Bugs with mac/icloud and the "me" contact

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Bugs with mac/icloud and the "me" contact

I have a Macbook and my wife uses an iMac. We share an iCloud account for syncing contacts and photo stream, and I have my own iCloud account for my own calendar and reminders synced between my iPhone and Macbook.

Both macs have been upgraded to Mountain Lion.

In contacts on the iMac, my contact is marked as "me". What makes the mac decide that a particular contact is the current user's identity? If you go to System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Contacts Card: Open, it opened my card, and I can't find any way to change it.

My wife went to icloud.com and changed her picture. After doing so, it changed my picture, not hers, in contacts. My contact has my own e-mail address, her contact lists her icloud e-mail address. So if anything, it should be able to associate her contact with her icloud account.

We wanted to share calendars with each other. I shared my icloud calendar with her, no problem. When she tried to share with me, there was an error message saying "you can't share your calendar with yourself". The icloud account she's trying to share is of course, a different e-mail address than the one she's trying to share with. She tried doing the same thing from icloud.com, and instead got an error. Even after making her card the "me" card, it didn't make a difference.

Oddly enough, she was able to share her calendar with a different e-mail address that I can access. When I clicked on the invitation, I was already logged into icloud.com using my other e-mail (the one that she wasn't able to share with), and I was thus able to accept her invitation in my icloud account. She got an email saying "You attempted to share your calendar with X, but it was accepted by Y".

As for contacts, I renamed my contact as her, and created a new one for me. (before I found the Card->"Make this my card" option) After I did that, her contact correctly said "Me". On my macbook, viewing her icloud contacts, both my contact and hers both say "me", but only on mine is "Card->Make this my card" correctly grayed out.

Another weird side effect of all this, I'm sending e-mail in the mail app, and messages I send (using my identity and my e-mail which is listed in my contact) shows her contact's photo.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 8:32 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 24, 2013 1:37 PM in response to Hokietoner

Any luck figuring this one out?

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Answer 2

Hokietoner Author

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Feb 12, 2013 9:53 AM in response to Germancity

I know that I tried setting the "me" card to different users on the different computers, and I don't remember how successful we were in getting rid of the issues.

Since I wrote this, I have a different company laptop which is stuck on Lion and I can't upgrade. The "me" issues are way worse. I can't use her icloud account at all, even as a secondary account, without ichat saying her name instead of mine. I'm hoping that we'll upgrade to mountain lion soon and then I can see if the issues have been resolved at all.

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 12, 2013 10:04 AM in response to Hokietoner

The Me card is set (in Contacts) by selecting a card, going to the Card menu and selecting 'Make This My Card'

There can only be one My Card in the database.

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Answer 4

Hokietoner Author

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Feb 12, 2013 10:21 AM in response to Csound1

Yes I mentioned that in my first post (second to last par). The problem is sharing icloud accounts with family.

You should be able to set the "Me" card on a per-device login basis. If I want to have one unified family address book, I need to be able to add my family icloud account without it hijacking the "Me" card. For my family, the best thing about icloud is the fact that if my wife adds someone to our address book, it shows up on all our devices.

At the moment (again, my laptop is now only *Lion* so this may be different in ML), I can go to System Prefs -> iCloud and it says my name.

If I go to System Prefs -> Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, it shows my icloud account and my wife's icloud account. Under my wife's icloud account, it says "This is not your primary icloud account".

My icloud contacts (which I don't use and is nearly empty) shows me with the "me" label, and my wife's icloud contacts show her with the "me" label.

However, when I try to open my card, it opens her card in her icloud account. iChat shows her name. Simply loading her icloud contacts hijacks the me card.

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Answer 5

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 12, 2013 10:27 AM in response to Hokietoner

iCloud accounts are individual, there is no family account. 1 user 1 account is how it works. If you have 2 iCloud accounts in the house you need 2 user accounts on the computer, then everything is separate.

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Answer 6

Hokietoner Author

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Feb 12, 2013 10:44 AM in response to Csound1

You are suggesting a very trivial setup which we already know works smoothly. If everyone uses only their own icloud account then sure, I wouldn't have this issue. But then I also wouldn't be able to use any shared contacts, which is the reason I'm doing this in the first place.

Apple has explicitly added the capability to add multiple secondary icloud accounts on a mac. The "me" card from a secondary icloud account should not hijack the user association.

I would say that it should just derive the identity from only the primary icloud contact, but I think you should be able to locally set the me card for that mac user as a user setting on the mac, without changing other devices.

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Answer 7

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Feb 12, 2013 4:09 PM in response to Hokietoner

Hokietoner wrote:

You are suggesting a very trivial setup which we already know works smoothly. If everyone uses only their own icloud account then sure, I wouldn't have this issue. But then I also wouldn't be able to use any shared contacts, which is the reason I'm doing this in the first place.

Apple has explicitly added the capability to add multiple secondary icloud accounts on a mac. The "me" card from a secondary icloud account should not hijack the user association.

I would say that it should just derive the identity from only the primary icloud contact, but I think you should be able to locally set the me card for that mac user as a user setting on the mac, without changing other devices.

I have an iMac, it has 2 user accounts on it, mine and my partner. Mine has its own iCloud account, hers does as well. In my user account My card is my card and in her user account Her card is her card. What is it that you want? Oh, we share some calendars and some contacts.

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Answer 8

Aug 24, 2015 8:45 PM in response to Hokietoner

Here's how you can circumvent that problem.

1. Keep sharing Contacts between you and your wife, by having her iMac include as secondary iCloud account, your iCloud account (tick Contacts).

2. Set NO "Make this my card" on your iCloud account.

3. Set NO "Make this my card" on your wife's iCloud account.

4. Create another iCloud account for yourself (let's call it Bob's iCloud). Place a single contact card here. You guessed it: your personal card.

5. Make Bob's iCloud account be a secondary iCloud account in your Macbook and set its only card as "Make this my card" (for yourself).

6. Create another iCloud account for your wife (let's call it Alice's iCloud). Place a single contact card here. You guessed it: your wife's personal card.

7. Make Alice's iCloud account be a secondary iCloud account in your wife's iMac and set its only card as "Make this my card" (for your wife).

8. Do NOT include Bob's iCloud account on your wife's iMac or Alice's account on you Macbook.

Sounds convoluted? I agree. Does it work? It did for me. Good luck.

It's time Apple fixed this: only the primary iCloud account should be able to set a "Make this my card" on any Mac. Come on, Apple.

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Answer 9

DABNL

Level 1

9 points

Sep 1, 2015 4:01 AM in response to Cephas@CPS

Yes Apple, please make a shared contact list possible for partners, so work arounds like this (which bring other hassles as well) are not required...

Maybe even a shared list via Family sharing which can be configured for edit access (partner) or read only access (kids).

Thanks for the workaround tip in the mean time...I noticed marking the ME card via the Facebook contacts also works (with other caveats...).

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Answer 10

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Sep 1, 2015 2:32 PM in response to DABNL

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

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