Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

If Zimbra Desktop had a sync failure, it may have told you to post your error in this section.
britechguy
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by britechguy »

That's really the question.
I've noticed that a number of issues have been brought up, repeatedly, over time and there never seems to be a resolution nor is there any input indicating that the problem is acknowledged and that it is being worked on.
I really like the Zimbra Desktop client, but will be unable to keep using it if I have to keep cleaning up after hundreds of zdesktop error reports per day that "Google Address book synchronization failed."

This function isn't "an extra" for any e-mail client, but is a core function that really must work correctly.  There are reports going back to last year, at least, on this error and not an inkling of whether or when it might be addressed.  Does anyone know whether it's being looked at and, if so, when a patch/fix might be coming out?

Brian
z000
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by z000 »

I doubt it. zimbra customer support seems like garbage. Hardly any comments, hardly any help. I think they either ignore them, or they are woefully under staffed
phoenix
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by phoenix »

[quote user="z000"]I doubt it. zimbra customer support seems like garbage.[/quote]This isn't Zimbra Customer Support, these are Community support forums not official Zimbra support - any help you get here is given by people that post here in their free time (even Zimbra staff). If you have a problem or bug to report then either file a bug report or contact Zimbra Support )if you are a Network Edition customer).
Regards

Bill

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jorgedlcruz
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by jorgedlcruz »

Hi z000,
I'm work at Zimbra and I'm always reading all the forums, sometimes I'm replying if I can help, and other times I only wait for the rest of the Community answers. The thing with Zimbra Desktop, or the rest of products of Zimbra Open Source, is that are built to work with other Zimbra items, like for example Zimbra Desktop works perfect with Zimbra Collaboration, even if Zimbra Collaboration is in a new version.
Also, like phoenix said, this is a Community, if you find a bug or error like this, please feel free to open a bug in Bugzilla - https://bugzilla.zimbra.com/enter_bug.cgi , add all the info that you can:logs, etc, and let us know in the thread in the Forums, the number of the Bug, so other people can vote for it, and finally the Zimbra team can follow the bug and, maybe fix it.
Waiting for the bug number here.
Best regards
Jorge de la Cruz https://jorgedelacruz.es
Systems Engineer at Veeam Software https://www.veeam.com/
britechguy
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by britechguy »

I think that most of us know that this isn't a formal mechanism for communication with Zimbra Customer Support, but as has been noted indirectly there is no formal mechanism for Zimbra Desktop users to contact Zimbra, other than bugzilla, and it's utterly unrealistic to believe that most end users know how to use it or even know it exists.



I've worked with a lot of open source software, and for most of it where a formal technical support contact mechanism doesn't exist someone, or several someones "on the inside" are generally keeping an eye on what's being posted on forums such as this one. It is, in fact, the primary way of learning about bugs or problems users are experiencing.



What people have been repeatedly reporting about sync issues between Zimbra and several well-known third-party e-mail providers, which Zimbra states *should* work with Zimbra Desktop, deserve some sort of response from Zimbra staff beyond, "file a bug report." Most of your end users have no idea how to do that, but if the same issue is being reported, again and again, Zimbra staff reading about it might want to take the initiative to put a bug into bugzilla. If you're waiting for your end users to do it you're generally going to be waiting a very long time and creating a *lot* of bad word of mouth at the same time.



Someone at Zimbra should be monitoring these forums, on a regular basis, and creating bug reports as necessary. It's utterly ludicrous to expect the user community at large to even know how to do this. I do and I will, but I'm a very big exception to the rule. This is your primary feedback from the Desktop User Community - pay attention to it!
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tonster
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by tonster »

Unfortunately, fixing Google Addressbook and Calendar sync isn't necessarily simple to do. The issue lies in the fact that Google recently changed the standard they use to allow sync with those technologies. Previously, they allowed the use of iCal/CalDAV for doing this (which is how we'd done it with google and other third-party providers). This ultimately boils down to https://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=84610, which is targeted for ZCS support in ZCS 9 later this year. Ultimately, the same will need to happen with ZD, but unfortunately I don't have a timeline on that at this time. We're working on a ZD 7.3 release soon, but this fix won't make that release target.
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jorgedlcruz
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by jorgedlcruz »

Hi britechguy,

While I'm talking with the rest of the team about this topic. I will fill a bug for each issue that I will see, and the most important, reproduce. The problem is not say the users file a bug because we didn't care, is because sometimes the final user have the logs, and the steps to reproduce the problem.



I will keep and eye on this Forum and try to improve the actual feedback.



Best regards
Jorge de la Cruz https://jorgedelacruz.es
Systems Engineer at Veeam Software https://www.veeam.com/
z000
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by z000 »

Thank you britechguy, you summed up my frustrations exactly.



Especially paragraph #3. It isn't like these issues are new, I bumped a topic that was a over year old in regards to the syncing issue. So if people that work on zimbra actually DO read the forums, then what does it say that they never bothered to fix this huge issue?



If a bug has gone on for that long, without resolution, then it is no wonder zimbra is not very popular. Which is a shame because zimbra does some things really well.
z000
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by z000 »

I remember talk that they were going to discontinue zimbra desktop, maybe they stopped all work on it back then. Then I read due to popular demand that they were NOT going to discontinue it. But something tells me that zimbra desktop has been kind of left in limbo, with not much work being done on it. Just a guess but probably most of them are working on the new and improved zimbra that uses html5. But I think anyone who has tried to sync their email using zimbra desktop will probably get similar error messages as posted by a few people https://community.zimbra.com/desktop/f/1933/t/1134893
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tonster
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Are these Error Reports read by anyone at Zimbra?

Post by tonster »

I would note that, when this was reported, ZD was a dead product. VMware killed Zimbra Desktop about 3 years ago, and it's now been resurrected after Zimbra was sold off by VMware and acquired by Telligent. As with any product that has had production cease, it takes some time to bring things back in order for development again. While that's certainly frustrating for all involved, it's difficult to fix a bug in a product that doesn't exist anymore. We are working on the new releases now though, and hopefully we'll soon be able to get some long-standing bugfixes like this into the new versions of the product. It is a lot of work, though.
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