2500 Corrupt Contacts after sync services

[nl6843]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: intel
Email Client: pop

Dear Anyone

First time I just got duplicates, which was frustrating but ok. Then it starting corrupting individual contacts, problem was I didn't realise immediately, because it didn't do it to those contacts that I used a lot, where I had lots of info, it did it to the ones that I just had a name or an email address.

If there was a blank first name with a company, it would find suitable contact name and insert it in front!!!

It also grabbed apparently random email and phone numbers and mixed them up so I now have 2500 contacts, over half of which are duplicates, but with their phone numbers and email addresses mixed around.
The worse I have found is one contact with the details of 3 other contacts having been inserted into it.

I have spent 6 weeks tidying up the easy stuff - and now I am fed up!!!
How can I sort the rest out.

I had a back up, but time has moved on and because I didn't realise immediately, I don't want to lose everything I have done.

Note: Also used missing sync software - works fine. Switch on sync with ical/.mac - everything went wrong.

PLease help

Nick

 

[William Smith]

Dear Anyone

First time I just got duplicates, which was frustrating but ok.
Then it starting corrupting individual contacts, problem was I
didn't realise immediately, because it didn't do it to those
contacts that I used a lot, where I had lots of info, it did it to
the ones that I just had a name or an email address.

If there was a blank first name with a company, it would find
suitable contact name and insert it in front!!!

It also grabbed apparently random email and phone numbers and mixed
them up so I now have 2500 contacts, over half of which are
duplicates, but with their phone numbers and email addresses mixed
around. The worse I have found is one contact with the details of 3
other contacts having been inserted into it.

I have spent 6 weeks tidying up the easy stuff - and now I am fed
up!!! How can I sort the rest out.

I had a back up, but time has moved on and because I didn't realise
immediately, I don't want to lose everything I have done.

Note: Also used missing sync software - works fine. Switch on sync
with ical/.mac - everything went wrong.

Hi Nick!

I suggest you take whatever you think is the most complete and correct
set of data and trying to export that to a tab-delimited text file. In
Entourage you can use File --> Export...

Then open that file in Excel where you can see all the information much
more easily. You can also add/change/delete data in the Excel
spreadsheet much more easily.

Once the spreadsheet is clean then use this as your *master* set of
contact data.

Turn off all Sync Services in Entourage as well as in System
Preferences... --> .Mac.

Erase your contacts from Entourage and then use File --> Import... to
bring in your new master set of contact data.

When you're confident that this data looks correct in Entourage then got
to the Apple Address Book and erase everything there.

You can enable Entourage's Address Book syncing and select the option to
overwrite everything else with the data from Entourage.

Verify that your contacts appear correctly in Address Book.

Follow this same procedure for erasing the next item using Missing Sync,
syncing and verifying.

This blog post may give you some insight into what's happening:

"Why does syncing play Gossip with my contacts?"
<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2007/07/why_does_the_syncing_play_goss.html>

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[William Smith]

Dear Anyone

First time I just got duplicates, which was frustrating but ok.
Then it starting corrupting individual contacts, problem was I
didn't realise immediately, because it didn't do it to those
contacts that I used a lot, where I had lots of info, it did it to
the ones that I just had a name or an email address.

If there was a blank first name with a company, it would find
suitable contact name and insert it in front!!!

It also grabbed apparently random email and phone numbers and mixed
them up so I now have 2500 contacts, over half of which are
duplicates, but with their phone numbers and email addresses mixed
around. The worse I have found is one contact with the details of 3
other contacts having been inserted into it.

I have spent 6 weeks tidying up the easy stuff - and now I am fed
up!!! How can I sort the rest out.

I had a back up, but time has moved on and because I didn't realise
immediately, I don't want to lose everything I have done.

Note: Also used missing sync software - works fine. Switch on sync
with ical/.mac - everything went wrong.

Hi Nick!

I suggest you take whatever you think is the most complete and correct
set of data and trying to export that to a tab-delimited text file. In
Entourage you can use File --> Export...

Then open that file in Excel where you can see all the information much
more easily. You can also add/change/delete data in the Excel
spreadsheet much more easily.

Once the spreadsheet is clean then use this as your *master* set of
contact data.

Turn off all Sync Services in Entourage as well as in System
Preferences... --> .Mac.

Erase your contacts from Entourage and then use File --> Import... to
bring in your new master set of contact data.

When you're confident that this data looks correct in Entourage then got
to the Apple Address Book and erase everything there.

You can enable Entourage's Address Book syncing and select the option to
overwrite everything else with the data from Entourage.

Verify that your contacts appear correctly in Address Book.

Follow this same procedure for erasing the next item using Missing Sync,
syncing and verifying.

If at any point something goes wrong then you can always go back to your
master contact data.

This blog post may give you some insight into what's happening:

"Why does syncing play Gossip with my contacts?"
<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2007/07/why_does_the_syncing_play_goss.html>

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>