Something is corrupting iCloud contacts

[LtRoyalShrimp]

Myself and many others are experiencing a really odd bug.

Seemingly overnight or whenever contacts sync random metadata is added to items. These seem to be vCard data. item5, IMAGEHASH, X-ABADR and more.

Fixing the contacts is only temporary as some hours later the issue comes back.

Some have mentioned Outlook being the cause, but I cannot stop it even after removing my account from Outlook and denying contact access.

Contacts on iphone - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[LtRoyalShrimp]

I've tried updating to iOS 16 Beta 3 and that didnt help.

 

[posguy99]

I've tried updating to iOS 16 Beta 3 and that didnt help.

Why would it?

If you have the opportunity to keep your Contacts database somewhere other than iCloud... why don't you?

 

[dbrewood]

Yep I've the exact same issue here. I tried not using Contacts on the Mac as it seemed to occur after upgrading to macOS 12.5. Alas that didn't help.
Data is also going missing, birthdays, anniversaries etc.
I've done an iCloud contacts restore we'll see if that fixes the issue!

 

[jav6454]

Wrong forum to post, here it's about OS15. That said, this is a beta we are talking about. I wouldn't link iCloud contacts or syncing in general

 

[dbrewood]

The mods can feel free to move the topic IMHO.
No beta being run here and I've fixed the issue for me by restoring contacts via iCloud.

 

[dbrewood]

Still no fix in sight for me. I've restored my Contact data from iCloud 3 times so far, I've fixed the data that has been corrupted and deleted (Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Photos) each time, but alas within 24 hours the problem occur again.
This is driving me nuts!

 

[jav6454]

Still no fix in sight for me. I've restored my Contact data from iCloud 3 times so far, I've fixed the data that has been corrupted and deleted (Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Photos) each time, but alas within 24 hours the problem occur again.
This is driving me nuts!

Is the corruption seen online in iCloud or just your devices?

 

[dbrewood]

When the issue affects a contact it is on all devices and on iCloud.

 

[janbp]

Same issue for me. I have turned off contacts sync on all my devices. As long as the device do not sync all is fine. The problem occurs some time during the day on icloud.com. Seems to be some process running at Apples own infrastructure, since everything on my devices remains fine as long as I don't sync to iCloud. So now I have four separate contact lists on four devices with no syncing, and of cause the corrupted iCloud list.

 

[dbrewood]

I resolve it for myself. It seems the corruption was caused by one of the email apps I was testing on the Mac: Outlook, Mailspring, Airmail, Edison Mail, Spark, and Canary. When I deleted the app passwords for those clients the problem vanished
I'm thinking that Mailspring was the likely suspect as they 'integrate' mail / contacts etc with their own servers. Anyway I'm glad to have it fixed!

 

[janbp]

I only have Outlook. Removed all references to, and uninstalled all Windows iCloud integrations. Also removed all iCloud accounts from Outlook on my Mac. Deleted all application passwords from iCloud. Now we just have to wait and see. Hopefully this resolves this annoying problem.

 

[dbrewood]

I've seen references on the web to Outlook being the problem, it may be time to look at other email clients?

 

[janbp]

I'll be back with info about the result as soon as I am certain the problem is solved or not. Usually the corruption shows up sometime in the morning here (I am at GMT+2 summer time)

 

[dbrewood]

Fingers crossed for you! Keep us updated.

 

[janbp]

Thanks, I'll do that

 

[LtRoyalShrimp]

Nothing has fixed it for me - I've resorted to disabling iCloud contacts on my devices.

 

[dbrewood]

@LtRoyalShrimp What email clients are you using?

 

[janbp]

My problem is now resolved. I started by disabling sync on my Apple devices. Then I observed that the error only presented itself on the iCloud. All my devices where fine, except that they where not syncing anymore. Then I disabled all iCloud interactions from my 3 Windows units. That is: I uninstalled iCloud for windows, I removed iCloud accounts from Outlook/native Windows e-mail clients and I revoked all application specific password from iCloud. Then I enabled sync again on my Apple devices. I can't pinpoint the source of the error, but It obviously has something to do with either Outlook or the native Windows e-mail client. It seems to be some kind of an indexing error regarding the fields in the contact records, since the image hash was appended to some other field in the record. Another problem I observed was that the label for some e-mail fields where changed to "e-mail". iCloud did not accept this label, and the e-mail disappeared from iCloud. I'm gonna be very careful in the future about adding application specific passwords. I can live without Windows integration, but I can't live with my contact-list getting messed up.

 

[dbrewood]

Indeed it does look increasingly that Outlook may indeed be the problem.

 

[posguy99]

Nothing has fixed it for me - I've resorted to disabling iCloud contacts on my devices.

Well, that's a given. If you have anywhere else to keep important data like that, you should use it.

 

[dbrewood]

Or once your contacts data is 'good' export to give you a backup.

 

[LtRoyalShrimp]

Or once your contacts data is 'good' export to give you a backup.

Yep, I've got a good export backed up. I wish we could see some sort of iCloud 'Sync' log to see what apps changed the contacts last. This would all be over so quickly.

 

[dbrewood]

Indeed, I'll not disagree there but alas such data is not allowed for us mere mortals

 

[posguy99]

Yep, I've got a good export backed up. I wish we could see some sort of iCloud 'Sync' log to see what apps changed the contacts last. This would all be over so quickly.

If you have a good copy of your data, why in the world are you trying to keep it in Apple services? Even keeping your contacts database in Google would be better than that.