several problems with birthday without a year

[tessus]

Please note that I do not know, whether this is is a problem with the contacts app, the CardDaV core implementation, or a combination of both.

Steps to reproduce

1. In the contacts app, try to enter a Birthday without a year
2. Create a contact on your device without a year. Sync.
3. Create a contact on the MacOSX Contacts app. Sync.

Expected behaviour

1. The date picker should allow you to check a box omit year or you should be able to enter the Birthday without a year manually.
2. The date should be synced without a year.
3. The date should be synced without a year.

Actual behaviour

1. I cannot enter a birthday without a year manually. The birthday is never saved in the database. The datepicker forces you choose a year.
2. The birthday is missing from the VCARD on the server. Never shows up in the nextcloud contacts app.

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:4.0
PRODID:+//IDN bitfire.at//DAVdroid/1.4.0.3-ose vcard4android ez-vcard/0.10.
 1
UID:88e64a5b-c154-4d21-82f1-3800f9ff063b
FN:Birthday Without-Year
N:Without-Year;Birthday;;;
EMAIL;TYPE=home:no@birthday.com
REV:20170312T223956Z
END:VCARD

3. The year 1604 is shown in the nextcloud contacts app.

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
PRODID:-//Apple Inc.//Mac OS X 10.11.6//EN
N:Without-Year-OSX;Birthday;;;
FN:Birthday Without-Year-OSX
EMAIL;type=INTERNET;type=HOME;type=pref:no@birthday.com
BDAY;X-APPLE-OMIT-YEAR=1604:1604-06-20
REV:2017-03-12T22:42:30Z
UID:00eefa1d-32d2-4a61-bd6f-e127c2e69024
END:VCARD

In all three cases the VCARD should contain the correct BDAY format for a birthday without a year. In the specifications for vcard 3.0 and 4.0, there are options to do so.

Server configuration

Operating system: Linux

Web server: Apache 2.4.25

Database: MySQL 5.6.25

PHP version: 5.6.30

Nextcloud version: 11.0.2

Contacts version: 1.5.3

Updated from an older Nextcloud or fresh install: updated: oc 8.2.9 -> nc 9.0.57 -> 10.0.4 -> 11.0.2

Signing status:

No errors have been found.

List of activated apps:

Enabled:
  - activity: 2.4.1
  - activitylog: 0.0.1
  - admin_audit: 1.1.0
  - announcementcenter: 3.0.0
  - apporder: 0.3.3
  - bookmarks: 0.9.1
  - calendar: 1.5.1
  - comments: 1.1.0
  - contacts: 1.5.3
  - dav: 1.1.1
  - direct_menu: 0.10.0
  - external: 1.2
  - federatedfilesharing: 1.1.1
  - federation: 1.1.1
  - files: 1.6.1
  - files_external: 1.1.2
  - files_markdown: 1.0.1
  - files_pdfviewer: 1.0.1
  - files_sharing: 1.1.1
  - files_texteditor: 2.2
  - files_trashbin: 1.1.0
  - files_versions: 1.4.0
  - files_videoplayer: 1.0.0
  - firstrunwizard: 2.0
  - gallery: 16.0.0
  - logreader: 2.0.0
  - lookup_server_connector: 1.0.0
  - nextcloud_announcements: 1.0
  - notifications: 1.0.1
  - password_policy: 1.1.0
  - provisioning_api: 1.1.0
  - serverinfo: 1.1.1
  - sharebymail: 1.0.1
  - systemtags: 1.1.3
  - tasks: 0.9.5
  - templateeditor: 0.2
  - theming: 1.1.1
  - twofactor_backupcodes: 1.0.0
  - updatenotification: 1.1.1
  - user_external: 0.4
  - workflowengine: 1.1.1
Disabled:
  - encryption
  - files_accesscontrol
  - files_automatedtagging
  - files_retention
  - survey_client
  - user_ldap
  - user_saml

The content of config/config.php:

{
    "system": {
        "instanceid": "oc2352d53521",
        "passwordsalt": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "datadirectory": "\/data\/nextcloud\/data",
        "dbtype": "mysql",
        "version": "11.0.2.7",
        "installed": true,
        "forcessl": true,
        "loglevel": 2,
        "maintenance": false,
        "trusted_domains": [
            "cloud.evermeet.cx"
        ],
        "share_folder": "\/Shared",
        "dbname": "nextcloud",
        "dbhost": "localhost",
        "dbuser": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "dbpassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "logdateformat": "Y-m-d H:i:s O",
        "logtimezone": "Europe\/Vienna",
        "secret": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "mail_smtpmode": "php",
        "mail_from_address": "evercloud",
        "mail_domain": "evermeet.cx",
        "mail_smtpsecure": "tls",
        "memcache.local": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "memcache.locking": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
        "redis": {
            "host": "\/data\/redis\/redis.sock",
            "port": 0,
            "timeout": 0
        },
        "appstore.experimental.enabled": true,
        "trashbin_retention_obligation": "auto",
        "updater.release.channel": "stable",
        "htaccess.RewriteBase": "\/",
        "overwrite.cli.url": "https:\/\/cloud.evermeet.cx",
        "auth.bruteforce.protection.enabled": false
    }
}

Are you using external storage, if yes which one: no

Are you using encryption: no

Are you using an external user-backend, if yes which one: no

Client configuration

Browser: Firefox 52, Chrome 57.0.2987.98

Operating system: Mac OSX 10.11.6

CardDAV-clients: DAVdroid 1.4.0.3-ose, OSX Contacts Sync (from the OS)

Logs

Web server error log

no errors (empty)

Nextcloud log (data/nextcloud.log)

no errors (empty)

Browser log

no errors (empty)

---

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[norbusan]

Thanks for posting this issue which I realized recently, too. Would be nice to see year-less birthdays supported. Thanks

[tessus]

Several years back I posted this issue with owncloud...

I truly hope this will be implemented soon. All my birthdays w/o a year are gone and labelling this as priority low is wrong. This bug results in data loss.

[tessus]

@skjnldsv Can you please give this a higher priority? It results in data loss after all.

[Henni]

@tessus problems 2 and 3 sound to me like core issues with the CardDAV implementation as the Contacts app should never touch files which have just been synced from a different app.

@schiessle @rullzer @nickvergessen you seem to have worked on the DAV backend. Could you take a look? And should we create a server issue for this?

[rullzer]

@Henni please do.

So a birthday without a year should look like --MMDD right? (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6350#section-6.2.5)

Becaus the X-APPLE-OMIT-YEAR is not a standard as far as I know...

[tessus]

@rullzer afaik, yes. but I believe there are 2 different specs. v3 and v4 are different in that regard. at least that is what I remember.

true, the Apple thing is not a vcard standard. I was rather puzzled when I first saw that.

[tessus]

@Henni what shall I do about issue 2 and 3? somehow I believe all 3 are somehow related -> because the field is not recognized as a valid field on the server, it is dropped.

[Henni]

Problem 1 is a Frontend issue in the contacts app.
The other two look like back end issues and should be fixed in the server repository. Would you mind opening a separate issue in the server repo?

[tessus]

any update on this? it has been 6 months...

[tessus]

Hello everybody. Do you have any update on this?

[skjnldsv]

Unfortunately it's not a priority here! :(
You can try posting a bounty on it to attract new devs (or motivate current ones) if you really want this. I'm adding the hacktoberfest label to see if new people are interested.

[tessus]

thanks, maybe the label helps. I just don't understand why it is not a priority.

IMO having the possility to add a birthday to a contact is one of the primary features. But one does not always know the year, so right now there's no way to enter a birthday (unless one makes one up). How does the current behaviour even make sense to anyone? If it doesn't, it should be a priority.

I can't be the only one who has this problem.

[skjnldsv]

Because the app isn't perfect, and some issues are just more important. :/
#220 is clearly more a priority for example. Data loss is a serious issue.

[tessus]

I agree that it shouldn't be the top priority, but a priority. There's a difference.

Btw, the current situation causes data loss, too. Although this is more of a backend thing rather than the contacts app itself.

This needs to be tackled at the backend nextcloud/server#4287 and in the app.

[radoeka]

To be able for someone to work on the this, what is needed to get it solved (not that I'll get involved though).

Does comment #161 (comment) provide the desired solution? Is --MMDD or is ----MMDD what needs to be added?

[norbusan]

@skjnldsv Thanks a lot!