Bulk merge creating multiple address (and email) records of same location type

Question

I'm pretty sure this is not an intended behavior, but I want to make sure.

When I try to add a second address of the same location type I get an error and civi will not let me (Image 1).

If I use the merge tool and I try to merge contact A (Image 2) with contact B (Image 3), I am told moving/merging the home address to the home address of the destination contact will cause an overwrite (Image 4).

In the merge tool I see no conflicts even though contacts have home addresses that differ (Image 5). If I use the [Batch Merge All Duplicates] button I end up with 1 contact with 2 different address records of the same type (Image 6). Same issue with email addresses, although civi will let me add two email addresses of dame location type (which I don't think should happen).

Bug?

*note, this was tested on civi demo site.

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

Answer 1

The address aspect of this has recently been raised as a bug here: https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-18455

And has been patched as part of: https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-18338

As for the rest of the merging logic - where it creates many email addresses (phone numbers, and other 'location blocks') of the same type, I agree this doesn't seem desirable; but deciding which phone/email to keep isn't always straightforward. The current logic is:

When force merging if there are any conflicts the 'main' record takes precedence, otherwise any information from the 'other' record is added to it. Ie: all emails would be added. If there were two addresses of the same type then the 'main' one would stay on the record.

I also posed this question on the civicrm-dev mailing list as to whether this is the desired behavior and I've created a follow-up thread on the forum: https://forum.civicrm.org/index.php?topic=37165

Please feel free to get involved =] It would be great to improve this tool and have it working as desired - once we know what 'as desired' looks like.