Mountian Lion Mail.app's contact list is empty - how can I get them back?

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Level 1

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Mountian Lion Mail.app's contact list is empty - how can I get them back?

SInce upgrading to Mountain Lion this week, Mail.app no longer references any addresses in my contacts. Indeed, Mail's address window shows no cards whatsoever. Furthermore it won't even add a contact properly if I try to right click a sender's email address and "Add Sender to Address Book" from a message I've received.

The contacts do exist in the Contacts app, in my iCloud account and on my iOS devices. I've tried logging out of my iCloud account, restarting and logging back into iCloud. I've tried reparing permissions in my Home directory, but to no avail. I did check the system console and I'm seeing this repeated many times:

7/28/12 5:24:05.095 PM sandboxd[87332]: ([82051]) Mail(82051) deny file-read-data /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

I'm not sure what the permissions should be on that file. They currently look like this:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 96 Dec 20 2011 com.apple.mail.plist

Any ideas?

MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.53 GHz), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 2:32 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

soehn

Level 2

195 points

Jul 28, 2012 2:46 PM in response to Kimili

In my opinion this file should not exist.

The mail preferences are not the same for all users. There should be a com.apple.mail.plist file in ~/Library/Preferences for each user. I do not have such file in /Library/Preferences.

Try to remove the file.

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Answer 2

Knoddix

Level 2

183 points

Jul 28, 2012 2:57 PM in response to Kimili

Basically from what I am reading there sounds like os x sandbox ing is blocking communication between mail and contacts i would suggest 1.repairing disk permissions 2 trashing user and root caches 3 change gate keeper setting to allow apps from anywhere doubt that is the issue but trying it wouldn't hurt 4 try in new user 5 resetting ACLs (BACK UP BEFORE DOING ANY OF THE ABOVE) and a quick google search should explain how to perform though steps if your not sure

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Answer 3

Knoddix

Level 2

183 points

Jul 28, 2012 2:59 PM in response to soehn

IF you remove the plist you my as well say good bye to your mail because it's likely to put almost all mail settings to default

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Answer 4

Kimili Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2012 6:53 PM in response to Kimili

Got this sorted out. Here's how:

At first, I tried reparing permissions, resetting the ACLs and deleting the Caches, as Knoddix suggested. To no avail with any of it though. I then took a look at that plist file (/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist) - there wasn't much of anything in it, so I thought it safe to delete. I did so, and relaunched mail–still no luck. The System Log, however, was giving another clue:

7/28/12 9:22:23.939 PM sandboxd[689]: ([685]) Mail(685) deny file-read-data /Users/michael/Dropbox/Application Support/AddressBook/.database.lockN

7/28/12 9:22:24.020 PM sandboxd[689]: ([685]) Mail(685) deny file-read-data /Users/michael/Dropbox/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources

7/28/12 9:22:24.044 PM sandboxd[689]: ([685]) Mail(685) deny file-read-data /Users/michael/Dropbox/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources

7/28/12 9:22:24.066 PM sandboxd[689]: ([685]) Mail(685) deny file-read-data /Users/michael/Dropbox/Application Support/AddressBook/Configuration.plist

That's when I remembered that in the pre-iCloud days, I had put my ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook folder in my Dropbox (and symlinked to it from ~/Library/Application Support) in order to keep a synchronized contact list between multiple computers. Clearly, that's no longer necessary with iCloud syncing.

Because the AddressBook support folder wasn't in its normal place, the new sandboxing rules in Mountain Lion were preventing Mail from reading the Contact List. I put it back in ~/Library/Application Support, and voila, I have contacts in Mail again!

Thanks for the suggestions, Knoddix and Soehn!

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