iPhone iCloud contact labels disappear

[srbNYC]

My contacts' phone labels (Work, Home, etc.) keep disappearing, and turning into generic "Phone." I mostly use Outlook for iOS for mail and calendar (with multiple accounts) on my iPhone, and Mail and Contacts on my Mac. I've seen some vague reports of the same behavior potentially attributed to that app but honestly don't know why it would be doing anything but reading my iCloud contacts.

Once this happens, the labels are gone everywhere: in the Contacts app on iPhone, Mac, and iCloud.com. It's super annoying and disruptive.

Has anyone experienced this? Do you know the cause? Thanks.

 

[Ben J.]

I have seen this. Someone on this forum said it was related to icloud syncing. The fix was to deselect contacts in system settings, icloud. For me, they are still synced between my devices thru my google account.

 

[srbNYC]

Thank you for some info. Sounds like it’s worth reporting in Feedback.

I don’t use Google that way, so I wonder how else my Contacts could stay in sync

 

[NoBoMac]

Might be Outlook. Syncing contacts with it?

Not the same issue you’re seeing, but in the neighborhood Re “corruption” of contacts and Outlook. A couple of members believe it was coming from some app that has access to Contacts: 3rd party mail clients, Webex.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/something-is-corrupting-icloud-contacts.2352495/

 

[Pspressart]

My corrupter was Outlook. Once I deleted the app and deleted the app-specific password, the corruption stopped.

 

[srbNYC]

Wow. I’d sure miss outlook on my iPhone but will try a test. Thanks!

 

[NoBoMac]

Just noticed that my contacts had their labels messed up as well. And not allowing any apps to access Contacts across iPhone, iPad, and Mac other than Apples stock programs.

Also had one entry with a weird xml like value populated into a field I never use.

So does seem like it's iCloud/Apple and not third-party mucking things up.

And started within the last three-ish weeks would be my guess (fits OP time of their post). I have a Smart Group defined to flag any cards that were changed within the last two weeks (so that I can make sure they have a group assigned and re-verify information that was added/changed) and prior to this past Saturday, the Smart Group had all the entries in it and struck me as odd since I did not do any mass changes to my cards recently (had to do a iCloud recovery month or two back but that change rolled out of the Smart Group a while back).

 

[Pspressart]

Just noticed that my contacts had their labels messed up as well. And not allowing any apps to access Contacts across iPhone, iPad, and Mac other than Apples stock programs.

Also had one entry with a weird xml like value populated into a field I never use.

So does seem like it's iCloud/Apple and not third-party mucking things up.

And started within the last three-ish weeks would be my guess (fits OP time of their post). I have a Smart Group defined to flag any cards that were changed within the last two weeks (so that I can make sure they have a group assigned and re-verify information that was added/changed) and prior to this past Saturday, the Smart Group had all the entries in it and struck me as odd since I did not do any mass changes to my cards recently (had to do a iCloud recovery month or two back but that change rolled out of the Smart Group a while back).

Do you have any app specific passwords defined that would touch contacts?

 

[NoBoMac]

Nope. Nothing touching contacts except Apple's own apps and programs. All 3rd party apps are blocked under Privacy and Security on iOS and MacOS. No app specific passwords in use. All email accounts have everything turned off except for email (no notes, calendars, contacts sync on).

Nothing new installed that would touch Contacts (been months since I installed anything new and they were weather apps and calorie counters to try out).

Went into my Time Machine to pull up some Contacts backups I made (every two week). March 18th backup has contacts with the labels correct, April 1 backup has changed to "Phone" for labels (actually, the April 1 backup has no labels, just "TEL;" entries in the vCard, shows as "phone" in Contacts).

March 18:
TEL;type=HOME;type=VOICE;type=pref:xxx-xxx-xxxx
TEL;type=CELL;type=VOICE:xxx-xxx-xxxx

April 1:
TEL;type=pref:xxx-xxx-xxxx
TEL:xxx-xxx-xxxx

Just exported the above card post fix and it looks like March 18 again.

I'm lucky in that not a lot of my contacts have multiple fields so was not a big issue to clean up, but will keep an eye on it.

(Got a new iPhone on 03/15, maybe something flaked while setting up the new phone? A reach, but...) NVM. Was OK post new phone so nothing to do with new phone imo.

 

[AudiA4]

I've been battling this issue for months (if not a year)...any updates or solutions?

 

[InfoTime]

This bug has bitten me hard. I have a lot of Contact records for a household, so I'll have John and Jane Doe as one record. Used to label their phones as "his" and "hers". Many of them had other phones in the mix. So some contact records has as many as six phone entries and they're all just labeled "Phone". Arggghhhh!

I pulled out an old Mac and went into Time Machine but the oldest backup there from 2022 looked the same.

If anyone has a fix I'd love to hear about it. Thanks!