Level 1

17 points

Contact and Userid Images Disappearing

So I have seen some have experienced this issue already with no solution. I am seeing contact images disappear with a random string being added at the end of phone numbers or in the country field that starts with X-IMAGEHASH or X-ABADR. It also changes any numbers marked as "Mobile" to "Phone". It messes up using Siri to make calls or just trying to call someone with an impacted record because often it adds the string to the end of their number. I should add this can occur even if there is no image associated with the contact but interestingly it seems to be the same contacts every time despite there being no real commonality between them. A restore of contacts back to a time before this began happening had no impact. The next day the same thing occurred. To make things even more complicated my Userid picture on the Mac which references Photos also disappears at the same time. It seems to have something to do with anything that references Photos on the iCloud for the most part but why I could not tell you. Nothing (no third party apps) has access to my contacts or photos. It happens on all devices - iPad, iPhone, Mac M1 Max, Watch.

Posted on Jul 12, 2022 3:06 PM

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Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Posted on Jul 24, 2022 3:32 PM

I updated all devices - Mac, IOS, Watch - everything to the versions just released. I haven't had the issue in the days since. I suspect it was a Mac issue but I wanted to make sure everything was in sync with the latest versions. It seems to have rectified the issue for me.

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119 replies

Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 2, 2022 4:23 PM in response to pat-pegasusbay

Well for me its 48 hours with no issues - I have re-established the Signal ling to contacts yesterday, leaving MS Teams disconnected, and still no issues. The longest stretch for me without an issue. Lets give it another 24 hours and if so it may have something to do with MS Teams. I didn't deep removed it - just stopped it from accessing contacts via privacy settings.

Sep 5, 2022 3:06 AM in response to Netnemesis

3 days without any loss of images on either Macs or iOS Mail/Messages etc., also created a new 'Me' contact as suggested

Teams removed across all devices

growing evidence the Cloud Sync corruption is linked to MS Teams?

at some point I will have to reinstall Teams (for my job) - anybody running Teams, w/o access to Contacts in Privacy, and no longer having photo/icon deletions/field corruptions (with X-mash etc)?

Or should one just wait for Ventura hoping that that issues is solved in the new OS?

Sep 6, 2022 1:52 PM in response to Netnemesis

so I am testing something out. All my devices have been switched to google contacts for last few weeks w/o issue.

I have now switched my MBP back to iCloud contacts, and updated one of the contacts pictures (one of the contacts that was giving issue prior). day 2ish no issue. Going to give it another day before switching another device to iCloud contacts (probably iPad first then iPhone)

Sep 10, 2022 6:38 AM in response to TheFJ97

so quick update:

ive now transitioned both my Mac and now iPhone back to iCloud contacts (Mac first, then iPhone few days later). its been a couple days on each before bringing the next over. So far no issues. I have adjusted contact images (on my Mac) for a couple contacts, and added a new contact this morning on my iPhone. Will see how it handles this over next few days before potentially bringing iPad over (final device)

chuckbl

Community Specialist

Jul 14, 2022 9:23 AM in response to Netnemesis

Hello Netnemesis,

Are all your devices up to date?

Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Update your Apple Watch - Apple Support

Update macOS on Mac - Apple Support

When this occurs, do you also see that same behavior via the iCloud website? iCloud Contacts

Should that still persist, you'll want to reach out to Apple Support so they can look into this further: Contact - Official Apple Support

Take care.

Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Aug 4, 2022 1:36 PM in response to scott.w.uhl

So this is what I have just done 1) Restored contacts to when they were last working in iCloud online (web) 2) signed out of all of my devices (my appleid) and told them to all not store local version of anything 3) signed back into all after I signed out of all of them first. It will mean having to reset some things like payment information but lets see how I go now.

Sep 2, 2022 4:19 PM in response to scott.w.uhl

OK, 24 hrs on, fingers crossed, all iCloud/ MBP M1, Mini M1, iOS, messages, mail, contacts all are intact, have not lost an image yet (photo or icon) of the ±35 common contacts across those apps, after 24 hrs of automatic syncing via iCloud to all devices

PS MS Teams (deep) removed from Macs with AppCleaner, deleted from iOS and deleted iOS MS Outlook as well.

Could I still be smiling in another 24hrs? Fingers crossed

Sep 6, 2022 3:22 PM in response to scott.w.uhl

as with Netnemesis, 5 days without problems (no more image/icon deletion in Contacts & Mail on both iOS and OS Mac (all latest versions)

reinstalled Teams on Mac and no problems for 24 hrs

not sure I will reinstall Teams on iOS (as I only use it professionally on my MBP M1)

might wait for the upcoming iOS upgrade to try it out yet remembering it not giving access to my contacts on iOS

seems progress made, possibly problem solved (yet many contacts are now polluted with the X-mash nonsense...)

jexpo20

Level 1

6 points

Jul 18, 2022 4:23 AM in response to Netnemesis

Good idea on the search for "X-". Also, I started deleting the contacts that were habitual offenders and recreated them. Going to see if that helps. I deleted them on iCloud.com, and reentered.

Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 25, 2022 1:17 PM in response to zngve

So here is a question - are you using MS OneDrive or Signal? At about the same time I had an issue with being able to log back into a particular work Onedrive account and had to go nuclear including deleting keychain entries and anything that mentioned OneDrive on the Mac before I reinstalled and it worked again. That was about the only other thing I did at about the time it all began working again.

Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 26, 2022 5:37 AM in response to Netnemesis

I didn’t mention Outlook. Just the fact that I had OneDrive issues after updating to 12.5 MacOS and I had to nuke it at the same time as the update. They were the only things I did and the issue went away.

Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 26, 2022 5:58 AM in response to scott.w.uhl

All I can share is my experience in the hope it helps others. My issues didn’t really seem to originate from my devices but I cannot be 100% certain of that. All I know is that in one day there was a MacOS update, a MS office update and after that I had a OneDrive issue that necessitated a total wipe and re install of OneDrive. After that my issues went away. Which of those steps resolved it I do not know. Best I can offer.

zngve

Level 1

8 points

Jul 27, 2022 9:05 AM in response to scott.w.uhl

Based on this discussion, I just closed my Outlook app on the Mac (still using Outlook on phone and iPad). Been more or less 48 hours now and my iCloud profile picture is still there. Started using the Apple mail and calendar on the Mac.

Netnemesis Author

Level 1

17 points

Aug 4, 2022 5:42 AM in response to Netnemesis

Well I spoke too soon. I updated some contracts today and it all went pear shaped again. Plan to restore contacts to before changes and the log all devices out of the iCloud and back in again in the morning.

Aug 28, 2022 8:54 PM in response to Netnemesis

Agreed, updating my contacts’ photos is what triggered the HASH being added to my contacts’ fields and then started the cycle of randomly deleting my contacts’ photos within 10-45 minutes after updating them.

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Contact and Userid Images Disappearing