Address Book completely blank, empty and non-functional

I opened Address Book to find it blank - All my contacts were gone. If I search Spotlight my contacts still appear by name but when I hover the mouse I don't see the path, just the contact name and number. If I click on the contact from spotlight - Address Book opens...blank. There are no Group options listed either. Just nothingness. No other applications are dysfunctional.

This wouldn't be a total loss as I have all my contacts written down.
BUT I can't add contacts back to Address Book - I tick the add button and nothing. The add contact button is untickable.

I already repaired disk permissions. My contacts Are still in the metadata folder.

I deleted the AddressBook-v22.abcddb file and opened Address Book but it was still blank and I still could not add my contacts back. I noticed that the file did rebuild itself. I restarted and still nothing changed.

There is a second file, AddressBook-v22~.abcddb, I deleted that as well and it did not rebuild itself and had no effect. I have no idea what that file is or why it is there.

I did make a copy of the complete folder on my external and another on a flash dive.

I can only think of a few things I've done since I last checked Address Book, but I don't see how it would create this problem

* Deleted my windows partition through bootcamp
* ran disk permissions for the first time
* had my contacts placed on my ipod
* I purged my computer of all hidden google related files. I had already done this before but it turned out there were more more more. I did Not have my contacts synced with a google account nor do I do any syncing with any mobile devices/clouds at all.

In the guest account I also could not add a contact. The same problem with my admin account. So it appears to be system wide

Import is not an available option, its grayed out. As is just about everything else.

I also tried something else;

I moved the "Address Book" folder from Home >>Library >>Application Support to the Desktop.

Then launched Address Book.app (this should bring it back to default, creating an new Address Book folder with only you and Apple as contacts)

Quit Address Book.app and move the contents of your older Address Book folder from the Desktop back to the new Address Book folder within Application Support.

Launch it again and all should be back to normal. It isn't.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Sorry if that was too much information, I was just trying to be thorough

No worries on the amount of info, no need for us to ask you for it. Only things missing are your Mac and MacOS specs . Suggest you put them in your profile.

How did you repair permissions? Try it again using OnyX Titanium Software for your OS version.

Have you deleted the Address book prefs com.apple.AddressBook.plist? Doing so , then rebooting, might restore things, but check that .plist file with Text Edit to see that no address data is included there .

Beware of Address Book

I've been reading about this for hours. Address Book goes blank and will not create a single email listing. Some found, including myself, that Time Machine was not able to resolve the issue by restoring the application or the library directory. Even more "curious" was the fact that the Address Book widget found the data just fine. I too was puzzled and resolved to inspect my OS install disc. There is no custom install for Mail and Address Book, so I attempted to re-install the OS. The installation failed! Now, my brand new MacBook Pro needs to be re-formatted. Hard to believe? You're telling me! Tread lightly on this problem! Address Book for Snow Leopard is corrupt. Delete it with extreme prejudice.

Been using Address Book for 12 years now. Never a problem. Calling shenanigans on Terry (and in particular his misguided attempt to "fix" it).