remove form iCLoud then re-enable.

2) Try Reset sync from within the app ( never works)

3) Exported users contacts into a clear test account and a clean new device.. all the above problem still exists... its truly a phoneme.

 

 

I've opened a ticket with Microsoft and has been open for over 1 month, and still waiting on any helpful response from them.

 

 

Any advice, this issue is becoming out of hand.

 

Thanks 

 

  • I noticed the same behavior only in following cases:

    - parallel contact sync with Outlook Mobile and native iOS mail app.

    - user toggled "Save Contacts" several times. But after going to "Help and Support" > Delete contacts and enabling "save contacts" only once everything was normal.

     

    So, frankly speaking, all issues of multiple contacts was caused by impatient users or first line support.

    • bprater's avatar
      bprater
      Copper Contributor

      Thanks Alexander Vanyurikhin   it seems that even with patients and applying these steps doesn't work, the test account I have set up so I actively reproduce the error fails continuously even when all contacts are gone locally and from iCloud apply the save contacts, it will holt at 200 contacts or 1700 with duplicates or some other random number. 

       

      Going to keep trying other methods, but I feel there's a flaw in the system somewhere, and frankly surprised no one else is having these issues..so make me think something we could be applying to our categories that could cause confusion in sync.

      • Kim_F1940's avatar
        Kim_F1940
        Copper Contributor
        Don’t feel a lone. I too have the exact same problem and have tried to Google a solution and have tried many suggestions/steps for months with no success. Microsoft really? There must be a glitch in you system
  • Sofianeda1st's avatar
    Sofianeda1st
    Iron Contributor

    Hello bprater 

    Thank you for the share of these information.

    We've now Outlook for iOS version: 4.0.0 and we don't have issues as you mentionned in your post. 

    My question is: do you still have the same issues or they're solved now & how please ?

    My 2nd question is: How  we could sync iPhone contacts with Outlook please? Is there a procedure ?  

    • bprater's avatar
      bprater
      Copper Contributor

      Sofianeda1st  The problem overtime has fixed its self, there where particular users who continued to have problems because their iCloud account continuously had corporate contacts that would never be removed for outlook.

       

      We fixed this by going to iCloud exporting their entire iCloud, then deleting all contacts and then pushing contacts back to iCloud from iPhone it's been a very long-winded messy process.

  • Hello bprater, I was facing the same issue on my iPhone. Had some contacts 4x in my contact list. Very annoying if you ask me! After reading your post and trying your steps it did not work out straight away. But hitting multiple times the "Help & Feedback > Delete all Saved Contacts" option did the job! I was back to an empty Contacts list. Enabled the setting again for sync Contacts to iOS and done. Thanks, great solution. 

    • Conan Javier's avatar
      Conan Javier
      Copper Contributor

      Bram de Jager 

       

      The issue is still around for some of my users, we don't have icloud contacts enabled at all just Outlook and we are getting the duplicate issue even though within outlook there is only 1 of each.  On the duplicates i've noticed some are just email some are just phone number and some are all of the above, any thoughts on any other methods that might help fix this?

      • Bram de Jager's avatar
        Bram de Jager
        MVP
        Seems I'm back at duplicates again... But I have switched to a new phone. Both phones had sync turned on. I believe that did not help solve my issue. 😞
    • Gembrain's avatar
      Gembrain
      Brass Contributor
      I get back to an empty list this way no problem - have done it several times!
      I have a second device (ipad) which is all set up correctly to NOT save contacts but after a few days or maybe a week I’m back to duplicates.
      Has it stayed fixed for you, and do you have linked iCloud devices?
      Thanks

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