Lost all contacts after iOS 4.3 update [i…

Apr 6, 2011 2:26 PM in response to Barry Porter1

Thanks Barry - I do actually have several copies including time capsule backup (which was my last port of call).

Anyway - the resolution was simple and odd! I turned off all replication services, opened Address book and all the contacts were back! sync to iphone - all ok and then to ipad. And will be checking mobileme shortly!

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Apr 6, 2011 3:00 PM in response to youngfoot

Youngfoot, what does that mean "turn off all replication services?"

Thanks.

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Apr 6, 2011 11:26 PM in response to Dougapple Gilbert

The 2 I had running were: mobileme and Outlook 2011(with Address Book). 'sync services' may have been a better title.

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bkurek

Level 1

0 points

Apr 7, 2011 12:09 PM in response to youngfoot

just wanted to +1 this thread. after upgrade to ios 4.3.1 on my 3gs and restored from backup all contacts were missing. i'm a fairly advanced user and manually replaced the sqlite address databases on the phone after ripping them out of a backup and the phone still wouldn't take it. i also created a new backup on my pc and repaled the address databases there and did a restore and still no contacts. this is definitely a bug in ios 4.3.x. Mayeb the 4.3.2 software will fix this. in the meantime i extracted all my contacts manually from the sql database and rebuilt a contact list from scratch. which wasn't fun.

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KRG22

Level 1

22 points

Apr 7, 2011 2:06 PM in response to Linomalino

Thanks for this from a UK user! It solved the problem for me. I hope Apple read these notes because something goes wrong every time I update my iphone and I have to resort to help forums for answers. Thank goodness there are folks out there more knowledgeable than I am. Not what I expect of a premium product.

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jvrey

Level 1

0 points

Apr 8, 2011 11:43 AM in response to KRG22

Restoring a backup is slim, in my case. The PC that I usually use to sync the phone crashed about 2 months ago and I've added a number of important contacts since then. And to spice things up, that PC was recently reformatted. I created a backup of that, but it will very tedious to restore iTunes and it really won't guarantee that it will sync/restore properly. Anyway, I just wanted to share that I noticed something interesting. I think the contacts are still there but not properly linked/tagged. I have the facebook app and it is set to sync the profile pics with the phone's contact pics. 4 out of 5 contacts that I added after the update had a facebook pic immediately after saving the contact. The entries were completely new but the pics were from my previous contacts that were associated with facebook. Also, I had an alarm that is set to go off once a week. Well, when it did go off, that's when I discovered that even my alarms were gone. Interesting - I've got alarms going off but they're not listed.

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LF Clark

Level 1

0 points

Apr 11, 2011 12:05 PM in response to RandyCPU

I find out that's the problem is in the computer. I SOLVED this HUGE problem by doing this: First of all unplug the iPhone from computer.

1) Make a back up of address book in an external HD (go to Address book menu>file>export - address book archive>choose the external HD as destination and click ok. Open the external HD window (double click the HD icon) in your desktop and make sure that the address book archive is there will be a file name like "Address Book - 2011-04-09.abbu"
2) Leave the HD window open and go back to your address book and select all your contacts and delete them all. Make sure that's your address book is empty.
3) Go back to external HD window and double click the "Address Book - 2011-04-09.abbu" file, a window will appear over the address book asking if you want to replace your contacts, click REPLACE ALL.
4) All your contacts will appears again at your Address Book.

Plug in your iPhone to your computer, select it and in iPhone window on iTunes go to info and select Sync all contacts. All your contacts will be in your phone again...

This is a conflict in the computer and after replacing the contacts list for a new one from external HD the iTunes "see" the contacts again.

I hope it helps.

Good luck.

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LF Clark

Level 1

0 points

Apr 11, 2011 12:11 PM in response to RandyCPU

I find out that's the problem is in the computer. I SOLVED this HUGE problem by doing this: First of all unplug the iPhone from computer.

1) Make a back up of address book in an external HD (go to Address book menu>file>export - address book archive>choose the external HD as destination and click ok. Open the external HD window (double click the HD icon) in your desktop and make sure that the address book archive is there will be a file name like "Address Book - 2011-04-09.abbu"
2) Leave the HD window open and go back to your address book and select all your contacts and delete them all. Make sure that's your address book is empty.
3) Go back to external HD window and double click the "Address Book - 2011-04-09.abbu" file, a window will appear over the address book asking if you want to replace your contacts, click REPLACE ALL.
4) All your contacts will appears again at your Address Book.

Plug in your iPhone to your computer, select it and in iPhone window on iTunes go to info and select Sync all contacts. All your contacts will be in your phone again...

This is a conflict in the computer and after replacing the contacts list for a new one from external HD the iTunes "see" the contacts again.

I hope it helps.

Good luck

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LF Clark

Level 1

0 points

Apr 11, 2011 12:13 PM in response to RandyCPU

I find out that's the problem is in the computer. I SOLVED this HUGE problem by doing this: First of all unplug the iPhone from computer.

1) Make a back up of address book in an external HD (go to Address book menu>file>export - address book archive>choose the external HD as destination and click ok. Open the external HD window (double click the HD icon) in your desktop and make sure that the address book archive is there will be a file name like "Address Book - 2011-04-09.abbu"
2) Leave the HD window open and go back to your address book and select all your contacts and delete them all. Make sure that's your address book is empty.
3) Go back to external HD window and double click the "Address Book - 2011-04-09.abbu" file, a window will appear over the address book asking if you want to replace your contacts, click REPLACE ALL.
4) All your contacts will appears again at your Address Book.

Plug in your iPhone to your computer, select it and in iPhone window on iTunes go to info and select Sync all contacts. All your contacts will be in your phone again...

This is a conflict in the computer and after replacing the contacts list for a new one from external HD the iTunes "see" the contacts again.

I hope it helps.

Good luck

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Apr 11, 2011 9:18 PM in response to McHooper

Apple you are defenitely loosing your touch!!! I lost all my iPad data!! This is unexceptable

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Apr 11, 2011 11:08 PM in response to LF Clark

LF, Thanks!

I did a similar thing as a variation on yours. I exported all my contacts to my desktop (no need for external HD), then also deleted these 2 files from my ~/Library/Preferences directory:

com.apple.AddressBook.abd.plist
com.apple.AddressBook.plist

I also deleted these 2 from ~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/ (Just to be really anal about it)

SkypeABDialer.bundle
SkypeABSMS.bundle

Then I double clicked on my backup file and reimported. Now I can create a contact on my phone and it stays on my phone AND gets imported into my address book!

Thanks again LF!

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Apr 26, 2011 1:15 PM in response to RandyCPU

this is just a theory at this point because i have not finished restoring (again) but,

it looks to me like the database schema for AddressBook has changed between iOS 4.2 and iOS 4.3. i'm guessing that iTunes needs to upgrade the schema and copy the data in while doing the restore. if iTunes just dumps the AddressBook onto the iPhone database without conversion, it looks like your contacts are lost.

probably in order for this to happen right, you have to be on the latest version of iTunes. i happened to have been on 10.1. so the bug here might be that apple is not checking that you are trying to restore an iOS 4.2 update onto iOS 4.3 with an old version of iTunes.

anyway i'll update here in a couple of hours to see if this was the problem.

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Apr 26, 2011 3:29 PM in response to robert pfile

well... that didn't fix it. back to the drawing board.

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May 1, 2011 9:55 AM in response to RandyCPU

Hi,

I think I have found the solution.

1- Download and install iPhoneBackupExtractor software in trial mode http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/

2- Connect your iphone to your computer and start iPhoneBackupExtractor

3- Browse and select the appropriate backup. Some backups may not contain any contacts (Possibly the recent one). Check the amount of contacts under Available Data / Contacts (You can see the exact number highlighted with blue.)

4- Click "Expert Mode"

5- Go to Library / AddressBook

6- Mark the checkbox of AddressBook.sqlitedb

7- Click "Extract selected" (Trial version of iPhoneBackupExtractor allows only to extract 2 files at the same time. So this does not bother us because we only need to extract a single file.)

8- In your iphone go to Cydia and search for OpenSSH

9- Install OpenSSH to your iphone

10- On your computer download WinScp from WinSCP.com

11 - In WinScp choose new

HostName= iPhone IP address (To find out, on your iPhone go to settings-wifi and tap the blue arrow next to your connection)

username=root

password=alpine

12 - After login go to private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook

13- Drag and drop the file "AddressBook.sqlitedb" which you have extracted from backup, to the folder "AddressBook" (replace the existing file)

14- Right click to "AddressBook.sqlitedb" and click "Properties"

15- Change the owner to "root"

16- Restart your iphone.

That's all. You should now be able to see your entire address book on your iPhone.

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htimst

Level 1

8 points

May 4, 2011 6:56 AM in response to evrenfromankara

Evranfromankara: That was the single best reply I've read on this. I was able to restore all my contacts in a matter of minutes. Tesekular!

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Lost all contacts after iOS 4.3 update [iPhone 4]