worse than just duplicate contacts...serious issue

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Level 1

8 points

worse than just duplicate contacts...serious issue

This has actually been an issue for a few months, since I first updated my 3g to ios4. Now I have an iPhone 4 and because I had never bothered to deal with it on my 3g, restoring my i Phone 4 to the back up of my 3g has just transfered the same problem to the new phone.

The issue is that not only has syncing duplicated my contacts (not one or two times, but up to 6 or 7 times!), it has also merged numbers from other contacts and created quite a mess. When some people call it will give me 2 to 3 different names on the caller id and when I go through my contacts to find someone, of the sometimes 6 or 7 different contacts to choose from for one person each copy of that contact will have different or multiple numbers, so I have no idea if its actually them or someone else. It's an absolute nightmare.

The problem has always been this bad, so my inaction I don't believe has made this worse, other than the addition of new contacts to the mix. I've just recently seriously felt the effects of this by contacting the wrong people or thinking I was having text message conversations with one person when in fact is was totally not them : /

Any advice at all is greatly appreciated. The delete my contacts and then resync with mobile me is probably not an option as all of these duplicates and merged contacts exist on my mobile me contacts as well.

Thanks

Macbook Pro 2.4 i5 4gigs Ram, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 11, 2011 2:17 PM

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Answer 1

fliplynch Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 12, 2011 5:34 PM in response to fliplynch

nothin huh?

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Answer 2

fliplynch Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 13, 2011 5:40 PM in response to fliplynch

am I really the only person this has happened to?

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Answer 3

wjosten

Level 10

95,369 points

Feb 13, 2011 5:45 PM in response to fliplynch

I believe I know why this duplication/mess is happening, but to suggest a solution I need an answer to a question... Are your contacts correct anywhere...computer?

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Answer 4

Feb 13, 2011 5:48 PM in response to fliplynch

Are you syncing contacts direct with the Address Book on your Mac via the iTunes sync process which is selected under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes in addition to syncing contacts over the air with your MobileMe account on your iPhone?

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Answer 5

Feb 14, 2011 1:18 PM in response to fliplynch

I am experiencing the exact issue. We just started to have an issue in the last month. It's my boss phone, just him swiping looking for an contact will create multiple contacts. We chatted with Mobile Me, but after 3 hours last week, no solution! We don't know what is correct in the contacts because the number and names are all mixed up, we have contacts that were deleted years ago reappear!

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Answer 6

Feb 14, 2011 1:28 PM in response to djswenson

Same question - is your boss syncing contacts direct with a supported address book app on his computer via the iTunes sync process which is selected under the Info tab for his iPhone sync preferences with iTunes in addition to syncing contacts over the air with the MobileMe account on his iPhone?

Are his contacts correct with his MobileMe online address book - when logged in with his MobileMe account via webmail access using a browser on his computer?

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Answer 7

Feb 14, 2011 2:28 PM in response to Allan Sampson

We are syncing via Mobileme only. I made sure that the box was unchecked in the Itunes info tab. When I tried to troubleshoot on Wed., the contacts on Mobileme were reflecting the same as the computer, but with his phone in hand, they were not the same. Now this morning out of the blue, the computer asked if I wanted to resolve 513 contacts, I clicked yes, importing all the multiple contacts from the iphone. We cleaned up the contacts on our end and resynced. Again, contacts that we deleted 2 years ago appeared in both calendars. We deleted again. When my boss was looking for a contact, simply swiping the phone, 12 new blank contacts appeared on our end (Outlook contacts). This too all started to happen after the last update.

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Answer 8

fliplynch Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 14, 2011 4:06 PM in response to Allan Sampson

I am currently only syncing with mobileme via the preferences on my phone, but I know at one point I did have the 'sync address book contacts' tab checked in my itunes when I would sync regularly. So this maybe happened by having both of those preferences active at one point? Currently my address book app, my phone and my mobile all have the same duplicates and merged contacts. I don't seem to have any "clean" copy of my contacts to try to revert back to. : / If I dig through some of my old time machine backups from my old laptop, I may be able to find an undisturbed copy of my contacts (minus all the new contacts i've added in the last year or so though).

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Answer 9

fliplynch Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 15, 2011 5:20 PM in response to Allan Sampson

any ideas? 😀

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Answer 10

Feb 16, 2011 7:06 PM in response to fliplynch

Many users are reporting they then get duplicate contacts and I'm one of them. I've been using this Mac outlook on my Iphone and encountered same problem. A total headache as I have hundreds even thousand of contacts duplicated.,.you can imagine how frustrating it was. This deal breaker for me. Until I found Scrubly Duplicate Contacts Remover.I really need this for life. This is also been used by my friends and family. I'm very thankful of having this tool. I truly appreciate an accurate address book each time I go to look up a contact. I think you should also try this. Hope it helps =)

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Answer 11

Feb 20, 2011 8:23 AM in response to ChrisSmithWebGuy

Where do you get the Scrubly Contacts Remover?

Thanks

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Answer 12

Feb 23, 2011 1:08 PM in response to fliplynch

I've had this problem too, and it seemed to happen when I had my iphone 3gs replaced at the Apple store, when I got home I restored the new iphone from a backup and thats when the problems started. My only choice now is to restore my contacts from Google Mail (which is 6 months out of date) and then spend hours going through my contacts to figure out which ones are out of date 😟 bad times apple.

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Answer 13

nole62

Level 1

11 points

Mar 5, 2011 7:55 PM in response to matstone99

I have the same issue. I have created several groups in my address book, and one person shows up about 6 times, one for every group they are on. O have read somewhere...can't find it now about crating Smart groups one for phone numbers and one for e-mail etc. If anyone knows how to do this please help us!

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Answer 14

Mar 6, 2011 12:00 AM in response to fliplynch

I have wierd stuff with my contacts as well. I use Yahoo mail and a PC & it started a few months ago; duplicating about half my contacts - some of them 4 or 5 times. I called Apple support and have been to the Apple store 3 times. At first they sold me on Mobile Me "said it would fix the problem" it did not. I came back a few weeks later & they decided it was something on my PC. I then brought the PC in. I never did figure out what he did, but he told me to go home and sync & it would fix the problem. Said I did not need Mobile Me and he took it off. I have manually corrected them so many times it gives me a headache. I've got a gut feeling it has something to do with some of my contacts having Linked Cards and some do not. I don't know what this is or how it happened. ?? I'm open to anything if you have any ideas. Thanks!

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Answer 15

nlh835

Level 1

4 points

Mar 6, 2011 3:28 AM in response to fliplynch

This is happening to me, I swear every time I sync my phone. And, trying to update the new calendar, my calendar, contacts, etc will not turn on and stay on in the system profile. ???

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