The worst SNAFU for years. Thank you Apple!

[Dave2002]

I have a problem with an address book which has "gone missing". Nothing to do with me, 'onest guv, but the person who has "found" this problem either never did Computer 101 ***, or didn't know how to follow instructions, or didn't think to ask for help with backups at a time when it might [not absolutely guaranteed ...] have been useful.

It seems that other people have had problems with missing contacts lists, sometimes following OS updates.

I am now messing around with some odd files which I have managed to retrieve, and there is perhaps sufficient information in them to enable enough of the data to be recovered to reconstruct the missing information, and hence the database, but what a mess.

OK - yes - I have read the solutions others have found, such as looking in Library/Application Support/Address Book etc., and tried the obvious and simple solutions, but they don't work.
[One example, of many, is here - https://discussions.apple.com/thread...rt=0&tstart=0]

I have now found a directory with ABPerson.abcdp files, which can't easily be opened with "obvious" Apple software, but by devious means I can get them opened in Excel, and ... with careful inspection, it is possible to identify the people they relate to - which pretty much establishes that they are from the missing list (since not my contacts), and it may be possible to extract the data from those. At present this is a tedious manual process - and I'll have to decide if there are other ways. If I can find an .abbu file on the machine with the problem that may be faster, but I'm not sure that would really be better. I might be able to automate the recovery process either by using a shell script or Applescript.

I've only spent 2-3 hours on this problem which I "inherited" so far. I was intending to do other things. This is going to take days. Whatever happened to writing people's names and addresses down in a notebook or Filofax?

If anyone mentions backups I'll scream, and refer them to *** above.

This is the worst ..... up I've seen for years. As it says in the heading, "Thank you Apple!"

[Dave2002]

Progress - partial recovery

*Rafi Sands*
They come from the same OS X version, 10.5.2
I tried dragging them to the address book icon and using all of the subcategories in the Import menu. When I try to import, it either says "No importable cards were found" or nothing happens. Weird, because when I quick look them the card appears as it would in Address Book. Thanks for helping though,
Rafi

I copied the files which I think were in the Metadata folder to another machine running El Capitan, and oddly, as mentioned here, doing a Quick Look reveals at least some of the data in a usable format, so I can at least identify the people, and decide on a form of triage

1. do we have the data already?
2. do we not need the data?, or
3. do we need the data as it's an updated version?

If there is, or should be, additional information with each record further work will be needed, but this is a reasonable start.

I tried installing and running sqlitebrowser which didn't show up anything - other than what looked like a structure of a moderately complex SQL database, and also a tool from the App store - AB2CSV - but that turned out to be 79p down the drain. Might be useful for something else in the future, maybe.

Why Quick Look works when other methods fail :head banging:

The quote came from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1436528?tstart=0

[Lento]

What a mess! Are the Contacts details intact in iCloud drive?

[Dave2002]

What a mess! Are the Contacts details intact in iCloud drive?

Probably not. Firstly, it was not my machine which had the problem. Secondly, in case you haven't noticed, there are people, such as myself who don't want all their/our data transferred to a third party site. I know that many young people don't care, or are not bothered, and there are also some who actually trust Apple - or any other third party which claims to have secure data systems, to transfer data securely, and to maintain data securely, and without compromise, but I for one do not. There are people who are in professions where transferring any data across networks, or storing data remotely may potentially cause issues, or at least require them to demonstrate that the data is secure and safe. I believe this is particularly true in the US (compliance issues in some industries and professions), though it must also be an issue in the UK.

I know that there are numerous industry reports that using cloud services tends to increase security and integrity of data, but I suspect that not everyone agrees all the time.

I have a feeling that the particular problems have actually been caused by Apple's software changes, which seem to be forcing people onto iCloud. Our data was probably not on iCloud, but nevertheless it seems to have been rendered unavailable by whatever changes Apple has done. This is really completely unacceptable, though Apple might deny that the problems originate from them.

As it happens, I think we are now in a position to reconstitute virtually all of the data, and the most urgent need seems to have passed. However, there still seem to be some problems with Contacts, so I'm going to keep an eye on the system during the next few weeks. I have also just ordered yet another 1 Tbyte drive (hard drive) and a 120 Gbyte SSD plus a USB 3 enclosure from Amazon, and will embark upon a short programme of user training for the owner of the machine with the problem! This will involve the use of Time Machine, and also most probably Carbon Copy Cloner, though I might consider Super Duper, plus enforcement of a regular backup schedule.

Another area, where I now think Apple is not doing users a favour is with the Airport Time Capsule, which I think still only has USB 2 ports for drives. If it works, it could be a really great device, though I know someone who has one, and it has failed once or twice. Until recently I was not able to compare transfer speeds, but recently I compared Firewire 800 drives with USB 2 drives and USB 2 links to SSDs, and USB 3 links to SSDs. The fastest was definitely USB 3 to/from SSD, while next fastest was Firewire 800 to hard drive or SSD (no real difference between HD and SSD in this case), and slowest was USB 2 to either hard drive or SSD. In my tests the USB 3 link was 3-4 times faster than linking via USB 2. Firewire transfer times were about 2/3 that of USB 2. While normally this might not be such a big issue for a backup device which sits in the background, I am currently doing a transfer of files from one USB drive to a Firewire drive - almost 500 Gbytes, and it has already taken several hours. The scheduled time was around 4 hours - which will probably turn out at 5 hours. The implications of this are that if data gets backed up to an Airport Time Capsule (say the 3 Gbyte model) that it could take up to 30 hours to copy the data out to other drives via USB 2 interfaces, whereas if the devices are upgraded to USB 3 interfaces then it might take under 10 hours to extract all the data. Those Airport Time Capsules also have Gigabit Ethernet port, but I doubt whether transferring data over a LAN would be quicker than using USB 2. Of course Thunderbolt drives and links should be faster than any, but there are few drives which are affordable, and there are some compatibility and version issues.

I have been waiting for Apple to upgrade those ATC units for years, and they show no strong signs of doing so. In the past I have mostly preferred Apple's software and kit to Microsoft's running on PCs, but at times the arrogance of Apple in trying to convince users that their stuff is always better, beggars belief. As it happens though, both Apple and Microsoft seem to be trying to force users onto cloud services - so maybe they are as bad as each other. I recently upgraded my copy of MS Office 2011, and noticed that for some reason the upgrade seemed to want to have Office365 services upgraded/installed too - that's something which mostly I have tried to avoid. I was unaware that there was any trace of it on my machine before that upgrade.

[Anastasius]

I'm a bit lost here. Why is it Apple's fault ?

[Dave2002]

I'm a bit lost here. Why is it Apple's fault ?

Why not?

[Anastasius]

Why not?

All I can see is that you've said is that an Address Book was lost.

[Dave2002]

All I can see is that you've said is that an Address Book was lost.

Quite, but there.was no obvious explanation for that, except it may have coincided with a Yosemite update. Others have reported this behaviour, and it was by following leads from their experiences that I was at least able to recover what looks like most of the information. Reinstating the address book looks like a retyping job, as the Contacts tool doesn't seem to be importing the files we found (vcards) properly. If we can get that done, then a more stringent approach to keeping this data intact will be adopted, and I might even look for an alternative address book tool. Presumably essentially the same data could be stored in an Android tool, which might provide some resilience, or even a Microsoft phone tool. I don't really want to go back to Windows, but it may turn out to be necessary eventually.

I could resurrect my Linux machine, which is otherwise acting as a doorstop, but is functional. There is presumably also an address book tool for that.

[Anastasius]

That's correlation and not causation.

A quick Google search for lost address books and Yosemite threw up a thread on the Apple community forum - dated 2014!!

Best advert for iCloud I can think of. Unless one is paranoid, of course, and wear a tin hat

[Lento]

[QUOTE=Dave2002;556438in case you haven't noticed, there are people, such as myself who don't want all their/our data transferred to a third party site[/QUOTE]

I very much have noticed: just that I didn't know you were one of their number. Such caution could well be proved to be justified in due course, who knows? I would personally be inclined (perhaps naively) to trust Apple's servers to keep my stuff safe more that I trust my own devices, as it were.

[Dave2002]

Best advert for iCloud I can think of. Unless one is paranoid, of course, and wear a tin hat

Sorry - I still disagree. I think it's important to differentiate between what one really doesn't care if anyone knows, or if a few people or organisationss know, or which really hardly anybody should know. As far as I can see, iCloud does not allow such fine resolution, and even if it did some of us might be sceptical that the implementation would be good eough or enforced.

I don't have a tin hat. I wear underpants upside down on my head.