CardDav: Merging does not merge

Linking is not merging. The phone does it correctly.

Depends how you define "correctly". To me, the correct output is not having duplicate contacts on a same collection.

The purpose of linking is to combine the details of a person from different sources, e.g. a CalDAV server, Exchange and google.

I only have CalDAV and local contacts. These local contacts were manually copied from other devices with CalDAV access, since Jolla did not previously support it.

I understand how contacts from different sources don't get merged, but if they're from the same source (or merely local contacts), they should get merged.

Normally you shouldn't have the same person multiple times in ONE address book, so merging is not a common use case (IMO).

Due to what I just explain, I do indeed have duplicate contacts. I'm guessing most users of CalDAV faced the same situation.

Maybe there is an option to export the address book to .vcf (on the server side). Then you can merge them (quick googling presented e.g. this Windows program) and then delete everything on the server and import the corrected file.

Sure, but the phone should really do this properly in the first place.

Windows applications cannot be run on the phone, so that's of no use. I had a quick look at trying to run that via wine, but the comlpexity was too high, and their website is too broken.

Alsways have backups! ;)

This is competely irrelevant.

Alsways have backups! ;)

This is competely irrelevant.

(Is this a rant?) I proposed to delete all contacts from the server and reimport. Before doing that, you should always have a backup so it's not irrelevant.

I only have CalDAV and local contacts. These local contacts were manually copied from other devices with CalDAV access.

This means they come from different sources. A) Local B) CardDAV.

To me, the correct output is not having duplicate contacts on a same collection.

That's deduplicating/merging. Please think about the meaning of the word "link" for a moment.

Sure, but the phone should really do this properly in the first place.

It does the supposed feature. If you want deduplication/merging of contacts this is another feature and you can of course request it.

This means they come from different sources. A) Local B) CardDAV.

Once I configured my device to sync all contacts with CardDAV, they're not two different sources; they're two different locations that mirror each other.
Duplicated contacts exist in both locations.

It does the supposed feature. If you want deduplication/merging of contacts this is another feature and you can of course request it.

Again, "supposed to" as defined by whom? The impossibility of de-duplicating information is a pain, and it blindly uploads to CardDAV contacts that already existed, worsening the situation.