iCloud Server Error: Can't add/edit contacts + it overwrites AddressBook edits

Question

Level 3

502 points

iCloud Server Error: Can't add/edit contacts + it overwrites AddressBook edits

I originally posted this in the MobileMe forum. I am totally frustrated and disgusted with the unreliable and buggy iCloud. I am hoping smarter people than me can help resolve this. Thank you.

My primary data source is/was my MacBook Pro. It was all synced to MobileMe. (Contacts and iCal). iCloud came along. I "upgraded" to iCloud {the frustrating process of "your account needs to be upgraded, create an appleID..." was a whole different pain}.

To make life simple, I even allowed iCloud to be the source of data for my iMac as well as iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S by deleting everything and letting everything be populated from iCloud. Now, supposedly, all my contacts and calendar/reminder data is in iCloud and all the data on the iMac and iPhones if from iCloud.

Except, I cannot make edits to contacts in iCloud or even Add a new contact. When I Add or Save an edit in iCloud, EACH time I get an ERROR and the error report going to Apple is given below.

Worse, I spent an hour cleaning up the freshly downloaded contacts in the iMac's AddressBook. NONE of those changes went up to iCloud.

EVEN worse, iCloud overwrote the changed fields back to the old/blank fields, wasting my hour of work.

Adding cards in AddressBook on the computer also does not propagate to iCloud, though edits to or changes to iCal DO show up in iCloud. But, adds/deletes/edits to Contacts on iMac OR iPhones do NOT show up in iCloud.

Your help appreciated. Regards,

Imran

===

This is from the iMac console when I tried to delete a contact:

11/20/11 6:05:09.289 AM Address Book: Process com.apple.AddressBook deleting 1 contact

11/20/11 6:05:10.045 AM Address Book: [CardDAVPlugin-ERROR] -getHomeInfo:[_controller containersAtURLs:{(

https://MYNAME%40me.com@p01-contacts.icloud.com:443/########/carddavhome///MYNAME%40me.com@p01-contacts.icloud.com:443/########/carddavhome/

)}] Error Domain=CoreDAVErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (CoreDAVErrorDomain error 1.)"

The rest of the log is at: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3508969 and not repeated here.

MBP/17/2.6/200,iMac24/3.06,PBG4/17,PBG3/500,PBG3/300,PMG4,eMacG4, Mac OS X (10.7.2), iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, Nikon D300

Posted on Nov 20, 2011 5:40 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 21, 2011 7:35 PM in response to IMRAN

Can you edit your contacts in your Mac? I have the same problem both on my Mac and iCloud. My contacts are correctly added/edited on my iPhone, but they don't sync to iCloud. No edit can be done in iCloud ("server error") nor in my Mac.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3485690?answerId=16725732022#16725732022

I've been trying every single fix/workaround in these forums, nothing works so far.

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 22, 2011 11:41 AM in response to IMRAN

I am having the same problems. I must use a PC at work period full stop. No choice. This means I have to use iCloud.com to try to get the far-too-many Mac devices I have to sync. This is perhaps one of the worst rollouts I have witnessed (and I am a mobilme member for a very long time). First it was trying to get explorer to get along with cloud. Lots of freezes. Asked the community about switching to Safari if that would help, no responses, so did it anyhow and it seems to have helped. Now I have this hot mess issue with the contacts on iCloud.com; sometimes they will take/sync and then others they do not...except that it will wait and act like it's accepted multiple changes and then when you finally see on a device that it is NOT syncing do you realize there is a problem.

I then get MULTIPLE servers error messages from apple on several changes I made previously...which I then have to do all over again, but hey, I get to "send a message to Apple" about 30 times a day to "help" diagnose the cerebral failure in the programming/coding/whatever...

Just the normal hype I am used to with such "visionary" developments."

If anyone has found a solution to this short of reloading/exporting contacts everywhere across this lovely "ECOSYSTEM" please let me know.

Reply

Answer 3

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Nov 23, 2011 12:26 AM in response to IMRAN

Sorry to hear you are also having problems but glad I am not the only one.

I am totally frustrated. Ironically, I first waited a 2 weeks before making the move to iCloud. Ironically, initially everything worked fine. MacBook Pro primary synced with MobileMe migrated to iCloud, which synced well with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iMac.

But all that time I was making any changes on the Macs, so can't be sure if the iCloud Server Error problem existed already and I just did not know it.

I first noticed it when changes I made disappeared. A business connection I accidentally ran into gave me his new number, which I fed into my iPhone 4S replacing his old dead number. When I did not see it on the MacBook Pro, I checked iCloud, which also did not show the change. Went to the iPhone 4S only to find the OLD number had replaced the new number, and I have no way of running into that person again. This is a DATA LOSS issue.

I finally bit the bullet, logged out of iCloud on all devices, deleted everything from iCloud, deleted all iCloud login and accounts from iCals and ABs on my devices. Then, I started just with the primary MacBook pro feeding iCloud like new.... Now, nearly 10 hours later, it is still adding contacts to iCloud about 1 every few minutes with AddressBook hogging the CPU and unresponsive. Console shows uploads, and then repeats of:

11/23/11 3:11:29.324 AM Address Book: ABImageLoading: imageData is type (null) containing: (null) <--this line is hundreds of times for each of the remaining contacts it is uploading and succeeding only 1 at a time apparently).....

11/23/11 3:11:29.326 AM Address Book: ABImageLoading: imageData is type (null) containing: (null)

11/23/11 3:11:29.327 AM Address Book: ABImageLoading: imageData is type (null) containing: (null)

11/23/11 3:11:40.065 AM Address Book: [CardDAVPlugin-ERROR] -syncBulkChangeTask: returning NO because task.nextCTag is nil.

11/23/11 3:11:40.065 AM Address Book: [CardDAVPlugin-ERROR] -_handleAddsOrModifies:https://ME%40me.com@p01-contacts.icloud.com:443/3832XXXX/carddavhome/card///ME%40me.com@p01-contacts.icloud.com:443/3832XXXX/carddavhome/card/ Error Domain=CoreDAVErrorDomain Code=1 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (CoreDAVErrorDomain error 1.)"

11/23/11 3:11:40.335 AM Address Book: [MIGRATION] ### PRECONDITION RECYCLE ###

11/23/11 3:11:40.394 AM Address Book: [MIGRATION] ### PREPARING MERGER WITH 2001 USERS, 0 GROUPS

11/23/11 3:11:40.397 AM Address Book: [MIGRATION] ### DOWNLOAD FROM https://imrananwar%40me.com@p01-contacts.icloud.com:443/3832XXXX/carddavhome/car d///imrananwar%40me.com@p01-contacts.icloud.com:443/3832XXXX/carddavhome/card/ ###

11/23/11 3:11:52.758 AM AddressBookSourceSync: ServerNotifications: Setting delegate to APSD

11/23/11 3:11:55.233 AM AddressBookSourceSync: Subscription request completed

There are no other apps running (until I was barely able to fire up Safari). Who knows how long this will take and THEN I have to wait for iOS and iMac to download it too... for safety's sake I enable them one at a time.

Come on Apple.

Imran

Reply

Answer 4

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Nov 23, 2011 8:35 PM in response to IMRAN

I added this comment to a thread about trying to get rid of iCloud once it has been used... it is much harder than you'd imagine... I am sharing it here because it includes steps I took after the problem we are discussing above....

====

I love Apple since it started and been a Mac user since it came out. Much that MobileMe was frustrating and had a lousy launch, I thought it was impossible to make something worse than MobileMe. Apple succeeded with this disaster, data destroying, heart burning, stomach churning and hours wasting beast called iCloud.

See iCloud Server Error: Can't add/edit contacts + it overwrites AddressBook edits By IMRAN Happy to have your thoughts on how to solve that nightmare. My last attempt (manually restorying my 5000 contacts in AddressBook, then painfully manually deleting contacts in iCloud {Select All > Delete there gives Server Errors also}. Finally managed. Then resyncing the MacBook Pro to iCloud led to 1000 contacts NOT syncing and no way except manually listing each address list side by side to figure out which ones it missed pulling in. Horror. Disaster. Shame.

For the user who says that turning off iCloud on the Mac and accepting its offer to delete data will delete data only on the cloud, sorry, but, unless I misunderstood you, that is dangerously wrong.

Like an evil spawn of SkyNet and a PC Boot Sector Virus, once iCloud has grabbed your data IT becomes the master of your data, your digital life. Deleting stuff means the stuff on your DEVICE (e.g. MacBook Pro, where you created and have all the ORIGINAL data in that iCloud sucked in) is what will be destroyed. Be careful.

If you're playing with this beast, not only make backups of your data in AddressBook and iCal, but invest in an external drive and clone your whole hard drive.

I am literally having to make a decision tonight, keep my MacBook Pro as the master, and sync via iTunes to the iPhone 4S and 4. I have an iMac mostly for music and video, which it was "cool" to have synced iCal and AB on, though not regularly used. But, after the hours wasted with iCloud, and the repeated data loss, I can live without the iMac being a synced device.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Imran Anwar

Reply

Answer 5

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Nov 24, 2011 9:56 PM in response to IMRAN

Despite clean starts, I am finding an additional bug... not only does iCloud not sync properly even with a fresh start from a MacBook Pro AND/OR iPhone 4S, even setting up a parallel separate environment with an iMac AND/OR iPhone 4 also shows the same erratic behavior.

I had used iTunes sycn to the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S which synced all 5400 contacts from my MacBook Pro to my iPhones. When I had enabled iCloud on the laptop iCloud only took 3100 records.

An additional annoyance is how Apple's apps across platforms provide inconsistent look and feel (something Jobs supposedly prided). e.g. when you select all contacts starting with A in iCloud Contacts, it shows a total number for the selection. Doing that in AddressBook on the Mac does not do that. You have to manually semi-drag the cards to get a count to appear. (Unless I am missing something).

Anyway, here is the continuing frustration. I reset iCloud (removed all records there also) and the MacBook Pro was no longer using iCloud and neither was the iPhone 4 (environment A). Instead, I took the iPhone 4 (part of Environment B) with its 5400 contacts all working fine, and decided to use that as the iCloud connected device first to sync.

This led to 3902 records appearing in iCloud (just like had happened with Environment A). Annoying because it is still less than the 5400 in the iPhone 4 but also because this number is different from the number of the same records iCloud took in from the MacBook Pro. Inconsistent behavior. And, there is no easy way to figure out what records did not get pulled in.

iCloud seems to think that is the final number. I synced an iMac to iCloud and sure enough even that got the 3902 from iCloud.

I did a manual search and found a few records on the iPhone that don't appear in iCloud. To force an exchange of data I manually edited a few... e.g. added URLs, added a city, etc. Yet, iCloud did NOT take the changed records from the iPhone.

Next, I used an vCard file of ALL 5400 cards and manually imported that into the iMac's AddressBook, thereby adding the missing 1500 records to AB.

I would like to have seen iCloud either NOT take ANY of the newly added ones from the iMac OR taken them all. Instead, it did a hybrid. The iCloud contacts count went up from 3902 to about 5200, but meaning 200 records are STILL missing and I still have to manually figure out a way to get them into iCloud.

This is getting beyond frustrating, it is downright embarassing to be telling people who reliable and robust Apple's inetgrated platforms are (supposed to be), and not being able to use what was previously working fine wiht MobileMe.

Hope this helps anyone else trying to experiment around similar issues. An interesting Console message that I see (and a Google search shows not a single instance of on the planet) is:

11/25/11 12:30:29.186 AM AddressBookManager: Validate metadata timed out, cancelling

I'd be happy to delete any record that had corruption, if that is a problem, but there is no other indication. Manually editing/exporting/reimporting contacts that were missed has not solved the problem either. Any ideas to solve this horrid experience will be appreciated.

Imran

Reply

Answer 6

Dec 1, 2011 5:26 PM in response to IMRAN

It's an iCloud syncing error, and it wipes your edits on your Mac everytime.

This is what I did to fix it.

1. Make a backup of your Address Book, using the vCard option (or both, it doesn’t hurt). Save it for later.

2. In System Preferences -> iCloud, turn Contacts off. I chose “keep on My Mac” those contacts, but nevertheless I got an empty Address Book after a while. And a few minutes later, iCloud contacts were empty and my iPhone also. It is scary at first! Now, before importing that vCard backup…

3. Turn Wi-Fi off. This is important, since your contact-empty iCloud will attempt to wipe your Address Book from your Mac just seconds after importing.

4. Import your vCard backup to Address Book. Just drag it to your blank Address Book window; it asks if you want to import “x” number of cards. Of course, say yes.

5. Turn Wi-Fi on, and then iCloud contacts on again (System Preferences -> iCloud). It will offer to merge your newly populated Address Book with iCloud (which is empty at this point). It should upload every single contact to iCloud, and then to your iDevices. If not, a fifth step would be to import the vCard file to iCloud, but it shouldn’t be necessary.

Hope it helps.

Reply

Answer 7

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Dec 5, 2011 12:18 AM in response to rolandomerida

Thanks for the message. Unfortunately, even when I tried this, it did not work. I even tried this with Archive (to retain groups) and simple export and import losing all the hard work of creating and populating groups in my AddressBook. I even did this from an MacBook Pro + iPhone 4S on one empty iCloud account and separately from an iMac and iPhone 4 (using a fresh blank import of vCards only) to a separate iCloud account.

Even in the BEST case I got 5110 in iCloud not the 5500.That is still useless since it requires going through 5500 contacts visually comparing to see which 400 are missing. Some missing ones will pop up in iCloud if I delete the photo and re-disappear if I add the photo back in the AddressBook.

This is disgusting (and apparently a separate iCloud bug) since if the photos are good enough to show in Mac, iPhone etc, they should be fine to go into iCloud too. Even worse, AddressBook does not have a simple filter or search to create a smart folder of, say, cards with photos to make the comparison easier to detect missing ones from iCloud.

With the same data in the other environment, iCloud only populated 2236. So, I cannot blame the MacBook Pro or the iPhone 4S (which, by the way, shame on Apple, is also suffering the crackling sound bug even after replacing it at the Apple Store). So much for Apple's reliability.

Imran Anwar

Reply

Answer 8

CipBal

Level 1

1 points

Dec 13, 2011 11:56 PM in response to IMRAN

Thanks for this thread Imran - it is good to know I am not alone in this mess that is iCloud!

iCloud seems to be a nightmare ...

Can't access calendars.

Long conversations with Applecare saying their servers are the problem.

Fixed for a couple of days after the weekend.

Now nothing works again.

Why wheel out something so buggy?

CipBal

Reply

Answer 9

Dec 16, 2011 11:15 AM in response to IMRAN

Now having loads of fun with the calendar portion of icloud.com. When I try to set a time (for a flight departure) for 9:30 AM the lovely web app overwrites it and repeatedly puts in 3:30 PM then flickers between PM and AM and so on. What is hilariously so horrible about this particular crappy aspect of this disaster piece of software is that no matter how many times the user tries to keep correcting it back to 9:30 it just keeps putting 3:30 over and over on it's own.

It is really impressive to see so much helpful feedback from the Apple "visionaries" in Crappertino about this joke of an application...

Reply

Answer 10

Jan 2, 2012 11:57 AM in response to IMRAN

I'm also having similar issues where if I start with a clean slate (as directed by Apple) and then reimport from a vCard archive I only get around 2,100 contacts sync to the iCloud versus the 2,500 or so showing in Address book following the vCard archive import.

In my case I've narrowed this down to contact images. I've always religiously added contact images to contacts but it would appear this is the issue. If I export my vCards from Address Book without contact images, wipe the iCloud and then import the vCard archive (minus images), all items sync no issues.

If I then add an image to a contact in Address book, or on any of my iOS devices, it doesn't sync to iCloud. If I log into icloud.com itself and try and add a contact image there I get a server error and then it reverts back to the imageless contact. I've tried different image formats (JPEG and PNG), resizing to 320x320, 640x640 etc. to no avail.

I have though managed to get contact images associated with a number of my contacts, but it's just random and where the exact same image file can be added to several contacts (via icloud.com) I then sometimes hit another contact where I try and add the same image and it doesn't work.

For fear of "breaking" the sync relationship I'm afraid to add any contact images because doing so means that on whatever device I made the change, no further updates to that contact will sync to iCloud until I remove the contact image.

In the old days of MobileMe I used to be able to add contact images at the full retina display res of 640x960 to my contacts and have them sync etc. It would appear those days have gone.

I've contacted AppleCare in relation to the issue and their suggestion was to do the export and then reimport, which hasn't worked, so I'll need to call them back and persist.

If you have any luck, let me know.

Reply

Answer 11

IMRAN Author

Level 3

502 points

Jan 6, 2012 9:04 AM in response to dylanfrombronte

CipBal, my pleasure (or displeasure in this case LOL) to have to be trying to get Apple's attention to fixing this horrible iCloud disaster. Dylan, thank you for the detailed statement of what you did, as that is exactly my experience. SHAME on APPLE that MacBook Pro, iPhone 4, 4S, can show the cards just fine, sync between them, and iCloud not only gives you a FALSE confirmation that all is synced (unless you manually check # of contacts) but even OVERWRITES your data, including any phone number or other data you have entered on the Mac or iPhone. That is DATA LOSS.

Wonder if everyone else knows: ICLOUD IS A DATA LOSS RISK.

Been too long since I wrote AppleScript or I would at least try to run a script that shows WHICH of my 5400 contacts were NOT pulled by iCloud. Or to identify cards with Photos, so I can make a smartgroup and would then have the painful process of comparing a Safari iCloud list vs an AddressBook windwo to find which are missing. It would be better than having to do that with 5400 contacts as I am having to do.

Regards

Imran

Reply