Address Book on laptop is corrupt: which settings need to be reset?

Question

The Address Book on each of my 2 laptops is corrupt (i.e. the AB when opened quits unexpectedly, without giving much options other than Report to Apple, and quit). But the Contacts data on MobileMe (and on the iPhone) is correct. I'd like to delete any and all of the sync settings on the laptops in order to start with a new and emtpy Address Book which then should be synced (and repopulated) with MobileMe. (I have saved the MobileMe data as V-cards by choosing all contacts and exporting and saving them in a vcf file format; I fear that I am loosing ALL group data this way!?).
Here my questions:
1. To get a "clean" slate for the address book and the syncing process, which databases and sync settings on the laptops do I need to delete and in what order? And much less importantly:
2. How can the group data on MobileMe be saved/retained?
Thanks for any advice. Cheers, Veit

Answer 1

I think that you are right with your diagnosis that not the AB is corrupt, but perhaps the data, because:
1. the problem occurred at the same time on my wife's laptop and on mine.
2. although I re-installed the AB from the OS X disk with the help of the Pacifist application (see the thread below), the problem has not disappeared.
I also was able to eliminate synching issues as the root problem: I used a previously saved backup AB (not entirely current, of course) and could sync with MobileMe (replacing the data there, which I had saved in a .vcf file). I now seem to have a working AB which also syncs, BUT, and here comes the puzzlement: all contacts seem to be there, even all groups, BUT when I want to resize/enlarge the window to cover the whole screen, then the AB freezes up, the window becomes white and empty and after a while AB quits entirely on my laptop with no further notice, and on my wife's laptop gives me a message that AB quit unexpectedly (with a Relaunch and an OK option, but the relaunch produces the same results). Is there any explanation for this, that resizing produces a freeze and inadvertent quit? Is there a preference or settings file burried out there that interferes???
Somehow I have a hunch that the real culprit could be the groups which I had created, since I had noticed some strange results in these groups earlier; some groups were created by me, some are logically determined so called "smart groups". I wonder if I were to delete these groups in MobileMe (which of course I'd hate to loose) and re-synced whether the problem would disappear.
Your suggestions, to add .vcf cards one by one is appreciated, but I don't have them one by one, only ALL contacts in one single .vcf file; (furthermore with some 1500 contacts that would take forever).
I am wondering if you or anyone who follows this thread has suggestions how best to proceed. I am willing to try out any approach.
Thanks in advance, Cheers, Veit