Notices

It all depends on what application created the vcf file. There are a lot of format variations, and GPE Contacts is very picky about what it will accept. You just got lucky.

I'm creating an Excel spreadsheet vcf cleaner to take care of the Yahoo vcf -> GPE problems. I'll post a link when it's done. I'm understanding the character set encoding problem better now - it looks like Yahoo exports genuine UTF-8, but then further encodes the UTF-8 output for HTML compatibility (e.g., the accented character a-acute is E1h in the standard Windows ANSI character set - that becomes two 8-bit characters C3h A1h in UTF-8, but then gets further altered to the 6 characters =C3=A1 in Yahoo's exported vcf file - but GPE Contacts can't read any of these forms without choking).

I'm pretty convinced it is impossible to import anything into GPE contacts. I've tried every format I can think of, but nothing shows up. The closest I came was, as mentioned above, to sync with kaddressbook, then export vcard, and import the vcf file to GPE. I get a "import successful" message, but still no contacts. Whatever format is expected by GPE, it isn't a "standard"!

-Scurrie

scurrie, you are correct - the vCard Import function is broken in GPE Contacts for OS2008. It worked in OS2007, but we're out of luck for the moment.

hmm, i got my phones contacts imported in gpe contacts by transfering the whole book as a vcard file onto the N800 running OS08. it took some time importing, and it seems to have a bit of trouble sorting them as i have people on only first name, first two names or full names. and it keeps sorting on the first letter of the last name...

now, if one could get syncml going...

I see the same symptom as scurrie - it says the import was successful, but it wasn't. I've checked inside the contacts file and verified that no data is being imported. This is using the same vcf files that imported successfully to GPE Contacts previously in OS2007. Even the simplest vcf file won't import correctly.

I installed the most recent OS2008 version from Graham Cobb's repository at http://www.cobb.uk.net/apt/ (2.8+maemo+syn20080114-1 gpe packaged with mud). From the description of work in progress there it looks like things are a bit unstable with the OS2008 release at the moment. The package name suggests that there was a new build 2 days ago.

If your version is working to import a vcf file on OS2008, perhaps you installed a different version or an earlier version?

nope, exact same one.
at least thats what it looks like from checking app manager.

Hmmm, looks like we're missing some important variable here. Perhaps one of the support libraries? Do you have about 6 libraries in the installed apps list below GPE Contacts that all list the same source file (2.8+maemo+syn20080114-1 gpe)?

lets see...

libcontactsdb0
libeventdb2
libgpepimc0
libgpevtype1
libgpewidget1
libmimedir-gnome0
libtododb0

looks like i have 7, not 6.

but at least one of them could be a left over from me trying out gpe calendar and then attempting a clean up afterwards.

Me too, same libraries.

But I've discovered that the problem is not GPE Contacts, it's in OS2008's network file access!

As a shortcut in transferring a vcf file from my Windows PC to the N800, I just import it directly from a shared folder on the PC to GPE Contacts. That worked fine using Wizard Mounter in OS2007. In OS2008 it appears to work, but something's going wrong - GPE Contacts says it imported the file successfully, but no data shows up. If I copy the same vcf file to local memory using the File Manager, the operation succeeds and the vcf file contents show up correctly in GPE Contacts.

Therefore, it looks like there's a bug in the network file access in OS2008.

funny, kinda like that osx file move bug in reverse?