Database Info

[Q] My Contact List Reset?!

Woke up today, went to my call history and noticed that it didn't list any names. Instead it had everyones phone number. When I clicked a number to dial, it showed their name. So I reset the phone, numbers still showed. I cleared the list, and dialed a new person. Everything back to normal.
Then, when trying to call someone later on today, I noticed something else. All the links that I had made (Live + Facebook contact) were unlinked.
Anyone have a clue why this happened, or has anyone else experienced it? I hate having to relink everyone again.

Glad to know I'm not the only one that had this happen
Went thru the same process of rebooting & pulled the battery
The call history just mysteriously lost all association to the names?
New calls are showing up ok
I'm guessing that some AT&T system reset is the culprit

bmazloum said:
All the links that I had made (Live + Facebook contact) were unlinked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on this bit.
I've noticed that very occasionally those contacts whose name doesn't exactly match their Facebook accounts become unlinked and I have to re-link them. I have no idea why that happens and have never been able to attribute a cause.

Although not the same, I am having a problem with my contact pics on the People tile on the homescreen. It looks as though all the pics I added myself are showing up as blue squares , Facebook pics are showing up ok. When I go into my contact list all pics show up correctly.

This happened to me too once, I figured it was just a bug... That and the call history being delayed at times... Calls won't show up for a few minutes randomly... Had only happened about two or three times.

I had the same problem last night, too.
I guess that it is the problem came from Hotmail server. It was corrupt when syncing and then all my contacts were reset and sync again. It made Live contacts and linked-facebook contacts unlink...
Cmon MS, hotmail must be stable like rock or user will have this problem again

HAd same Problem
Just about a hour ago all my contacts unlinked and i als lost all my home screen contacts they just vannished from my home screen.

Did not encounter this issue but I do agree MS should improve the live mail service...
At least make contact editing as good as gmail...

i also encountered this waking up this morning.

Are any of you guys using Micro-SD cards? That could possibly be the cause of the problem

i am on a trophy, so yes, it's built into the phone with a micro SD. given the amount of people who all experienced this at about the same time, i would say it would be something to do with the server.

Oscardog777 said:
Are any of you guys using Micro-SD cards? That could possibly be the cause of the problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the phone over a month and not having this problem so far until yesterday... So I dont think it is the SD Card problem...
/I have a HD7

About 2 minutes after my first post I noticed that this exact problem had happened to me (my gf had called, and in the call history it simply listed her number and not her name). I remembered that last night while configuring my email settings, under my windows live account it said "not synced" or something like that. Naturally, I did a long press and hit "sync." When it synced, it must have for some reason set everything back to default. This was probably the cause of my problem; I agree it must be some sort of Hotmail/Windows Live sync issue.

Happened to me too, 4x already. My Samsung Focus Windows Live contact becomes unlinked with my previously linked facebook contacts everytime i will sync in hotmail tile. I am annoyed as I have to linked my facebook contact with windows live contacts everytime. Do you have any idea why is this so?

Could someone send this feedback to MS?... Cause my English is not good enough...

I'm on the Omnia 7, bought it especially not to have microSD problems. And seeing how it all happened in this past day, it's gotta be a Windows Live problem. Unless we all installed the same person
It's kinda freaky, Microsoft being in total control, they could just brick all our phones overnight while we sleep.

Throw my hat in the ring too...all contacts in calls list appear as phone number and all contacts/facebook links unlinked. Not too big of a deal but kinda weird.

Happened to me too over the weekend. HD7 with original SD card. Lost my contact tiles from my start screen, lost all links between contacts and facebook friends where the names weren't the same.
If this happens again I'm going to change all my contact names to match the facebook names so they match themselves up, because doing it manually is a pain.

Casey_boy said:
+1 on this bit.
I've noticed that very occasionally those contacts whose name doesn't exactly match their Facebook accounts become unlinked and I have to re-link them. I have no idea why that happens and have never been able to attribute a cause.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had exactly the same problem for the first time yesterday. Weird.

Add me to the list. Also emails I deleted on my Hotmail inbox are still showing up on the phone.

[Q] email client lies

Hi
My Htc Pro 7 (one week old) seems to pretend that it is syncing. It only takes 2 to 3 seconds over Wifi but it doesn't bother downloading new messages.
My (only) email account on the phone is a Blueyonder account (powered by Google). The initial set up went off and collected the account info.
I have turned off SSL and deleted the port numbers from the SMTP and POP settings.
Reentering the username and password convinced it to download the rest of yesterdays emails but not the test one I just sent myself or the others that are on the server.
Outllok 2007 is set to leave copies on the server for 10 days and over the years WM and Symbian handsets have not experienced this problem.
Any suggestions?
Tnx

Since re-entering the username password- the phone is set to look every 15 minutes and ever hour or so it seems to go off- ask if there are any new messages and then download the odd one without bothering to do download the rest...

Am I really the only person who has a mailbox that is at least a day behind???
I guess I am going to have to reset the phone, and lose all my texts etc.
Nice one MuppetSoft!!! By removing our rights to tweak things you have also prevented us from fixing things ourself. Please stop trying to be Apple.

Sometimes the same thing would happen when I hard reset my phone and set up my Hotmail account for the first time. E-mails don't download even though I can clearly see them on my PC. After a couple hours though, it fixes itself and my e-mails appear regularly, and at times, I get alerts to my phone even faster than I would on my computer.
Maybe give it a jump start by using your phone to compose, send, deleted, etc. Otherwise if it still isn't working, then it may be bugged and a hard reset may be in your future.

Thanks for the reply prjkthack
I can send emails without any problems. I have only had the phone just over a week and I am pretty sure that on day one it was working properly. I only noticed the issue a couple of days after the Nodo update- not sure if there is a relation or not.
I guess I will have to wait until i have a day off work before i can prepare for a hard reset. Being undiciplined i tend to leave client contact details in the form of text messages, rather than saving them to contacts.

odder and odder....
it has finally managed to catch up and is now up to date.
I have not made any changes/restores.
Lets hope it stays that way.
Now all I need is my Dev account to be approved so that I can play with mango.

Just bumping my own thread.
The problem returned.
UNTIL I remembered that my Virgin (blueyonder) email account (powered by Google) needs to be in the following format recent:[email protected]
I am such a wanker and should have remembered sooner!!!!
I guess it is a timeout issue, ordinarily the email client asks the server if there are any messages- the server responds "sure about 10000", the email client says "sod that, I'm not cross referencing your list with the ones i am already aware of -I'm off".
With the addition of recent: it only asks for the emails received in the last week or two.
Hopefully the above will be of help to someone else in the near future

Strange Email sync issue with multiple accouts using Samsung Omnia Win7 phone - HELP

Hi,
this is a strange question and a bizzare event thats occuring but i am hoping someone will be able to clear this up for me.
Basically i have had troubles with battery life on my windows 7 phone, its a samsung omnia on the orange network in the uk. This has ONLY been an issue since i upgraded to the Mango update last wednesday.
What i am finding is that my emails are syncing every 30mins or so despite being set to manual update only. I added 3 email accounts to my phone each via the windows live account addition option, i set them to each manually update only and only sync email not contacts/meetings etc... the mad thing is the main acount that is used under my people contact and the main hotmail/live account that is in use with the phone itself seems to stick at only updating when i tell it to sync (i have to click the refresh style sync button within the email screen) however the other two accounts after about 12hours start to go haywire and whilst they start out by syncing manual as soon as i have synced them manually once, after this they just update whenever they want too (every 30mins it appears)... i have tried a reset of the phone and starting from scratch but again eventually this flaw just keeps occuring! over and over, no matter how many resets i do
Its a real pain to be honest, when i first updated to mango i did link all the accounts together as there is an option to band all your accounts into the single hotmail livetile on the homescreen, i changed this option and decided against it, trouble is i cant remember if this issue happened then, im still pretty sure it did, its almost like the other two accounts have a mind of their own, is there any explanation as to what this could possible be?
I have tried to a rollback of my current firmware but it ended up bricking my phone so now it has gone in for a repair under warrenty to samsung, maybe it could have been a dodgy install of mango from day one? as my friend updated and he has the same phone yet hasnt experienced this email flaw, but then again he only has two accounts on his phone
Could it be the manual option no longer works in mango update?
many thanks for reading and hope someone can help, many thanks

Ghost in the Machine

Hi guys!
Tried the search but came up with nothing so here goes...
I must admit I'm not very tech savvy but I can follow instructions no worries
I joined mainly because my Samsung Galaxy S8+ (un-rooted) started to behave very strangely early this year.
(and I want to trick it up after warranty expires in August ?)
Short story is that my Samsung account got hacked (or it at least seems like it) and the perp was then able to control my phone remotely. It was incredible watching my phone do as it pleased and all I could do was sit back and watch. Funny thing is that I've never actually toggled the RC switch (find my phone)...
My local carrier (Telstra Bigpond - Australia) account as well as my Google account got taken over shortly after. This would have given whoever it was access to my 3 cloud accounts which add you can appreciate would contain some sensitive material.
Whoever is responsible could well be a member on here so "Hi, there!! "
I pulled my sim and sd card and switched the phone off so I could decide what to do next.
I got a password manager app, changed all passwords (lucky my partner had a spare iPhone 5S sitting around up I could get online) and factory reset the phone.
All seemed to be going well until a few days ago...
I got "timed out" on my Samsung account (is that even possible?!) and while I was putting the password in (on the Samsung website - silly mistake!) just as I hit next I noticed a few dots in a square pattern that did a spinning type of graphic over the password entry box.
Continuing onto the next screen where the two step verification was, which was to send a text to my phone to receive a code and bang! Before I even received the text a six digit code appears in the fill box on the screen (same spinning dots in a square pattern) right before my eyes and then I receive the text afterwards! The numbers matched!!
I’ve also been asked to enter my Google credentials on more than one occasion lately from being “signed out”...
I don't know what to do!
I've tried all of the popular virus type apps and a few file managers to no avail. More like I've been hacked than a virus?
I've removed apps and shut down almost all of them as well as toggling between mobile data and WiFi and restored the phone twice back to earlier backups from over 6 months ago.
I've only ever downloaded from the Play Store apart from just the once getting your better version of the Play Store XDA (LABS) app.
What might be noteworthy is when I was using Google's help function it said that I had a "modified Android" and to contact manufacturer. I can guarantee the phone has never been cracked open.
I can provide screen shots from DevCheck (FLAR2) but I really don't know what I'm looking at. I also don't have any unknown apps etc...
I really don't know what to do next...
Any advice please??
Sorry about the long post.
All the best,
Crackles

Took phone to Samsung and they wiped the device and installed current (Android Pie 9 w. Feb 01 security update) so was looking forward to having a play with the new os until I went to add my Samsung account details...
Entered the password then the 2-step security kicked in to send a text to my number.
The earlier 4 circling dots dropped the 6 digit code into the fill box before I even received the sms! Device (on it's own jumped straight to the remote control button in the Find my Device security section) then attempted to change the password!
Only thing that prevented that from being carried out was I had biometrics activated and stopped the action using my fingerprint.
Seriously no one has any idea on what to do?!
I also had installed a replacement sim card.
I also can't uninstall updates on certain apps like Google Play Services etc, and some apps either have a dead link (press it and nothing happens) or Play Store can't find the app when I hit the downloaded from Play Store thingy at the bottom of the app description page. Hope that makes sense.

As you said, they wiped the phone, which means they most likely flashed the whole firmware, so there's no way for any malware to remain installed. But for what it's worth, you can try to re-flash the firmware yourself using Oding to make sure the whole flash is clean.
If your phone really was infected with any kind of malware, it must have been a 3-rd party app you have (repeatedly) installed. Some apps like Google Play Services cannot be uninstalled because they are vital for system's (or rather apps installed from Play Store) propper functioning.
Also, even if you had infected your device, it would not be able to take control of your device to the extent you described because of app sandboxing, which cannot be broken unless the app constitutes itself as a system app (because every part of the system has to be cryptographically signed, this would break the boot and brick your device) or the user (you) would have to allow the app the necessary permissions to carry out these tasks.

Hey Kernel thanks for the reply ?
Yes I know what I'm saying sounds crazy and even the missus said I was nuts till I showed her.
I can't screen record any more either...
I'm noticing odd little things like when I pull the notifications screen down for a second or so the NFC, Bluetooth and nearby icons are lit up but then revert back to a if they were off. I've switched all of these items off in the settings so are they being sneaky?
So far nothing really bad has happened apart from not being able to put my credentials into the PayPal app. That's using both Last Pass auto-fill and manually entering the email and password. I've un-installed and re-installed many times and it's the same. I'm not going to add any banking apps just yet.
Facebook also got installed in the background about 4 times within a few minutes. Seemed odd to me. I think I've got a screenshot of that.
Malwarebytes found an issue with I'm guessing a theme I got from the Samsung Galaxy Store so I removed it, chose another and it seems OK.
There's still a few odd things happening like certain settings reverting back to something different from what I'd set.
I'll keep tinkering and post anything that stands out.
Is there an app or something that can check every file on my phone and tell if something isn't quite right?
I don't have a pc at the moment but when I do I'll look into Odin.
Thanks again for taking the time I know I sound like a lunatic and tbh I really wish I was haha!! :laugh:
Hmm interesting...
When I tried to upload the screenshot it stopped and said "bad request"...
Sent from my SM-G955F using XDA Labs

Could all this weird bs be happening if the home WiFi has been hijacked?
Sorry for dumb questions.
Sent from my SM-G955F using XDA Labs

Whatsapp does the same thing, autocompletes the code, before de sms is coming. This is not a malware. But, don't use password manager... Those can be hacked.

Really my password manager can be hacked?!
I'm using Last Pass.
So moving on I started to poke around the WiFi router and found the PnP enabled and my device was sharing with another device. I did not authorise this. I've since reset the router, changed the pin and access code, disabled the WPS and also factory reset the device that was "sharing" with mine... The owner of said device no longer lives with me. I'm just glad I confiscated the phone from him before he left.
When I'm researching possibilities of what could be going on with my phone the pages won't load. It's like my searches are being monitored and the data is being stopped. I tested this with my partner's phone (on mobile data) and the exact Web pages loaded right up on her's without a hitch! I tried again on mine and they just stopped. Pages would load straight away on mine if searching for something completely different like rc cars or bmx related content. Stuff to do with my phone just won't work ffs!
Like when I tried my first post on here. It simply would not post it up! I ended up having to copy/paste the draft and emailing it to another account that I made up on the spot on her phone. Hence the two usernames in this thread.
I got the 3C TOOLBOX app and in the app management section, Task Manager under service many of them are "custom entries" and I cannot un-tick, modify or reset back to the original version of any of these apps. Google Play Services was the worst. Pretty much every thing it was capable of doing had a "custom action" and I could not do anything with it.
Am I doing something wrong or do I have a serious invasion of my phone..?
Thinking about smashing this thing to bits and getting an S10+ ??
Also the Bluetooth, NFC & Nearby buttons almost any me of the day/night are on for a split second when I drag the motivation panel down. These are all set to "OFF" in settings...
What
The
F--k?!?!?!
Sent from my SM-G955F using XDA Labs

Can fishy email images effect android devices?

Hi Guys,
I got a strange email in my emails, when looking at the email from / to it looked spoofed and I was about to click back but I accidentally clicked 'Download images', the ones that are usually blocked when opening an email, not actual attachments. Can JPEGs etc... contain anything malicious?
I factory reset my phone after that happened but that didn't stop my getting 3 calls from Africa this morning, 2 within one minute.

phoneNoob2020 said:
Hi Guys,
I got a strange email in my emails, when looking at the email from / to it looked spoofed and I was about to click back but I accidentally clicked 'Download images', the ones that are usually blocked when opening an email, not actual attachments. Can JPEGs etc... contain anything malicious?
I factory reset my phone after that happened but that didn't stop my getting 3 calls from Africa this morning, 2 within one minute.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They can, eg Stagefright or later in 2016 this
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/09/06/google-android-one-photo-hack/
or just last year
https://www.komando.com/security-pr...e-over-an-android-phone-with-an-image/543634/
which you phone may be vulnerable to if not still getting regular updates
and just this month patch also has media framework bug allowing possible escalation of privileges
https://9to5google.com/2020/06/01/pixel-june-20-security-patch/
however it could just be a coincidence you got a storm call, they just use computers to call from a number list or random numbers.
A factory reset may not get rid of malware that has been able to install itself in the system partition. You need to reflash the full factory image again. Or if your phone not getting updates any more from manufacturer you should ALSO flash a trusted custom rom ie Lineage OS from official source (hopefully there is one for your EXACT model) after you have clean flashed the most recent manufacturer ROM.

I use Android 10 with security patch from April.
Would I be right in assuming that the phone needs to be rooted for anything to be installed on the system partition? I don't have mine rooted.
Last time I reflashed a device, even with official firmware it stopped me getting updates.
It is quite annoying since pretty much everybody keeps saying it is safe to open a spam email as long as a link is not clicked or attachment downloaded but that appears to be rubbish since the images rendering within an email seem to be enough for a phone to be hijacked.

phoneNoob2020 said:
I use Android 10 with security patch from April.
Would I be right in assuming that the phone needs to be rooted for anything to be installed on the system partition? I don't have mine rooted.
Last time I reflashed a device, even with official firmware it stopped me getting updates.
It is quite annoying since pretty much everybody keeps saying it is safe to open a spam email as long as a link is not clicked or attachment downloaded but that appears to be rubbish since the images rendering within an email seem to be enough for a phone to be hijacked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should be pretty much covered for known security issues as you are on April security patch. Though there are of course likely be other unpublished vulnerabilities. You can try submit suspect images to virustotal.com see if it's already known.
Unfortunately malware can install into system partition even if you have not rooted your phone in some cases eg if vulnerability is in already privileged process. (note: I'm not security expert)
Given you are pretty much up to date with known patches I think the phone calls likely just a coincidence, unless you have more indications of hacked phone or other accounts etc.
Edit: PS even if those images were malicious you may be OK as you have recent security patch so they might not have been able to compromise your phone.

IronRoo said:
You should be pretty much covered for known security issues as you are on April security patch. Though there are of course likely be other unpublished vulnerabilities. You can try submit suspect images to virustotal.com see if it's already known.
Unfortunately malware can install into system partition even if you have not rooted your phone in some cases eg if vulnerability is in already privileged process. (note: I'm not security expert)
Given you are pretty much up to date with known patches I think the phone calls likely just a coincidence, unless you have more indications of hacked phone or other accounts etc.
Edit: PS even if those images were malicious you may be OK as you have recent security patch so they might not have been able to compromise your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange thing is Tuesday night before this, I got a reset password email for Netflix... i didn't think too much of it and don't know why they would do that.
That is before Thursday when I accidentally opened a spam mail then later on Thursday got a few calls from an African Number.
Then today I got 3 password reset emails from my other email account, of course the reset requests went to my email.
Microsoft really suck too because I cannot get on my email account from a browser since when I put my phone number in it says, try again later. I am already logged in through the app though.

phoneNoob2020 said:
Strange thing is Tuesday night before this, I got a reset password email for Netflix... i didn't think too much of it and don't know why they would do that.
That is before Thursday when I accidentally opened a spam mail then later on Thursday got a few calls from an African Number.
Then today I got 3 password reset emails from my other email account, of course the reset requests went to my email.
Microsoft really suck too because I cannot get on my email account from a browser since when I put my phone number in it says, try again later. I am already logged in through the app though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so many reset password requests suggests something is going on, possibly your phone but maybe more likely just one of your online accounts passwords leaked, there were a couple of big ones recently, check haveibeenpwnd or is it just that you reset your phone?
Yeah, I always need to change my browser to old IE to log in to MS cause of my settings/addons

IronRoo said:
so many reset password requests suggests something is going on, possibly your phone but maybe more likely just one of your online accounts passwords leaked, there were a couple of big ones recently, check haveibeenpwnd or is it just that you reset your phone?
Yeah, I always need to change my browser to old IE to log in to MS cause of my settings/addons
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I got myself an Iphone SE for now, heard that they are sandboxed as long as they are not jailbroken.. however I removed the native mail app since that has a vulnerability now which is quite famous.
I know it iPhone is a bit of a swear word around here, but it is the best option until re-installing the OS on Xioami mi 8 pro.
Hopefully there is a way to set mi 8 into recovery without using third party tools, XZ1 had a feature to re-install android but that was pretty rare. It is a shame the storage space is so awful on it or I wouldn't have wanted to change phone