Contacts won't sync; "iphone disconnected"?; no solution on these boards

These folks have a similar problem with calendars

http://www.everythingiphone.com/forum/mac-and-iphone/ical-sync-disconnect-error- with-iphone-mac-4677.html

It seems to have something to do with a corrupt database. Try creating a new contacts database, add a couple of sample contacts, and sync again to see if that works.

I agree that it is likely to be a corruption issue. A colleague had this problem, but with iCal syncing rather than Address Book. We tried all of the suggestions; the only thing that worked was starting from a fresh install of iCal.

Did anyone find a solution.

I am getting teh message: "itunes could not sync contacts to the iphone because the iphone disconnected"

Up until a week ago it had no problem now I can't sync anything because of this error ?

I have tried all teh suggestions here to no avail. It is extremely frustrating - I also have about 500 contacts and have purged them all in outlook in an attempt to start over but even with NO contacts in outlook it still gives me the same error. Can an Apple Tech please respond ??

I have a similar problem with iTunes failing to sync contacts with an ipod. When I click the 'Sync Contacts' button for my iPod settings within iTunes, I get a message 'No Contacts Available' and 'Would I like to open address book now?'. Obligingly, I say 'Yes', address book duly opens, and there are all my contacts. But, iTunes still fails to register any sustained contact with address book. It gave me this message once with iCal, but then everything seems ok afterward. Not so with address book. Anyone have any ideas about what is going on?

ALL:

I found a solution that worked for me. The problem was that I had a over 5000 contacts AND I had "Sync with Exchange" checked. So, everytime I tried to sync, it was trying to talk to my Exchange server for 5000 contacts. I unchecked "Sync with Exchange," reset my sync history in iSync, and everything worked perfectly.

Hope this helps.

Craig

I have the issue and have tried everything I can think of...
- Backed up all Address Book data.
- Deleted ~/Library/Application Support/Address Book
- Deleted ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook*.plist
- Initialized new Address Book
- Checked Address Book config for Yahoo/Exchange syncing (nope)
- Turned off iSync (and reset Sync history)

I still can't sync my address book to my iPods. (nano, 60GB 5G, nor iPod Touch).

I used to get around this by exporting vCards to the 'Contacts' folder of the nano and 60GB when it was enabled for disk mode. The iPod Touch doesn't support disk mode (Boo!) so I can't use this workaround.

Please, please PLEASE Apple... A comment would be nice. A fix would be great.

I believe I've found the "problem"

I just experienced this with 2 iPhones just now. This ONLY started happening after I added Groups to my Address Book on my Mac.

The funny thing is that If I removed all the contacts from address book and then did a sync again everything disappeared. When I went to restore them after adding al the vcard back in they wouldn't transfer. The Synchronizing contacts message in iTunes stayed only for a second or two then said finished since thats all that was selected. I even went as far as restoring my iPhone. After restoring the iPhone with the contacts list in my address book full including the Groups It wouldn't sync anything and my phone remained empty of all contacts. I then decided to remove the vcards and groups and then adding in only the vcards. On the first attempt to sync they all went in.

I guess the iPhone doesn't like group listings for contacts... They work for everything else and there is a place for them in iTunes... why won't they work!

Of course before I sync without the Groups in my contact list I added the option in the advanced area in iTunes to overwrite the phone contents with the computers one

To resolve Leopard application syncing issues with iPhone:
1. Open iSync.
2. Select iSync > Preferences from the menu bar.
3. Click [Reset Sync History ...]. You will be asked to confirm your choice.
4. Click [Reset Sync History].
5. Exit iSync.

It's not working for me...
Leopard 10.5.1 and iPhone 1.1.2

Still having problems only with contacts.

FWIW, I suddenly had the "iphone disconnected" problem when syncing contacts, and the reset sync history method above solved my problem. Thanks, Doctor Rick!

Worked for me too. It didn't the first time, but then I shut off my iPhone and restarted it and then it did the contact sync without the error message. Thanks.

During sync iPhone disconnects, sometimes with error, sometimes simply restarting without error. As a matter of fact, I likely did not realize it wasn't syncing for many weeks as I wasn't getting errors and wasn't watching it.
We have tried multiple iPhones, Computers and cables.
It appears to be a "corrupted database" issue.

For sake of troublshooting we are trying now to sync ONLY contacts.

I am starting with just over 1000 Address Cards, most have photos.
I have been sucessfully syncing Contacts and all other data with my iPod video
for years without any trouble.

As a matter of fact. If I reset everything, sync history erase restore iPhone,
the first Sync of the entire set of Address Cards appears to go just fine.

It is only the subsequent syncs that fail.
So I do this wipe everything. Sync once.
Add or change a card or two on the iPhone and/or computer.
Attempt to sync again. iPhone disconnects during the "backing up iPHone phase"
Very repeatable. Must be Data issue, right?

So I split the cards into two halves.
Note, each such round of testing the data by halves takes about an hour.

About 500 odd cards in First Half. Saved as vCards (no notes)
About 500 cards in the Second Half. Saved as vCards (no notes)
Wipe everything.

Sync first half to the iPhone, Test. Second sync works ok too.
So the "corrupt data must be in the second half, right?"

Wipe everything.
Sync second half of the data to the iPhone, test. Resync again works fine.
Uh oh! The second half should have failed, shouldn't it.

So which half contains the bad corrupt data?

Either half worked OK by itself.
So imported the first half back into the second half which was working well,
perhaps simple export reimport has "cleaned the database" I hope
Nope.

Now that both halves are back together, TEST iPhone resync fails during "backing"
up phase.

So I have this workaround. Treat the address book on my iPhone like an iPod,
I can always push my entire address book onto the iPhone the first time.
I just can't back it up to prepare for a second sync.

Somehow iTunes is writing data onto the iPhone that it cannot subsequently read.

The problem is I don't seem to have an effective way to determine
which data iTunes writes onto the iPhone it is unable to read.

What tools exist that can wash the data effeciently?

I had the same problem -- just got my iPhone a week ago and have not been able to sync my contacts. Everything else worked ok, but got the "disconnected" error every time it came to syncing contacts. I deselected the contacts sync, just to make sure that everything else was completed. It was, so I felt comfortable that it was ONLY the contacts.

I tried removing some content (I have over 1600 contacts, and thought it might be a space problem, though I figured that would be a long shot since I had about 1GB available on the iPhone, and my Address Book was only about 55MB), and resyncing. I didn't get the disconnected error, but I did get an "Inconsistent data" error. Apparently, there were inconsistencies between my .Mac, Computer, and iPhone that Sync just couldn't figure out on it's own -- and maybe wasn't even able to tell that it was a sync problem -- might have been a time out in the sync program while it was trying to figure it out.

I resync'd my .Mac (overwriting the .Mac contacts with those on my computer), then resynced the iPhone. I got an inconsistency message, asking me to select the correct record. I did, and it completed my iPhone contacts sync correctly.

I don't know if this applies to everyone with this problem, but I hope it helps at least some of you. Wasn't really anything I did...mostly just stumbled upon it. Applecare (btw) told me that it must be the iPhone, and to take it in to be checked. My Genius will be happy that he was able to avoid that appointment (LOVE ProCare!!!).

Bruce