I’ve been having problems with my contacts. CardDAV simply won’t work normally in eM Client.
Tried full uninstall, sync, manual import. No help.
My contacts work fine on Iphone and desktop Betterbrid.
Both manual import and CardDAV sync (update, add, remove etc - all works).
However, eM Client won’t sync more than about 10% of contacts (80) and when I try manual import, it complains:
“One of the identified items was in invalid format”
However, those same imoprts work perfectly fine on Betterbird (and iphone - and Nextcloud for that matter, though the latest Nextcloud update is buggy, but that’s a separate issue).
So I suppose it is something with eM Client.
Did anyone else face this problem and is there a fix?
Relja
Fixed it: 
Uploaded the existing contacts .vcf export into MXroute-managed stable Nextcloud instance (working via Crossbox).
Downloaded those contacts from that Nextcloud (exported them).
Imported those (newly-exported via Nextcloud) contacts into MXroute’s CardDAV service.
Synced and worked like a charm.
Also, the MXroute’s Nextcloud instance syncs nicely, but I will stay away from Nextcloud for now, just in case - colour me conservative.
1 Like
I was early to cheer. Sigh.
I can update/edit contacts in other applications and they get synced.
But trying to edit a contact in eM Client gives this error and doesn’t sync.
Very frustrating.
Aaand - it’s back to working.
Not really sure what went on there.
Betterbird and Iphone have been working fine all the time.
Looks like some local cache problem then, perhaps - or a different way it authenticates to the CardDAV server so it doesn’t always get to write.
Will see how it fares over the following days.
Edit: saw right now - the problem still exists.
Betterbird syncs without any problems, only eM Client has that bug. 
Apart from that, eM Client is pretty awesome - but I hope this contact bug doesn’t keep repeating.
Based on my further testing and troubleshooting:
It seems that Em Client doesn’t play well with Radicale CardDAV, but works perfectly fine with Nextcloud CardDAV.
That is the only explanation I can find for the behaviour I’ve seen.
Betterbird and iPhone play nicely with either of those, but not the Em Client.
That’s not all:
Apparently, somewhere during the previous months, my Nextcloud contact list got some entries that are a bit different, in some way. How and why? No idea. I couldn’s find the culprit.
So, even with stable Nextcloud instance hosted by MXroute, Em Client complained about some entries (roughly about 5%).
I ended up manually trying to edit/update and save each contact in Em Client - and delete those that Em Client complained about (see the screenshot photo above). Then, I would re-create the same contact within Em Client. After this, those contacts would sync nicely with both Em Client and other clients and gadgets.
As a man falling from a ten storey building can say: so far, so good. Smile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7GP3l5znc8
For now, I’ve got the same number of contacts recognized by Nextcloud, Iphone, Betterbird and Em Client. All of those sync and update each way nicely. MXroute-managed Nextcloud instance should hopefully be stable enough (without taking my time and effort to secure and update the damn thing).
Relja SoFarSoGood Novović
See @mgrant post extract below from the following thread on Radicale.
https://forum.emclient.com/t/caldav-and-carddav-setup/95911/2
I figured this out. I was using the incorrect URL. The URLs for Radicale look something like this:
https://myhost.com/radicale/myusername/12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890ab/
I had to create this by going to https://myhost.com/radicale/ and log in to the webpage. I had to create separate calendar and contacts and add 2 separate accounts.
This was a fully managed Radicale, so I used the link as provided by the provider.
Also, that link worked without problems for Betterbird (on desktop) and on Iphone.
edit: Yes, that is the Radicale link format - that is correct. I did use a format matching that system.
Update:
Em Client is probably the best email client I’ve used so far - the apparently small tweaks in its UI/UX save time, and “mental energy” on a daily basis.
The address book problem was probably on my end, Em Client just made it more obvious (before it is too late I should add).
Now, this is still not article-ready (I have a lot more questions than answers), but I’m writing it down on my Q&A platform. IT helps me think, figure things out, write articles once it’s sorted out, and it may help other users even as it is (still relatively raw).
Possible problem cause for my initial contacts mess:
https://www.bikegremlin.net/threads/em-client-deduplication-carddav-bug.660/#post-2804
Managed Nextcloud provider peculiarities and prices compared (what I’ve tested so far):
https://www.bikegremlin.net/threads/nextcloud-providers-compared.663/
