Lost contacts in icloud?

[JeffMorse]

Hi all,

Without going into much detail and boring you to death I've had the misfortune of having several bad iphones in a row. Because of this I've swapped something in the neighborhood of 5 phones out for various reasons.

While all of this has been going on, I keep randomly losing contacts in icloud and they'll erase from my phone. Is anyone else having any issues like this, or I'm wondering if somehow the phone swaps are causing issues (no clue why they would..).

I have a lot of work contacts I can't afford to lose, so before I turn icloud back on I figured I'd ask you guys if that's normal or not.

Thanks!
Jeff

 

[Martyimac]

Hi all,

Without going into much detail and boring you to death I've had the misfortune of having several bad iphones in a row. Because of this I've swapped something in the neighborhood of 5 phones out for various reasons.

While all of this has been going on, I keep randomly losing contacts in icloud and they'll erase from my phone. Is anyone else having any issues like this, or I'm wondering if somehow the phone swaps are causing issues (no clue why they would..).

I have a lot of work contacts I can't afford to lose, so before I turn icloud back on I figured I'd ask you guys if that's normal or not.

Thanks!
Jeff

I would go a little further down the list of forums here and check out the icloud forum. To answer your question, personally I have had the same issue as you. It's enough that I do not sync up ANYTHING through iCloud. Until Apple gives me the choice of what I want as my "Master" list, I will not be using iCloud.

 

[r0k]

I would go a little further down the list of forums here and check out the icloud forum. To answer your question, personally I have had the same issue as you. It's enough that I do not sync up ANYTHING through iCloud. Until Apple gives me the choice of what I want as my "Master" list, I will not be using iCloud.

If you run iSync, you get to reset sync or make your Mac the master. I used to have to do this all the time when I was syncing a BB phone. Now that I'm using all iThings, I have never had to give a moment's thought to sync problems. Well except for just once. I had created a "temp" icloud account just for testing. When I logged out of that account, it deleted ALL my contacts and calendars from my Mac. When I logged in to my real iCloud account of course there was nothing there. As long as I had a good copy on at least one iThing, it all came back.

A good precaution is to back up iCal and Address from time to time. I got in the habit of backing everything up when I was using Mark/Space Missing Sync and Blackberry Desktop Manager both of which were very good at creating duplicate records on every sync. These days, I make a backup every now and then or whenever I think about it.

iCloud sync seems to be a LOT faster than mobile me. When I purchased my iPad and then my iPhone, they had all my contacts before I left the Apple store. It took around 15 minutes. Fast but not nearly as fast as iCloud. After having deleted everything when I logged out of my "temp" iCloud account, everything came back on my Mac within mere seconds of enabling iCloud on my iPhone 4 which had a known good copy of my contacts and calendar.

 

[Martyimac]

If you run iSync, you get to reset sync or make your Mac the master. I used to have to do this all the time when I was syncing a BB phone. Now that I'm using all iThings, I have never had to give a moment's thought to sync problems. Well except for just once. I had created a "temp" icloud account just for testing. When I logged out of that account, it deleted ALL my contacts and calendars from my Mac. When I logged in to my real iCloud account of course there was nothing there. As long as I had a good copy on at least one iThing, it all came back.

A good precaution is to back up iCal and Address from time to time. I got in the habit of backing everything up when I was using Mark/Space Missing Sync and Blackberry Desktop Manager both of which were very good at creating duplicate records on every sync. These days, I make a backup every now and then or whenever I think about it.

iCloud sync seems to be a LOT faster than mobile me. When I purchased my iPad and then my iPhone, they had all my contacts before I left the Apple store. It took around 15 minutes. Fast but not nearly as fast as iCloud. After having deleted everything when I logged out of my "temp" iCloud account, everything came back on my Mac within mere seconds of enabling iCloud on my iPhone 4 which had a known good copy of my contacts and calendar.

Problem is, isync no longer exists on Lion, at least I can't find it. That is one of the things I did like about the old mobilme/SL, but it is gone now. I can find NO way to make my mac, or pc, whichever I choose, the master instead of the cloud.???

 

[xcrunner1905]

Different Sitaution

So in a different situation similar to this, my father and I both have our phones on the same Apple account, therefore a mixed iCloud. All of my contacts were switched onto his phone, and all of his contacts were put to mine. To fix this, we turned off our iCloud settings for Contacts on both of our iPhones. It suddenly deleted ALL of my contacts. To fix that, I went onto iTunes and clicked on my Iphone, then clicked on the Info tab, then scrolled all the way down to the check box of Advanced and Replace Information on this Iphone, and click contacts. Your contacts should be be back after syncing again.

 

[violetgoose]

If you run iSync, you get to reset sync or make your Mac the master. I used to have to do this all the time when I was syncing a BB phone. Now that I'm using all iThings, I have never had to give a moment's thought to sync problems. Well except for just once. I had created a "temp" icloud account just for testing. When I logged out of that account, it deleted ALL my contacts and calendars from my Mac. When I logged in to my real iCloud account of course there was nothing there. As long as I had a good copy on at least one iThing, it all came back.

A good precaution is to back up iCal and Address from time to time. I got in the habit of backing everything up when I was using Mark/Space Missing Sync and Blackberry Desktop Manager both of which were very good at creating duplicate records on every sync. These days, I make a backup every now and then or whenever I think about it.

iCloud sync seems to be a LOT faster than mobile me. When I purchased my iPad and then my iPhone, they had all my contacts before I left the Apple store. It took around 15 minutes. Fast but not nearly as fast as iCloud. After having deleted everything when I logged out of my "temp" iCloud account, everything came back on my Mac within mere seconds of enabling iCloud on my iPhone 4 which had a known good copy of my contacts and calendar.

BUMP from the dead. But do you manually backup (like type in the contact into your address book)? For some reason my address book isn't syncing with my phone.

 

[r0k]

BUMP from the dead. But do you manually backup (like type in the contact into your address book)? For some reason my address book isn't syncing with my phone.

I don't type contacts in my address book very often. Every now and then I get an email with a new contact and type it in on my desktop but that is a very rare occurrence. Typically, I make corrections and enter new contacts on my iPhone and they automagically show up on my Mac and on my iPad in a matter of seconds.

I find iCloud to be considerably faster to sync contacts than mobileme or .mac used to be. When I first switched to icloud, I created a "test" icloud account then decided it was time to migrate my mobile me to icloud. When I removed the test account from my mac, all my contacts were suddenly gone. Luckily they were still on my iphone and they all came back within about half a second once my iPhone and Mac were logged in to the same icloud account.

To get your address book to sync with your iPhone, I suggest the following:

1) Back up your address book on your Mac by exporting it.
2) Back up iCal on your Mac
3) Back up your contacts on your iPhone using one of the free 3rd party backup apps
4) Log in to icloud on your Mac in system preferences
5) Log in to icloud on your iphone in preferences

You should now be able to change a contact on the desktop and have it show up on your iPhone and vice versa. You should also be able to see photos in photostream in iPhoto on your Mac within minutes of when they were taken.