Merging contacts in Address Book results in data loss

Merging contacts in Address Book can lead to data loss. This issue has so far only been observed on 10.5.7 and 10.5.8 however could be present in earlier releases. It has not been observed in 10.6. The following scenario describes the problem in detail.

Creating two contacts with the same name (e.g.: Frank Smith) and different email details (frank@…, frank@…). After synchronising both appear on the Address Book Server web interface. Now merge the contacts using Address Book via the menu (Card > Merge Selected Cards). Initially the records associated with both contacts is correctly merged into a single contact record. However after synchronising with the server one of the email addresses is lost.

What seems to happen that the initial merge correctly combines the records of both contacts. However after synchronising via sync services with other applications such as Address Book Server or MobileMe the resulting record does not contain the combined details. This issue has been reported to Apple under bug report number : 7114140