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] How to add "phone-only, unsynced" contacts?

I can't find the answer to this questions anywhere, so I thought the good old xda community could help.
I have two exchange accounts set up in my phone and no Gmail accounts. Before I was able to add contacts as "phone only, unsynced". Now that I have the exchange accounts whenever I want to add a contact I have to choose one of those two accounts but there is no option to save "phone-only".
Question: How can I add phone-only, unsynced contacts?
Thanks in advance for any insights!

Try turning off sync temporarily on both email account under Setting-->Accounts then add a contact and see if that gives you the unsync option back when adding contacts. Let me know how it goes

Sync is off in both accounts. I only receive email through push. Thanks for suggestion though! Any other ideas?

Any ideas on this? Appreciate any help!

Possible answer
Sorry for reviving such an old thread but I had this problem and while I was searching for a solution this came up so for the sake of completeness here is a possible answer.
There is an app that allows you to import appointments from iCal files now while that is not you issue to do this the app creates a dummy account on the phone that is unsynced and from my experience you are able to add contacts under that account.
So hopefully this works for you.
Also just to mention this app is not mine nor have I had any input into it.
The app page: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=905213

Solution
Hi, I'm looking into upgrading my Motorola Atrixand in the meantime decided to update android. Immediately following the update (to 2.3), I realized that my old SIM contacts were missing. However, I noticed the missing contacts, although deleted from my SIM were somewhere on my phone. Ex. in my text history, the names were still there. I could click on a contact and when in edit mode, it read: unsynced contacts from att address book. I found no solution on android forums, etc. So I logged in to att.com and performed a search. It lead me to instructions on how to migrate contacts from 1 phone to another. I know I'm only referring to the same phone, but I tried it anyway. It worked!!
All you need to do is go to contacts, menu, export to sd card (hopefully your phone supports external storage). Then import from sd card. All my contacts are back. I first tried to export to SIM card, but It didn't work (however, this is where I could visually see my missing contacts as it allows you to select - I have over 800 contacts so I dont have time to go through the list) - I'm guessing this issue occurred to people whose complete contact list would not fit on the SIM. Probably if your contact list did fit on the SIM you did not experience this issue. If it happened to you and you do not have external storage I guess you could still use the SIM option by selecting a few contacts at a time - if you maxxed out the SIM storage you would need to delete them from SIM before copying more.
Anyway, once you do this it adds all contacts to the Google address book so you're now good to switch phones and get them just by adding your Google acount.
Hope this helps some folks - I was feeling desperate without about 150 of my oldest contacts.

[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

adb backup and restore contacts issue

Hey,
i just did the following:
- installed SDK on my win7 PC
- managed to create a backup file with the "adb backup -all" command (the file is 300MB+) not sure why its called "-all" so far it looks like it backed only the app-settings
- synched my device with my google account
- did a factory reset
- logged into my google account
- several contacts are missing and i also dont see them in my googlemail accounts
- i restore the backup with the "adb restore 'filepath'" command it says successfully restored
- the missing contacts are still not in my contacts, BUT somehow they are in the phone. For example, when i dial "783" for "STE", the Name and Number of one of the missing contacts (in this example Steven) does appear above the dialpad and it even has a big "S" with a colored circle in the back (contact list icon) with it.
- when i press the name/number, nothing happens
- when i press the contact list icon, i get a system message that reads like "this contact doesnt exist" and i get kicked to my homescreen
- BONUS: i synched again with my google account and now the "hidden" missing contacts are all gone again.
- i want all my contacts back. what can i do?
I know this sounds strage and I dont have any clue how this could be solved, so - any info/feedback would be great!
Thanks,
L3O

You have allready deleted your contacts on gmail server. So, anytime you try to restore them and than sync, this contacts will gone.
Best option to get them all back is to restore, (not sync with Google yet), get some 3rd party app to sync contacts with PC, than sync with Google and at the end sync contacts from yout PC to phone as edited.

zagorteney said:
You have allready deleted your contacts on gmail server. So, anytime you try to restore them and than sync, this contacts will gone.
Best option to get them all back is to restore, (not sync with Google yet), get some 3rd party app to sync contacts with PC, than sync with Google and at the end sync contacts from yout PC to phone as edited.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your quick reply! :good:
Meanwhile i also tried to restore the backup without sync with Google. Same scenario as before, only without the Google Contacts. That means, in this case my contac list is empty, but i still can see the missing contacts when I dial (for example 783, like in the example above).. I think that means they are on my phone, but not listed in my contact list - do you have any idea where these contacs may have been saved?
And can you suggest a 3rd party software for the workaround you mentioned in your commend?

L3O said:
Thanks for your quick reply! :good:
Meanwhile i also tried to restore the backup without sync with Google. Same scenario as before, only without the Google Contacts. That means, in this case my contac list is empty, but i still can see the missing contacts when I dial (for example 783, like in the example above).. I think that means they are on my phone, but not listed in my contact list - do you have any idea where these contacs may have been saved?
And can you suggest a 3rd party software for the workaround you mentioned in your commend?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've solved situations like this with MyPhoneExplorer https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fjsoft.myphoneexplorer.client , http://www.fjsoft.at/en/ (PC Client).
BE CAREFUL when install PC client; there is a lot of malware during installation!
---------- Post added at 09:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:43 PM ----------
L3O said:
Hey,
i just did the following:
- installed SDK on my win7 PC
- managed to create a backup file with the "adb backup -all" command (the file is 300MB+) not sure why its called "-all" so far it looks like it backed only the app-settings
- synched my device with my google account
- did a factory reset
- logged into my google account
- several contacts are missing and i also dont see them in my googlemail accounts
- i restore the backup with the "adb restore 'filepath'" command it says successfully restored
- the missing contacts are still not in my contacts, BUT somehow they are in the phone. For example, when i dial "783" for "STE", the Name and Number of one of the missing contacts (in this example Steven) does appear above the dialpad and it even has a big "S" with a colored circle in the back (contact list icon) with it.
- when i press the name/number, nothing happens
- when i press the contact list icon, i get a system message that reads like "this contact doesnt exist" and i get kicked to my homescreen
- BONUS: i synched again with my google account and now the "hidden" missing contacts are all gone again.
- i want all my contacts back. what can i do?
I know this sounds strage and I dont have any clue how this could be solved, so - any info/feedback would be great!
Thanks,
L3O
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh. Or maybe you think about Google Dialer feature named Caller ID?

zagorteney said:
Huh. Or maybe you think about Google Dialer feature named Caller ID?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not sure what this means - the caller id feature links google maps entries with a number you are calling, right? how can this feature be helpful for my issue?
meanwhile i tried myphonexplorer and every app that might contain the missing contacts (ie. facebook app).
i have a whole lot of contacts now, many only containig an email adress, but still the same problem as before:
some of the contacts are only displayed in the dial window, but i cant call them and they are not in my contact list. also myphoneexplorer doesnt list them
so, my guess is, that adb backup restored some data at some place on my nexus 5 where the phone app can acess them, but the contact list doesnt.
does anyone know where this data might be saved and how i could access it in a way that i can export/sync it?
Thanks!

I seem to remember logging into my google account (on my laptop / desktop) and somewhere within Gmail/ Contacts there was a setting to retroactively restore "older" syncs of my contacts..
For instance I restored my contacts list from a sync a week prior..

Mal_toofy said:
I seem to remember logging into my google account (on my laptop / desktop) and somewhere within Gmail/ Contacts there was a setting to retroactively restore "older" syncs of my contacts..
For instance I restored my contacts list from a sync a week prior..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for some reason, google dindt sync all the contacts - i guess thats the actual reason i have this mess right now.
meanwhile i decided not to invest any more time in error-tracking, typed all the "ghost contacts" into myphonexplorer by hand and synced it first to my nexus 5 and then to google. i think i lost some though. meh.
Thanks for your help anyways!

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.