SyncML patch - possibly disasterous for backup/restore

James_Neale 2009-07-08 01:03:18 UTC #1

This is a follow-on post from this and is serious enough to warrant a separate post.

I’m running eGW 1.6001 on Centos 5.2. On July 2, I applied the latest SyncML patch, and tried to sync my Palm using Synthesis client. It didn’t work, but the next day I noticed the patch had updated, so I uninstalled the older, and installed the newer one. (using the instructions on that page)

My next sync attempt was a partial success (phone client need to be set to sync at SyncML 1.2 protocol). It synced calendar but not all of my contacts. On each sync attempt, the phone client logged 2100 out of 2800 contacts had errors and therefore refused to update my phone, and for the remaining 700 contacts it’d duplicate them into my phone, and then back into eGW on next sync etc etc ad infinitum … grrr. duplicates aaaah.

Anyway, this is where the main problem arose.
I have set eGW to autobackup each night. So in order to clear those duplicates etc, I decided to restore an older backup. It was corrupt! Nothing appeared upon restore, all data gone. and I had no admin panel to continue restoring.
I had to drop the mysql table and start from scratch to get it working, the whole eGW install process incl header.inc.php file needed to be done again.

Each backup was corrupt until I reached the 1st July, the night before I’d first done my SyncML patch work. Interestingly the size of the 1st July backup was 1.7 meg, and the next day onwards they were 1.4mb, so I could see SOMETHING was awry

Nothing else happened on my system at that time except the SyncML patching, so I believe
the SyncML patch install/uninstall/update process either allowed corruption of the database or tampered with eGW backup procedure and prevented proper backup.

I should mention that throughout the whole period of time, the live database was fine. It was only the backed-up and then restored databases that were corrupt.

This is a rather serious problem since no one is likely to discover it until they try to restore their data from backup.

Can someone shed some light?

Ralf_Becker_6 2009-07-08 07:08:36 UTC #2

Hi,

gholm schrieb:

This is a follow-on post from
http://www.nabble.com/egroupware-1.6001-%2B-Synthesis-Syncml-%3D-error-403-td23870413s3741.html
this and is serious enough to warrant a separate post.

I’m running eGW 1.6001 on Centos 5.2. On July 2, I applied the latest
http://k.noc.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=8
SyncML patch , and tried to sync my Palm using Synthesis client. It didn’t
work, but the next day I noticed the patch had updated, so I uninstalled the
older, and installed the newer one. (using the instructions on that page)

My next sync attempt was a partial success (phone client need to be set to
sync at SyncML 1.2 protocol). It synced calendar but not all of my contacts.
On each sync attempt, the phone client logged 2100 out of 2800 contacts had
errors and therefore refused to update my phone, and for the remaining 700
contacts it’d duplicate them into my phone, and then back into eGW on next
sync etc etc ad infinitum … grrr. duplicates aaaah.

Anyway, this is where the main problem arose.
I have set eGW to autobackup each night. So in order to clear those
duplicates etc, I decided to restore an older backup. It was corrupt!
Nothing appeared upon restore, all data gone. and I had no admin panel to
continue restoring.
I had to drop the mysql table and start from scratch to get it working, the
whole eGW install process incl header.inc.php file needed to be done again.

Each backup was corrupt until I reached the 1st July, the night before I’d
first done my SyncML patch work. Interestingly the size of the 1st July
backup was 1.7 meg, and the next day onwards they were 1.4mb, so I could see
SOMETHING was awry

Nothing else happened on my system at that time except the SyncML patching,
so I believe
the SyncML patch install/uninstall/update process either allowed corruption
of the database or tampered with eGW backup procedure and prevented proper
backup.

We just started testing with the patch, so I cant say much about it.
I know the backup process and I doubt the patch can temper with it. More
likely you lost what’s missing in the backup with your initial sync and
did not recognise it at that time.

I should mention that throughout the whole period of time, the live database
was fine. It was only the backed-up and then restored databases that were
corrupt.

This is a rather serious problem since no one is likely to discover it until
they try to restore their data from backup.

Can someone shed some light?

The backup is a collection of csv files, have you looked into it?
As it is line based, you should be able to use diff two (unpacked) files.

Ralf

Ralf Becker
Director Software Development

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James_Neale 2009-07-08 08:07:38 UTC #3

I’ll investigate it, but not sure on what I’d be looking for.
The backup files are dramatically different in size from 2nd to 3rd of July so I’m guessing it’d be quite a large difference, or a lot of missing data.

I didn’t miss any data in the initial sync since the live database wasn’t problematic. I was using all areas of eGW that usually do, without problem. I only discovered the corruption upon restore.
When restoring, eGW does a backup at that point automatically…so after checking all the previous nights backups, I went back to this original one… which supposedly represented the data at the point it was working OK when live. It was corrupted as well.

James_Neale 2009-07-14 10:24:20 UTC #4

I couldn’t get any useful data from diff on those data sets, but work piled up so I reset and reentered the data I lost.

I noticed that the SyncML patch had been updated with some Palm changes, so I patched that in onto a default 1.6001 install of eGW…seems to be OK on backup/restore now although I’m not game trying a sync!

Anyway new problem… when I go to view each addressbook contact, I can no longer see the each linked infolog underneath.

I can see them inside the Link tab, but not under the contact listing as I could before.

What can I do to fix this?

Pongracz_Istvan-2 2009-07-14 12:26:20 UTC #5

----------------eredeti üzenet-----------------
Feladó: “gholm” gholm@kajimba.com
Címzett: egroupware-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Dátum: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:24:22 -0700 (PDT)

I couldn’t get any useful data from diff on those data sets, but work
piled
up so I reset and reentered the data I lost.

I noticed that the SyncML patch had been updated with some Palm changes,
so
I patched that in onto a default 1.6001 install of eGW…seems to be OK
on
backup/restore now although I’m not game trying a sync!

Anyway new problem… when I go to view each addressbook contact, I can
no
longer see the each linked infolog underneath.

I can see them inside the Link tab, but not under the contact listing as I
could before.

What can I do to fix this?

Hi,

This problem solved on 2nd in July. Check the changelog here:
http://k.noc.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=8

Depends on how do you use the patch, you can fix your problem.

Cheers,
István

http://www.startit.hu
http://www.ilearningglobal.biz/pongraczi <- self-study

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James_Neale 2009-07-15 01:00:14 UTC #6

I used the patch named “eGroupWare-1.6.001-SyncML-Extensions-20090712.patch.gz” which is the 12th July version and I patched a raw install of 1.6001. (and no obvious errors on install)

The problem is still apparent.

James_Neale 2009-07-18 00:29:38 UTC #7

I patched with the latest “eGroupWare-1.6.001-SyncML-Extensions-20090716.patch.gz” but I still can’t see my infologs underneath each contacts. Only in the links tab.

Any other ideas? It has been broken since I started the SyncML patching.