[Q] (no name) contacts in phonebook - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi everyone!
I have a small but annoying problem with my android phone.
In my contacts i have ~70 contacts named "(no name)" as you can see here:
{
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}
If I tap on it, it shows me that it's somehow connected to Whatsapp:
Why are those entries not linked to the regular contact?
I have this problem with every ROM i use....
I can't delete those entries but the phone tells me that they will be hidden instead. Is there an easy way to fix that instead of trying to delete every single contact?
Thank you in advance.
-Ben

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Anyone? Can't imagine I'm the only one with that problem?

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Benxter said:
Hi everyone!
I have a small but annoying problem with my android phone.
In my contacts i have ~70 contacts named "(no name)" as you can see here:
If I tap on it, it shows me that it's somehow connected to Whatsapp:
Why are those entries not linked to the regular contact?
I have this problem with every ROM i use....
I can't delete those entries but the phone tells me that they will be hidden instead. Is there an easy way to fix that instead of trying to delete every single contact?
Thank you in advance.
-Ben
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't find the answer here, but you should try this app : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=wolfen.deleteblankcontacts&hl=en
If it helps, hit the Thanks button.
Sent from my Xperia Arc S using xda premium

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Works. Thanks

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No problem, glad to help
Sent from my Xperia Arc S using xda premium

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Benxter said:
Anyone? Can't imagine I'm the only one with that problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, your not. I just rebooted my G3 and now I have these as well... Mine seem to be linked to outlook though (I don't have what'sapp). Im still using unrooted stock. Im not downloading something else to hide/delete these, that's going on? Why'd this happen and how do I prevent it from recurring? Thanks

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This is most likely due to the same issue as Facebook contacts. As whatsapp is owned by Facebook and Google removed all code to sync Facebook contacts natively.

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Simple solution
I had the same problem, although I haven't established which one was the offending app, I disabled contact sync for:
Microsoft Exchange
Whassap
Skype
Viber
Linkedin
Sync only with google and it works fine.
Someone ought to figure out which apps are the offending ones and let us know.
/Max

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[email protected] said:
I had the same problem, although I haven't established which one was the offending app, I disabled contact sync for:
Microsoft Exchange
Whassap
Skype
Viber
Linkedin
Sync only with google and it works fine.
Someone ought to figure out which apps are the offending ones and let us know.
/Max
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My guess would be it's ms exchange as that would over ride the default.
Can't say anything about whatsapp, everyone I know stopped using it years ago.
Also don't use Viper nor does anyone I know.
Linked in works fine for me.

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Unknown Name MSactivesync. Outlook and Note 5 400 unk names
Always had good luck synch contacts to Putlook even after they changed this to all exchange vs that hotmail patch thing on the desktop.** My Note 4 crashed so got a temp LG prepaid, which sinked fine, then got a Note 5...yuk...but anyway.* I got 100 contacts 400 of which dont exist on the desktop outlook but show as unknown name.* They say they are from Microsoft Active Account Synch.
The only account I have or want for contacts* is Outlook via the exchange.* Email works great.* I dont like gmail or its contacts especially on desktop.* Im outlook guy.* I dont have skype whatsapp etc.* So google is only sych chrome and gmail as i need* a gmail and google for android.* I like chrome btw.* All the unknows coming from active synch outlook.*
If i add a contact in outlook it comes accross fine.* But where are tye others from? How do I stop it . Samsung support on ph has no idea...in best buy i usually know more than them and verizon is getting less tech knowledgeable by the month.*
Some hints...the unknown names do not show up on the LG phone, which that ph is a prepaid # i bought to use the ph temp on my vz contract number until I got the Note 5 warranty replacement.* The Lg is synched same way and it picks up contacts i added but no unknown names.* So why would the issue be specific to note 5? I checked all the settings and I can't find anything that is importing strange contacts to the Note 5. And the thing is it's saying it's from Microsoft so somewhere if getting unknown name from Microsoft for creating them for some reason.
Another hint. And these may not be related. When I delete these unknown names from my phone I notice some of them anyway show up in my deleted folder in my mailbox on the desktop in Outlook. They don't say unknown names they just have a timestamp for about the time I delete the unknown name for my note 5. They also look like mail folders instead of contacts. But I have never had this until I started deleting these unknown names. You probably know but in outlook the contacts are there and when you delete them they go into the deleted items folder for the email account the contacts are in.
I deleted suggested contacts and case that's confusing something in Outlook.
One more thing is it on my LG they're all of the sudden have been some random contacts show up for people whose names I don't know. It doesn't look like it is hacked. Some of them might be people and email before and there was an online dating site that I use that I have emailed from Outlook and then at one point I imported contacts to Gmail and then deleted them but some of these email showed up in the LG contact list under the Google account which is my gmail.* That is to say that when I look at the contact to see what it's linked to it says it's from Google not Microsoft or anything else. When I go to the desktop for Gmail there are no contacts like this in there. In fact there are no contacts. I deleted the groups that cat contacts but work in my contact list. So if you go into contacts on the desktop for Gmail you can select groups as opposed to all contacts and there what's my imports in there. But these contacts have shown up since I deleted all of that and I have no idea where they came from
So I have been using contacts syncing with my email for ever since I can remember having a smartphone back when I think there was an S3 or something period suddenly now all of this craziness and I have activated 4 different Note 4's because they were all junk on the touch screen or would freeze up and then before that I had a Note 3 and I have a Galaxy S5 and so on and have never had any problems like this and in fact I got so fast switching information over the phone I could do all of my apps all of my settings including pesky ones like opening an app for Facebook and Google search removing those I could do that in about 30 minutes or less. So I have no idea what's going on. Sorry this is so long but I have searched and searched and no one describes this problem exactly like me they all talk about it being associated with another app besides Microsoft Exchange Server and all the people use Gmail and wanted that to work instead of Outlook. So hopefully someone can help.
---------- Post added at 11:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 PM ----------
So I found the source of the contacts in my LG phone that have never been there before until this phone. For whatever reason perhaps the new Android I don't know but not only did it import groups that I had to delete from the web version of Gmail in contacts but there is something called "other contacts."
If you go into Gmail I don't know where to find the contacts so I have to search Google contacts from Google and then it loads my contacts. I checked all the contact lists which were empty except for when I clicked other contacts it said that that version of the page did not support other contacts. This page on the phone looks different than the one on the desktop .
I clicked on the link on the page that said "go to old version of other contacts." And there I found all the contacts that Were Somehow showing up on to my contact list on my LG.
The weird thing about it is that I have syncing to contacts for. Google unchecked under accounts. So in addition to the problem of of with the unknown name for Microsoft Outlook Exchange ActiveSync or whatever it's called now, now why would "other contacts" from Google show up when contacts is unchecked under accounts for Google on the ph? Good news is I know the source of the contacts but it still doesn't explain why they are syncing when the box is unchecked. And it doesn't explain why all of the sudden now after having Gmail long after I ever emailed any of those people that would have been in "other contacts" is it all the sudden just now showing up? I mean they must have been there a long time and I've been using Gmail with it unchecked for a long time and suddenly this week on a new phone it shows up when all the other new phones it never did that.

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Thanks so much for the fix "Delete empty contacts". I've had the same problem with the no name contacts and I would delete each one as I saw them but it was driving me nuts.
Thanks again!

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I have deleted all of thm using the all, but they keep coming back after every reboot, another thing, this was not a problem till I flashed the Google dialer on my xperia. Has been happening every since.