Google Contacts Sync won't work unless you enable Google Play Services

[AntiSol]

Hi, I'm trying to use davx5 to sync my carddav and caldav contacts (both on the same server, running radicale) and calendar with my de-googled Android 10 device. I was reading in the documentation that running without google play services is one of davx5's supported use cases. I am trying to use it with the fossify calendar and contacts applications.

When I try to set up my account everything works fine, up until it actually adds the accounts. After probing the server and finding my calendar and address book, I get a notificaiton telling me that I need to enable google play services:

Davx5 says that the account has been added, but:

• When I press the 'sync' button in davx5, nothing seems to happen (and I see no activity in my server logs)
• The davx5 address book is not added in the 'accounts' section of my android settings. If I try to add one, I get the same notification again.
• Pressing 'sync' in the accounts section in android settings doesn't seem to do anything (and I see no activity in my server logs)
• My CalDav account shows up in the fossify calendar, but when I try to sync it from the fossify app, nothing happens (and I see no activity in my server logs).
• Adding a new calendar entry or contact is not synced back to my server.

I also have these accounts set up using davx5 on my older device, running lineageos 14. I have been using this for many years without any problem. Is there some trick to making it work on this Android 10 device without enabling google play services?

Thanks very much for your time (and for davx5)!

[ArnyminerZ]

Hi, some questions.

and I see no activity in my server logs

If you are synchronizing with Google, how can you see server logs? How have you configured it? Have you followed our guide?

If you are not actually trying to sync with Google's servers, what server are you using? Have you installed the app from F-Droid or directly from GitHub? If you are using an alternative client for Play Store such as Aurora, we cannot guarantee that everything is going to work fine.

Sorry for asking so many questions, but this popup is a bit strange 😅

[AntiSol]

Thanks for getting back so quickly.

I am not trying to synchronise with google. As I mentioned I'm trying to synchronise with my radicale server.

I configured it in the same way as I configured the lineageos14 device which has been talking to that server for years without incident: I pointed davx5 at the appropriate url and entered credentials, and davx5 probed the server with a bunch of OPTIONS and PROPFIND requests, and found the carddav and caldav services, and then popped up this message and refused to sync.

I installed both davx5 and the fossify calendat/contacts apps from f-droid. I am not using an alternative google store, just f-droid.

I have disabled (but not yet removed) many google services including google play services. Note that I am not able to disable the google contacts app (I think because it's ap app, not a service? it only has 'force stop' as an option, not 'disable'), but I have disabled the google calendar app. I have not disabled the 'contacts storage' or 'calendar storage' services, pehaps i should disable those?

[AntiSol]

I have not disabled the 'contacts storage' or 'calendar storage' services, pehaps i should disable those?

Disabling these is bad - makes the contacts and calendar entries stored on the phone disappear.

[ArnyminerZ]

As I mentioned I'm trying to synchronise with my radicale server.

Sorry, I misread that.

I am not able to disable the google contacts app

That's strange, I have disabled it on my google-services-phone. But shouldn't cause any problems.

Mmmh that's really strange. Please, can you provide some debug information as shown here. It should be enough if you enable "detailed logging" from the settings, try running the synchronization again, and share the logs with debug information sharing (the first option in settings). That should give you a zip file that you can share here.

Tip

Maybe email it to yourself and attach it here?

You can obfuscate of course any personal information, or if you are not comfortable sharing details here, use the form on our website. We can further help there.

[sunkup]

I am on graphene os (+sandboxed gapps) and started seeing the message myself some days ago. I am not sure whether DAVx5 is triggering the Google Contacts Sync, but for me the actual DAVx5 contacts sync works fine - so I simply disabled the annoying notification. I could probably debug this with my phone ... if I find out how to reenable the notification 😅

[AntiSol]

no problem, I'll give it another shot tomorrow and probably send a log via the support form. thanks.

[AntiSol]

logs submitted via support form, thank you.

[rfc2822]

Had a look at the logs, thanks.

Unfortunately I can't say what the reason of the problem is. The sync jobs are enqueued by DAVx5, should run "in 0 minutes" (according to WorkManager), but they are just not executed by Android / JobScheduler.

2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.settings.SettingsManager]   SharedPreferencesProvider: preferred_tasks_provider = org.dmfs.tasks
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.settings.SettingsManager]   Looked up setting preferred_tasks_provider -> org.dmfs.tasks
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker] Enqueueing unique worker: onetime-sync com.android.calendar bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, tags = [at.bitfire.davdroid.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker, onetime-sync com.android.calendar bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, sync-com.android.calendar bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol]
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker] Enqueueing unique worker: onetime-sync at.bitfire.davdroid.addressbooks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, tags = [at.bitfire.davdroid.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker, onetime-sync at.bitfire.davdroid.addressbooks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, sync-at.bitfire.davdroid.addressbooks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol]
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker] Enqueueing unique worker: onetime-sync org.dmfs.tasks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, tags = [at.bitfire.davdroid.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker, onetime-sync org.dmfs.tasks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, sync-org.dmfs.tasks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol]
2024-10-18 03:10:50 2 [.settings.SettingsManager]   Looking up setting preferred_tasks_provider

2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.settings.SettingsManager]   SharedPreferencesProvider: preferred_tasks_provider = org.dmfs.tasks
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.settings.SettingsManager]   Looked up setting preferred_tasks_provider -> org.dmfs.tasks
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker] Enqueueing unique worker: onetime-sync com.android.calendar bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, tags = [at.bitfire.davdroid.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker, onetime-sync com.android.calendar bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, sync-com.android.calendar bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol]
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker] Enqueueing unique worker: onetime-sync at.bitfire.davdroid.addressbooks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, tags = [at.bitfire.davdroid.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker, onetime-sync at.bitfire.davdroid.addressbooks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, sync-at.bitfire.davdroid.addressbooks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol]
2024-10-18 03:10:42 2 [.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker] Enqueueing unique worker: onetime-sync org.dmfs.tasks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, tags = [at.bitfire.davdroid.sync.worker.OneTimeSyncWorker, onetime-sync org.dmfs.tasks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol, sync-org.dmfs.tasks bitfire.at.davdroid/antisol]
2024-10-18 03:10:50 2 [.settings.SettingsManager]   Looking up setting preferred_tasks_provider

Looks as if Android's job scheduler had a problem. (Although I don't know why it then runs the service detection jobs.)

What is an "A-gold Titan" device? Is Titan_EEA_20221117 a custom ROM? Maybe it's related to that.

[AntiSol]

Looks as if Android's job scheduler had a problem. (Although I don't know why it then runs the service detection jobs.)

Is that running in a different task/app to Davx5? If so, what will the task be? maybe it's just being blocked by my firewall. I've allowed internet access to davx5 but if the sync job is running under some other task it may not have internet access.

What is an "A-gold Titan" device? Is Titan_EEA_20221117 a custom ROM? Maybe it's related to that.

It's the stock Android 10 OS on a Unihertz Titan, not a custom ROM, though as I mentioned I've de-googled it by disabling many google services. But if it was related to that and the same thing is running both the service detection job and the sync job then I would expect the service detection job to not run.