Problems with Sync

[pjcallaghan]

I have had a bit of an issue with Syncing my contacts over the past few months.

I have a MacBook Pro, iMac, iPhone 4 and iPad 2. What I would like to achieve is one set of contacts across all devices with no duplicates. I would like the master data set to reside in GMail as it is the one common thread across all devices and (I believe) is the most practical location to store the information.

My primary contact location is my GMail account, I also have contacts in cobook, and in each of the contacts applications on the MacBook and the iMac.

My problem is that there seems to be no master set of contact data. The devices all sync together with the sync utility, icloud and Gmail. As a result I have multiple duplicate contacts and I keep losing key bits of information i.e. email addresses and phone numbers of people.

I fear I may have overcomplicated the issue with my setup ... as I've certainly got a right 'dogs dinner' on my hands.

Any help would be greatly received.

 

[satcomer]

First if you are using GMAIL read the article Make Mail and GMail play nice.

Then with iCloud sync sometimes it does just stop. For me to fix an iCloud sync problem I just went to my main Mac and in system Preferences->iCloud pane I unchecked the sync box for the offing (bookmark) sync box. Wait then 5 minutes and then go back and re-check that box again. This seems to fix the problem i was having. Lastly the other Mac i have i just did the same thing and then every change now works again.

So try the uncheck-recheck the iCloud sync box and see if that helps.