Apple address book empty, no accounts

Question

Level 1

11 points

Apple address book empty, no accounts

I'm hoping the collective wisdom of Apple can help me with this one, 'cause I'm stumped...

When I open Apple Address Book (under 10.6.8), it's completely empty. Not a single contact. I thought I'd restore using a Time Machine backup, so I entered Time Machine. The minute I entered (note – I didn't restore, just entered) all my contacts were restored. I shrugged it off, and went back to my business.

A few days later, same exact thing. Confused, I thought I'd delete the preferences. Now I have no contacts. Period. And Time Machine won't restore them. I tried to reinstall Address Book using my OS X DVD, and while the program reinstalls, there are still no contacts. When I go to Preferences and click "Accounts," it's blank. I can't even add a new card (clicking "New Card" does nothing), and "Import" is greyed out.

I have absolutely no idea what caused it, and I have no idea where to go to fix it. I'd sure be grateful for any and all advice.

For the record, I'm running Address Book 5.0.1 under Mac OS X 10.6.8 on a 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac.

Much thanks in advance for anything anyone can do!

George

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac8,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 2 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Boot ROM Version: IM81.00C1.B00

SMC Version (system): 1.29f1

AddressBook 5.0.1-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 22, 2013 2:52 PM

Reply

Answer 1

sanjampet

Level 5

7,988 points

May 23, 2013 12:54 AM in response to ggarner76

ggarner76,

Have you tried restoring from time machine again since the re-install?

Also check out Pondini's time machine guide.

http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

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Answer 2

ggarner76 Author

Level 1

11 points

May 23, 2013 5:54 AM in response to sanjampet

That's the weird thing... I mentioned that just starting Time Machine – not restoring, just starting – brought back the contacts? Since the re-install, there are no address book backups left. They've all disappeared too.

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Answer 3

sanjampet

Level 5

7,988 points

May 23, 2013 8:32 AM in response to ggarner76

ggarner76,

Try quitting address book, go to your Home Folder>Library>Application Support>AddressBook, find file AddressBook-v22.acbddb and drag it to the desktop and try relaunching AddressBook. See if that helps.

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Answer 4

ggarner76 Author

Level 1

11 points

May 23, 2013 12:31 PM in response to sanjampet

Sorry... Still no change. AddressBook did create a new file "AddressBook-v22.acbddb" in the aforementioned folder, but I still have no contacts, I can't add any new ones, and "Import" (along with several other menu options) is still greyed out.

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Answer 5

sanjampet

Level 5

7,988 points

May 23, 2013 1:32 PM in response to ggarner76

Try a safe boot, power up hold shift key, note that this boot will take longer, be patient, you can release the shift key when you see the progress bar. See if they are there. If they are try a normal boot. Repost results.

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Answer 6

ggarner76 Author

Level 1

11 points

May 23, 2013 2:07 PM in response to ggarner76

No luck... Results remained unchanged when I started up using safe boot.

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Answer 7

sanjampet

Level 5

7,988 points

May 23, 2013 3:09 PM in response to ggarner76

Sorry for the delay, I was called out for a bit.

Try a SMC reset, and a NVPRAM reset.http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964 follow directions for a battery you should not remove yourself. PRAM reset power off, power back holding the following keys: command+option+P+R. Do this before the start chime, continue till you hear the start chime 2 times then release, Reboot.

Next try going to Disk Utilities and repairing the disk. Applications>Utilities> Disk Utility, see if the repair disk button is not greyed out, if it is not, click it and let it run, after see if there are any errors listed if there are run it again till there are no errors showing after completion. While you are there run a permissions repair. (although this probably has nothing to do with this)

If the repair disk is greyed out you will need your install disk, power off the computer, power it back up slide the disk in and hold the C key down do this before the start chime. Click past the language screen you should then see in the menubar utilities, click that and click repair disk.

After repair try connecting Time Machine, with the address book opened on your mac, click on the TM icon in the menubar, click enter TM it should come up with the contacts. Go back to when you know it was fine and click restore.

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