Contacts disappeared - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

This kind of got lost in the midst of bigger stuff in the other thread so I figured I'd try one specifically for it, since it's my main issue.
My contacts were saved to my device (or SIM maybe?), not my google account. I know, bad idea, but it was unintentional and it's done. Due to another issue I had to remove and re-add my google account to my phone. When I did this, all of my contacts disappeared. Nothing shows up in my contacts app and when I get a call from someone that I had as a contact I only see their number, not their name/contact info.
I don't know what the relation is between my contacts that were stored on my device and my google account being temporarily removed from my phone, but I don't think those contacts are actually deleted. If I go into the app manager I see something there called "contacts storage" that is 9.2mb in size. I'm guessing this still has the contact's info? Is there any way to retrieve this and/or get them to show up again?

You can change which storage you want to use for contacts. While in contacts hit the menu button.. From there it's relatively easy..
When you get your contacts to didplay it's worth merging with google and filter the storage to google only.

shivadow said:
You can change which storage you want to use for contacts. While in contacts hit the menu button.. From there it's relatively easy..
When you get your contacts to didplay it's worth merging with google and filter the storage to google only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None of these work for me. If I change the contacts to display to "device" it shows only the built-in AT&T contacts (view your bill, etc). If I choose SIM card it displays nothing.
Same deal with import. Shows nothing found.

If you have an American model of the s3 then you are in the wrong forum, this is for the i9300 only.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Related

[Q] Contacts and Google Sync on Vibrant?

Quick question about the way the Vibrant syncs with google:
Every time I add a new contact on my phone, it asks if I want to store to phone, or gmail, and every time i click phone assuming that it would automatically sync with gmail periodically.
Is this not the case!??! I installed a new rom recently and it wiped the phone, and the whole time I was thinkin "o well, it'll resync when I link my account" ... after the rom installation, i noticed that few new phone #s weren't there.
Does that mean every time I add a new number I should always save it to my google account instead of directly on the phone?
And for contacts that are stored on the phone, they appear with a green phone logo next to the contact in the list. Those linked with google appear with a black box and a white "g" inside. How do I convert those stored on my phone to link with google? Do I go "edit" --> "link contact"?
Update:
For contacts that are "google" contacts, they can't be categorized into groups on my vibrant either, because they aren't recognized. Only contacts that I've recently added into the phone are recognized. Is there some trick that I'm not aware of?
I second this question. I used a G1 previously and this new method is extremely confusing.
I currently have NO "contacts" and ONLY google contacts, which means apparently I can't set up any groups because my phone doesn't know who my contacts are!
~A
slick, you bring up another point I wanted to ask about as well! Thanks!
I'm going to amend that into the OP
bump...?
I find it amazing that people have figured out how to turn these phones into toasters, rocketships, nuclear-war-launch-devices and other errata, but haven't figured out how to store contacts correctly...
chocobo15 said:
Quick question about the way the Vibrant syncs with google:
Every time I add a new contact on my phone, it asks if I want to store to phone, or gmail, and every time i click phone assuming that it would automatically sync with gmail periodically.
Is this not the case!??! I installed a new rom recently and it wiped the phone, and the whole time I was thinkin "o well, it'll resync when I link my account" ... after the rom installation, i noticed that few new phone #s weren't there.
Does that mean every time I add a new number I should always save it to my google account instead of directly on the phone?
And for contacts that are stored on the phone, they appear with a green phone logo next to the contact in the list. Those linked with google appear with a black box and a white "g" inside. How do I convert those stored on my phone to link with google? Do I go "edit" --> "link contact"?
Update:
For contacts that are "google" contacts, they can't be categorized into groups on my vibrant either, because they aren't recognized. Only contacts that I've recently added into the phone are recognized. Is there some trick that I'm not aware of?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always make my contacts google, works good for flashing as much as I do, and also if you upgrade your phone in the future, as long as it is android it will automatically put all your contacts in their for you. If you dont want to do that, there is a paid app called mybackup pro that will backup contacts. But I do suggest that you always use google to save time in the future.
You can link contacts, but all it does is make it so it does not show up as a duplicate contact on your list, your best bet is to log into gmail, go to contacts and add them from there. then you can hit menu and filter what shows in your contact list(facebook/twitter/google). You can add them to google from the phone, but I prefer to add them from gmail or google voice, as i can type faster on my computer.
mikey98277 said:
I always make my contacts google, works good for flashing as much as I do, and also if you upgrade your phone in the future, as long as it is android it will automatically put all your contacts in their for you. If you dont want to do that, there is a paid app called mybackup pro that will backup contacts. But I do suggest that you always use google to save time in the future.
You can link contacts, but all it does is make it so it does not show up as a duplicate contact on your list, your best bet is to log into gmail, go to contacts and add them from there. then you can hit menu and filter what shows in your contact list(facebook/twitter/google). You can add them to google from the phone, but I prefer to add them from gmail or google voice, as i can type faster on my computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I recently reflashed a rom and I checked and found out some of my contacts were missing. I checked my gmail contacts and it's there. I checked to sync all my contacts on my phone but it doesn't show up on my phone. I didn't have a problem with my first flash with the rom. How can I resync the missing contacts back to my phone? Thanks!
Yeah...this is definitely one of the worst changes made to Android by the Samsung TouchWiz interface. I had a G1 also, and really liked not having to worry about phone/sim/google contacts. I just want contacts that are always in sync no matter where I go. This is the one thing that will push me to go AOSP once somebody releases a decent rom. As far a I know, no custom ROMs have gotten contacts to be anything other than TW.

[Question] - How to make gmail the default contact save location?

Does anybody have any idea on how to make GMail the default contact save location? I had 3 options - PC Sync, SIM & Gmail, the default contact save location being PC sync.
Using Titanium Backup, I froze the "PC Sync 1.0.8" service. This removed PC Sync from the above 3 options. But I am Still left with the rest of the 2 options, the new default contact save location being SIM.
Tried freezing the "com.lge.simcontacts 1.0" service. But this doen't remove the SIM option from the contact save locations. It just disables adding new contacts to sim BUT THE OPTION STILL APPEARS AND REMAINS AS THE DEFAULT ONE.
Please help.
Why doesn't anybody answer? Is it because no one knows the answer or because I am the only ignorant person on board here?
I would also like to know how to do this!
Seems like we are the only two guys bothered by this problem.
I've had this trouble as well and not found any answer. You just need to make sure you select your Google account when adding new contacts.
no idea try to search the forum
Still waiting for the answer.
victortangocharlie said:
Still waiting for the answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Being arrogant like that will NOT get you an answer, it will convince people to NOT give you answer because you are pissing them.
Sorry, my friend, but that is not arrogance but my frustration coming out.
You should be nicer... i dont know the answer but when i create a contact i choose pcsync and it goes to my google accaunt as well...
Sent from my LG-P500 using XDA App
Do you mean to say that when you chose pc sync as the default contact save location, your new contacts are saved in your google account and on your phone simultaneously?
batista16 said:
You should be nicer... i dont know the answer but when i create a contact i choose pcsync and it goes to my google accaunt as well...
Sent from my LG-P500 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It should be! After i imported by hand my contacts (on .CSV format) to my gmail account they went to a place in google contacts called "My Contacts" -Note that at the time i was uploading the contacts list in CSV format i said to move it to the said "My Contacts" place!
Then i turned my phone's wifi on and it synched my Gmail contacts onto the phone! after that on "Display" i put PCSynch off , SIM Contacts off and on Gmail i put only show "My Contacts"!
Since my phone is showing my Gmail contacts, whenever i create a new contact (usually on PCSync i never bothered to change it :x) when i turn my gmail on or the android starts synching with google the contact apears on my google's "My contacts" list and therefore it pops back to the android contacts list!
Or so it worked for me! Some ppl say they didn't have that much trouble but hey... i had all my contacts on PCSynch and couldn't synch them to google before and now after all the hassle of importing them by hand... now i can!
Does not work for me. if I add a contact to pc sync, it still doesn't appear on the google contacts list. Have you installed any other application which helps you sync pc sync contacts with google?
Has anybody found out a way to do this yet?
The solution is still evading us. I hope that some developer sees this and provide a solution.
Your question is a a little confusing but I think this is what your after:
To set contact default to Google go into you contact list then press menu and choose view next uncheck the box that says "phone" and now your default is Google

Anyone know where contacts are stored on your phone

My contacts wouldn't show up in contacts even after I imported from sim card, so i kept inporting them to try and get them to show up, however now in my message app, it shows the same contact about 7 times because I imported them so many times trying to get them to show up in the contacts list. Anyway because they don't show up in contacts i can't delete them, is there somewhere on the phone they are stored so i can delete the whole contacts file and start again?
doesn't matter figured it out myself
Can you share the info with us?
Goto contact then menu then view it gives you choices of what contacts you want
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA Premium App
watermelun said:
Can you share the info with us?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i didn't figure out where they were stored, but i just went into phone settings then applictions then found the contacts app clicked on it, and hit the clear data button, it must have deleted all the contacts with this because it seem to fix the issue i was having also. And now my contacts show up.
also on my phone, there isn't a view options in the menu of contacts?? strange.
I tryed it but after importing my contacts from sd card it dosent show on contacts.
I wanted to get rid of groups from google.
Fixed the issue by going into display
adamo86 said:
I tryed it but after importing my contacts from sd card it dosent show on contacts.
I wanted to get rid of groups from google
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried importing your contacts from your googlemail account? Go into settings on the contacts apparently and get it to sync the googlemail account.

[Q] Issues with lost contacts!

Hi all,
Recently I have noticed contacts disappearing. Numbers I knew I had stored but now were gone.
I have looked at gmail where they were sycned to, and they are not there either.
I have turned phone off, removed battery, and turned it back on again.
I have used the contacts/settings and tried every combination.
None of these have done anything.
HOWEVER, what really gets me is for example I had a contact called "LloydsTSB Offshore". This vanished. I put a new contact in with the same number called "LloydsTSB". When I call this number using "LloydsTSB" when the dial screen comes up the name on it is "LloydsTSB Offshore", e.g. the name of the contact which has vanished.So surely that means the old contact is still there somewhere else how can the name still come up like that?
Can anyone help, this is driving me mad!
1) Which ROM you are using, Stock or Custom?
2) Have you checked your Contact Display Options?
3) It might happen that you save your contacts to google and displaying only phone contacts. Pls verify and let me know, so i can suggest further solutions.
sumitpathak said:
1) Which ROM you are using, Stock or Custom?
2) Have you checked your Contact Display Options?
3) It might happen that you save your contacts to google and displaying only phone contacts. Pls verify and let me know, so i can suggest further solutions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for the reply!
1. I am using a custom ROM: XXKI3 (from this site)
2. I am not sure what you mean here: I have tried to have it displaying everything, and variations within that, but nothing works
3. I do save contacts to google, but i have checked google and the 'missing' contacts are not there either
Ok..Try following things now:
1) Go to Contacts ->Menu->Display Options and Uncheck "Only contacts with phone numbers Checkbox"
2) Then next move to Select Contacts to display and Click on dropdowns for phone, check all the options, move to google and check all the categories there. It might happen that you have missed some category. Also check that Background data and account sync is on for your google account(You can check that in Setting -> Accounts and Sync)
3) Also check your contacts on google dashboard, if they are not displayed there then there might have been problem in uploading contacts.
sumitpathak said:
Ok..Try following things now:
1) Go to Contacts ->Menu->Display Options and Uncheck "Only contacts with phone numbers Checkbox"
2) Then next move to Select Contacts to display and Click on dropdowns for phone, check all the options, move to google and check all the categories there. It might happen that you have missed some category. Also check that Background data and account sync is on for your google account(You can check that in Setting -> Accounts and Sync)
3) Also check your contacts on google dashboard, if they are not displayed there then there might have been problem in uploading contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HI,
Ok done all this.for 1 and 2 it was already ok
For 3, the contacts are there, but not the missing ones.
Google have some kind of undo when it comes to deleted contacs.
If all your contacts accidently was deleted, you maybe could restore from within Google
I accidentally deleted contacts, is there an 'undo' button for G-Mail?
Mittaa said:
Google have some kind of undo when it comes to deleted contacs.
If all your contacts accidently was deleted, you maybe could restore from within Google
I accidentally deleted contacts, is there an 'undo' button for G-Mail?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the thing is I haven't deleted anything, as far as I know, it just seems like they were there and now they are not
Since when i dial one of the 'lost' contacts the name of it still appears i think they are there somewhere
Mittaa said:
Google have some kind of undo when it comes to deleted contacs.
If all your contacts accidently was deleted, you maybe could restore from within Google
I accidentally deleted contacts, is there an 'undo' button for G-Mail?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried it anyway - no luck!
Thanks anyway
OK
Did you change your SIM card? If ... then some of your contacts might be located on your old SIM card.
Another clue: your source to contacts might not be Google? Part of your contact list content might comes from Facebook or other social communities.
Contact from Facebook (and elsewhere) will no be synchronized with your Google contacts unless you merge contacts.

Contacts Not Defaulting to Google - Also Contact Icon Issue

I'm trying to set the default contact type action when adding a new contact so it's saved to "Google" instead of "Phone" but cant for the life of me figure it out. It seems so basic and was easy on my Galaxys.
Anyway, I discovered that the phone defaults to saving people locally which doesn't sync with my Google account. I can change the "contact type" (when adding a new person) to "Google" and thats works but I was hoping to make that the default account type. Also, I noticed that once you save a contact under the account type "People", there is no way to go back and edit the contact to change that.
Also (and unrelated) I noticed a really strange issue...sometimes when I boot my phone, the "Contacts" icon in the app drawer changes to a "People" icon. It works just fine and is the same application underneath. If I reboot my phone, It will change back. I will post some screen shots below if anyone is interested. Possibly its a little bug..
Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this..
* If it matters, I'm running stock 4.4.2 Unlocked/Rooted/S-On
Icon
Thought I would post the screenshots anyway.
In the first, the Contact icon is fine, then after a reboot, it's gone and becomes the icon becomes "People"....after another reboot, it's back to Contacts.
Kinda crazy...
I have the same issue with not being able to save contacts to Google by default and its really annoying. I tried contacting HTC support about it but if course they were no help. Hopefully it'll get rectified in a future update
Message delivered via three eyed raven
In the People app, go to Settings>Open account settings. Is Google under the options, and is "Auto Sync" turning on? If you tap Google, does the Sync status seem okay? You might try to remove the Google account, and re-add it.
"People" is the name that HTC uses for this app on all its phones. "Contacts" is what Google uses, and on most other devices (like Samsung). I guess its just one of those silly things that HTC made different "just to be different". Its actually odd that "Contacts" shows up at all (then changes to "People"), and I've never seen that.
Since you are rooted, you didn't happen to migrate your contact info or anything related (call history, SMS, etc.) from another device?
You might try to navigate to Contacts (yes, ironically the app is still called "Contacts" even though HTC like to call it "People") in Titatium Backup and see if wiping add data helps.
redpoint73 said:
In the People app, go to Settings>Open account settings. Is Google under the options, and is "Auto Sync" turning on? If you tap Google, does the Sync status seem okay? You might try to remove the Google account, and re-add it.
"People" is the name that HTC uses for this app on all its phones. "Contacts" is what Google uses, and on most other devices (like Samsung). I guess its just one of those silly things that HTC made different "just to be different". Its actually odd that "Contacts" shows up at all (then changes to "People"), and I've never seen that.
Since you are rooted, you didn't happen to migrate your contact info or anything related (call history, SMS, etc.) from another device?
You might try to navigate to Contacts (yes, ironically the app is still called "Contacts" even though HTC like to call it "People") in Titatium Backup and see if wiping add data helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
No, my contacts all reside on google and when I setup the phone and sign in, it just migrates them on to the phone. Auto sync is turned on and Google syncs just fine.
The issue seems to be that when adding a new contact from the phone, it defaults the "contact type" (the next selection after adding the name at the top of the screen) to "phone" which, of course, stores the contact locally. Because of that, the contact never syncs with "Google. To correct this, you have to change "Phone" to"Google". That saves it to my Google account and all is fine. What I was trying to do was make that Google selection the default when adding a new conact.
As far as the icon issue, it's just weird. I called a couple buddys to ask what they have and they all have "contacts" on thier M8's ..must be a smaill bug
I don't think people realize just how big of an issue this is... I just sorted the view of my contacts so I only see the "locally" stored contacts... There's dozens of contacts I will lose if I have to reformat... I can't believe I can't edit these contacts so Google will sync them. Wtf?
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Free mobile app
jackryan57 said:
I don't think people realize just how big of an issue this is... I just sorted the view of my contacts so I only see the "locally" stored contacts... There's dozens of contacts I will lose if I have to reformat... I can't believe I can't edit these contacts so Google will sync them. Wtf?
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know..it's brutal...
jackryan57 said:
I don't think people realize just how big of an issue this is... I just sorted the view of my contacts so I only see the "locally" stored contacts... There's dozens of contacts I will lose if I have to reformat... I can't believe I can't edit these contacts so Google will sync them. Wtf?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the People app, go to Settings>Manage contacts>Merge contacts, and see if you can merge then to Google.
Is this on 1.54 or 1.58 software version?
In the people app try going to the upper left where it says phonebook, do the dropdown and uncheck everything but google and try to save a new contact and see what happens...
bimmernut318 said:
In the people app try going to the upper left where it says phonebook, do the dropdown and uncheck everything but google and try to save a new contact and see what happens...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that before hoping it would be the solution however that simply chooses which contacts to display on the screen.
Thanks for taking the time to post your idea though.
Solved!!
This was frustrating me also...
you can solve the problem by going into phonebook via the dialler app on your home-screen then swiping over to people and at the top left hand corner under 'phonebook you can choose which contacts are available...
by only choosing your google account now when ever you add contacts the default should be google and not your phone...
if you need to copy contacts from phone to your google account you can do tat by pressing the options tab (3 buttons top right), manage contacts, copy contacts. Solved!!!
Didn't work for me :/
I tried this solution and unfortunately even when I de-select the 'phone' option from the phonebook, the M8 still defaults to putting new contacts in the phone database. Very strange.... anyone else seeing this? Is there a replacement people/contacts app that can solve this issue? It's really inconvenient.
Thanks!
JKPower said:
This was frustrating me also...
you can solve the problem by going into phonebook via the dialler app on your home-screen then swiping over to people and at the top left hand corner under 'phonebook you can choose which contacts are available...
by only choosing your google account now when ever you add contacts the default should be google and not your phone...
if you need to copy contacts from phone to your google account you can do tat by pressing the options tab (3 buttons top right), manage contacts, copy contacts. Solved!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When adding a new contact, HTC automatically uses the last folder chosen as defualt for next ones being added. Hence if you choose google once while creating a new contact and save it, that (google) will become your defualt folder for future contacts too.
So. At post 13, didn't work for me, first time I would have fixed the problem naturally.
I have an m7 with the same issue. Tried everything started here and nothing works.
I thought android was supposed to be the cool OS that lets you customize at will.
Oh well.
Did this ever get figured out? It is driving me crazy!
Me facing it too. Does anyone solved this problem? Please let me know

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