Kies will not load contacts from phone

I'm using Kies 2.0.1.11053_99 and when I try to sync the contacts or load the contacts from my Samsung Galaxy I9000T (firmware is 2.2, kernel 2.6.32.9) to my pc, the upload gets to approx 30% and then fails - message from Kies says to disconnect and reboot phone? 
After rebooting the phone the same problem occurs although it wont even try to load the contacts - connection issue & reboot the phone type message?
Help.   

Hi there,
sorry for the delay in responding.  I tried all manner of approaches but Kies will not do the job - I think its a problem where the same numbers exist across different or multiple apps - such as skype, gmail, facebook etc.
In the end I exported the contact list to an SD card, and then transferred that to an external HDD.  It transferred nicely as a .vcf file which I then imported onto an alternate phone - worked ok although there were a couple of minor issues.
My contacts list is circa 2500 names and numbers - so if you have a bigger list then I dont know if it will work for you.
Hope this helps. 

As a person who has experienced problems with Kies, I gave up with it.

Backup options I use:
1 - Contacts all saved to GoogleMail
2 - Apps and app data backed up by Titanium Backup
3 - SMS Backup & Restore app used for messages

Everything else is web based so accessed via the browser