[maemo-developers] Harmattan contacts application not recognizing custom account provider/service/service-type

[From: Sudheer K.]

On 12/29/2011 4:23 PM, Sudheer K. wrote:
> For my VICaR application, I need to display the action "Call with 
> Vicar" for all telephone number fields on a contact card. This is very 
> similar to how SIP (telepathy-sofiasip) works. I created a basic 
> telepathy connection manager and a telepathy account to use the CM. I 
> have set the property 
> "com.nokia.Account.Interface.Compat.SecondaryVCardFields" as "TEL". 
> This was sufficient in Fremantle to display "Call via Vicar" in 
> contact details page.
>
> I know that Harmattan contacts application requires a Telepathy 
> account and an Accounts plugin. I already have Telepathy part working 
> (my Telepathy Connection is connected, Telepathy Account status in 
> online with path "vicar/tel/vicar0").
>
> For the account plugin, I've used Accounts framework to complete these 
> things
> - Created custom .provider [1], .service [2], .service-type [3] files
> - Created an account with this custom provider/service and enabled it.
> - Linked the account with the telepathy account path using tmc-uid 
> property.
>
> But the account is still not displayed on the contacts page. Somehow 
> only accounts that use "IM" service type are recognized. I have even 
> tried setting the service-type as IM, but it didn't help. So, how can 
> I make contacts application recognize the custom service/provider 
> specifically for telephone number fields?
>
> Thanks,
> Sudheer
>
> [1] - http://pastebin.com/zXmrDkLi
> [2] - http://pastebin.com/zDTQ172q
> [3] - http://pastebin.com/95q2EGm4

After days of trail & error, debugging I finally got the contacts 
integration working. Unfortunately, I've tried so many things in the 
last few days that I cannot pin-point what exactly fixed the issue.

Anyway, for people interested in such integration I would recommend 
these changes  (in addition to everything mentioned in my previous post)
- Use IM as the service type. I haven't seen any other service type work 
with Harmattan contacts.
- Set the service property on telepathy account to your custom service 
(based on 
http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/spec/Account.html#Property:Service).
- Restart mission-control-5 often. Sometimes account changes are not 
recognized immediately.
- Debug mission control with "export MC_DEBUG=all" option. Read the 
syslog for possible errors.