Database Info

Contact edits in phone do not update back to web

Hey,
I'm using Sergio's CoreDroid 1.5 on my HD2 and I've had this problem in all of the previous Android ROMs that I have used, but there are a good number of ppl who have had no problem with the same builds. Searching Google also does not turn up any suitable answer.
All the contacts in my phone are saved under Google, so whenever I make any updates to my Google Contacts on the web it is sync'd fine to my Phone. On the other hand if I edit any of my contacts on the phone (like adding an extra number or email address or change the name) they are never Sync'd back to Google Contacts on the web... instead it ends up deleting the new info from my phone when it syncs from the web!! Same is the case if I change the primary number for a contact (in case the person has two numbers in his contact) it reverts back to the original choice!
Making new contacts has a mind of its own.. Mostly it does sync back the new contact info to Google contacts, but sometimes it does not.. and the new contact is deleted because no such info exists under Google Contacts. I don't have any proof but I think it only syncs info back to Google if I choose specific groups for the newly created contact.
I have checked every setting in my phone but did not find anything which shows that my phone does not have privileges to edit contacts on my phone and reflect changes back to the web. Neither is there any setting in my Google Contacts which does not let me edit changes to Contacts from my phone.
Does any one else have this problem? My problem does not lie in a bad flash or anything.. as I have already made a lot of fresh flashes but nothing seems to work!
UPDATE: I backed up all my contacts in Gmail to a csv file, and then deleted all the contacts. I then imported all the contacts back to my Gmail contacts. Up till now all the contacts that I edit remain that way, and also reflect the changes back to Gmail contacts. I guess it was a problem with Google or something, cuz when I made all my contact lists last year they were made on Gmail and after that none would update when I changed anything on my phone, as I have already pointed out. But now all work as they are supposed to. You can also backup contacts on your phone and delete from the phone but it is not recommended as the phone backup does not remember the group divisions. So your best bet is to use Gmail as it will preserve the groupings. Also after backing up remember to delete the contacts from Gmail and also from your phone and then import back into Gmail, otherwise it will make a mess of making double contacts. Do let me know if this worked for you.

[Q] Contacts Management & Duplicates

I have moved contacts from SIM to phone, added contacts over time, and before changing phones, moved all contacts to the SIM creating duplicates. Some I think are from facebook and have no numbers. Some I have up to 5 duplicates.
In display options I have "Only contacts with phone numbers" unchecked with everything below also checked. A particular contact has 6 entries. A couple have numbers, most are empty and one facebook. When I select show only contacts with numbers I get 2. When I go to SIM management to export to SIM I see 6 again. There is no way to distinguish which has a number or any way to filter. All there is, is a checkbox and a name 6 times. I even merged the 5 of them and when I went to export to SIM I saw all of them separately again.
I can't write all 800+ to the SIM so how can I only transfer the ones with numbers attached??? The only way I can delete the contacts without numbers is to open the contact, see if it has a number and delete. I seriously don't want to do that 500 times.
Is there a smart way to write only the contacts with numbers to the SIM? I surely would appreciate the help!
Running 2.3.6

Why are you saving to sim card? Just manage them in contacts app and they sync with Google account between devices. There's an option in Google desktop contacts to merge duplicates.
BTW, sim contacts are stored as one contact per number. So a phone contact with 2 numbers will actually create 2 separate entries when exported to sim card.

I'm looking up Google Contacts and it has been discontinued. I found Google Desktop, but then started running across all these plug-in and fixes for different problems of mismatched databases...
I write them to the SIM so I can switch it another phone and have them all. It's just how I've been doing it since before any back-up capabilities. I suppose I need to open a new email account that doesn't have a couple of hundred email addresses to deal with and no phone numbers. Facebook contacts got copied as a name only because they were an entry I guess. No email address or anything.
I do need to find some way of merging all the duplicates. Do you have another suggestion that's not going to require me to read and dig up a discontinued program that I can continue to use? lol

I'm referring to the contacts in your Google (i.e. Gmail) account, certainly no discontinued and no plugin required, just log into it from a browser and go to the contacts tab. All of your contacts should be synced from your phone and you can find duplicates and merge there, which will then sync back to your phone.
Guess I'm making the assumption that you have a Gmail or Google apps account, which is almost a necessity with an Android device.

^ what he said. Its much easier to manage contacts in Gmail and have it sync over. If you change number or lost your phone no need to ask people for their number ever.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium

I agree that it's easier to maintain it how you say.
That was nuts! I thought they were already synchronized with gmail, but I guess not. I went through and deleted what I wanted in gmail, then everything in my phone. I went to sync bac and it said it couldn't becuase of too many deleted contacts. I thought, yes, just delete them. Then I watched all my contacts disappear from my gmail account on my PC. Gmail has a cool feature to resore contacts as they were minute by minute. Eventually I got the whole list back and on my phone.
Thanks for the help! Saving them to the SIM is old school now...
I rooted my phone last night and thinking about installing ICS, the second leaked version UCLD2 because I'm not liking the lock screen on 2.3.6. I want to find a setup for my Skyrocket that people are liking, but that's kind of hard.... Hey, here's a great ROM. Camera is broken, WiFi has issues, screen gets stuck in wrong orientation... but it's great! Does't seem to be much out there for the Skyrocket. I was looking in the forum here under my correct phone type. Suggestions? I know, wrong thread, just asking a BTW...

ROM
check out skyrocket Android development for Listing of Roms. I'm using SKYICS

I think that's where I got the UCLD2. I don't like it at all. I don't know if apps don't work because they're not ready, of if it's this version of ICS. People say it sucks for the battery and it's because messaging sits there and uses 90 of the cpu even in my pocket and the phone gets hot for no reason. I'll look up yours. Thanks Raven

Just click menu and merge with google
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA

Some Questions and possible bugs

I upgraded from a HTC Imagio running Windows Mobile 6.5 to the Samsung Galaxy S3 and it is my first foray into the Android world, so I hope you can help with the following. As you can see, it was a big step up the ladder of mobile operating systems!
1. If I have a name prefix for my contact in the contact list, like Mr./Ms./Mrs./Dr., the name does not autocomplete for that contact from the phone keypad. When I enter the letters of the first or last name on the phone keypad, the contact does not show up. However, if I delete the name prefix and leave it blank, it shows up fine. Is there some setting to have all the contacts show up or is it a bug? Is it happening for others too?
2. On the Windows phone, I had a reminder application which showed a list of all reminders. I could set the reminder to repeat after any number of days/weeks/years. However, in the Android Calendar, when I set an event, I am unable to set the number of days/weeks/months/years it has to repeat. For example, I need an event to repeat every 365 days (calendar with no leap day) but I cannot set it on my phone or in GMail. Also, when the alarm goes off, I would like to be reminded again after a day or a few hours or a few minutes until I dismiss the notification so I can have the remidner go off a few days before the event as a reminder. I don't know if that is possible too. I looked at a couple of apps from the Play Store but could not find one which does everything. Anyone know of a trick to get this to work?
Update: DGT GTD & To-Do List with its recent updates now does what I need. Thanks to the author for adding the features.
3. When I check my gmail in the web browser, I am unable to delete the mails. I touch the trash icon but it stays highlighted but does not delete the mail. Is that a bug or am I again doing something wrong? I have different gmail accounts that I would like to check on the phone without transferring contacts and calendar entries.
Update: Looks like a bug in the stock web browser. GMail works as expected in Chrome browser
4. Is there a clear writeup of how the calendar and contacts sync between gmail and the phone? I had transferred all my contacts from my Windows mobile phone to gmail and they showed up on my S3 when I set up the gmail account. However, they would not transfer to my phone. I had to export the contacts to a file on my phone and then import the contacts into my phone. Maybe I do not need the contacts to reside on the phone? I was worried that if I was in an area with poor or no signal reception, then I may not be able to view the contacts if they were only on my gmail account and not on the phone.
4a. Similarly, I would like to know how the calendar entries from gmail can be pulled on to the phone.
Thanks in advance for your help and patience in reading the above! I have a lot to learn but hope I can get my phone to work the way I would enjoy. If you can suggest any resource for reading other than XDA and Android Central, that would be great too.

Oops. This should have been posted in the Q&A Forum. Mods, can you please move it if that is where it belongs? Thanks!

What is the best way to manage contacts?

What is the best way for me to go through and organize my contacts for my Google account?
My list is so sloppy and looks bad with duplicates, some several duplicates. I know sometimes in the past I would attempt it just with manually deleting and checking all names/numbers and I would often get some sort of message saying I couldn't delete this contact for some reason(I forgot what the reason it said was).
I would prefer to edit this list on my PC, but if this easier done with some sort of app then I'm down. I also want my new organized list to sync across all my devices that sync contacts from my google account.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

On the website (https://contacts.google.com) you can identify duplicates.
You can also export your contacts on your PC (CSV or vCard format).

And you can pretty simply merge duplicates so that if, for example, one has a landline number, a second has a mobile, a third has an address, etc., you can put them all in a single entry with a mouse click.
I was in your position a few months ago and it took me about half an hour to whip my contacts list into shape.

I exclusively use contacts from my gmail/Google account. I never ever have them on the phone or the sim. In case I lose or break or change the phone, I never lose a contact and never have to re-enter them. I'm very OCD about things like that and being able to sit at my PC and standardize all contacts is worth a ton to me. Using the above cited Google contacts link is my preferred method.

Contacts won't sync, last sync date 5 months old

Rogers s8+
Latest software build info attached. No roms or root etc.
Completely stock except for Nova launcher.
I have approx 980 contacts on phone, google only has 928 on contacts.google.com for account#1
Issue.
Contacts will not sync, last successful sync was in May.
Troubleshooting, various steps
Rebooted many times.
Toggled sync on and off.
Left off for weeks.
Exported contacts from primary account#1, imported to second account#2 on device that had handful of contacts and synced successfully. Now fully imported account#2 doesn't sync. Toggle on off. Nothing hung.
Seems there is a corrupted contact causing this, I've tried the Google forums but they suggested to remove account and readd.. Except that will lose all my contacts on the device and there's no way I know to check the export file for consistency. So I can't risk losing a bunch of contacts.
Not sure what to do other than manually verify which of the 980 contacts aren't synced and add them online...

Sync on PC then will work on phone

1
AndrOmega said:
Sync on PC then will work on phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry can you explain what you mean? I normally use a Mac but can find a windows pc if needed. Are you saying use Samsung desktop app to sync? Sorry.. Confused.

On a PC or Mac go to google.com and in upper right corner of the page you have Google apps. Search for contacts .

AndrOmega said:
Sync on PC then will work on phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AndrOmega said:
On a PC or Mac go to google.com and in upper right corner of the page you have Google apps. Search for contacts .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been to contacts.google.com it tells me I have less contacts than on my phone.. Not sure what you're suggesting.
I added a contact on contacts.google.com and it synced downward btw. I also added one on my phone and it's synced up. But there's still a difference in number of contacts. Weird.

Download "contacts sync fix" in the play store. I had the same issue and it worked for me. Make sure you export the contacts as a backup in case something goes wrong.

contacts sync fix by Nikolay R might help

I have the same issue since over one year on one phone.
First easy solution to check, your free space. Yes, I am serious. Below 450MB of free disk space on my FLASH, Android completely refuses to sync. Typically, my email application was saying me "network error"; remove a few pictures, and "network works again". If you have multiple sync issues, this is the first thing to check.
If only contacts refuse to sync, I am also facing this. And in my case, "contacts sync fix" did not help. I did not have time to dig the issue, but in short, I suspect two things:
- the picture may be the root cause
- the Note field may be too long for some contacts
... a part of an error message may comeout in logcat, with the name of the contact causing the error. Note that if only a few contacts trigger an error, all other contacts will be sync; and inside a problematic contact, some fields will be sync.
IE: if contact C triggers the problem, and I add a phone number on one side, then, the new phone number will be propagated, even if the picture, or NOTES are not.
It's critical for me, because I have vital things in NOTES, but, most of the contact details are sync fine.
For me, ATM, I have 6 contacts out of 550 which come out in logcat.
I did not had time yet to dig; things I will try are:
- remove picture on both sides (computer and phone)
- remove any french special char from NOTES, because I could face an ISO-UTF conversion issue.
What I know for sure is that all 6 errors happen on contact I use very often, for people close to me, who have pictures and notes (no I did not attribute a picture to all my 550 contacts; and don't need to write note about everyone I know; only people I see most often have these fields populated)

After 4h of digging ... logcat gave me the number of the contact that were not sync (sort of; it gave me contact ID that I converted into names using sqlite). For those contacts, I have removed all fields except name and picture, and now, my sync is fine.
The problem is not a french letter or UTF; the solution was to REMOVE all fields, so that if there used to be an edition conflict, the conflict is solved by "remove".
After re-creating contacts, I have found that for a given contact number, it may be impossible to propagate the name between Android 4 and Android 7 (through Gmail). If I change the name, then the number, and sync everything, only the number is propagated. When number is edited on a phone, the name shown by gmail is the name shown in the last phone that edited the number. IE, a contact may change name only by changing the number. If number 123456 has name Ab on android 4, and Ac on android 7, the name can be switched on Gmail, by editing the number on one phone or an other. Edition conflicts on numbers are solved by using the last change; but conflicts on names are never solved.
If then I edit name on Gmail, both phones are unable to use the new name. Android 7 is not better than 4.
This issue will not produce any error in logcat.