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Contacts not syncing

My Contacts are not syncing to iPhone after making lots (200 - 300) edits in Address Book on my MBP. The edits do not appear on the iPhone. It's asthough the data is not even recognised. I've r=tried resetting sync history in iSync prefs, as well clicking on 'replacing data for next sync only' option in iTunes. No success.

Any suggestions or help much appreciated. Thank you.

MacBook Pro 3.02 GHz, 15, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 8GB RAM, 3 iPods, iPhone 3GS, iPad

Posted on Mar 22, 2012 7:35 AM

Reply
23 replies

Mar 22, 2012 3:59 PM in response to PaulWR

i have a similar problem. I added new contacts to my iMac's address book, and they won't sync to the iPhone. When I look for them in the address book, they are there, but they are in a blue font instead of a black font.


I've tried to start my own request for help, but I keep on getting an error message after I type a heading 😟


Wish I could help you...

Mar 28, 2012 7:59 PM in response to PaulWR

This is not my soluction, it was posted in another thread a while ago.


You pull out your all the files in the address books library.


Make sure iPhone is not also trying to sync contact from another source (like Exchange, Google mail, etc..)
* Plug iPhone in to computer and turn off contact syncing then sync again
* Disconnect iPhone
* Quit Address book, iTunes, iCal etc..
* go to (user home folder)/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and move all the contents of that folder with the EXCEPTION of the Metadata folder to your desktop (in case you need to restore them).
* open iSync from your applications, go to Preferences, and click reset Sync History.
* Reopen AddressBook
* Connect iPhone to iTunes and set up your iPhone to sync contacts as you want them.




I have used this successfully in the past.

Apr 13, 2012 4:57 PM in response to marlinfromnull

Marlinfromnull:


Your suggestion didn't work for me. In fact, ALL of my contacts were deleted from my iPod touch (3rd gen., iOS 5.1), and now, no matter what I do, nothing will sync back to my iPod.


I even did a total "Restore" of my iPod, and still every single one of the groups on my iPod's contacts says: "No contacts."


I strongly recommend to others reading this discussion that they not try what you have suggested!


Green Lantern

Apr 18, 2012 3:59 AM in response to Green Lantern

Green Lantern, I think all your contacts were SUPPOSED to be deleted in the device, then re-synced back onto the device after resetting sync history. The advice to carry contents onto desktop to retain the data contents was good and should assure you didn’t lose your contacts/data if you go back to it again.


As it happens, Marlinfromnull's advice did not fix my problem, but equally it did not damage my Address Book data or ultimately the Contacts (which were all deleted temporarily on my iPhone, also).


Another precaution against losing all your Contacts is to export your entire Address Book as an archive (on Mac that's a function under File menu) so it can be imported back in again if things ever go pear-shaped while trying to fix the issue.


After trying many fixes (including Marlinfromnull's) unsuccessfully, my fix happened by doing the following process FOUR times in a row until it stuck:

1. Make archive/backup of total Address Book data incase you need it later on to restore.

2. Plug iPhone in to computer and turn off Contacts syncing then sync again choosing option to delete all contacts when asked. All Contacts disappear off iPhone after syncing.

3. Disconnect iPhone from computer and do Hard Reset (holding down Power and Home buttons together until white apple appears onscreen).

4. On Mac (or using your computer's equivalent functionality), open iSync> Preferences and click "Reset Sync History") button. Wait for it to complete when the button goes grey.

5. Do Permissions Repair. (I have no idea what difference this makes, if any, but it's what I did out of desperation!)

6. Restart computer and launch iTunes.

7. Plug iPhone into computer again, turn on 'syncing contacts' again, and sync.

8. Contacts should now be back in iPhone. (At this stage, I checked some of the edits I'd made and the old data was still in there, so...)

9. Again... disconnect iPhone and do hard reset. Delete all data from Address Book and Import the backup archive to restore the all Address Book contacts.

10. Again... open iSync and reset Sync History (see #4 above).

11. Restart computer, reconnect iPhone, in Tunes set to 'Overwrite Contacts on next sync'.

12. Sync iPhone.


That entire process 4 TIMES!!!! One after the other. And then suddenly, as though there'd never been any issue, all the correct (newly edited) data was on the iPhone and as well as in Address Book in the computer. And it's been fine ever since.


Go figure...


Now, I'm no techie, and I was just deperately shooting from the hip to fix the problem, and I'm sure there are a lot of unnecessary wasted steps in that process, BUT... it did work for me, as tedious and frustratingly unassisted it was.


How is it that someone like me has to wade around neck-deep in unknown tech sludge to fix (what MUST be) a very simple problem in a device that's been designed, developed and provided by such a techno-capable company as Apple Computer, who should have an answer to such simple things when they have such techno-capability at their fingertips? How is it that a techno-dumbie like me can fumble around in the metaphorical darkness and achieve what Apple appears unable to? Remarkable. Dumbfounding.


So there you have it. For what it's worth.

Jul 5, 2012 2:13 AM in response to PaulWR

Guys, I have a 3gs and facing serious problem in syncing my contacts with iTunes on Windows7. Never realised this earlier, but it seems that my iphone never synced ALL contacts with iTunes. Recently came to know of it when i tried using Google Contacts to sync contacts; around 150 contacs didn't get synced. On the contrary, I lost around 300 contacts on my phone!


Immediately tried to do a Restore Backup and got most of them back. Since then, iTunes has been throwing error while syncing contacts... something like: "iTunes faced a error while merging contacts." And none of the contacts get copied into Google or Outlook.


Already tried re-installing itunes on system, still same error message. Can someone help pls???

Jul 5, 2012 3:08 AM in response to vivmehta

Sorry but I'm not at all sure if the functionality through Windows in any way resembles the functionality through MacOS. I suspect that the same process as mentioned above (the lignthy one) would work. Well, it certainly won't do any damage if you follow the steps accurately. I think the iPhone or the syncing system gets confused sometimes for some weird reason and can't find its own way out the maze it's put itself in. Clearing it all out then re-applying the data ought to work fine every time, but in my cas eit required several times to make it stick.


Also, you might try the iCloud option Green Lantern mentioed above - seems to make sense if you have an iCloud account.


Hope this helps.

Jul 5, 2012 10:27 PM in response to PaulWR

Bought an app for $5 from App Store and did it in 30 seconds yesterday. If these app developers can make it so ******* easy, why can't these Apple techno-********?


They purposely leave these gaps so that such apps can be made and customers shell out more money. I've decided to move onto an open-platform phone now... may be Samsung Galaxy s2 or s3... Enough of ELITE-ISM of owning an iPhone!

Contacts not syncing

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