Exporting contacts from People to AppSupport apps does not work

Bug Reports
1

REPRODUCIBILITY: Always
OS VERSION: 5.2
HARDWARE: Jolla Phone 2
UI LANGUAGE: English(UK)
REGRESSION: Unknown

DESCRIPTION:

After importing my contacts into People, I was checking that I’d be able to export them later, but that completely fails. The only useful options seem to be Android apps (i.e. no direct VCF file export), so I tried “Save as” (from Fossify File Manager) and “Contacts” (from Fossify Contacts), but nothing happens. If I start their respective Android apps first, then Fossify File Manager appears & says “An unknown error occured”, while Fossify Contacts appears but says nothing.

(I haven’t tried using the Terminal method yet, but that’s irrelevant here.)

PRECONDITIONS:

Some contacts in the People app. You will need a suitable Android app installed, I had Fossify File Manager & Fossify Contacts installed from F-Droid. AppSupport must be enabled of course.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. From the People app, use the top menu to “Select contacts”.
  2. Tap multiple contacts.
  3. Tap on the Share icon in the bottom right.
  4. Optionally make sure the relevant Android app is running in the background.
  5. Choose the relevant Android app from the “Share contact” menu. (“Save as” with the green Fossify File Manager icon, or “Contacts” with the green Fossify Contacts icon.)

EXPECTED RESULT:

I expected the relevant Android app to open & ask me what to do with the shared VCF file.

ACTUAL RESULT:

Nothing happens if the Android app was not already running (i.e. the Android app is not started). But if I had already started the relevant Android app, then Fossify File Manager says “An unknown error occured”, while Fossify Contacts appears but says nothing.

MODIFICATIONS:

Nothing that seems likely to be relevant (a few basic apps from Chum & Storeman, but I am really trying to avoid those as much as possible).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

I can’t think of anything useful that I could provide, but let me know if I should provide anything.

2

Exporting contacts definitely works. This is how I have done it:

  1. From the People app, use the top menu to “Select contacts”.
  2. Top Menu “Select all contacts”
  3. Tap on the Share icon in the bottom right.
  4. Export VCF file via Mail / Cloud.
  5. Use the VCF file to import it in your preferred target app
3

When needed I use vcf file from inside of a backup generated from Settings.

1 Like
4

That sounds like a non-Android option, and so (as I suspected) it’s exporting to AppSupport that is broken. I’ve updated the title of this bug report.

I don’t have the Mail app installed on SfOS, so I don’t have that option, but it doesn’t sound useful for my needs (creating a VCF file).

5

You can share it to anywhere, would imagine you can share the VCF file to somewhere? Just a personal thought, but as the contacts are at native side and only somehow mirrored for android side, I would imagine that you need to also export the contacts from native side? As there really isn’t contact book on android side, as it isn’t actual android, could it be that it isn’t even intended to work? Personally I would be quite happy if android apps can’t export my contacts even if I’m able to utilise them on AAS side

6

I don’t wish to be mean, but most of your reply is wrong:

I am exporting contacts from the native (SfOS) side.

There is an contacts list on the Android side, as it is actually most of Android. And yes it is intended to work:

(Screenshot shows several Android apps, never mind that Jolla would not have gone to all the trouble to list compatible Android apps for sharing if they didn’t want it to work.)

That’s not relevant here, and more to the point it’s an option you can disable in Settings > AppSupport > Make contacts available to Android app.

7

What I meant is that AAS isn’t full blown android. And to my understanding contacts are just mirrored to AAS side, not handled there in any way. So what I meant, that maybe the mirror can’t be exported as the contact list in android side isn’t handled by contact book app or whatever and the files actually are on native side?

My understanding was that you wanted to export contacts completely on AAS side? I don’t know how exactly the contacts are mirrored to android side, but the android apps trying to export the contacts might get lost as the files are actually stored on native side, which the AAS side is not able to access. Even if you can share from native side from GUI to android apps, I imagine that actual export is done in native side and then the integration to AAS just moves that file to android side. So while sure the AAS can see contact list, the actual files probably haven’t been made copied as a duplicate to AAS side.

8

Once again, I consider the separation of sensitive data from AAS a feature, not something to be fixed.

2 Likes
9

Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about. I have created multiple calendars on the Android side of AAS.

Your replies are just wild speculation based on guesses & misunderstandings.

10

Can you then point me to right direction, currently I haven’t seen anything that says otherwise? Don’t really know what you mean regarding the calendar as it is quite different from phone contacts. I’m sure it is possible to install at least most android calendar apps and link them to web calendars without problems.

I’m mostly talking about how contacts are handled in SFOS and all my knowledge related to it comes from this forum, Jolla employees and their documentation. But I can always misremember or I might have misunderstood. As said behind your link, exporting contacts are intended to be done from native side. I didn’t find any mentions that it is intented to work from android side. It definitely possible to browse contacts at AAS side, but haven’t seen anything suggesting that export from that side is designed to work