Contacts app hangs on first launch – New Catalina Install

[M.Grimes]

I am transitioning from PC/Linux environment to Mac. I purchased a used iMac 27” Retina 5K - Late 2015 and completed a clean install (erase disk) of Catalina over the weekend. Created two user accounts and successfully connected Mail app to my IMAP based email provider. Went to send an email an realized I had no Contacts.

Launched the Contacts program and it just hangs. Title bar appears at top of screen along with spinning colored wheel but that’s all. I have to Force Quit the application to make it go away. Logged out, logged in to the second account and get exact same behavior. Reboots do not help.

FWIW: I have iCloud Contacts set up and am using that with my new iPhone. It works great. I do NOT have Contacts linked to iCloud on the iMac under my Apple ID settings. Toggling that either way seems to make no difference. The app simply refuses to launch.

Open to suggestions…wondering how I can remove the Contacts application from the iMac and reinstall it.

Thanks...

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

The Contacts app can not be removed as it is protected by the system. The only way to remove it is to reinstall Catalina. It is strange that Contacts refuses to open.

Since you erased the hard drive and installed Catalina as a clean install, everything should work okay especially the built in Apple apps such as Contacts. Try this for us: Boot the machine to Safe Mode (reboot while holding down the shift key. Keep holding it down until the Apple appears). While in Safe Mode, try the Contacts app again. Let us know and we can go from there and try something else.

 

[ferrarr]

Try to start up into safe mode, Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support.

Another thing t try is to install the combo update, Download macOS Catalina 10.15.2 Combo Update.

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum.

Like chscag, I cannot think of a reason for it to be doing what you are seeing. About all I can suggest is to set up for it to sync through iCloud, let it sync and then see if it will open with contacts actually in it.

 

[M.Grimes]

I tried the Safe Boot and it had no impact on the problem. I also tried checking the box for iCloud-Contacts and that did not help either. So, I've downloaded the macOS Catalina 10.15.2 Combo Update per @ferrarr's suggestion. Am installing that now.....

That fixed it!

As an aside...I did have some challenges when I first brought the iMac home with it having random kernel panics. In my mind that usually translates to RAM problems. It's probable that I had an issue during my initial clean installation. I removed the RAM and identified it as two TimeTec brand DIMMS which I had never heard of. A search on Amazon told me that these are cheap RAM. I ordered two Crucial DIMMS to replace them. Amazon did their usual speedy delivery thing and I installed them this evening prior to executing the install noted above. Did not have any problems during the install and I think things will be better now.

Thanks for the help!