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Address Book data disappears -- potential fixes
Some users have reported an issue where data in Apple's Address Book suddenly disappears, usually after an unexpected quit of the application.
MacFixIt reader Steven Quill offers a case example:
"Tonight, while cleaning up my address book to sync to the blackberry, I got the spinning ball of death, which resulted in having to restart the computer. When I did, address book was empty the next time I opened it. Database gone. Backup database gone."
Prevention The first step in preventing this issue from happening is a simple backup of your Address Book data. Manually, or using a backup program, copy the file: AddressBook.data (the database that holds your contacts) located in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook to another area of your startup drive, removable media, or another backup destination. In case of apparent data loss, just copy the backed up file back to this location. Alternatively, you can simply use the "Back up Address Book..." option under the "File" menu in Address Book.
Retrieving In some cases of data loss, Address Book will maintain a copy of the intact data in a file called AddressBook.data.previous also in the directory ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook. If you've lost your data completely and want to try restoring from this file, delete the file AddressBook.data from the same directory, then change the name of AddressBook.data.previous to AddressBook.data, in effect replacing it.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
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I had a similar problem with the AddressBook data on a Mac here at work. It was running 10.3.x at the time. The guy opened AddressBook and it would hang showing nothing. The important point is that the data was actually there, AddressBook was just unable to display anything.
Long story short, after deleting some files, the preferences I think - or possible the index files next to the database, I was able to launch AddressBook and it read the database.
I've also had trouble opening AddressBook with similar symptoms where the proper fonts were not loaded.
Sorry this is vague. Does it ring bells with anyone?
T.
I had this issue pop up not long ago - G4 mirror door 10.3.9 - and eventually found that varieties of a font were disabled. Specifically, Helvetica was the culprit. In FontBook it appeared to be enabled until the list was expanded (by clicking the triangle to the left of the font title.) It was then revealed that the Regular and Bold varieties were disabled.
I am not sure was caused them to become disabled, but by simply selecting and enabling the Helvetica varieties from within FontBook, AddressBook was returned to its full functionality with no loss of data the next time it was launched.
Hope this helps someone out there.
umm, why wouldn't you just open AddressBook's File menu and select the menu item: Back up Address Book...
There is also and Images folder that needs to be backed up, if you have ever added any images to any of the entries. The built-in backup command (File > Back Up Address Book...) will backup both the database and the images.
Today is the 2nd time that .Mac has spontaneously deleted my entire Address Book without any input, whatsoever. Unlike some others, here, I didn't experience *any* unusual behavior, prior to these incidents. In my case, .Mac is *spontaneously* deleting the address book data, then syncing with the computers, one by one, resulting in their deletion, as well.
Backstory: I'm a very experienced Mac user with 3 networked Macs, plus an iPhone. About 3 weeks ago, I reached for my iPhone to make a call and realized that my entire contacts list (2,400 entries) was empty. One by one, I checked the other computers, and each of them had been emptied! I was not even using any of the Macs at the time. Fortunately, my MacBook was closed, so it had not yet synced. I removed it from the network and was able to repopulate .Mac with the data on the MacBook. I am 100% positive I did not delete anything, myself -- not even one entry.
Now today, it's happened again....
After that last scare, I changed the iSync prefs to notify me if more than 5% of the data would change on any given computer. So here I am, today, surfing the web, and I get an iSync notice that 2,400 entries will be deleted from Address Book if I sync. I took a deep breath, clicked "no," and went to investigate.
Interestingly, there's one computer on which I had not asked for notifications about data changing -- and on that computer (one on which I rarely even use Address Book), Address Book is now empty. The MacBook is closed, so that one is safe, and I have not synced my iPhone.
Bottom line: .Mac is spontaneously deleting the Address Book data. Plain and simple. I live alone, and no one else had touched anything! I'm 95% sure the first incident was shortly after I installed Leopard, but since other macfixit posts were made, pre-Leopard, perhaps this issue is not Leopard-related. I've been using .Mac successfully for 3 or 4 years, so this is definitely new behavior.
This is a gravely serious bug that needs to be fixed, pronto.
I saw another thread on this issue here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5974317&#5974317
...but since that user seemed to think that he/she had deleted the data himself/herself, I chose to start a new thread. (I don't think he/she actually caused the deletion at all.)
I also started a new thread at Apple:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1280409&tstart=0
I know how to reset sync history and transfer the data back to .Mac from one of the computers. Still, if anyone has any suggestions, they're greatly appreciated....
Backup on .mac would not restore either!
Yes, I have a copy on an external hard disk, but I am traveling and will not be home where the hard disk is for two weeks!
True pain!
Worse is that no one seems to know how to prevent this!
Anyone have an idea or suggestion?
- by bs12 June 25, 2007 8:37 AM PDT
- Same thing has happened to me 3 times...after spending hours transferring addresses from entourage..
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(9 Comments)I am so pissed!
Anyone have a real solution for this?
PLEASE email me if so