ipad won't sync contacts

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I have a new iPad and have Snow Leopard on my iMac with all software up to date. I have configured the iPad to sync over WiFi and, using iTunes, sync works fine for Calendar and Safari bookmarks. But I can't get iTunes to sync the Address Book properly. What happens is that the Address Book group names are copied to the iPad, but the groups turn out to be empty once they get there. I have iCloud Contacts switched off.

I can create new contacts on the iPad and they work OK, so it's not as if I don't know how to use the Contacts app. I can even create a new contact detail on the iPad within one of the groups brought in from the iMac. But syncing individual contact names from the Address Book just doesn't work. It doesn't work either if I initiate the sync from the iPad.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

- Malcolm
 
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I eventually contacted Apple Support about this. It appears that the Address Book data on the iMac was in some way corrupt - although it had always appeared to work perfectly. Support was able to fix the problem by exporting Address Book data to vCard, deleting Address Book data, and re-importing the contacts. After this, sync seems to work OK.

The only problem was this process (export/import via vCard) lost the Group information from Address Book, so I have had to restore these manually. With hindsight it might have been a good idea to take screen shots of the group names to make them easier to restore.

- Malcolm
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2018 15" MBP, 2019 11" iPad Pro, iPhone 11 Pro
This totally solved my syncing problem. I exported vcards of each group to the desktop, deleted and made new groups, and imported the vcards back into Address Book.

One hint, when you import a vcard, it creates a group called "Last Import" which shows the most recent contacts imported. Copy and drag those contacts to the corresponding group. Then clear the contents of "Last Import" by going to View and select "Show Last Import". That way when you import another vcard, it won't just keep adding more and more contacts to the "Last Import" group every time.
 
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Sync iPad Contacts

I eventually contacted Apple Support about this. It appears that the Address Book data on the iMac was in some way corrupt - although it had always appeared to work perfectly. Support was able to fix the problem by exporting Address Book data to vCard, deleting Address Book data, and re-importing the contacts. After this, sync seems to work OK.

The only problem was this process (export/import via vCard) lost the Group information from Address Book, so I have had to restore these manually. With hindsight it might have been a good idea to take screen shots of the group names to make them easier to restore.

- Malcolm
Calendars will sync back and forth between the iPad and computer regardless of where the two devices are located. You do not have to be connected nor do you need iTunes open but contacts are a different thing.
You have to be connected, you have to have iTunes open and you have to be patient. It is not a fast thing. My son has the same experience. It is a pain but it is what it is
 

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