Gmscore: Contacts and Calendar Sync (Solved)

[NolfNolfer]

Please help me because I'm about to explode, as it's been 4 hours I'm trying to solve this.

Basically I clean installed lineageOS microg, and everything works, but I want to sync my calendar and my contacts.

I want an elegant and automatic solution, so downloading GoogleCalendarSyncAdapter solved the issue for the calendar sync without the Google Calendar app, but I'm currently stuck with no Contacts syncing, even though I've installed GoogleContactsSyncAdapter (version 9 that crashed, version 8.1 and other versions).

In settings, accounts, google, (mail account), there is NO contacts switch, only Gmail and Calendar appeared after rebooting.

Plus, when opened, gmail asks me to add an email account because it reads none (even though I logged in my two google accounts at the start of the lineageOS setup) and so I'm stuck there, and cannot read mails (if I receive a mail, I get the notification).

So, what do I have to do to have working Contacts sync and a working gmail?

EDIT: after logging out of an account and opening gmail again the other account showed up on the gmail starting page. From there I added the account I removed and then tapped on "take me to gmail", and now it works perfectly. However, I still need to find a solution to sync my Contacts

[JonnyTech]

https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/issues/222#issuecomment-261253801

[NolfNolfer]

Yes, I've already did the DAVdroid solution, but it only synced my contacts without calendar, and that is odd since the url "https://apidata.googleusercontent.com/caldav/v2/calid/events" should sync the calendar, not the contacts. So I've unistalled everything because I prefer "clean" solutions, and that solution solved my problem but has a distinct "it works? what the hell have I done?" feel to it.

I'd basically like to have something small, easy, elegant, easily comprehensible and easily backup-able and permanent. Installing the contacts sync apk should be the perfect solution (because it's the proprietary app and does everything automatically, so no risks of future incompatibility if Google decides to change stuff), however it doesn't make the "contacts" sync switch appear in the accounts settings, and I'd like to fix that to have something less invasive than the DAVdroid app (which btw I still can't understand why it synced contacts instead of calendar).

by the way, on https://developers.google.com/calendar/caldav/v2/guide, they say that the address in the post you linked "https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[email protected]/events" is deprecated

[Catfriend1]

I've also got this problem.with the google contacts sync some time ago and decided to put up a small zarafa activesync installation on a rasbpi and later used my nas for it. This is rather not a solution but a recommendation.

[JonnyTech]

No, use the link in the post - it works correctly: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[email protected]/events

[Lanchon]

somethings fishy. even though you load your account, some gapps wont see
it; for instance gmail. i bet the sync app is affected by the same issue.
look for the latest issue i started here regarding gmail. if you somehow
solve that one, sync might start working. btw, note that sync apps need
manual granting of rights; they dont expect not having them and thus they
dont request them (last time i looked anyway).

[NolfNolfer]

Found the solution!

This will install the two official Google APKs that automatically sync google Contacts and Calendar to the device, so if you're concerned about privacy and stuff, DAVdroid could be the solution you're looking for.

However, they should just sync these two things and do nothing else, so you should be pretty safe, but in these privacy-rending, obscure times you can't even trust your mouse. Maybe your mouse is tracking what you do and how you move your hand, who knows.

Anyway, if you don't really care, and just want the damn instructions, go ahead:

1: download gapps; I used Open Gapps
2: open the archive and extract:

• googlecontactssync-all.tar.lz from the Core folder
• calsync-all.tar.lz from the GApps folder (maybe the folder names and paths will change with other gapps? The archives names shouldn't though, so maybe you could search for the names and extract them)

3: extract the respective APKs. If you can't open ".tar.lz" archives because reasons, convert them or find a tool that will open them. I converted them to .zip archives with https://convertio.co/it/tar.lz-tar/ and used winRar to extract them
4: send them to your device
6: mount /system as RW and put these two APKs in /system/apps in their respective directories (which won't exist and you will create), like this:
/system/app/GoogleContactsSyncAdapter/GoogleContactsSyncAdapter.apk
/system/app/GoogleCalendarSyncAdapter/GoogleCalendarSyncAdapter.apk
7: IMPORTANT: set both APKs' permissions to 644 (Owner: read write, Group: read, Other: read)

8: Reboot

9: Open settings, apps, show system apps, then give:

• Contacts permissions to the Google Contacts Sync app
• Calendar permissions to Google Calendar Sync app
  (not sure why, but the Google Calendar Sync app had a "Contacts" permission and also an "Additional permissions" section with another "Contacts" switch with a different icon than the other one; to be sure I enabled both)

10: Reboot again

11: ???

12: [Realizes there is no number 5]

13: [profits internally]

One final doubt: will a TWRP factory reset wipe these apps, even if they are system apps? From what I understand, a TWRP factory reset only wipes cache and data, while leaving the /system partition intact

[sirocyl]

@NolfNolfer from what I can tell, a data wipe will not delete the apps placed in the /system/ partition. However, any apecial permissions you set from the Settings app, will be erased, and will need to be reinstated manually.

I wouldn't say this solves the issue - your solution works, and makes your problem go away, but it certainly isn't within the scope of the microG project to recommend users to install a Google proprietary system app.

In the end, further research will need to be done, in order to properly implement Contacts, Calendar and other PIM syncing/storage functionality within microG, as the Google service would, with or without using Google PIM servers.

[nitinjs]

Found the solution!

This will install the two official Google APKs that automatically sync google Contacts and Calendar to the device, so if you're concerned about privacy and stuff, DAVdroid could be the solution you're looking for.

However, they should just sync these two things and do nothing else, so you should be pretty safe, but in these privacy-rending, obscure times you can't even trust your mouse. Maybe your mouse is tracking what you do and how you move your hand, who knows.

Anyway, if you don't really care, and just want the damn instructions, go ahead:

1: download gapps; I used Open Gapps
2: open the archive and extract:

* googlecontactssync-all.tar.lz from the Core folder

* calsync-all.tar.lz from the GApps folder (maybe the folder names and paths will change with other gapps? The archives names shouldn't though, so maybe you could search for the names and extract them)

3: extract the respective APKs. If you can't open ".tar.lz" archives because reasons, convert them or find a tool that will open them. I converted them to .zip archives with https://convertio.co/it/tar.lz-tar/ and used winRar to extract them
4: send them to your device
6: mount /system as RW and put these two APKs in /system/apps in their respective directories (which won't exist and you will create), like this:
/system/app/GoogleContactsSyncAdapter/GoogleContactsSyncAdapter.apk
/system/app/GoogleCalendarSyncAdapter/GoogleCalendarSyncAdapter.apk
7: IMPORTANT: set both APKs' permissions to 644 (Owner: read write, Group: read, Other: read)

8: Reboot

9: Open settings, apps, show system apps, then give:

* Contacts permissions to the Google Contacts Sync app

* Calendar permissions to Google Calendar Sync app
  (not sure why, but the Google Calendar Sync app had a "Contacts" permission and also an "Additional permissions" section with another "Contacts" switch with a different icon than the other one; to be sure I enabled both)

10: Reboot again

11: ???

12: [Realizes there is no number 5]

13: [profits internally]

One final doubt: will a TWRP factory reset wipe these apps, even if they are system apps? From what I understand, a TWRP factory reset only wipes cache and data, while leaving the /system partition intact

awesome, it worked for me! 👍

[billbarni]

I always get errors when trying to convert or extract the tar.lz-tar files.

[ac130kz]

@billbarni got the same error, extracting on Android worked fine. However, when I try installing the app as shown above, the apps just disappear after a reboot, even though I set proper permissions and switch to RW