Lost my Address Book contacts after a security update?

I am using OS X 10.4.7 and did a security update last night. Now I also have a Nokia E61 and since this morning I have lost all my contact in my address book on the Mac ( a powerbook). Since I didn't play around with the mac nor the nokia I am thinking that it all got lost in the security update.
I checked my iSync logs and there it indicates that it deleted all contact from my phone right after I did the restart for the update...
Can anybody help me get my contacts back?
I do backups but since just got back from my vacation I didn't have the time yet ..
Many thanks,
Rolf

To answer my own qq,
Well I found some of my important contacts in the trash . They were under a folder named "Recovered files". There where a few named that way so you had "Recovered files #1", "Recovered files #2", till #6. In one of them I found my contacts again, well atleas the ones that I added over the hollidays .
Hope this helps someone else aswell

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Aren't you using your phone as recommended and synching your contacts with your computer (Address Book, Outlook) or a cloud service? Just synch them back.
If you're not using your phone as recommended then your contacts are likely gone. Lesson learned.

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I used to have the address book contact list on the left side of the page being forwarded to allow easy selection of addressees. It's gone and I need it back.
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Open a Write window and press F9 to toggle the Contact Sidebar on and off.
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there is folder in your home directory with the full path /users/user/library/application support/address book. The full path of your home directory is /users/user and you can get to it by clicking on the house icon in the sidebar. then you can go to Library/application support/address book. there is a similar folder in the previous systems folder that actually contains all your contacts. take that folder and copy it over the one in your home directory.

Lost most address book entries after upgrading to S.L.

Hi Everyone,
I upgraded my machine from Tiger to Snow Leopard and consequently lost most of the addresses in my address book. I had about 300 or so; now I have 68. This is particularly bad timing since we're in the holidays...
I have a backed up version of the address book (on an external disk that still has the backup of my old system), but I'm not able to open it in Snow Leopard. Suggestions? This is quite frustrating.

The metadata folder has the same number of items as the current address book (68). The other contents of the .../application support/address book file are:
ABPerson.skIndexInverted
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Mac address book blank after MS Office update

After using the stupid MS Office Updater on prompt, I find that all my contacts are missing from my Mac Address Book! I didn't even install Outlook but the stupid Updater did. My contacts aren't there though and sync is off.
I tried restoring the Address Book folder in the Library/Application support from Time Machine. Nothing.
I tried deleting the AddressBook-v22.abcddb file. Still nothing.
I tried deleting com.apple.AddressBook.plist. Nope. And the other prefs file, too.
I've tried these things several times, different sequence, restarting, yadayada.
I've been troubleshooting my own Mac's since the MacPlus and never been so stumped! I hate M$!
Ran this in terminal:
ls -aleO Library/Application Support/AddressBook
ls: Library/Application: No such file or directory
ls: Support/AddressBook: No such file or directory
leslie-wintners-MacBook-Pro:~ leia$
(No such file or directory?!!!!)
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Hi sig, Thanks for the reply.
My Address Book was fine before installing this update. The earliest TM I have? And lose all the work I've done on this machine?
I've seen reports that other people had their contacts moved from Address Book to Outlook after this update. So, it seems very likely. Either it's the Update or the PowerPoint I opened that prompted me to update had a virus!
Since I posted, I went to the Genuis Bar, where I surprisingly got lectured about recovery is not what they do, and they could spend only 15 minutes with a customer, spending most of the time on the lecture, ultimately refering me to an expert. He found corruption on my HD and told me to wipe the drive and restore from backup. Ughh.
However, I reran DU and repaired the disk, tested the hardware even. DU reports the disk is ok now.
Yet, no Address Book.
Before I resort to wiping, I'm wondering if I could detect if I had a received a rare Mac virus...

Address book contacts in red - latest update v31

i downloaded the latest update v31.
Now my contacts in address book are in red and are not are automatically found as typing their name.
Had this problem in a Beta version and un-installed this, and then re-installed an older version.
The problem was corrected and now its back with this version too.
Any clues/tips.
thanks

For me with v31, the names/email addresses appear in red and it auto-completes them - because they are in my address book.
If I open the message in the Sent folder, they're black now with the gold star.

IPhone unable to sync my address book contact after restore

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Try the .Mac Sync forum - its probably more appropriate to your issue.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=957

Restore lost Address Book contacts

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urlgurl wrote:
username/Library/AddressBook/AddressBook.data
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Iphone sync and 300 lost address book contacts

Help. I'm sick about this. Everything has been going fine with my iphone until tonight. After I synced tonight, all 300 of my address book contacts disappeared on my phone AND on my computer. Even my backup hard drive doesn't show any contact information, only an address book icon which has no information when opened. Apple iphone tech support was unable to help me. Please I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight because of this. Can anyone out there help me get my contact information back?
Thank you.
Alden Burlington

Joel,
The Backup application they are referring to is the Backup application that comes with .Mac.
It does incremental backups. It doesn't replace the previous days backup. You can go to your backup location, and choose the day you want to restore from.
There is even a preconfigured plan for personal data and settings daily to iDisk that backs up iCal, Address Book, etc.
I would also recomend going into iSync's preferences and setting it to prompt you if more than 5% of your contacts or data will be changed. This is the default for iSync, but can be changed to not warn, or only warn when 25%, 50%, etc will be changed. If it is on the default you will get a message if information will be lost.
Also in some situations, reseting sync history before another sync, and then syncing again, may bring back some of the contacts.
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Nathan C.

Why have my Address Book contacts disappeared after uploading to iCloud?

I am using my MacBook Pro w/OSX Lion.
After having many, many problems with contacts, calendars and bookmarks in MobileMe, migrating to iCloud, encountering a huge mess of duplicates and even completely missing contacts I decided to start over. So I disabled the iCloud account on all Macs and IOS devices. I then ensured all contacts, calendars and bookmarks were deleted from the MacBook Pro. I then used the Address Book export I'd made just prior to the migration from Mobile Me to iCloud and imported this onto my MacBook Pro. I've completely gone though the Address Book and removed or merged duplicates and cleaned up all contacts with detail. I backed up my Address Book again at this point. I then logged into iCloud.com using my original Apple User ID (NOT the MobileMe/me.com account which I'm going to vacate) and ensured that there were no contacts in the cloud and I deselected the default calendars here as well. My intention was/is to begin by starting small and deal only with the MacBook Pro Address Book and iCloud Contacts. So after I confirmed there is no data in the cloud I go into the MacBook Pro System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details ensuring I was signed out of the me.com user and entered my original Apple ID I've had since I started using iTunes many years back. I quit the browser and the Address Book and verified the non me.com user was saved under the System Preferences. I then selected Contacts under these iCloud System Preferences and I was asked If I wanted to merge my contacts with those in the cloud. Because there were no contacts in the cloud I selected yes. The spinning indicator indicated that the upload was occurring. Now, there are no contacts in the cloud and the Address Book contacts are missing. Thinking that my doing the Address Book backup may have removed all the data from the Address Book, I deselected Contacts in the iCloud System Preferences, reimported the backup into Address Book that I'd just done, confirmed the contacts I just imported appear in Address Book and I reselect Contacts in the iCloud System Preferences and again I get the spinning indicator. Again, there are no Contacts in the cloud and the contacts are missing from Address Book.
What the heck am I doing wrong? I've simplified my original attempt with iCloud by concentrating my efforts to just contacts AND I'm only using the MacBook and the iCloud cloud and I've still got problems. I thought this approach would narrow down where the issue lies and allow me to monitor the process more easily but I seem to be worse off than before I'd tried to resolve the initial migration problems because now I have no contacts.
I'm new to Macs so if you have a solution, please help and please give specifics because I'm still learning the structure and don't understand a lot of the acronyms and jargon.
Thanx

If you have a back up file, I'd try turning off iCloud contact syncing on all macs from system preferences > iCloud –
DONE
as well as any secondary accounts from system preferences > mail, contacts and calendars –
DONE (this was confusing but I figured out that you meant System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendars which is what you said in lowercase. For some reason without the capital letters I didn't clue in that Mail, Contacts and Calendars was an icon option under the System preferences and so I overlooked it multiple times. I see your use of "secondary account" which I note used also as a term in the User Tip link you referred me to view. Although, I still don't understand what this 'secondary' account is, I'm not interested in any secondary accounts because I've got my hands full with just iCloud for now. I did delete all accounts under the Mail, Contacts & Calendars).
If you have any iOS devices I'd do the same on those as well. –
DONE (not even introducing other Macs or IOS devices to the equation until I get the iCloud and MacBook syncing contacts correctly)
I'd log into iCloud.com and check my Address Book was empty and empty it if necessary –
DONE (it was empty already)
and then delete all contacts from every Address Book on every device
         DONE
Then I'd turn Address Book syncing back on –
DONE (This assuming that by ‘turn back on’ you mean System Preferences > iCloud and check marking the box next to Contacts)
and import my contacts from the backup file –
DONE (This assuming that by ‘import my contacts’ you mean importing the previously exported Address Book back up file back into the Address Book. I see contacts listed in the Address Book when I did this.)
No syncing seems to happen at this point?
you might also take a look at this User Tip, to ensure you understand the differences between the different accounts in Address Book before adding the contacts back.
         I did read this but understand is probably not an accurate term for my interpretation of what I read. I get that On My Mac will not sync with what is in the cloud and iCloud will sync with the cloud. In Address Book under the single head red ribbon I see neither account heading that is mentioned. I also was not asked at the time of import to select which ‘account’ I’d like the contacts setup under.
A) If there is no indication as to what Address Book account the contacts fall under, how does on find this out?
User Tips states
Your Address Book when synced with iCloud will have more than one account.
     My assumption is that I'm not synced with iCloud if I don't see either account option listed. I also would think that if I'm not synced and thus don't have more than one account then perhaps the All Contacts default to an On My Mac account but don't reflect an account heading of 'On My Mac’ as seen on the screen shot of the User Tips example.
Furthermore, User Tips also states
Default Account
Your 'default'account is set in address book preferences > general (the option is only displayed if you have more than one account).
         It would seem relevant to list which account your defaulted to even if you do not have more than one account because elsewise how are you supposed to know which account it is setup under?
B) How do you change which ‘account’ your contacts are setup under if they are under the wrong account?
         Assuming again that my contacts are ‘On My Mac’, then how do I move them to the ‘iCloud’ account of which is not listed?
C) Will any of this be affected by groups?
The five listings under All Contacts are groups that I set up as a sort of invitation list (so Christmas cards is one I’d probably setup this time of year). Although this question is secondary I would like to confirm that my interpretation of groups is accurate. I understand groups to be a sort of tagging of selected contacts from All Contacts but that the contacts in these groups are not duplicates to those in All Contacts. Is this correct? I ask because the User Tips states
To quickly duplicate a contact, drag it to your desktop, navigate to 'Groups', select the account you wish to duplicate to, double click the contact on your desktop.
            When reading this tip, I interpret that dragging and dropping contacts from All Contacts into a group would be similar to what is suggested in this tip which would indeed ‘duplicate’ the contact. I did drag and drop when I setup my groups so I’m concerned I duplicated the contacts in Address Book. I do not see two copies of the same contact under All Contacts though.
By the way, don't take it personally –
I don't, I have reading difficulties galore and am happy to accommodate if I can. I hope this is better. Helping you helps me if you're not struggling to read when thinking about the solution.
Thanx

POP3 Mail & Address Book contacts have gone!

I recently did some housekeeping on my Mum's iBook G4 (OSX 10.4.10), part of which was purchasing and installing SpamSieve into Mail. This all went fine. Today she said all the mail in her POP3 inbox had gone, she couldn't send/receive and all her address book contacts had gone (Except hers and Apples).
I've got the iBook now and have noticed that her account type in Mail has somehow changed to a .Mac account (did I somehow do this, or did she???). This is obviously the root of the problem as the
email address now has '@mac.com' appended to the end and the incoming mail server is now 'mail.mac.com' and the outgoing is 'smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress' which is all wrong. I'm unable to change the account type back to POP or the incoming mail server from 'mail.mac.com' (it's greyed out) back to what it was.
I have now created a second account with the correct POP settings and have received in all unread email, but the read email messages have gone. I am unable to send as the new correct pop account is only offered the incorrect outgoing server ('smtp.mac.com:heremailaddress').
Having read several post on this forum, I feel the Mail/Address Book issues are connected and that maybe the application(s) database(s) have been corrupted. I've tried the Address Book remedy at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5248351&#5248351 but this does nothing. The 'user'>Library>Mail folder shows the two accounts as two separate folders. The recently recreated account folder has the new unread messages in the 'INBOX.mbox folder, but the older account folder (which now has 'MAC-' added to the front of its name) only has 'info.plist' in a 'INBOX.imapmbox' folder!
I don't believe any back-ups are available. Can anyone help me restore her old unread mail, and possibly her address book contacts?
I've also just noticed that SpamSieve does not launch as it should when I launch Mail, even though It was purchased and the scripts installed correctly.

Didn’t you make a backup prior to the housekeeping?
I don’t know why would Spotlight find contacts that are gone from Address Book (if that’s what you mean), but as far as Mail goes, under some circumstances (e.g. lack of available disk space, filesystem corruption, repeated crashes), Mail may discard the current ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist preferences file and create a new one. This file is where all the account settings are stored. As a result, all the non-.Mac account settings (but not the messages themselves) are lost. If you had a .Mac account, its settings would appear to have been preserved because Mail would set up that account automatically using the System Preferences > .Mac settings.
What’s the capacity and space available on the startup disk? Take a look at the comments about disk space in the following article, in case they apply to you:
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what’s it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, and ensuring that there’s enough space available on the startup disk (a few GB, plus the space needed to make a backup copy of the Mail folder), quit Mail if it’s running, and make a backup copy of the ~/Library/Mail folder, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down, just in case something else goes wrong while trying to solve the problem. This is where all your mail is stored.
You have three options now:
(1) Restore ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist from a backup if you have one. Mail shouldn’t be running while you do this.
(2) Set up your mail accounts again (you may want to quit Mail and trash the new com.apple.mail.plist first to start over). If given the option to import existing mailboxes or something like that, don’t. Just enter the account information and Mail will automagically rediscover the data in ~/Library/Mail/ when done. You’ll also have to re-configure most of your settings in Mail > Preferences. For spam-related security reasons, the first thing you should do is go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it’s enabled.
(3) Mail may have renamed the old preferences file to com.apple.mail.plist.saved. If that’s the case, you may try trashing the new com.apple.mail.plist and renaming the old com.apple.mail.plist.saved back to com.apple.mail.plist. Again, be sure Mail isn’t running while doing this. Given the circumstances, there exists the possibility that com.apple.mail.plist.saved became corrupt, but that often is not the case and the settings can usually be restored by just renaming the file back to com.apple.mail.plist.
As a side effect of re-creating com.apple.mail.plist, Mail might rename Outbox (which is where messages waiting to be sent are stored) to Delivered. The name of that mailbox is actually a misnomer, as it would contain messages (if any) that couldn’t be delivered for some reason. You can delete that mailbox if you wish.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.

Address Book Contacts are Gone

This is a really odd problem that has been going on for sometime now. It first started when I was running Tiger and the problem continues now even with Leopard. The problem is that periodically without warning, all of the contacts in my address book mysteriously disappear - I mean they are gone - deleted. At first, I thought this was an issue with .Mac syncing as I had it set to sync automatically every hour. I have disabled .Mac sync and now only sync manually so I know that it is not an issue with .Mac sync.
Earlier today I checked on my computer and everything was good, all of the contacts were in place. I put in my iPhone and hit sync and left the room. I know for a fact that my iPhone had all my contacts and I know that Address Book had all my contacts. When I came back to the computer a few hours later, Address Book is completely empty - the iPhone has lost all of it's contacts. I logged into .Mac on the internet and all of my contacts are still there. My last sync to .Mac was last night at 7:30. Back when I had .Mac sync set to automatic syncing, it was not uncommon for me to come in and find that all of my contacts would be gone in Address Book and on .Mac as well. I've tried contacting Apple about it and I never received any kind of a response.
Of course I can easily recover everything with my Time Machine backups, but this is perplexing me greatly. How in the heck can this be happening? Is anyone else experiencing anything like this? This is starting to drive me crazy as I cannot figure out how the Address Book is mysteriously losing contacts unless it is happening during the sync process with the iPhone. I would certainly love to hear any suggestions on how to remedy this issue as this is extremely annoying. Thank you.

OK, now I am worried and ticked off! I still dont have my contacts back in place...after spending now over 3 hours with three different apple experts. Where my address book contacts went to no one knows. No "experts" at Apple Care or at the local retail store "Genius Bar" seem to have any answers that are working! Even my .mac backup is not working when I try to "restore" my data from several backup dates before when my contacts vanished suddenly.
I have written several emails today to the .Mac support (Unfortunately only available via e-mail.... I had an apple care rep tell me that .Mac is not really Apple, but an outside firm that runs .Mac).
Here is my last email to .Mac support that I just sent out:
<<Apple and .Mac engineers out there: PLEASE help us. There is a bad bug going around where our contacts are being vaporized and making many of us go crazy. Help us get out of this twilight zone of losing all our contact data!!!!
Read all about it from many upset users at:
<a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6939388#69393 88
Then call me at (my phone number) so I can tell you whats going on with my case and HELP me get my info back! I have sent several other emails to you here today.
Thanks!
Marcel Howard D.>>
I hope this gets us all some help from the Apple Engineers and customer service.
1. What are the common details, including any error messages, related to our problems that we are discussing on this thread?

Moving Address Book contacts from laptop to desktop

I was doing some updating of my Address Book contacts this afternoon when the program majorly crashed, and then lost every single contact that was in there....
Luckily, I have another copy on my laptop. I'm just not sure now how to get the data from my laptop back to my desktop. I have done the following:
- attached the two computers with Firewire
- moved the folder myusername/library/applicationsupport/addressbook from the laptop to the same place on the desktop.
This seemed to be recommended in another thread, but it's not working for me - when I open Address Book in my desktop again, it's still empty. Can anyone tell me what I should do next (short of typing all the addresses back in again by hand)?

Did you check the Permissions on that folder & contents after you moved it?
Did you Verify & Repair if needed the HD on the Desktop first?

Lost my Address Book contacts after a security update?

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