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Level 1

1 points

Imported contacts disappear after about 5 seconds

I'm guessing this has to do with a bug in iCloud.

Before this import I created a backup by using Export -> Address Book Archive.

After importing about 1000 company-wide contacts into my Address Book, Address Book started behaving strangely. It was slow and fan was going at full speed. Next time I looked in Address Book I had 3000 contacts, then later 5000 contacts. I deleted them all, which eventually worked even though Address Book was extremely slow.

So, now I had no more contacts. My iPhone eventually synced as well. So, I then had no contacts in Address Book on my mac and neither on my iPhone.

Then I tried to import that archive again. It said, and I still get this whenever I try: "Are you sure you want to replace all of the contacts in your address book with the contacts in “Address Book - 01-23-2012.abbu”? If you click Replace All, the information in this Address Book archive completely replaces the information in your address book. You can't undo this action."

So I choose Replace All, and for 5 seconds my contacts reappear, and then disappear again.

When I look on iCloud.com there are no contacts. I have tried deleting all the files in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/ as well as the preference files for Address Book in ~/Library/Preferences/

I have also tried shutting off iCloud Contacts on my desktop before doing the import, and sometimes it talks to iCloud nevertheless. I have run out of ideas...

Anyone got a clue what to do next?

Macbook alu, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jan 25, 2012 4:11 AM

Best reply

relloblue

Level 1

13 points

Posted on Aug 12, 2012 11:01 PM

Same problem. Importing contacts lets them flash into the contacts app, and then they disappear within a few seconds to match the empty icloud website.

btw. I'm in Mountain Lion on one of my macs, where Address Book is now Contacts

Spent 2 hours with apple support today with senior support person, and the following procedure fixed it for me

1. disconnect from internet (switch off wifi, or unplug ethernet cable)

2. in Contacts application, import all contacts

3. in System Preferences/icloud untick contacts

4. when prompted to delete or keep, choose keep (moves contacts to "on my mac")

confirm that the contacts are now on your mac

5. in System Preferences/icloud tick contacts

6. when prompted to replace or merge, choose merge

7. connect to internet

8. in Contacts application, drag all contacts from "on my mac" to "icloud"

9. in Contacts application, drag all groups (one by one) into "icloud"

confirm that all your contacts have been moved over and the groups are all ok

10. delete all the contacts in "on my mac"

11. in Contacts/preferences select default addressbook = "icloud"

12. sigh with relief

Come on, Apple, you have to do better than this.

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21 replies

a.Parks

Level 1

0 points

Dec 27, 2012 9:24 PM in response to relloblue

I would juste like to say that Relloblue, you saved my day!!!! 🙂 🙂

I received a new MacBook pro 2012, 15 inch for christmas and gave my old 13inch (mid 2010) to my mom. I deleted all my contacts (stupid me) on my old macbook. and iCloud synced my empty contact list to my new MacBook. I have spent almost 5 hours trying to figure out how to import my contacts from my backup and not let iCloud sync (kept erasing my contacts, juste like mfronmark explained).

I did exactly like you said, relloblue, and it WORKED!!

I cant thank you enough.

May 11, 2013 10:57 AM in response to mfronmark

I also have a solution.

I disconnected from the internet

Double clicked the .abbu contact backup file to import the contacts

Selected all the contacts and exported as a vCard file

Connected to the internet

Watched the contacts disapear

Imported the vCard file

The contacts imported and resynched with iCloud.

Cheers,

Chris

May 12, 2013 11:24 PM in response to topher101

Only problem with the vCard export is loss of all your groups. But better than losing everything.

kurt215

Level 1

0 points

Sep 8, 2014 3:35 PM in response to keg55

keg55's solution did not work for me, but the following did and more importantly, groups are retained:

Contact syncing enabled in system settings, all other devices not syncing contacts, no contacts in cloud, logged out of icloud
turn wifi off
import .abbu file with 300 contacts, replacing whatever you already had in contacts
turn sync off in sys settings
create new contact in contacts app
export as abbu
quit
turn sync on in sys settings (requests to merge, OK)
turn wifi back on
launch contacts and watch connection wheel spin as they are uploaded to icloud

Sorry it's brief, but hopefully it works for you. I'll try to check back for questions.

Nov 18, 2014 9:40 PM in response to relloblue

Had a similar problem. relloblue's method is the only one that worked!

My contacts were originally in iCloud only. Luckily, I had exported the address book before an experiment on syncing with Gmail. The experiment went bad. I cleared by mac address book then tried to import from the address book archive I created earlier. Like everyone else said on this thread, the addresses would appear for a few seconds then vanish into thin air. What a cruel joke!

I unticked iCloud syncing for Contacts. When I imported again, same thing happened. My entries flashed for a few seconds and pooh, thin air. I noticed an interesting thing. My archive had all the contacts in the "iCloud" groups. So when I imported from the archive, Contacts would put them in their original "iClouds" group and automagically tick the "Contacts" syncing in my iClouds settings in system preferences! And then of course, as others noted, the mac would take the empty address book in iClouds as the reference copy and clean out the contacts on my mac. Such a great example of software trying to be too intelligent and ending up being a pain!

In relloblue's method, the step of disconnecting the network is really important. It prevents the mac from syncing with iCloud, giving me the time to copy the contacts to the "On My Mac" group. Then after the network is connected, the iCloud syncing happens and cleans out the "iCloud" groups on the mac. Then I can copy the contacts from the "On My Mac" group to "iCould" again.

Sep 9, 2015 12:14 AM in response to kurt215

I am going to try a few of these methods, and this one too, I did want to post to let people know, this happened to me on Yosemite on 09.09.2015

It i a corrupted image, and have fun locating it. Contacts.app keep a copy of the original, and a cropped version, or at least, at one time it did, as I went from some very large images that I found in a nested package folder, which the files have no extension, to much smaller JPEG files that are all the same width and height.

I took the route of getting them in anyway I could, then select all, drag and drop to a folder on your desktop, and you will end up with a single file called "Name of first contact and x others" where x is the total number of contacts you had minus one, since the name of one person is in the filename.

At first, I was bummed, I lost all my images, then I thought, you know what, this data came from all the way back to a palm pilot, imported to a Treo, to Outlook, to google, to iPhone, and many an upgraded OS etc.

Time to get some new pics anyway. It's also a good thing to do as there is a restore files feature at iCloud.com, and you can restore and address book. I did, and lost about 40 contacts, so I could have weeded through them and found the corrupt ones, but I may have missed one, one may have been on the verse of corruption, etc.

Just waiting for the new OS so I can do a clean install and be fresh, yay!

Imported contacts disappear after about 5 seconds