Problem syncing address book/contacts

I was given an iPhone 3G from a friend. I'm trying to sync my computer (OS 10.7 Lion) address book v6.1 to my iPhone contact/address book (OS 4.2.1). For some reason the address book won't sync from my computer to the iPhone. Are the two adress books incompatible? What should I do if they are?

Okay, after spending over 2 hours on the phone with iPhone support this morning I learned two things:
1. My address book data was probably corrupt. An import into a new account did not fix the problem but an import from Plaxo to an empty address book did!
2. There are still bugs in Leopard that make this whole process much more painful than it needs to be. SyncServices needs serious work.
Chad

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What is the best way to sync Address Book contacts?

Please help!
I run a small Mac network and I need to sync all (we have 8 Macs) the Mac's Address Book's with each other and also with 5 different iPhones. We have a Mac Server running Tiger and all the Macs are running Tiger. 4 of the Macs are Intel. The server is PowerPC.
At the moment I am just using 1 .Mac account to sync to them all, but this is causing many problems with duplications, errors and 'stress!'
The reason for the above setup is money. But, as the problems continue and the syncing become more important, money is now allowed to be spent.
My question really is, as the subject header says, 'What is the best way to sync Address Book contacts?' In the past I have tried XC Connect, and a few other apps, but with the introduction of the iPhones, the setup has become more complex.
If I were to buy all new Intel Macs and an Intel Mac Server all running Snow Leopard, would the 'Address Book Server' do the job? I have found very little information on the net and the information I did find was all negative.
Is there something Leopard can do that Tiger can't? Is Tiger nolonger a good enough system to try and run an Address Book network?
Does anybody else out there in the Mac world have a similar setup to mine, and if so, how do you have your setup.
Incidentally, ALL users, incuding iPhone users, need read & write access to the Address Book!!
Any solutions or suggestions would be most welcome.
Thanks in advance
col_t

Oh, I meant Leopard does do more than Tiger Server.
I don't know enough about Server, even less abut Syncing.
SL is to new, not enough time to iron out the kinks yet imho.
One day SL will be better than Leo, but...
I'd ask over in server...
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=96
Or perhaps Collaboration Services...
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1352
They may even have a different opinion on SL.

"Sync Address Book Contacts" option missing all groups

I had a problem with multiple copies of contacts on my iPhone so I deselected the "Sync Address Book Contacts" box in iTunes before synching. The popup said that all contacts would be removed from the iPhone, and I clicked to proceed. When the sync was complete, I verified that all contacts had been removed from my iPhone (they were).
Then I reselected the "Sync Address Book Contacts" but noticed that all 15 of the groups from my MacBook that normally appear in the box with the All Contacts/Selected Groups button were missing. I opened Address Book and they were all there.
I did a backup of Address Book and then deleted all of my contacts on my MacBook. I quit and restarted my MacBook and then imported my Address Book backup before connecting my iPhone and trying to sync the contacts again, but again, none of the groups appeared in the window and after proceeding with the sync anyway, not a single contact went to the iPhone. I've tried it by both selecting and deselecting the Contacts box under the "Replace information on this iPhone".
- I connected an iPod touch that didn't have any contact info to the MacBook and, as before, the groups from my address book did not show up and after synching, none of the contacts were installed on the iPod Touch, leaving me to believe that it is something iTunes related except that all of my calendars and music etc. sync without a problem.
- I've got the latest iTunes (10.1) and Snow Leopard s/w updates.
Any ideas?

Exported addresses from Address Book to desktop and then deleted all addresses from Address Book.
Deleted file AddressBook-v22.ab** from Library>Application Support>AddressBook.
Exited Address Book and iTunes, restarted Address Book and imported addresses from desktop.
Restarted iTunes and all of the groups were visible in the "Synch Address Book Contacts" window.

Syncing Address Book contacts with iPod

I know some people will think this post should be in the iPod forum but I have realised that it is not my iPod beccasue I tried using a different iPod and the same problem happened. Anyway...the problem is that when I choose to sync Address Book contacts with iPod it comes up with this message:
No contacts available
Contact syncinig cannot be enabled because there are no contacts available. Do you want to open Address Book and create contacts now?
And gives me the options: Cancel and Open Address Book
I have tried deleting several different preferences for iTunes, Address Book and iSync (just incase).
I don't know what else to do, I know I can manually add my contacts by exporting them all as a vCard but it would be so much easier if iTunes could do it. Please help if you know anything!
iMac G5 (iSight) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.9GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB RAM, 17" Widescreen
iMac G5 (iSight) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.9GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB RAM, 17" Widescreen

I've got Calenders syncing again, not sure how I did it. I deleted the one of the folders in /Users/Alex/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/clientdata/
I found that in each folder there is a clientname.txt file with the name of what data is in the folder e.g. iCal, Safari, Keychain, Mail.
I deleted the iCal one and iTunes seems to be syncing it now. So I looked for a folder with Address Book in the clientname.txt file but there wasn't one. I am wondering whether that's the reason!

I have an iPhone 3g and it won't sync address book contacts.

I have an iPhone 3g and it won't sync address book contacts. My iPad does it via the cloud but now my iPhone won't do it. Please help.

Have you tried a "hard reset"? If so, I would take the phone to an Apple store. If not,
1. Make sure the phone is OFF
2. Hold the HOME button and then press the power button and HOLD IT.
3. Hold both buttons until the phone comes ON, goes OFF and come ON again (about 45 seconds)
4. Re-sync with iTunes.
Hope this helps.

Cannot select 'Selected groups' to sync address book contacts to ipad

Hi,
After i upgraded to iOS5, I cannot select 'selected groups' to sync address books to ipad. I am syncing via icloud, but there is no option so sync selected groups contacts, nor via itunes for manual sync.
Can anyone help, please.

Exported addresses from Address Book to desktop and then deleted all addresses from Address Book.
Deleted file AddressBook-v22.ab** from Library>Application Support>AddressBook.
Exited Address Book and iTunes, restarted Address Book and imported addresses from desktop.
Restarted iTunes and all of the groups were visible in the "Synch Address Book Contacts" window.

Syncing address book contacts list to family using iCloud

As former mobileme family pack users, we could share all contacts stored on our Mac's address book between all 4 of our iOS devices in the family.
Since upgrading to iCloud we are only getting contacts from our individual accounts, is there a way to share them like mobileme could?

I read that there is a way to share an address book on multiple iOS devices, even if each person with thier iOS device has thier own iCloud account. It turns out it is possible to add another, ie. more than one, iCloud account to an iOS device. I think then that one iCloud account would have the master Address book.
I haven't tried it yet. It looks like you can do that through <settings><Mail,Contacts,Calendars><add account> and select an iCloud account. Then you can go into <settings><iCloud> and manage which items from that iCloud account sync. The only thing I haven't figured out is if you can do it on multiple Macs as well - my wife and I each have our own MacBook Pros.
The article was @ ZDNET
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/mobileme-to-icloud-migration-and-calendar-sharin g/11436
Message was edited by: Niko03
I just looked in Address book preferences on my mac and it looks like you could add another iCloud account there as well. Tomorrow I'm picking up an iPhone 4s for my wife and will set up an iCloud account for her and do some playing around to see what works.

IPhone 4 no longer syncing Address Book contacts w/laptop

For some reason, my iPhone 4 is no longer updating my contact list when I add new names/info to Address Book on my MacBook Pro. I've checked the settings on my phone as well as in iTunes, and it should be syncing (and always has done so before), but it's not. I even tried replacing all my iPhone contacts with the list on my laptop via the iTunes "Advanced" menu option, but this didn't help...
I'm not sure exactly when this started happening, but I did have trouble when I tried to install the 10.7.3 update to Lion and had to reinstall OSX. (Also, my laptop is relatively new--bought it about a month ago.)
Any suggestions?

This has also happened to me, though it was after synching to my 3G iPhone as opposed to MobileMe (which I don't have).
What's more, in iTunes Prefs I've selected "place new contacts created on this iPhone in the group 'new from iPhone'", and I just saw that of the 968 contacts in my Address Book, a good...613 are under the 'new from iPhone' group which is absolutely false!
I most decidedly did not create all those 613 contacts on my iPhone, in fact just about all 613 of them had been previously synched from my Mac to my iPhone.
Clearly there's some sort of bug here - whether MobileMe or iPhone via iTunes, since both involve iSync from what I had read elsewhere at these forums.
I'm going to submit this to the Apple iPhone feedback page here, and would suggest your submitting your feedback to Apple MobileMe here.
Message was edited by: eccparis

My Address Book contacts don't sync to my iPad.

I have transfered my vCards from and old computer to my new computer and the data is in my address book but it doesn't sync to my iPad. The iPad shows no contacts. any ideas on how to get this to sync?

In iTunes do you have the option to "Sync Address Book Contacts" enabled (checked "on") in the "Info" tab?
-Doug

Syncing Address Book to IPod Classic

Problem: Syncing Address Book to my iPod Classic 80 (using iMac, bought new Dec. 2007)
I have tried again and again to sync my Address Book to the iPod; with always the same weird results.
1. When I sync my iPod to the Address Book, only seven contacts of 166 appear on the iPod - THIS is the problem.
2. On the iTunes Contacts page I have checked; ‘Sync Address Book’ and ‘All Contacts’.
3. During syncing the window states that it is syncing contacts.
4. In the list of ‘Selected Groups’ (I always have ‘All Contacts’ checked) groups appear that I have deleted in Address Book.
5. I used Bento in the past, and didn’t like it; I have moved Bento from the application folder to the Trash. Could Bento be interfering somehow?
6. On Preferences I have tried vCard 3.1 and 2.0, neither worked - 3.1 is currently selected.
7. In Address Book, I did an archive backup. And then restored with the archive, no difference, with the sync. The restore worked fine in Address Book.
8. As a test, in Address Book I deleted one of the seven contacts, that do appear on the iPod (see 1. above); then synced; it still appears on my iPod - the contact that won’t die.
9. Syncing of Calendars works fine.
10. I have tried resetting the iPod. Still no difference after syncing, still only seven contacts appear, including the deleted one.
11. Where is the data for the Address Book stored on the computer? If I deleted all the data files in Address Book, would that help? Would the files rebuild themselves with the restore archive?
12. The iPod software is up to date.
13. Resetting the iPod did not change anything.
14. I did the sync manually - syncing only Contacts, still only seven contacts.
What can I do? Any ideas would be appreciated. Using the iPod for contacts would very useful - I really do not want to buy another device or a cell phone (PDA) that also stores addresses.
Thanks, Diane

OK - Now we have some progress. I did as suggested and 'Reset Sync History', The seven contacts on the iPod are gone! However, it still is not syncing up my contacts. I reset the iPod, tried manually, restarted the computer, etc. - it didn't help. Thank you for the suggestion.
Thank You, Diane

Can iPhone 4 contacts overwrite MacBook Address Book contacts?

Can someone please help me, perhaps Allan Sampson? My problem is that I somehow have >2,000 duplicate contacts in my MacBook's Address Book. Though I do backups, I've added dozens of new contacts to my iPhone where, so far, I do not have any duplicates. Basically, I need to somehow, if possible, overwrite all of my desktop contacts with the contacts from my iPhone. I've searched in the Apple Discussions for 2 hours and can't find an answer to this. The closest Google hit I found was http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2111565 but it did not work for me.
Some background:
- OS X 10.6.6
- iTunes ver 10.1.2
- iPhone OS 4.2.1
- I am syncing iPhone with MobileMe account
- iTunes is also syncing contacts with MobileMe
- Under iPhone "Info" tab in iTunes, it is NOT set to Sync Address Book Contacts
- This is not the first time I am syncing.
- I called Apple Support. Zero help.
- I can't use the Address Book "Look for Duplicates..." feature because I have a few dozen contacts that it will combine that I need to keep separate.
Could anyone possibly help me with this? My only other option is to manually delete >2,000 duplicate contacts...that would take me several months.
Thank you!

I tried this http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1472736 , specifically Allan Sampson's suggestion (below), but it did not work either.
"The sync process for contact information, calendar events, and bookmarks with an iPhone is bidirectional with the supported application on your computer.
Enter at least one contact in the Address Book application and one calendar event in iCal on your Mac before syncing. Pay attention to any message provided when syncing such as merging data. If you are unsure about any such message provided, cancel the sync until you are sure."

Sync address book from computer to phone

I want to sync my address book on my mac air to my iphone5 but itunes says it is going to use Microsoft Exchange to sync. What does that mean? I didn't do it cause it didn't seem right.

I thought that I did. In INFO>Contacts in my itunes it asked me to sync address book contacts. These contacts I do not care to have on my phone. But my phone contacts are not in my address book. How can I just sync my phone contacts to my computer. So when I restore it I can just sync those right back to my phone. I am not seeing an option for this.

Trouble synching address book contacts to phone

here goes:
i recently updated to the newest iOS and newest itunes software. since the update, i have not been able to tranfer all of the contacts from my address book(on my mac) to my phone! When I plug my iphone in to the computer and go to the info tab, ""Sync Address Book Contacts" isn't even an option. It only says "Sync Contacts". I've even tried the "replace info on this phone" and I still don't get all my contacts from my address book!

Welcome to discussions Rick,
I don't know of a Bluetooth icon in address book. Are you using iSync? The way I sync only contacts of my choosing is to create a new group in address book called some thing like 'Nokia' add the contacts I want then use iSync to sync the phone using only 'Nokia' group.

How to sync address book from OS 10.7 to 10.6

Is there any way to sync my address book from 10.7 to 10.6 ? Is there a work-around?

I actually found the solution on another page. If I go into iTunes while my iPhone is plugged in, I just needed to click on the "Info" tab of iPhones in iTunes and then click on "Sync Address Book Contacts," since it wasn't checked after the upgrade. Simple solution when you know what the answer is.

Problems with outlook and address book contacts: my outlook contacts had around 3,000 entries. Outlook duplicated by itself and now outlook and address book have each over 340,000. What should I do?

Problems with outlook and address book contacts: my outlook contacts had around 3,000 entries. Outlook duplicated entries and have now 340,000. I reinstalled microsoft office and, thus, outlook, and reinstalled mac OS X system and applications. While I managed to delete outlook contacts so that I can re-sync with my blackberry, the contacts at Mac Address Book were not deleted and still have over 340,000 entries. I do not mind deleting all contacts since I have back up, but I have not been able to delete them. Also, when I go at Address Book and try to delete or merge duplicated entries, the system takes forever and never ends because of such large amount of entries. Worse, when I do so I run out of RAM memory.
My Macbook pro is just 2 months old.
What should I do? Is there a way to delete my Mac Address Book without having the problem above?
Many thanks
Regis

zlatan24 wrote:
For solving out troubles connected with corrupted or lost address book you may use address book recovery. It owns various features such as restoring wab files, it working under any Windows OS. The utility has modern and easy to use interface due to almost every experienced users.
If it is a windows problem it's not going to run on the OP's MacBook Pro

Problem syncing address book/contacts

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