Contacts app spinning beachball on macOS 27 due to SwiftUI layout bug

That seems to do the trick! I hadn't thought of un-sync'ing my iMac with Contacts in iCloud, but it's restored normal functionality when disconnecting/re-connecting with iCloud. I was prompted to "merge" my contacts when reconnecting to the cloud, and so far, so good. Thanks for the tip @farbjorn!

Same problem here (MacOS Golden Gate 27.0) I was able to delete the suspect record—the one displayed when the app hangs—via Contacts on iCloud. You might try that. When I re-added the record (via iCloud), the app hangs again. Something clearly is wrong with the one contact which is just text, and doesn't have a contact photo or other binary data stored with it. I'm going to update to MacOS 27.0.1 to see if it catches and corrects the problem.

I also had this problem, I even restarted my desktop to see if that fixed it with no luck. I went into preferences and disconnected my contacts from my iCloud and I can now use my Contacts without the beach ball. I have an iPhone and iPad that have their contacts in iCloud and they work fine.

An update: I went back to my system settings on my desktop and reconnected my contacts to the iCloud, then checked my contacts again and no spinning ball. Why that worked I don't know.

Yes, same issue: spinning wheel when Contacts launches on MacOS 27.0.1. I even relocated the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist file — recommended elsewhere to resolve the problem — and it had zero impact. Contacts works fine via iCloud and iOS on the phone.

the problem still exists with macOS 27.0.1 Apple has not fixed the problem. How do you know which of my 4,000 contacts is the problem? How does one know which one to delete? The values of data attributes should not yield the spinning beach ball of death. *** II Email: ***

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Mitch, You refer to the relevant attribute of the contacts entity (or record) is causing the issue as potentially the Notes field. You make the observation that it may be unusually large. Wouldn't the app be able to handle whatever the size of the attribute be...? ... unless, the Contact app for 26.6 handled notes attributes of 200 (whatever) characters and now 27.0 & 27.0.1 only handle 180 (newer shorter limit from whatever) characters so the layout work logic can't handle it and spins.

I'd also like to note that it may not be a corrupt contacts database in the cloud; I have multiple Apple devices (including a work-issued M4 MacBook Pro, personal MacBook Neo and iPad M4, iPhone, and Apple Watch) and Contacts works fine across them without an issue. It seems to be localized to my one workstation, an M4 iMac.

Bjorn, Thank you sound advice. I tried your recommendation. On my iMac with Contacts in iCloud, I open System Settings on my iMac, clicked my name at the top, then I choose iCloud, selected show all apps and turned off Contacts. You are correct, I can use my Contacts on the iMac (no spinning beach ball), but only 60% of the contacts are there. 😢. When I reconnect Contacts... beach ball is back. I've been working to remove some notes from some contact entities in the database, but it is SOOO... slow. Apple doesn't allow select all from the Notes attribute. As a result it is a tedious cut and paste to another app 🤨. We probably, will not see a fix anytime soon.

Mitch, If I were a wagering man (which I'm not), I would bet the new Contacts app code has a note attribute size restriction less than the Tahoe version. Then the extra character string writes over the new app instruction code when it moves from the cloud to Golden Gate and it abends. I've seen that before. ***

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I had the same issue after the Golden Gate update. Tried "solutions" from Chat and Claude that flopped, but finally Gemini got me over the finish line. Too many steps to cogently share here, but hoping AI is helpful for others too

Sorry to update with some bad news - back to the ball of death on Contacts. I think the Gemini solution had Contacts pointing to my Mac rather than iCloud - great the ball went away, but not great if you actually need your Contacts to synch and update across devices

Having exactly the same problem and tried multiple fixes including setting up a test user, signing into iCloud, and turning on Contacts syncing, but the problem persists. Hope everyone is submitting this to apple.com/feedback or using the Feedback Assistant.app