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Is anybody having Contact syncing issues with High Sierra?

Z

zooby

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 2, 2008
919
327
I did a clean install of HS and I have been having trouble syncing to iCloud since then. Not sure if this is a common bug, but whenever I edit a picture or contact on my Mac, it does not go to iCloud nor does it sync with my phone/iDevices. It is definitely my Mac cause the other devices do sync to iCloud.

I did try resetting the NVRAM (etc), deleting all AddressBook/AddressBookSync folders (which only fixed it one time), and signing in and out of iCloud (as well as checking / unchecking just contacts). This issue also happens on Safe Boot, so it appears to be HS related. And yes, both devices have iCloud as the default account.

Anybody know a fix for this or experiencing similar issues?
 
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This fixes it temporarily but unfortunately I can't afford to reupload my Photos every night for hours (I have 100 GB worth of pics). Even so, I tried this and it did not update my new contact pictures. This is definitely an iCloud issue on their end.
 
Yes! I’m noticing the same thing! Interestingly, contacts added on Mac will be pushed to iCloud and other devices, but no changes will sync back to Mac. I’ve tried toggling contacts off and on but haven’t signed out of iCloud. I have a lot tied up in iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library that I don’t want to remove and re sync. Waiting to see if 10.13.1 fixes it... super annoying.
 
macrlz9 said:
Yes! I’m noticing the same thing! Interestingly, contacts added on Mac will be pushed to iCloud and other devices, but no changes will sync back to Mac. I’ve tried toggling contacts off and on but haven’t signed out of iCloud. I have a lot tied up in iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library that I don’t want to remove and re sync. Waiting to see if 10.13.1 fixes it... super annoying.
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I did a clean install and it is still there. It's definitely a Mac / High Sierra issue. Does not happen on any other devices. And I'm on iOS 11 too...

Surprised this issue hasn't picked up more steam. It seems to be happening to a few people and I bet more are affected by it, they just haven't noticed.
 
I've tried many many solutions to this: deleting addressbook files in the Library cache, containers, preferences, etc, turning iCloud sync on and off, various reinstalls, restarts. Too many to list. Some of these solutions have successfully brought my contacts down from iCloud into my Mac Contacts, but just once when it repopulates my whole Contacts within my Mac. The problem then continues: new alterations to old contacts (home country, notes), as well as wholly new contacts, don't sync either from my Mac to iCloud, nor vice versa. I know from forums on Apple that I'm not alone in this. Pretty big deal which Apple needs to deal with. My only "solution" now is to stop using Apple Contacts, and rely on Google Contacts. Which further erodes my relationship with Apple.
 
therighthonor said:
I've tried many many solutions to this: deleting addressbook files in the Library cache, containers, preferences, etc, turning iCloud sync on and off, various reinstalls, restarts. Too many to list. Some of these solutions have successfully brought my contacts down from iCloud into my Mac Contacts, but just once when it repopulates my whole Contacts within my Mac. The problem then continues: new alterations to old contacts (home country, notes), as well as wholly new contacts, don't sync either from my Mac to iCloud, nor vice versa. I know from forums on Apple that I'm not alone in this. Pretty big deal which Apple needs to deal with. My only "solution" now is to stop using Apple Contacts, and rely on Google Contacts. Which further erodes my relationship with Apple.
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Yep. I've continued to have this issue. Reported it plenty of times but no workaround.

I was transferred over to a Apple "Senior" Advisor weeks ago because nobody knew what was going on. We connected and he tried many things but none seemed to work. He had me install this program to run tests and gives Address Book diagnostic report(s). Then he confirmed he'd pass it over to the engineers and that there would definitely be a "solution" in 4 - 5 days.

I get a phone call days after and he says the engineers have no idea what it could be. He wanted me to run more tests but I just gave up... too much of a hassle and I was spending an hour running tests and bouncing around with advisors for no solutions.

I will say one workaround which might work for you would be to sign out of iCloud. Yes, it is very tedious, but it does seem to fix the issue. It comes back weeks and luckily months later but it does appear to fix it. This is definitely an iCloud issue.
 
I finally noticed a couple weeks ago that I had about 3 dozen contacts on my Mac that weren't synced to my iPhone. I had zero clue what to do about it, and during a layover, I just manually saved individual vCards to my desktop & dragged them into "All iCloud" in the left nav pane of the Contacts app on my Mac. Those missing contacts showed up on my iPhone almost instantaneously. Weird.
 
cubbie5150 said:
I finally noticed a couple weeks ago that I had about 3 dozen contacts on my Mac that weren't synced to my iPhone. I had zero clue what to do about it, and during a layover, I just manually saved individual vCards to my desktop & dragged them into "All iCloud" in the left nav pane of the Contacts app on my Mac. Those missing contacts showed up on my iPhone almost instantaneously. Weird.
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Hmm. Gonna try that if it ever happens again. Do you just select them and "Export vCard"?
 
zooby said:
Hmm. Gonna try that if it ever happens again. Do you just select them and "Export vCard"?
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Yes, that's exactly what I did. Kind of a PITA, but like I said, I was on a layover & had the time. Just makes me wonder what other iCloud mishaps are lurking.
 
cubbie5150 said:
Yes, that's exactly what I did. Kind of a PITA, but like I said, I was on a layover & had the time. Just makes me wonder what other iCloud mishaps are lurking.
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I admire your work ethic, but that's not really a workaround, and it relies on us to remember which are the new or updated contacts, once we notice sync has broken again. I for one can't keep track. The whole point of syncing is to be able to rely on... sync. Maybe we should all be posting on Apple.
 
therighthonor said:
I admire your work ethic, but that's not really a workaround, and it relies on us to remember which are the new or updated contacts, once we notice sync has broken again. I for one can't keep track. The whole point of syncing is to be able to rely on... sync. Maybe we should all be posting on Apple.
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Yes. As he said, it is a PITA. Unfortunately, Apple is not doing anything about the issue and it's been ongoing since High Sierra came out. I've reported it constantly to Apple and spoken to Senior Advisors (who have transferred it to the "engineers") but no luck yet.

Contacts was definitely working fine in Sierra and all prior versions. It is something with iCloud and High Sierra for sure.
 
cubbie5150 said:
Yes, that's exactly what I did. Kind of a PITA, but like I said, I was on a layover & had the time. Just makes me wonder what other iCloud mishaps are lurking.
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This clue helped me fix my issue as well. I had a single contact I created today that did not come over and dragging it to the the "All iCloud" group fixed it immediately.

That also helped me find the real cause for my problem: Contact Preferences had changed the default for new contacts to "On My Mac".

Not sure if it'll be that easy for everyone else but it was for me.

Thanks for the clue!
 
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-13-3-itunes-12-7-3-brakes-syncing-of-contacts.2103849/

I exported a full backup *.abbu then took that to each new clean installation, trying several releases backwards to find a stable one. I was quite surprised to find out how long this has been broken. I don't believe it's iCloud that's causing the problem it's macOS and perhaps iTunes. I don't use iCloud and believe it's the architecture changes in macOS that's the root cause.

Edit: One issue I had is having several international addresses or U.S. addresses with two address lines required. By exporting the AddressBook to *.vCard it was inserting "\n" all over the place which would not cleanly import to other apps properly, even Apple's AddressBook.
 
Same here....same problem......I refuse to do a clean install over this.....frustrating.
 
Same issue here - contacts I add on my iPhone do not sync to my MBP contacts. It's been this way for a few months. They are added to iCloud as I have checked them out via a browser. Contacts I add on my MBP are synced to my phone and iCloud. The problem for me is, I mostly manage my contacts with my iPhone or my Outlook work windows machine with iCloud for Windows. So when I add in these places the contact is not on my MBP.

I have noticed a few have come through of recent and thought it was fixed, but it's not. I am running the latest 10.13.4 beta. I also have tried to delete all those address book files and references to no avail.
 
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LarryJoe33 said:
Pretty sure contact sync is working properly after the last beta or the one before it.
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The one that hasn't been released to the public yet? The latest iOS update is still being a bit iffy for me. Contacts don't sync right away and now it's contact pictures that disappear on me randomly. Which is odd cause I'll go on my iPhone and they'll be there but on my computer they'll disappear spontaneously and come back minutes later.
 
zooby said:
The one that hasn't been released to the public yet? The latest iOS update is still being a bit iffy for me. Contacts don't sync right away and now it's contact pictures that disappear on me randomly. Which is odd cause I'll go on my iPhone and they'll be there but on my computer they'll disappear spontaneously and come back minutes later.
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I am using the latest developer beta (17e160e). Just to recap, my contacts problems were all High Sierra based. Contacts added to my phone and other devices were not being added to contacts on my MBP. But, contacts I added on my MBP were being added to my other devices. So it wasn't pulling down, just pushing up.

It now appears to be working correctly again. As for profile pictures, this has been an issue for forever. I don't think they are related. I have lost profile pictures on devices for no good reason for a long time. One of those Apple bugs I learned to live with. I can deal with no picture, but I can't deal with a contact not showing up that I know I added.

EDIT: I am also using the latest iOS developer beta on my phone too. Just tested it. Added a contact on my iphone X, which showed up on my MBP Contacts in about 5 minutes. Also, showed up in iCloud browser Contacts and iCloud for Windows Outlook plug in Contacts. Hope this helps.
 
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Gotcha. Thanks for the info. My contact problems also started on HS, but weirdly enough it was the other way around - the contacts I added on my MBP would not sync to my phone.

I am glad it is working. Hope they finally fixed it. And the profile picture debacle only happened to me on HS too... This had always worked fine. And I am someone super OCD about profile pictures and keeping my messages clean, LOL. But again, this is only on my computer. My phone doesn't delete the pictures, weirdly enough.

Thanks again. I'll check back with you when they release the latest updates to the public.
 
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zooby said:
Gotcha. Thanks for the info. My contact problems also started on HS, but weirdly enough it was the other way around - the contacts I added on my MBP would not sync to my phone.

I am glad it is working. Hope they finally fixed it. And the profile picture debacle only happened to me on HS too... This had always worked fine. And I am someone super OCD about profile pictures and keeping my messages clean, LOL. But again, this is only on my computer. My phone doesn't delete the pictures, weirdly enough.

Thanks again. I'll check back with you when they release the latest updates to the public.
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[doublepost=1521299855][/doublepost]I've been having the same issue; contacts get updated on iphone, ipad, and imac, but not macbook. Thanks for the info everyone! Hope the next update fixes it.
 
AnnieF said:
[doublepost=1521299855][/doublepost]I've been having the same issue; contacts get updated on iphone, ipad, and imac, but not macbook. Thanks for the info everyone! Hope the next update fixes it.
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Just got an iMac 5k last week and no contact issues at all. So yes, it seems to be unique to the MacBooks... Odd for sure.
 
Interesting, have had random Contacts issues with iCloud sync between my devices.
But the main issue with iCloud has been Calendar & iOS 11 that doesn’t sync at all.

Glad I didn’t upgrade to HighSierra yet to make this iCloud worst ever **** worse.
And that I saw this thread before doing it. Sierra is pretty ok with the iCloud sync that I use now.
Stopped use iCloud for Calendar. Using Calendar app on my NAS instead, it just works.

And engineers are fumbling in the dark about this lack of totally iCloud sync re Calendar & random lack of Contacts sync that stopped with iOS 11 for me.
 
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Until I found this thread I thought the problems I’ve been having with syncing Contacts (and Mail and Calendar) were my own dumb fault, but it’s a problem many people are having and no one seems to have a solution. I’ve spent hours googling the issue and even bought David Pogue’s High Sierra “bible,” and haven’t found a fix. While it hasn’t been a disaster for me it has been a PITA. Shame on Apple!
 
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