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After syncing with iCloud all categories of my 400 Outlook contacts were lost.

After enabling contact synchronization by iCloud, all my Outlook contacts were moved in a new Outlook folder, and all categories (such as private, customer, partner, ...) were lost. Now I need to re-categorize all of them.


Apple, please fix this BIG BUG!!!


H.R. Thomann

iPad 2, iOS 5, Windows 7 X64, Outlook 2007

Posted on Oct 14, 2011 1:51 AM

Reply
60 replies

Oct 14, 2011 2:28 AM in response to HRThomann

Addendum/correction: The bug is slightly different:

- when opening a contact, then I see its categories. So the categories are retained.

- when creating a view (a table) including the "categories" field, then that column remains blank.

- using the categories field as a grouping criterion does not work, there is a single group "no categories"

- resetting the existing view or creating a new one does not help.


Now the killing effect:

- when copying contacts into an Outlook folder other that "iCloud contacts", everything works fine.


---> The bug occurs only in this bloddy "iCloud contacts" folder.


Why did Apple need to create a new folder? What's wrong with the iCloud folder?


Please fix and help!


H.R. Thomann

Oct 14, 2011 5:36 AM in response to HRThomann

This does not appear to be a contact only issue. I have the same issue with "Tasks". I group my task by "categories" (projects) When viewing in the table view and/ or sorting by category the list shows NONE. When I open the task the categories are there. Additionally, when I change a category, it opens a second group on "NONE" Categories .......


So this appears to be a "Category" display issue in the ICloud folder in outlook.

Oct 14, 2011 1:30 PM in response to HRThomann

The same issue is also true with respect to calendar entries. I not only categorize my calendar, I color code by category so I can see at a glance what types of appointments I have scheduled in a given time period.


When I installed the iCloud interface and opened/sync'ed Outlook, the categories were no longer visible and, worse, the colors were all scrambled. The same held true for Contacts.


Fortunately, I was unable to uninstall the iCloud desktop/link and my Contacts and Calendar entries were restored to my local .pst file with no apparent damage ... and the categories and colors were restored.

Oct 15, 2011 5:31 PM in response to HRThomann

HRThomann your second post is dead on! This is exactly what I'm seeing as well. I hate to be the poster that says "me too" but...



ME TOO!


When I first saw this functionality I said. "YES!" Now I'm saying, "No, no, no..." I need those categories.


The good news is this: all of your original contacts have been moved to the deleted folder and they appear to be intact. You can undo this really quiclky.

Oct 15, 2011 8:25 PM in response to HRThomann

Mine too. 2000+ "contacts " are gone and now in a new folder called iCloud contacts. I need them to organize them by category so that I can make email lists (i.e. send a mass email to all my doctor friends or send an email to all my patients without having to hand pick names from a long list). Charles, thanks for the advice to look in the deleted folder. I'm going to check that our right now! I guess my next question is after we figure out how to organize contacts into lists... How do I hook up my card scan business card reader to sync w/the iCloud folder.


"DOC"

Oct 16, 2011 9:31 AM in response to HRThomann

If you uninstall the iCloud desktop/link I assume you lose the abilty to sync everything?


This is beyond disappointing. Everything worked fine in mobileme. Now, I will have to choose - the ability to sync without the organization or keep the organization but only have it on my pc. I am going to test moving the calendar to msn and see if I can get that work on all platforms. Google is not an option since I have more than one calendar.

Oct 16, 2011 3:16 PM in response to Community User

I copied all calendar items to MSN Live Calendar and it appears to work. The only issue is a question of reoccurring items. They all appear - but not as a reoccurring. The great news is.....the categories and colors are all correct. An added bonus - it appears to accept invitations! Yeah!


Also, some of my calendar categories (colors) are starting to appear in my icloud calendar. At least I have solution that will work until I more time to spend on this.


Apple, if you are reading these - I cannot express my frustration with your software. Love the devices, hate the drama. Forcing us to convert our accounts is very frustrating. The majority of us are not tech experts. I certainly did not understand that by innocently switching to a new phone I was radically changing my entire email/calendar/tasks. Certainly you expect the adults in the population to want their email, calendar and tasks - both personal and work on their devices. Forcing this type of radical change in outlook and in software requirements in a professional environment is grossly unfair. Most companies (especially in this economy) cannot afford, nor do many even allow employees to download items. This type of rollout required significant more information to be released to users prior to their purchasing the product. We should be offered the option to keep using mobileme as it was on our new devices (even if it meant not being able to access some options) or to proceed and make the change. If that was not possible then there should have been full disclosure, not "you can continue to use mobileme until June". Well, you can't if you want to use your email on your iphone!

Oct 17, 2011 11:15 AM in response to HRThomann

I spent 4 hours on tech support (Level 2) and no resolution.


Next I called Dynmo/Cardscan as I use their cardscan device to scan business cards and import them automatically to Outlook. We figured out that by re-naming the "Contacts" folder to "Contacts in iCloud", it now does not import newly scanned cards too! Bug #2.


The only work around we came up was to go into MS outlook, help-->office--> diagnostics. It will run a check and bring back the old contacts folder (empty of course). You can then take a back up, (mine was from Cardscan, but you could use any back-up) and restore your contacts into the "Contacts folder". I was then able to scan cards into my "Contacts folder", and then copy and paste into my "Contacts in iCloud" folder. The only bummer is now if I add a contact into my phone or iPad it won't go into my outlook "Contacts" folder at work and home. Kinda defeating the whole in a cloud concept IMHO.


It is this or roll back my computer and go back to using the cable to sync... Any other suggetions?

Oct 17, 2011 2:12 PM in response to scmibis

I'm also having problems with categories in contacts being gone, duplicate entries in calendar (from iphone and Outlook I presume) and no appointments showing up in To-Do List in outlook/with associated categories colors. Will uninstalling desktop iCloud program automatically restore prior data in Outlook Calendar and Contacts? Those are the only things I had selected to use in iCloud.

Oct 18, 2011 1:12 PM in response to HRThomann

I also just realized that all my contacts are no longer in their appropiate categories in outlook. Super frustrating! When I open the contacts, they still have their categories tagged to it but it cannot group them into the category view. So know I have 1000 contacts that I cannot view by category.


Does anyone have a fix for this? Please share ASAP!!! thanks!!!

After syncing with iCloud all categories of my 400 Outlook contacts were lost.

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