Address book entries have vanished

I needed to move my address book from my Mac Book Pro to my Power Mac G5. Here's what I did:
1. On Mac Book Pro, I did a "Backup Address Book" to FILE 1
2. On Power Mac I did a "Backup Address Book" to FILE 2 as a precaution
3. Then I did a "Revert to Address Book Backup" on the Power Mac G5 and selected FILE 1 (the address book from the Mac Book Pro)
4. Nothing, no records in the address book.
5. Tried doing a "Revert to Address Book Backup" on the Power Mac G5 and selected FILE 2 (my backup)
6. Nothing. I don't have the data from the Mac Book Pro nor the original data from the Power Mac G5
What can I do? Now I have no address book records from which to do Holiday Cards. Is this the universe saying Bah-Humbug? Is there any way to fix this problem?

David,
You should have a copy of one of your address books that works...
Rather than trying to revert to your previous address book, try this:
1. Locate a copy or copies of your AddressBook.data
(the main file for this lives in your Users/'yourname'/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook.data
2. Try replacing your "AddressBook.data" and then opening up your Address Book. You must quit your Address Book before replacing the AddressBook.data so when you open up the Address Book again, it will read the AddressBook.data that you just put in.
3. You can keep replacing this AddressBook.data until you get the correct one you are looking for. Make sure it is named, "AddressBook.data".....
I always try and keep a copy of this AddressBook.data on a separate computer or external hard drive as a backup. You can even burn this on a CD to keep a copy.
Give that a try and let us know if this worked.

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Address Book entries have very strange appearance

Since updating to Leopard, my Address Book entries have a very strange appearance. When I copy and paste them the info is correct, but in the Address Book right-hand window the name (first and last) appears like gobbledigook, as if it was a strange font that is almost like mathematical equations
With my utmost thanks in advance (as ever) if anyone has the answer to this weird problem
Kind Regards
Bernard

Thanks a million for taking the trouble to respond Ashka.
I was only reminded of the problem when I opened a web page and saw a similar effect on a couple of lines as I had in my Address Book and having discovered your response, I followed your instructions and on scanning through my fonts, I also turned off "Helvetica Fractions" (as the gobbledigook looked as if it might be fractions). One of these actions seems to have done the trick.
Whilst looking for a particular font a while back, I ended up downloading absolutely hundreds, but it wasn't until I foolishly installed them all that I realised what a mistake I had made, as Word wouldn't even open, as it couldn't cope with the number of fonts. So I had to keep deleting fonts until Word was happy and even now, I still have far too many fonts. I kid myself that I like having so much to choose from, but truth is I am never going to use 90 per cent of them. Moreover, having discovered this problem, I wonder if there are any others in there that are going to cause me problems in the future?
Again, can't thank you enough for your trouble
Best Regards
Bernard

Address Book entries have disappered

I was sitting on the airplane doing a long list of corrections to my addressbook when I got the spinning beachball of death. I did a force quit of Address Book and the next time I opened it everything was gone...except ironically, my address and Apple's address. I am a bit distressed. I have most of it backed up elsewhere (Entourage) but this is sort of a big deal, and one I am not willing to smile and dismiss. I really want to use Apple's PIM apps but if this is what happens, I'll go back to the stability of Entourage. 450 cards to 2 in a few seconds is a drag. Anyone know why or how to recover? I have tried a couple of the suggerstions I found while doing a search of the forum using the term "lost."
Thanks for any help you will offer.

Thanks a million for taking the trouble to respond Ashka.
I was only reminded of the problem when I opened a web page and saw a similar effect on a couple of lines as I had in my Address Book and having discovered your response, I followed your instructions and on scanning through my fonts, I also turned off "Helvetica Fractions" (as the gobbledigook looked as if it might be fractions). One of these actions seems to have done the trick.
Whilst looking for a particular font a while back, I ended up downloading absolutely hundreds, but it wasn't until I foolishly installed them all that I realised what a mistake I had made, as Word wouldn't even open, as it couldn't cope with the number of fonts. So I had to keep deleting fonts until Word was happy and even now, I still have far too many fonts. I kid myself that I like having so much to choose from, but truth is I am never going to use 90 per cent of them. Moreover, having discovered this problem, I wonder if there are any others in there that are going to cause me problems in the future?
Again, can't thank you enough for your trouble
Best Regards
Bernard

Address book images have vanished

This has happened to others, and to me before, there was some solution; does anyone remember what it was?
thanks

David,
You should have a copy of one of your address books that works...
Rather than trying to revert to your previous address book, try this:
1. Locate a copy or copies of your AddressBook.data
(the main file for this lives in your Users/'yourname'/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook.data
2. Try replacing your "AddressBook.data" and then opening up your Address Book. You must quit your Address Book before replacing the AddressBook.data so when you open up the Address Book again, it will read the AddressBook.data that you just put in.
3. You can keep replacing this AddressBook.data until you get the correct one you are looking for. Make sure it is named, "AddressBook.data".....
I always try and keep a copy of this AddressBook.data on a separate computer or external hard drive as a backup. You can even burn this on a CD to keep a copy.
Give that a try and let us know if this worked.

Address Book Entries gone!!

All my address books entries have disapeared!!
In the corner it says: Updated 28/06/2005 which is of course wrong.
In my .mac account all entries are there, but also when I try to sync it nothing happens.
Thank you for any help!!
Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Are you the fourth person who has posted on this issue today? Amazing--and we are all paying $100/year for the opportunity for Apple to [expletive deleted] us.
Dual G5 + 15" MBP 2GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Address book entries reversed

Anyone know of an applescript that will reverse the name fields of selected names?
Not sure why but probably had something to do with sync to a motorola phone but a significant number of address book entries have first and family reversed.

Never Mind - I just discovered there is a command directly in address book to do just this

My original computer hard drive crashed. I have a new laptop, but I lost all my address book entries. Is there a way I can transfer my contacts on my ipad to my non-apple laptop? Tom B

My original computer hard drive crashed. I have a new laptop, but I lost all my address book entries. Is there a way I can transfer my contacts on my ipad to my non-apple laptop? Tom B

If you have a Mac, it's pretty easy. But you don't (should I make a pitch for you to get a MacBook Pro in the future)?
This should help you out to sync it back to several non-Apple software:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1296

Can I have Mail format the "From" field based on my Address book entries?

I have most of my contacts in my address book, but Mail still displays the "From" field in the message list pane with the normal email address header.
Here's an example:
User A emails me a message from this address:
"User A" <[email protected]>
In my Address Book, I have User A's info as this:
First Name: Bob
Last Name: Marley
Email Address: [email protected]
In Mail, though, the "From" field in the message list view still says ...
User A
... when I want it to say ...
Bob Marley
Does that make sense? How can I do this?

All you need is a plug adaptor, if required. Apple sells an adapter kit:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB974ZM/B?fnode=MTY1NDEwMQ&mco=MTA4NDE3MDQ

How do i remove my photo from my Address Book entry?

two questions: first, how do i remove my photo from my entry in Address Book? i should be able to click "Edit", select my photo and hit the Delete key and be done, but no - hitting the Delete key does nothing except make the photo blink.
second, i just posted a comment on a web page that i've never been to before, on a site that i've never been to before, and my photo appeared on the web page next to my comment. very creepy. anybody know why this is and how i make it stop? does it have something to do with my Address Book entry?
update: i've consulted Address Book's help and it tells me to select the card then go Card -> Clear custom image, but when i do, that menu item is grayed out.
further update: i've worked around the problem by taking a screen shot of a blank white area of a webpage and making that my photo...but i shouldn't have to do that and would still like to know how one actually deletes one's photo from Address Book. Address Book's help indicates that i'll find such photos in Library/Images/People, but there's no such directory in any of my Library folders. Address Book's help is not being very helpful today.
tia...

there is actually no way to completely delete an image for you address book entry. you can only change it to something else as you did.
as for the image on that website, most likely it pulled your photo from your webpage on some site like My Space, Facebook etc. do you have a page like that? some sites will tap directly into your webpage and pull your pic from it.

How can I delete ALL of my Address Book entries and start fresh?

Yes. I know that sounds extreme, but……
I use Outlook on a PC at my office, and I have an sbcglobal/Yahoo mail account. I look upon my office Outlook as my ultimate contacts list (over 1,100 entries) and my calendar.
I use the sbc supplied free Intellisync software to sync all of my calendar and contacts from my office PC into sbc/Yahoo. That way I actually get e-mail reminders of appointments, etc. in addition to my Outlook notifications. It is actually pretty nifty.
I have also successfully signed-on to my Yahoo account at home on my MAC and exported all of my contacts from Yahoo (which had been populated by the PC Outlook listings via Intellisync) onto my desktop and then imported them into Address Book. But I did that some time ago and now my Outlook listings have been updated rather substantially. I would like to able to do a complete re-install of the new and improved contacts from the Yahoo repository.
Again - I certainly do not want to delete the Address Book app itself – I just want to start with a clean slate so there are no conflicts or duplicate entries (which in fact is seemingly a bug in the Yahoo/Intellisync. Is there a way to completely wipe clean all of my Address Book entries?
Thanks
Theo
G4 (FW800) Mirrored doors Mac OS X (10.4.8) Dual 1.42GHz; 1.5GB DDR SDRAM; 20" HD Cinema Display; iSight;

Hello Allan -
Your help on a previous post was great re: my wanting to know how to delete the Address Book contents so I can re-import an updated list form my office Outlook, via my yahho/sbcglobal import.
Well - here is an interesting quandary:
I have successfully exported my yahoo address book/contacts as a .vcf file Yet - once I have expunged the prior Address Book data and want to now import the NEW Yahoo data to rebuild the database it only takes (enters) the phone numbers and does NOT import ANY of the address information. I am positive I did this once since our original exchange and everything transferred just fine, but now….?!
What I cannot determine is where the fault may be: does the export NOT include the addresses (in which case I am doing something fundamentally stupid wit the export) or the vcf cards are complete, but Address Book is not “seeing” anything other than the phone #s and e-mail addresses.
Any thoughts?
Dazed and confused
Theo

Reply works, but address book entry doesn't

I have an odd problem that's making me a litttle batty. I have an friend I e-mail regularly and--since recently switching to Mail from Eudora--I've been finding that some of my messages are not getting through.
I'm not 100% certain, but it seems that when I send a new message that's addressed from the Address Book entry, the message is never received. But when I REPLY to a message from this same recipient--same address--the message goes through just fine.
I've reviewed the address again and again and it's entered correctly.
When I look at the Long Header, one difference I note between the received and no-received maessages is under Content-Type.
A successful message has:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=Apple-Mail-8-603300258
And a failed message:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Another difference is that the failed messages--the ones that originated with me have something called:
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
While the messages I reply to don't have that line at all.
The recipient--by the way--is at work at a large organization. So I wonder if their mail servers are blocking messages with certain kinds of encoding?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
OK, OK...this just in. While I was composing this message, I was also franticly corresponding with the adressee in question, trying to troubleshoot this. I may have solved my own problem, but I'm going to post this anyway... In hopes of solving someone else's problem, and possibly getting some responses that will enlighten me further (cuz I just don't get this).
On a wild guess/hunch, I went into PREFERENCES/COMPOSING and changed the Message Format: from Rich Text to Plain Text. The next test message got through! One difference (if it matters??) I found in the Long Header was the
Content-Type changed from:
text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
to
text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
So anyway...I'm completely flummoxed. Any ideas, clues, answers out there? I'm not going to trust yet that this problem is completely solved. So I'll leave this as an open question for now.
verbosely yours,
Roger
Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hmmm... there's nothing fancy about the signature (no bolds, itals or other styles or colors). But does that mean that it IS plain text? My setting when I made the signature(s) was Rich Text, I'm sure. So would that apply, even though it's plain for all intents and purposes? And if it's not. How is it changed to Plain Text?
As far as the SMTP settings. I tried one change last night. I changed the Server settings from "smtp.ispname.net:username" to "smtp.ispname.net:[email protected]". When I tested a message to the address/server I've had the most problems with, the message arrived successfully. But I don't think that proves anything as yet. The nature of the problem has been mysteriously intermitent anyway. (that message had my regular signature as well).
AS I'd mentioned, I've been moving stuff out of my Sent Mail folders to keep things organized and for reference (Is doing that OK? is Sent Mail suppposed to be left wher it is for some reason?). But on informal investigation, I would say that all of the messages I've sent--original or reply--HAVE shown up in the Sent Mail folder.
The discussion thread I'd been involved in with you before is:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=347863
However, I haven't added any posts since way back then.
Thanks you for any insights you can give me with this. If you're not on Apple's payroll, you should be.
Roger

PLEASE HELP!!!! My Address Book Entries Keep Disappearing

I work on contract for multiple companies and have 6 different email accounts. Until today, I only had 1 profile in my address book that was marked with my main email address. Today I went to add my name and the corresponding email into Address book, and then my email and ical froze and I had to Force Quit. All Address book entries were gone. I reloaded my address book, went back to ical to view the invitation and AGAIN!!! all address book entries were gone. It appears that I can't set up "my info" with different email addresses. I would be ever so grateful if someone might have a solution.
Many Thanks for any ideas....
ibook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I recommend that you book a Genius session at an Apple Store. It sounds like your iMac or iPhone has a corrupted Contacts function and it will keep generating blank contacts.
If you can open Contacts on the iMac then create a new group (file menu), drag your genuine contacts to that group then File/Export the group with Export vCard. You can use this to recover the contacts later.
BTW - best not to post your iMac serial number and UUID online.

Duplicate Contact/Address Book entries on iPhone

why do I have duplicate contact and address books entries on my iPhone? I never had this problem until I upgraded to iCloud. I have an iPhone 4 and it is upgraded to the current OS.

If you are using Outlook 2011, make sure you have the latest service pack and update.
Make sure your Mac Book and all devices have the latest update.
If the Calendar on the Mac Book is correct go to step 3
Assuming Mac Book Calendar is correct, remove accounts from iPhone, iPad.
Reconnect account to iPhone, iPad account.
All calendars should now be in sync.
There are times when the Mail, Calendar, Contact application has been corrupted (Outlook 2011, Mac Mail, Entourage, etc). This will cause all kinda of issues on your devices. You have to repair the mail client first. In the case of Outlook you can delete the profile and recreate it. In Mac Mail you can rebuild (from Tools on the menu bar)

Multiplication of address book entries

I have 2611 address book entries. I have this pristine file backed up, so I can go back to it. However, every time i restore my address book, it balloons up to over 19,000 entries, and slows down the processor in the meantime. I thought it was being caused by Now Contact still being on my computer, so I uninstalled it, but it still happens. It's not a sync issue, I believe, because I have turned off syncing and it still happens. I've tried putting the original addressbook on (2611 entries) and replacing the MobileMe info with it, and it still balloons up, whether syncing is on or off. This is really crazy. Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening, or how I might fix it? Thank you.

You can export your contacts to CSV (comma separated value) format and pull that into Numbers or Excel, then export it back. Use the first part of this program (it's a converter for GMail) to do the CSV step.
Matt

Address Book entries unusable in Outlook

Hello all,
I have updated iTunes, iPhone and Outlook to the most current software versions.
Here is my problem. Whenever I add or update an existing contact on my iPhone and then sync it to Outlook on my PC the address book entry (email) for that contact becomes unusable. If you try to edit or delete the address book entry you get the message "an invalid ENTRYID was passed in". If you try to use the address book entry to send an email it fails because it can't resolve the address book entry to an email address. This only happens with contacts sync'ed from the iPhone to Outlook. Even if I create the entry in Outlook, but edit it on the iPhone, like adding a picture to the contact, the next time it syncs to Outlook the address book entry for that contact then becomes unusable. I can repeat this problem over and over on my PC with my iPhone and on my wifes PC with her iPhone. I opened a ticket with Apple, but that went where I expected it to go which was nowhere. Googling shows that many others are having the same or a similiar problem. Any ideas on a permanent fix ? Is this a known bug ?
Thanks,
Duke

While Apple has never said anything official, my observations point to a problem in 1.1.3 where an entry created on the phone that did not have a first and last name did not create a proper index entry in the Outlook contact database. The problem (for me) was fixed in 1.1.4, but entries made in 1.1.3 were still corrupt. You can fix the broken records in the contact database by exporting the PST file, then importing it (in Outlook).

Address book entries have vanished

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