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Contact look up by name takes forever now in version 2


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I used to be able to type the first few characters of a person's name and it came up almost instantly.  With the latest update, the three web search options pop up for all names...then after 10 or more seconds it finally finds the name.  It used to be so fast?

 

I am running version: 2.0.5 with powerpack installed.

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I used to be able to type the first few characters of a person's name and it came up almost instantly.  With the latest update, the three web search options pop up for all names...then after 10 or more seconds it finally finds the name.  It used to be so fast?

 

I am running version: 2.0.5 with powerpack installed.

 

Hi there,

 

Alfred v2 now uses the OS X contacts API directly, so should be lightening fast. Do you have anything special about your contacts?

 

If we can't get to the bottom of why this is happening, we should be able to quite easily setup Alfred v2 to search your contact metadata in the same way Alfred v1 did :)

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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Thanks Andrew.  It is really weird.  It happened after the last upgrade.  Please tell me what the next steps would be.  I have my contacts to sync with google and icloud.  I don't think I have anything unusual going on.

 

I would rather get it working like it is supposed to, but I am open to suggestions.

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Thanks Andrew.  It is really weird.  It happened after the last upgrade.  Please tell me what the next steps would be.  I have my contacts to sync with google and icloud.  I don't think I have anything unusual going on.

 

I would rather get it working like it is supposed to, but I am open to suggestions.

 

I think it is just a coincidence that it happened after the last upgrade as nothing has changed in Alfred 2 for contacts since launch. I'm not sure why your OS X's address book api would be slow to return results to Alfred. One thing would be to de-sync from iCloud, remove all contacts and add a single one back again to see if that one is instant, then try bringing contacts back in again. There may be some corruption somewhere which this may clear through.

 

To make Alfred 2 work like Alfred 1 for contacts, untick Contacts in Alfred's Features > Default Results, then click Advanced and drag one of the contacts from within the address book metadata folder into the advanced types sheet. The folder will roughly be:

 

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/[RANDOMNUMBERS]/Metadata/

 

Hope this helps :)

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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  • 6 months later...

I (suddenly) have the same problem. v2.1.1 (227). No more contacts that usual but a delay of 10 seconds to bring up the contact name. 

 

Hi Paul,

 

As Andrew said to the user above, is there anything unusual in the way your contacts are stored? Alfred uses the OS X contacts API directly and should return results as quickly as OS X provides them, which is usually instant.

 

If you want to revert to the way contacts were found in v1, look at Andrew's posts above yours and follow the steps. Drop us an email on info@alfredapp com if you have any issues :)

 

Cheers,

Vero

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  • 2 weeks later...

There is nothing unusual in my set up that I know of. This morning my MacBook (which sync to the same settings through Dropbox) has started doing the same thing. Two days ago it worked, today it doesn't. No changes to the settings on either machine. iMac running 10.9, MacBook running 10.8.

 

The only thing that I have done is force a reindex of Spotlight on the iMac.

 

I'm afraid I don't understand how to follow Andrew's post. I don't know where the address book metadata folder is to be able to drag anything from it.

 

Help much appreciated - this was the single most used feature of Alfred.

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Alfred now doesn't find any contacts even after being left for a minute. No changes to my settings - this function seems to have just stopped working.

 

Running 2.1.1 with PowerPack on OSX 10.9.1 

No changes to how the address books - as out of the box. Around 6,000 contacts.

 

Any thoughts on how to fix? Is there a log file that I should be looking at?

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Alfred now doesn't find any contacts even after being left for a minute. No changes to my settings - this function seems to have just stopped working.

 

Running 2.1.1 with PowerPack on OSX 10.9.1 

No changes to how the address books - as out of the box. Around 6,000 contacts.

 

Any thoughts on how to fix? Is there a log file that I should be looking at?

 

6,000 contacts? Wow. You're a popular guy :)

 

When Alfred requested, did you allow him access to your Contacts in OS X? As mentioned by Vero, using the Contacts API directly in OSX, Alfred should return results pretty much instantly. Have you checked within Console.app to see if there are any errors logged there that look suspicious?

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Alfred now doesn't find any contacts even after being left for a minute. No changes to my settings - this function seems to have just stopped working.

 

Running 2.1.1 with PowerPack on OSX 10.9.1 

No changes to how the address books - as out of the box. Around 6,000 contacts.

 

Any thoughts on how to fix? Is there a log file that I should be looking at?

 

In Alfred 2.2, there is an option to switch to using the OS X metadata to search contacts rather than OS X's Address Book API. You may find this better for such a large number of contacts.

 

Having said that, you should still be seeing contacts reasonably fast anyway.

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  • 1 month later...

I am still having this problem. It is very interesting though what I have found out. I have around 6400 contacts. I can set my Mac to sync either via iCloud or google. My preference is to sync with iCloud to keep the groups syncing to my iOS devices. Google groups don't sync. Here's the interesting info..

 

If I sync my computer's contacts with google, Alfred works fine. If I sync with iCloud, Alfred can take as long as 30 seconds to find a contact. With google it is instant.

 

There is definitely a bug with Alfred and contacts syncing with iCloud. May have to go back to Launch-bar, Alfred is better, but I look up contacts more than any other single task.

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I am still having this problem. It is very interesting though what I have found out. I have around 6400 contacts. I can set my Mac to sync either via iCloud or google. My preference is to sync with iCloud to keep the groups syncing to my iOS devices. Google groups don't sync. Here's the interesting info..

 

If I sync my computer's contacts with google, Alfred works fine. If I sync with iCloud, Alfred can take as long as 30 seconds to find a contact. With google it is instant.

 

There is definitely a bug with Alfred and contacts syncing with iCloud. May have to go back to Launch-bar, Alfred is better, but I look up contacts more than any other single task.

 

I'm not entirely sure why this is happening, and I've yet to be able to reproduce it. Having said that, I do have a likely fix for you...

 

If you update to the Alfred 2.2 pre-release (from Alfred's Update prefs), I've added an option which allows you to use the OS X metadata to search contacts which you may find faster. Once updated, Open Alfred's preferences to the Features > Contacts > Advanced and select "Use Spotlight metadata for searching contacts".

 

Hope this helps :)

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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  • 1 month later...

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