High Sierra contacts not working

I found Diane's solution didn't work for me until I did this. Delete the entire AddressBook folder, quit Mail and quit Messages (I think because they hold some sort of cache to the address book), and then restart Contacts and let it repopulate from iCloud.

Thanks Diane.

John

I have a closely related issue with Contacts on my MacBook Pro after installing High Sierra. When trying to add a new contact, I can enter first name and last name but nothing else as it clears the new entry I was working on. It is then totally gone and nowhere to be found. Trying again and again to enter a new contact ends up disappearing in the same manner. It becomes totally impossible to enter a new contact into Contacts.

Hi Diane,

I've tested with a new user and syncing Contacts via iCloud (and nothing else), and the issue is absent there. So, it would appear to be an issue with my current user.

I compared ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook between the two accounts and found they differed.

So, once again, I deleted ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. On recreation (after logging out then in), the differences remain. There are some file size diffs, but significantly the /Images directory is not recreated -- it contains a single file in the test account -- and the /Metadata directory contains only the .info file; whereas the test account contains 3 additional files (named as UUIDs).

Where the files sizes differ (between the two accounts), they are smaller on the recreated account.

These data seem to indicate a failure during creation of the address book on the non-test account. The address book appears to be incomplete; which is likely to be the cause of the other issues.

Of course, an error message in the logs would be nice here, but as with suggestd (which only reports abnormal code: 1) there is nothing usefully reported, which is a shame.

After my last message, I followed these instructions.

Prior to syncing Contacts with iCloud, suggestd is still failing (via Console). i.e. there is no address book at this point. At this point, the Contacts app opens, although it is empty, of course. I note also, that Contacts doesn’t have the separate section for On this Device and iCloud; only All Contacts. If I try to add a contact, the Contacts app beachballs.

After syncing with iCloud, the Contacts app no longer loads.

In addition, while ~/Library/Suggestions is being populated in my test account, it remains empty in the problematic account.

The issue -- as I suspected back in October -- is most likely with suggestd (and the whole suggestions engine and a tight coupling with contacts therein) rather than Contacts and the address book. Without better diagnostics in suggestd -- which I fail to understand why Apple won't fix -- I doubt this be fixed. At present the script returns: 1. That's not meaningful. It's been the same for three months now.

Furthermore, if I turn off SIPs, attempt to load the Contacts app (upon which nothing happens), then later run launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.suggestd.plist`, the Contacts app loads.

I'm not sure what else a user can do here if Apple will neither engage nor improve the quality of its diagnostic messages.

Yes Diane, I've done all those things. Sadly, nuking is not an option. I pay the Apple tax to not have to do this. If Apple's approach is to regress to the mean, then I'll move on for important business. The tools to diagnose this problem should be available. Apple is fine for content-skimming, but as a business tool it seems to have lost its way. It's such a shame, because it's so close to being such a terrific ecosystem. And it is for content-skimming, but I -- and many others -- need more than that, reliably.

To be clear: I suspect myself and an Apple dev could diagnose this is less than half an hour. The fact that nothing has progressed in three months indicates that I'm not their target customer. (Let me be clear, if I hadn't found a workaround myself, then I wouldn't have access to my contacts and my business would have failed.) I'm not ranting or bitter, just rather sad that I've fallen outside the range of Apple's target customers.

I again spent 90 minutes on the phone with Apple support today trying to get to the bottom of this issue with contacts.app hanging.

First level support is frustrating. Take your calming vitamins before the call.

Second level support has a few more lights on, but still clueless. Logs were collected, for other support personnel.

I was promised a call back next week Tuesday.

Hopefully this will lead to some clues. My 3 reports in bugreport.apple.com have been totally ignored.

I am an optimist.

Might I suggest that if you have any time off this week, just click on the "Contact Support" link located on the top right corner of this page, and give it a try. Perhaps this is like calling your congressman. If one person calls you are ignored, if 50 people call you move up to the daily briefing notes.

I am in the same boat as others. I have tried everything suggested except for blowing my install away and reinstalling. I agree with others that this should not be a solution. I had enough of that in my Windows days.

I deleted every system folder or file that referenced the address book. My contacts on my MBP are still not syncing with my other Apple devices. I have a database of contacts that is outdated, so at least I have that. After trying all of these suggestions, I no longer have a "On My Mac" contact group option, which is fine, but I am sure the deleting of the system files is the culprit of this. I am surprised it wasn't automatically recreated.

If Apple can't get this right and fix something that was not broken, we are a long way off from Messages in iCloud and the syncing of all devices.

After trying all of these suggestions, I no longer have a "On My Mac" contact group option, which is fine, but I am sure the deleting of the system files is the culprit of this.

This is normal. After adding sync to iCloud, the "On My Mac" section usually disappears.

This is normal. After adding sync to iCloud, the "On My Mac" section usually disappears.

It is normal provided that a) the On My Mac account is empty, and b) it is not the default account. If those conditions are fulfilled it will vanish.

I also lost all contacts, since Sierra and High sierra upgrades. I don't use iCloud, only had iCloud drive on. Now I signed off as I hate iCloud. I don't want to download contacts from any mails I have. I used contacts app as a phone book with a little more information than a regular one (telephone number, address, email). I loved it while it worked. I don't use macbook's mail. I checked my iPhone, to my horror, the contacts had thousands of entries from my very old yahoo mail. I was lost, until I realized I could click on groups and deselect the yahoo. How on earth did it happen on my old iphone 4 it's a mystery, as it has no recent updates. Anyway, I fixed my phone, but not my MBP. Apple, please fix your bugs, as this one really *****!

I just wanted to report back that I solved this issue for my use case. The resolution had nothing to do with the solutions proposed here, which I'm glad to see have fixed the issue for some folk.

I've done a lot of work in open source communities where working together and sharing one's work in the modus operandi. I'm hugely supportive of user communities working together. Collaboration is a powerful tool. In this instance, however, despite the user community doing its utmost to resolve a problem, the vendor has been utterly absent. It has failed to collaborate with unrestrained vigour. This is terrible behaviour. Especially from a company sitting on $250bn in cash. So, in this case, I'll not be sharing what I found unless fairly remunerated.

That aside, High Sierra is very nice once the kinks have been dealt with. I hope Apple fix this issue for the next release.

Forums like this are not meant as official support. It's a community forum where users help other users. Occassionally an Apple employee will reply but it's mostly to give a copy/paste answer.

By not sharing here you are not hurting Apple but other users that are asking for help and for folks like me that volunteer our time here. We save fixes posted by other users and pass them on to other users.

I introduced by hand most contacts I had on my old iPhone.(I know I should have sync-ed them, but I was afraid) My problem is the iPhone 4 I use now is very old as my new iPhone was stolen with the whole purse. So the contacts on the old iphone are a few years old, and miss a few newer entries. So, until the bug is fixed, at least I have a few contacts on my MBP, at least until the next upgrade. So, my contacts app works, only it got empty after Sierra upgrade. As I'd had enough, I intend to make a list of contacts on a page/word/excel file that will stay forever in my documents folder. And for extra care I could print it and put it in a frame. Old phone books that were under the home phone were indestructible. This contact app is available on and off.

Hi Diane,

I know that's the pitch, but we are on an Apple domain. We sign in with Apple's credentials. So, for all the statements that this is not an official support forum, I beg to differ. It absolutely is.

It's a first for me to step back and consider what's happening here, and I don't feel good about it. I've spent my life preaching collaboration, and I'm not going to stop. I will continue to share what I know here and elsewhere where I can be useful.

I repeatedly asked Apple to engage on this problem, and they have chosen not to. That's Apple's choice. Apple could have, at the very least, provided better diagnostic messages. They chose not to. Apple chose to make it difficult to diagnose a very serious issue. They didn't want to help. And sadly, they still don't want to.

(To be clear: I don't in any way blame Apple's devs for this. This appears to be a systemic issue. i.e. a cultural problem.)

It took me three months to diagnose this problem. Three months where the Contacts app failed to load. Where Contact info was unavailable. Three months where suggestd reloaded every three seconds, 24x7, resulting in massively reduced battery life and significant overheating. (And the underlying problem is broader than this issue alone.)

Apple is one of the richest companies in history. They can afford to reach out and assist a genuine effort to fix a serious problem. Apple is currently choosing not to do so.

Auxbuss answer has been constructive, and not inflammatory. The problem is that he repeated himself too much in the last post, so I agree he should stop now.

Nonetheless I totally agree that Apple does not play its role. Apple has a reputation to maintain (against Windows for instance). Also MacOS is not an open-source-DIY-OS as Unix, so Apple should not rely too much on the community to solve OS bugs.

I think it is useful to warn others users about this, so they can search for workarounds in the meantime, instead if waiting for a fix.