Problems with import/export vcards.

Question

iwunschkind Author

Level 1

0 points

Problems with import/export vcards.

Hi everybody.

I'm facing a strange problem.

Some of my contacts (approx 200) vanished surprisingly (I use iCloud).

I tried to restore them with Time Machine.

But Address Book is simply not doing it!

Going back in time with Address Book and restore is not working!!

Then I noticed that also import and export of vcards is not possible.

It works a few time when I close and reopen Adress Book.

Does this sound familiar to someone? Even better someone with a solution.

By the way, where does OSX 10.7 store the address data? In the libriary? Cant find them.

Thanks a lot

iMac (20-inch Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 5, 2012 11:07 AM

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Answer 1

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,804 points

Apr 5, 2012 1:58 PM in response to iwunschkind

You may want to pull the addressbook.plist file, then re-open and see what happens.

Also make sure you're using the RIGHT account (iCloud)

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Answer 2

iwunschkind Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 6, 2012 8:56 AM in response to HACKINT0SH

Thank you, but there is no such file in the system.

I searched all plist and nearly all of them are linked to diffent types of printers.

I think to know where the address db is, could really help.

Thanks again.

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Answer 3

iwunschkind Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 6, 2012 10:08 AM in response to HACKINT0SH

I found the file or rather a file which seems to fit "metadata".

In there I found all contacts.

I restored them, but address book still isn't "accepting" them.

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Answer 4

iwunschkind Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 7, 2012 2:37 AM in response to HACKINT0SH

I found a solution to my problem, or let's say a work-around.

Here the details, if someone is facing a similiar problem.

The file where all data is stored is named: "AddressBook-v22.abcddb" (at least since OSX 10.7)

It takes it's data from "Metadata" and "Images" (if ever you have pics with your contacts), locate in the same file AddressBook.

- So I closed the application AddressBook.

- I opened "AddressBook-v22.abcddb" with TextEdit and copied the first line), something like "SQLite format 3 @ Çbo H Ç-‚ ÏK ˚ ˆ Ò ÏMUIAL0J 9 9 9 9 9 : : 9 9 @ @ A A 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9"

- Deleted all files, means "AddressBook-v22.abcddb", "Metadata" and "Images".

- Then I went back with Time Machine and grabbed good/right/non-corrupted files (The same three files).

- Then I copied them in my current system (Application Support/AddressBook/here).

- Copied the original first line into "AddressBook-v22.abcddb" (Yes, the "SQLite format 3 @ Çbo H Ç-‚ ÏK ˚ ˆ Ò ÏMUIAL0J 9 9 9 9 9 : : 9 9 @ @ A A 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9"-thing).

Then I restarted the application AddressBook and - voilá - all at it's place like it should be.

iCloud data is stored in a subfile named "Sources" (located in also in Application Support/AddressBook/here). In there you find the same file tree, like on level above. And you can handle it just the same.

Happy eastern to everyone!

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Answer 5

tim_r_66

Level 1

51 points

Oct 26, 2013 10:10 PM in response to iwunschkind

Clever solution, but I could not get it to work for me. I keep getting a new AddressBook-v22.abcddb generated.

If you have any idea why, I'm all ears.

BTW, my first line of the AddressBook file is much shorter than yours!

Tim

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Answer 6

tim_r_66

Level 1

51 points

Oct 26, 2013 11:07 PM in response to tim_r_66

Turns out, after trying again, I was able to simply copy (as root) the AddressBook-v22 and the two folders to a ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder that did not have any other files in it, and AddressBook opened it right up. Then I exported a vcf which I'll give back to the user that was missing the data.

Cheers, Tim

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