3 Problems with Address Book-- now considering Bento

I have 3 problems with Apple Address Book that make it close to unusable for me, so I'm considering buying Bento 3:
1. *Can't un-do accidentally deleted text*- When you click in the "Notes" section, it will select all the text there by default (instead of merely inserting the cursor). If you are not paying attention, and hit any other key when it is selected, it deletes everything in there. UN-DO will not un-do this. I've verified and reported this issue to Apple, but it has still never been fixed or formally addressed (aside from many complaints in the Apple forums).
2. *Search doesn't always work*- Yesterday I searched for one of my entries, Harbor Freight, by typing in the search "harbor". Nothing came up. I thought that maybe I never actually added this business and started with a new one. After I created the new one, I noticed that now, along with the new entry, the old contact suddenly showed up in the left column.
3. *Cards disappear*- Many complaints on the web about this. I do not do any syncing with MobileMe or any device. Occasionally, cards just seem to vanish. Sometimes the card is actually still there, but changes in the Notes field or other fields I made on a previous day were evidently not saved and gone. Very frustrating.
Here's my concern with using Filemaker Pro's Bento: if it's using and accessing the same database as Address Book, all these problems might end up also existing in Bento. I use Address Book for business and personal and heavily rely on the Notes section. I can't keep wasting my time with this.
I don't mind paying the $50 for Bento if it resolves these issues, but the shared database worries me. I guess that I could create an independent Bento database that is completely separate from Address Book, but then I don't know how well it would integrate with Apple Mail.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Dave

DON'T DO IT. DO NOT INSTALL BENTO. I bought & installed it on 01/20/10 and it destroyed my address book. Gone forever. If you are having problems with Address Book now, wait until you see the damage created by Bento! Bento does not replace Address Book. It is a 'supplement' (at best) and uses and updates every file in your Address Book without you even knowing it! Well, you notice it when your database is destroyed and you find all of your contacts under 'No Name'. I am so serious. Bento is just a shell. None of your addresses are actually stored in Bento. They remain in Address Book. Every time you open Bento, it accesses your address book database, and starts re-formatting and re-working every entry along with any 'changes' you make. And who do you call for help? Apple says 'not our program'. Filemaker says 'we don't know anything about Mac's'.....I lost four years of addresses for all of my customers. Gone. In seconds! Just don't do it. Don't install Bento. And be sure to remove any 'smart groups' you have created as it seems to be at the root of most problems one encounters with address book.

Similar Messages

Problem with Address Book and Exchange

Hello,
I have a little problem with Address Book and Microsoft Exchange 2003. I am able to connect to Outlook Web Access via Safari without problem. I see my contacts. Unfortunately when I setup everything needed in Address Book preferences (Synchronize with Exchange) the contacts didn't show in my Address Book. Strange thing is that no error is generated. can someone please help me what I am doing wrong ? Thanks in advance.

My suggestion is that you consider using Microsoft Entourage. For Exchange users on a Mac, Entourage is by far the best option. The down side is, you need to buy Microsoft Office 2004 to get Entourage, but your employer might own a site license, in which case, Office 2004 might not cost you anything.

My phone contacts don't sync with Address Book now that I have "Lion"! PLEASE HELP!

Hello!
I have a Macbook Pro and have recently downloed Lion .... after having done this, my contacts no longer sync with Address Book. My calendar syncs with the iCAL but my contacts don't sync. I don't have iCloud set up and am not sure if that makes a difference, but any help would be GREAT!
Thanks!
Esther

The link provided did not contain a solution for me. However, based on what I read there, I was able to figure out the solution on my own.
Here it is. If you have a Motorola razr. Sorry I don't know which version of the phone or software I have. Go to phonebook. Choose the options by selecting the center menu key. Scroll through the list until you find Share Phonebook Entry. It is not in alphabetical order and may be the last entry. Select it and on the next screen choose bluetooth. The next screen is object exchange. If your computer appears as an option choose it, otherwise chose Look for device and when your computer comes up, select it. The phone will then send a card to your computer. Your computer will ask if you wanted to accept the card. There is also a box that gives you the option to select all. Check select all and then choose accept or hit return if accept is already highlighted in blue. The phone card will be saved to your computer in a default save location. You will next be given an option to see where the card is, in case you don't remember where your default location is. If you choose it, a window will appear showing you where the card is.
Next run isync and your data should be synchronized. Many duplicate entries will be somewhat altered in your computer's address book, i.e. first and last name will be combined and put in the first name box and so will not be recognized as duplicates. This is just part of the idiosyncrasies of the process. Manually go through and delete these.
This worked for me and I hope it is helpful to someone else out there having the same problem.
Thank you for the link Julian and others.

Sync. problem with Address Book

Dear all,
I had a sync problem between my iPhone and the Mac Address Book, when I update some contacts with a picture and then when I try to sync iPhone the contacts came without the picture.
I add some pics from the iPhone to the iPhone contact and try to sync and it was working.
Is it only one sync or we should be able to do that from Address Book to iPhone and iPhone to Address Book.
Thanks for your advice.
Regards
Florian

Hi...
First, sorry about my, english... rsss
To repair this problem, you need make some steps:
0. Backup your adress book first anything.
1. Create a new Folder, put group per group of your adress book inside.
2. Close Itunes and Adress Book
3. Put the Isync preferences, inside system preferences to "Manually".
4. Delete all inside the: ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook
5. Open Adress Book, that is empty.
6. Create your first group, and click in the correspondent group inside the folder created.
7. After put all contact back, use Itunes that is ok now....

Problems with address book after upgrading to Lion.

I have lost all my contacts and if I try to add a new contact it's gone after I close and reopen the address book.
Same thing if I import for example my gmail contacts.
But there is more. If I add a new group I can't edit the new, so it's stuck as 'untitled group' (and gone if I quit the address book and reopen it).
..and If I add a new contact I can't edit it once it's added. I simply don't have the edit button.
Someone having the same trouble? Or any suggestions how to solve it?
Thanks!
(So this is after upgrading to Lion and with the new address book 6.0)

I'm a super loyal Apple customer for over 20 years. But I have to say, even though Apple has unparalleled customer service, their responsiveness to software issues is non-existent.
I had a problem with iMovie a couple of years back that involved 40 hours of hard work for a client, only to have all my work lost due to a software bug. Many, many others had the same issue. Apple never acknowledged the issue. I doubt that they will acknowledge this issue.
That's shameful.
I email to various groups, including a local residential group to which I add or subtract residents that move in and out of the neighborhood. AddressBook is now totally useless because I can't a new resident to the existing group! AddressBook 6 has been out how many months now? Not a peep from Apple with this issue!

Disabling iCloud, problems with Address Book and iCal.

Ok, I made the mistake of turning on iCloud before knowing much about it or really needing it. I just have a MBP and no other devices. So, I now have iCal and Address Book connected to iCloud. I've tried to disable it but have not had success. I export my data files for both and when I import the data back... the iCloud part comes with it. What is so strange is that I can add events to iCal and iCal works without a glitch. But, I can't make ANY changes to my Address Book. It doesn't save any and Address Book just crawls along at a snails pace as if it is broken. I believe this all started because I activated iCloud. I'm NOT syncing it to any other device so I don't need it.
Are these problems because of iCloud or because I exported/imported onto a new install? I'm using a different user name on my same computer... but the iCloud account has no changes.
I'm just confused as to what to do. My Address Book goes so slow and I can't edit it. I don't need iCloud, etc. I try to turn it all off and that solves nothing. I try to export / import my data file to my desktop and back after turning iCloud off and this solves nothing. iCloud just comes back with that data. What should probably be a simple task I can't solve.

Please let me know if this works for you guys, it was a lifesaver for me!

All sorts of problems with Address Book

I am having a lot of problems with my Address Book all of a sudden. It started last Friday when out of nowhere my address book was empty. I used Time Machine to restore it and all was good, but then the next day, the same thing happened. Thankfully I had a backup of the archive and re-imported it and it worked well for a while then the same thing happened.
In total, it has erased itself about 3 or 4 times, and today a new issue has arisen: my groups have all disappeared. The contacts remain, just the groups are all gone. Smart Groups however have remained.
Any idea what could be going on here and how to fix it? I've also noticed a huge slowdown in my computer and see that "ADDRESSBOOKMANAG"is running often and taking up a ton of RAM.
Thanks for any help.

Well thankfully my address book has stopped deleting itself <knock wood>, but I'm STILL having the problem with AddressBookManag running all the time taking up tons of memory. Anyone know how to fix that?

Isync problems with address book~doesn't sync all info from add book.

This is a strange problem but when I sync my Palm E2 using isync the iCal works great but the address book only syncs certain information like the phone numbers and email addresses. It does not sync the regular addresses or AIM screennames/notes or any other information in address book. ONLY phone numbers and email. I've tried starting over and reinstalling the palm 1.2 conduit but nothing has changed. I've also tried exporting vcards straight from address book using bluetooth but the hotsync log states that palm couldn't open the .vcf file. This is a used Palm E2 and it didn't come with the original installation CD so I was thinking that it might be missing some necessary plugins/conduits. I ordered a new install CD from Palm which I haven't received yet but I was wondering if there's anything I could do to fix this problem myself. Any help would be appreciated!
Ahrum

This would have occurred if, after performing the hard reset, you synchronized again. The framework would have interpreted this to mean that you wanted to delete all contact, calendaring and task data.
You may be able to restore the data using several different approaches. If you had already created a backup file for your contacts using the option labeled Back up Address Book… under the File menu in the Address Book, just restore it using the option labeled Revert to Address Book Backup…
You can do the same thing for calendaring and task data using iCal, if you had previously backed up those files using an equivalent option in iCal.
If you had not, for contacts, then you'll need to navigate to this location:
Macintosh HD:Users:<username>:Library:Application Support:AddressBook
Drag the AddressBook.data file to your desktop or to the Trash. Duplicate the AddressBook.data.previous file, rename it AddressBook.data and launch the Address Book. If you're incredibly lucky, you data has been restored.
There is no brain-dead simple way to restore calendaring and task data.
If your not successful with that approach and have reasonably contemporary data in your Palm Desktop file, you can launch that application and export your contacts as a vCard file and your calendars as a vCal file. You cannot export your task or to do data in a format which you can them import into iCal, so you'll lose those records.
To export contacts, select Export… from the File menu, choose a name and location for the exported data file, set Module: to Addresses, Items: to All <xxx> Addresses, and Format: to vCard. Then press the Export button.
To export calendars, select Export… from the File menu, choose a name and location for the exported data file, set Module: to Datebook, Items: to All Datebook Items, and Format: to vCal. Then press the Export button.
Double click on each exported file to import your data into the Address Book and iCal.
Correct of update any information in these records, then back them up as outlined above. Then launch iSync, open the Preferences… dialog, press the Reset Sync History… button, and follow the instructions which appear.
Did I mention backing up your contact, calendaring and task data?

MacBook will not reboot after problem with Address Book

I was using AB today.... I tried to go into preferences and it quit on me. The option came up for me to send a message to Apple but that disappeared too. I relaunched AB again - same thing. The next time I tried to go into preferences the application would not respond - force quitting would not work. I had to shut machine off and now it will not reboot at all.... Any suggestions?

I am having a problem with getting the data on want on the address label and only that data.
ie. I just want the name of the husband and wife along with their last name and mailing address.
IF I have the spouse listed in the contact, and children listed in the contact I get an odd label printed.
ie. instead of John and Mary Smith 1234 Hope Street Seattle, WA 98101 what ends up printing is:
John and Mary Smith, Mary, Bill, Susan, Tom 1234 Hope Street SEattle, WA 98101.
All those extra names makes the label font print smaller for those kinds of contacts. Is there a way to only put the information on the address label that I want?

IPhone 3GS: problem with address book changes after 5.0.1 upgrade

Hello World,
I upgrade my and my Wife iPhones 3GS to 5.0.1,
my Wife's one has a big problem:
- in the address book/contact menu disappears + sign (upper right) in order to add or modify contact
I tried to search in some forums, but I didn't find any solution.
I already tried to:
- soft reset
- hard reset
- restore backup
but no way to solve this problem.
I hope in someone help ...
Thanks,
Francesco
aka Frank from Italy

My parents are also having that same problem on their mac mini after updating to 10.5.4. Their Mail app is also giving the same error. I'll post back if I find an answer... and if anyone else knows how to resolve this problem, please let us know.
Thanks,
Brian

Send problem with address book mailing lists

Hello,
Plateform : openSuSE 13.1 Thunderbird : 31.1.0
When I use a name or alias of a mailing list from my address book I get an error message by clicking on Send button : CSCA <"ConseilSyndical"> n'est pas une adresse valide car elle n'est pas de la forme utilisateur@domaine. Veuillez la corriger avant d'envoyer le courrier.
That's to say that CSCA is not a valid address because not like user@dmoain.
I've created these lists in a previous version of Thunderbird and it was always operational. I've done a google search and verified that name/alias and addresses do not contain special characters. The name/alias do not contain blanks. The lists don't end with an empty address.
What should I do to make it operational like it was before v30 ?
Thanks

This was a reported bug and version 31.1.1 fixed that bug.
I see that you are curently using version 31.1.0
suggest you update your version of Thunderbird first to see if the bug is removed.

Problem with Address Book after upgrade to 10.5.4

After upgrading to 10.5.4 I'm facing the problem, that Addressbook can't be used anymore.
Error: " Program can't be opened, because it is not supported by the architecture."
Is anybody having the same problem and how can can I reactivate Addressbook?
Thank you for your comments.

My parents are also having that same problem on their mac mini after updating to 10.5.4. Their Mail app is also giving the same error. I'll post back if I find an answer... and if anyone else knows how to resolve this problem, please let us know.
Thanks,
Brian

Outlook 2011 problem syncing contacts with address book

I am aware that Lion has broken the sync ability of Outlook 2011 with Address Book. Hopefullly this will be fixed at some point.
So my problem is that I have decided to use a workaround to get my Address Book contents into Outlook 2011. I am not concerned with further syncing at this point. I just want to get my addresses into Outlook and hope a better fix is offered at some point.
About the only way I could figure out how to do this was to export my Address Book as vCard. I then imported the vCard file into Gmail and then exported that as a CSV file. It contained 550 addresses. I opened it in Excel and it contained 550 rows. Great so far.
I then Imported into Outlook 2011 and chose import a text file. When the mapping window opened, it showed over 890 files instead of 550 and the fields were not mapped correctly. I could not complete the import because it was so screwed up.
So I'm back to square one and very frustrated. There must be others who have the same issue and maybe have figured out a way to do this. Please help.

Hi Michael Erb1,
As per your issue, i.e Outlook 2011 problem syncing contacts with address book, activation of this issue is usually can solve out through various ways. One of the simplest way, i.e by restarting Outlook 2011 application and need to chase few necessary steps which are clearly mentioned below blog link, from where you can utilize this method and can get a proper solution for Sync Outlook 2011 for Mac with Mac Address Book.
Source link: http://www.blogs.olmtopst.com/how-to-sync-outlook-2011-for-mac-with-mac-address- book.html
Hope this information will assist you and makes you competent to Sync Outlook 2011 for Mac with Mac Address Book easily.

ICloud not syncing with Address Book on Mac

I've updated my Address Book and now it won't sync to iCloud, which means my contacts are no longer on my iphone either. Why won't iCloud sync with the address book on my computer?

Wanted to post an update for those of you who use Entourage for contacts, have iCloud, and like to sync with your iPhone.
I have Entourage set to update to the Address Book (Entourage Preferences - Sync Services - Sync to Address Book - Combine Data) and after fixing the original problem noted above, I later decided to have my iphone backed up and synced through iCloud.
Well - iCloud and Entourage don't play nice together - so none of my contacts were updating either direction and I had duplicates in Address Book again. Apple did not have answers for me when I called, so I spent the day trying to fix it and came up with the following and figured I'd pay it forward and post for anyone else with the same issue.
The only option at this time is to sync your Contacts with iTunes instead. Even though Entourage used to update wirelessly with MobileMe - it does not work with iCloud due to different CalDav systems. You can still do iPhone backups and sync your calendars and photos over iCloud (which I am still doing), but Contacts just won't work.
Steps:
1. Backup your good list of contacts somewhere (I ensured everything on Entourage was right and did an archive)
2. To be extra safe, be sure you have a good phone back up too (either over iCloud or iTunes)
3. Uncheck sync to Address Book in Entourage
4. Delete everything in Address Book and uncheck sync/account to iCloud
5. Go into System Preferences - iCloud, and uncheck sync Contacts. When it asks you if you want to delete what's on your mac - you can say yes - it will not delete anything in Entourage. By now all your contacts in Address Book, iCloud and on your phone should be gone (it's scary I know)
6. Go to your phone settings - iCloud and turn off Contacts there too
7. Entourage - Preferences - Sync Services - turn on syncing with Address Book/Mobile Me (I chose to Combine data assuming this would allow data to travel both directions in the future). It should populate address book in just a minute or two
8. Plug your phone into your computer and open iTunes
9. Check "Sync Contacts" and hit Apply. I'd suggest syncing it right there with your phone plugged in.
After that, you can either sync each time you plug in and open iTunes, or you can sync over your own wifi network when your phone is plugged in. It will not sync over any wifi like it used to do with MobileMe - so still far from an optimum solution, but hopefully Apple and/or Entourage will fix this soon. The only other solution I could think of was to switch to Mail & Contacts since I like to use them both in same place, but I really didn't want to do that (mail isn't that great and I didn't want to take the time to make the switch).
If anyone has anything better to suggest, please let us know!!!

Palm contacts do not sync with address book

Contact data from my Palm Tungsten does not sync with Address Book. I am running the latest Palm OS and Desktop with iSync 1.5 and Panther OS 10.3.9. Calendar is syncing correctly. According to the log, iSync thinks that the Address Book is also working but no data gets transferred in either directon. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Power Book Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi,
i also used iSync for a long time with my Tungsten. BUT(!) iSync is very poor! I learned to know MissingSync and this is a really cool App! Now i have categories in my calender after syncing with my Titanium, i have all adresses and there are a lot of more cool features. Look here:
http://markspace.com/
for more information.
Michael

3 Problems with Address Book-- now considering Bento

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for