stock email: activesync/exchange: selecting which folders to sync

Question

I have two devices getting email from the same exchange activesync server. same account.

One is an old 2.3.3 nexus, another is a samsung tablet with 4.1 (or newer, not 100% sure now.. it may be 4.2)

on the server i have lots of folders, in the following setting:

 - drafts
 - outbox
 - sent
 - trash
 - junk email
 - sync issues
   - server failure
   - sync issues 1
   - local failures
 - rss feed
 - FolderA
 - inbox
   - FolderB
   - FolderC
   - FolderD
   - FolderE

this is the inverse order it shows up on my outlook client... i don't think folders have an order as far as i can tell.

Anyway, on both devices, i get this:

 - drafts
 - outbox
 - sent
 - trash
 - junk email
 - sync issues
 - server failure
 - sync issues 1
 - local failures
 - rss feed
 - FolderC
 - FolderD
 - inbox

Note that sync issues was flattened. And that it choose two random folders (C and D) to display outside of INBOX.

now, i don't care for any of those folders! but I need FolderA and FolderB badly.

I already looked on all options on both devices, and there is nothing to select more folders. All I can do is hide the folders it arbitrarily selected already. I have already went trhu the info on How can I select which folders to sync via Exchange ActiveSync?

I also do not think it is related to options on the client, as both devices have the same two folders selected. It may be something on the server... maybe a flag telling that those are to be synced? It is not based on age, or alphabetical order. i tried right-cliking all the folders on outlook and looking for anything, but the properties of them all are the same.

I tried deleting the Sync issues folder on outlook (i can't delete the others such as RSS feed even never have any use for those)... and reprovisioned one of my devices... and even though i don't have the sync issues folder on my outlook anymore, it still synced when i removed/added the account back.

I can move both folders that i want in or out of INBOX, i don't care.

Any ideas on how to get rid of the unwanted folders and sync the wanted ones?

EDIT: I removed my account, renamed the to folders that do get synced to X_folderC... wipped all data for the stock android app. recreated the account. and bam. it synced X_folderC... i hate this phone.

So it is definitely something on the Folders meta data from exchange... how do i even check that? On the Samsung device with 4.1 or 4.2 i could generate a debug log of the app talking to exchange, what should i look for?

EDIT 2: i created a new folder, Folder_D2, moved all mail from Folder_D there, moved the rules to move email there, and deleted Folder_D... now the phone has, Folder_D and Folder_D2!!! and still no sign of the folders i do want.

Also while doing it, i noticed that on the server email rules, the two top ones sent email folder_C and folder_D... so i thought this may be the deciding factor... so i moved the one that sends email to Folder_A to the top of the rule list... but no luck. nothing have changed.

EDIT 3: finally found something! if i create a new folder, it syncs!!! so i can solve this recreating all folders I want synced. ...tedious but that should work. The ones not being synced are the ones migrated from the old exchange server... for some reason they have some property/flag that makes them not be synced on android. But i can't see anything from outlook.

Answer 1

solved while investigating to write a better question.

Apparently when the company migrated from some exchange version to another, something was set on the folders attributes that made android email application ignore it. Renaming the folder did not solve. Also comparing the attributes that are visible to the user between a folder that sync and one that does not sync reveals nothing.

Solution is to create a new folder, move the emails and updates the rules, and finally delete the old one.