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User profile for user: brentc123
brentc123 Author
User level: Level 1
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Newly added contact pictures disappearing from Contacts

This one's got me really scratching my head!


Scenario:


  1. I create a new contact (or even edit an existing contact) in Contacts on my MBP
  2. Drag and drop a photo of that contact into the photo box
  3. Click "Done"
  4. In a matter of seconds the photo disappears
  5. If I go to iCloud the contact has been added there but no photo has been saved


I can do this over and over and over again and get the same results.


What have I tried to fix this?


  • Signed out of iCloud
  • Removed all contacts from the Contacts program on my MBP
  • Restarted machine
  • Restarted iCloud and enabled Contact syncing
  • Allowed iCloud to repopulate my contacts
  • Still having the same problem!!!


Any suggestions from the community? I rely on photos to remind me who people are since I'm a visual thinker. So this is kinda imporant to me.


TIA!!!


- Brent

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Sep 22, 2013 4:07 AM

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12 replies
User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
112,518 points

Sep 22, 2013 8:31 AM in response to brentc123

It doesn't appear you have any other contacts except in iCloud, so this attempt to fix is based on that. If that isn't true, then let me know and I'll amend it. If you do have other contacts, this will delete them.

Since the contacts are all in iCloud, you likely don't need to backup, but you might go ahead and create a Contacts Archive from the File menu in Contacts.


Disable Contacts in iCloud; choose to delete the contacts on your Mac.

Triple-click the following line and then right-click on it. Choose Open from the Services submenu.*

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook

Delete everything in the folder except anything with "MailRecents" in the name--those are the Previous Recipients in Mail.

Go back to iCloud System Preferences and re-enable Contacts.

Open Contacts. Once it repopulates from iCloud, see if you can edit the images.


This will ensure any left-over indexes are not being re-used and causing the issues you see. This may not solve the problem, though.


*You can navigate to that folder in the Finder by holding down the Option key on the keyboard, then select Library from the Go menu. Then navigate into Application Support, then AddressBook

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User profile for user: brentc123
brentc123 Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 24, 2013 4:40 AM in response to brentc123

Problem one has been solved. Thank you again!


Problem two must somehow be related to the first...


  1. I make a change to an EXISTING client on my Mac (picture, new job, etc.)
  2. Click the "Done" button
  3. A few seconds later the new data is replaced by the old data


So iCloud is overwriting new data with old data from the cloud? That's not right!


Any suggestions?


- Brent

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User profile for user: brentc123
brentc123 Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 25, 2013 8:48 AM in response to Barney-15E

Well... fingers crossed but it seems to be working. Turned off iCloud Contacts on all of my iDevices which deleted contacts on the devices. Then re-enabled Contacts and waited a bit for iCloud to repopulate the iDevices. I've got over 6,000 contacts so this takes a bit!


Images and contacts seem to be working across devices. Which is great!


One small bit of weirdness...


I've got 6,245 contacts showing up on my iDevices but only 6,199 are found in my MBP's Contacts and on the web-based iCloud.com service. No way in heck am I ever gonna figure out which 46 contacts are missing. 😕


Still and all, many thanks for your suggestions. I probably would have eventually stumbled on the "turn iCloud's contacts off on your iDevices" solution. But I never would have known about needing to delete the subdirectory on my MBP.


Well done, sir!


- Brent

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User profile for user: brentc123
brentc123 Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Oct 9, 2013 12:54 AM in response to brentc123

@Bernie-15E you're not going to believe what I just discovered...


After jumping through all of the hoops mentioned above I was still having problems. So I went to the iCloud website and tried adding a contact's photo there. I got an error message saying:


User uploaded file

Following the Learn more link yielded this information:


Contacts

  • Total number of contact cards: 25,000
  • Maximum size of a contact card: 256 KB

    Maximum size of a contact photo: 224 KB

  • Maximum size of a contact group: 256 KB
  • Maximum size of all contact cards:
    • Card text: 24 MB
    • Card photos: 100 MB

Well SHOOT! I've got well over 6,000 contacts but that's nowhere near their 25K max. Have I got more than 100MB of photos? Who knows? Where in the world would I go to see the maximum size of all my contact cards?


Besides, how would I ever know that this was a problem if I hadn't gone to the iCloud website? No message comes up in Contacts on my computer or iDevices.


This does NOT make me happy. I moved all of my contacts out of Outlook about 6 years ago when I made the switch to Mac. Been using Mail and Contacts without incident -- well, a few small incidents -- ever since. But this unannounced limitation really frosts my behind.


Thanks for your help, though. Sorry that ultimately it was for nothing.


Cheers,


- Brent

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User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
112,518 points

Oct 9, 2013 5:21 AM in response to brentc123

Not for nothing. I'm not sure how many people know about those limits. I certainly didn't.


Do you need all 6,000 contacts in the Cloud? You can move the ones you don't need sync'd across all devices into onto your Mac.


If you don't have an On My Mac Contacts account, you can make one and transfer your infrequently used contacts into that account.

If you don't already have an On My Mac section in the list of Contacts Groups, here is how to make one:

Open Contacts Preferences

Click on General tab

Set Default account to On My Mac

Create new Groups in On My Mac

Move you infrequently used contacts into that account.

Make sure they were removed from iCloud.

You can then set the default account back to iCloud.

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User profile for user: brentc123
brentc123 Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Oct 23, 2013 12:32 AM in response to Barney-15E

Hey mate. Sorry for the lengthy delay in response. Been traveling for business and haven't had a chance to catch up on my overworked Inbox.


Glad I was able to teach you something! Just not happy with Apple's limitations... especially without them clearly and publicly explaining them before I bumped up against them.


Do I need all 6,000 contacts? No, probably not. I've begun culling them whenever I have a spare moment. But I have no way of knowing what the "magic number" is that I need to be below. Clearly, it's not about the number of contacts since Apple's notice says that I can have up to 25,000. So it's gotta be that 100MB limitation on card photos. Sure would be nice if there were a place I could go to:


  1. See what my current usage is for card photo storage
  2. Flag images that are over xx in size


Heck, any sort of dashboard showing usage and allowing for some basic diagnostics would be really useful. However, I don't imagine that "the masses" would really find that sort of information worth seeking out.


I'd prefer to NOT segregate my contacts between devices. I rely too heavily on iCloud now to keep my various iDevices (2x iPhones + 1 iPad) in sync with my MBP. Never know when I might find need to dig out a contact. Still, that was a nice suggestion.


Keep on fightin' the good fight!


Cheers,


- Brent

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Newly added contact pictures disappearing from Contacts

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