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A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Michael Corgan
My wife's MacBook Air has now refused to accept new contact details. It is possible to type in an intial entry for a new contact, but move to the next category and the new card disappears. This is regardless of whether you start with the First name, Surname or email address.

She is not signed in to iCloud so syncing is not a possible cause.

What remedy is there for stopping this? Most stuff online that i have found so far is concerned with contacts on iPads and iPhones.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Mick Burrell
Could you explain "next category"? Do you mean next field as in moving from first name field to last name field? If so, how is she moving? The TAB key or mouse click work.

If the card disappears, does it just change to a different card - i.e. can you find your new card by searching - or does Contacts not accept the entry at all?

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Michael Corgan
Apolgies for the incorrect nomenclature!

Doesn't make any difference whether the second field is tabbed to or clicked on. The app accepts the first three letters and then the card disappears. The entry we were trying to make has now shown up as "My Card", which, patently, it isn't. Not sure how that occurred but obviously I must have gone through the procedure required to do that. Still doesn't solve the main problem either!

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Tony Still
At the risk of stating the obvious: after choosing the card (so that it is visible in the righthand pane), there is a discreet 'Edit' button at bottom-right that you need to click before trying to make changes. Confusingly (from memory), you can apparently change the notes field without clicking that button.

You should have been able to edit all the fields in the new card as Mick describes so don't know what happened there.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Michael Corgan
Thanks for the thought Tony. The problem is not with making changes to an existing contact's card, but in attempting to create a new one. Clicking the + button brings up an empty card. The first entry, regardless of the field used, is accepted. The fun starts when moving to a second field. Three keystrokes max and the card disappears. And is not shown in the side-bar listing. Creating a new card with just one category and then saving it puts the card in the side-bar (if the First or Surname fields have been completed). Attempting then to edit the card has exactly the same result as creating it. Move to another field, 3 keystrokes and gone!

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Tony Still
Weird.

You could investigate by restarting in Safe Mode and seeing if the problem persists. Likewise, see if it happens in a different user account (if you have one). Success in either case would point to something in your account interfering with Contacts.

Any recent installations that might be culprits?

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Douglas Cheney
If you haven't tried it you could try deleting the preferences file in the Library that sometime fixes problems

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Michael Corgan
Where can I find the Contacts preferences file - doesn't appear in the Library folder.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Tony Still
MC/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist and some related ones too (MC being your user account name).

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Andrew Kemp
I would guess that MC/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist is the preferences for Contacts (the application formerly known as Address Book). I don't seem to be able to open it with plutil, however, which is presumably some Catalina-related security thing.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Tony Still
Address Book, not Mail - quite right. Too much focus on getting the path and not enough on the file! ☹️

Opens in Xcode or can be viewed with quick look here and I wouldn't expect any extraordinary access restrictions. Have you given plutil adequate access, perhaps 'Full Disk Access' (not sure if Library is available via 'Files and Folders')?

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Michael Corgan
This afternoon I discovered a peculiar thing. My wife has a Google email address, and in the side bar in Contacts there are the following:

All Contacts - which displays a list of contacts
Google
All Google - which in this case displays just one contact
(and a dozen or so empty cards)
On My Mac
All On My Mac - which displays contacts excepting the one
on the Google list
Then a listing of the various Groups that have
been created.

Entering a new contact apparently defaults to the All On My Mac listing and it is that listing which has the problem with failed attempts. On the other hand, entering a new contact in the All Google listing works perfectly and the contact then shows in the All Contacts list.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Andrew Kemp
@tony: It turns out the missing permission was neither 'Files and Folders', nor 'Full Disk Access', but instead the 'Contacts' permission for Terminal.app.

I am also able to open the Address Book preferences file in Xcode, but only because my Xcode has the 'Contacts' permission. I can't explain why we can open it in Quick Look.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Tony Still
Perhaps plutil is a front end to a command line utility? I've never used it but it might be old enough not to know that it should request access.

I think the Quick Look capability must be in the base macOS which would be how it gets its access (I had a quick look (!) on an iMac that does not have Xcode or other development tools installed and that was still able to do it).

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Andrew Kemp
plutil is a command line utility. I am not sure whether it was installed with macOS or whether it’s part of the ‘Command Line Tools for Xcode’ package, but it is definitely supplied by Apple one way or another.

Re: A problem trying to add contacts.

Avatar Tony Still
Ah, OK. It looks like it's part of macOS: its man page says it arrived in Mac OS X 10.2.
 
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