[Q] Gmail contacts got deleted after sync - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello guys, I am facing a weird problem that I have never faced before. I have one week old brand new Nexus 4 and its just awesome. But some little bug in the OS is just spoiling the whole experience. I am not sure if its a bug or not but surely it shouldn't happen.
The problem is I always synchronize my contacts with gmail. So whenever I added my gmail accounts first, all of my contacts just came into my phone flawlessly. But one morning I just saw all the contacts disappeared leaving a just few which are of no use. After googling and some small rnd I found the life saving option "Restore Contacts" in gmail contacts. I got them back. Didn't know the reason but thought it would never happen again. Today again this thing happened which really pissed me off.
I have used all of the android OS starting from GB to ICS but this thing never happened. I also found that whatsapp, facebook, wechat contacts are not synchronized properly without any reason. Contacts are not properly shown under "Contacts to display" option. Guys is this problem common in JB 4.2.2 or I am missing something to properly configure my phone. Please share your views friends.

subhasis005 said:
Hello guys, I am facing a weird problem that I have never faced before. I have one week old brand new Nexus 4 and its just awesome. But some little bug in the OS is just spoiling the whole experience. I am not sure if its a bug or not but surely it shouldn't happen.
The problem is I always synchronize my contacts with gmail. So whenever I added my gmail accounts first, all of my contacts just came into my phone flawlessly. But one morning I just saw all the contacts disappeared leaving a just few which are of no use. After googling and some small rnd I found the life saving option "Restore Contacts" in gmail contacts. I got them back. Didn't know the reason but thought it would never happen again. Today again this thing happened which really pissed me off.
I have used all of the android OS starting from GB to ICS but this thing never happened. I also found that whatsapp, facebook, wechat contacts are not synchronized properly without any reason. Contacts are not properly shown under "Contacts to display" option. Guys is this problem common in JB 4.2.2 or I am missing something to properly configure my phone. Please share your views friends.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Log in to your google account through a web browser. I'll guarantee all your contacts are still there. Either you are not syncing right or you need a factory reset/flash.

Gmail contacts also deleted when they are disappeared from phone
hp420 said:
Log in to your google account through a web browser. I'll guarantee all your contacts are still there. Either you are not syncing right or you need a factory reset/flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. But let me tell you one thing the moment I saw my contacts gone in the phonebook, I checked my gmail account also. The contacts were also not there. Then I performed a "Restore" action and the contacts came into gmail address book as well as in the phone. Hope I have made the problem clear now. :crying::crying:

subhasis005 said:
Thanks for your reply. But let me tell you one thing the moment I saw my contacts gone in the phonebook, I checked my gmail account also. The contacts were also not there. Then I performed a "Restore" action and the contacts came into gmail address book as well as in the phone. Hope I have made the problem clear now. :crying::crying:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no, not really....you said you restored your contacts and they have returned....so what's the issue then?

Re: Gmail contacts also deleted when they are disappeared from phone
hp420 said:
no, not really....you said you restored your contacts and they have returned....so what's the issue then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I restored my contacts they were fine. They came back to my phonebook but without any reason they disappeared again. I had to do same restore again in the gmail to bring them back in my phonebook. I had not faced this problem before. Thats why I am confused. And moreover can you tell me why no whatsapp and wechat contacts not shown in the phonebook while all the syncs are on? Please tell me if you have any ideas...Thank you in advance.

hp420 said:
no, not really....you said you restored your contacts and they have returned....so what's the issue then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's pretty clear to me. The OP added his Google account to his phone, sync'ed his contacts and then some time later found that they had vanished from both phone /and/ Google. He was fortunate to be able to recover them, but the fact that he was able to does not mean that it's not an issue. Likewise, the fact that it has happened again suggests that he needs a little more support that an implied PICNIC reply....
---------- Post added at 07:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:19 PM ----------
subhasis005 said:
Hello guys, I am facing a weird problem that I have never faced before. I have one week old brand new Nexus 4 and its just awesome. But some little bug in the OS is just spoiling the whole experience. I am not sure if its a bug or not but surely it shouldn't happen.
The problem is I always synchronize my contacts with gmail. So whenever I added my gmail accounts first, all of my contacts just came into my phone flawlessly. But one morning I just saw all the contacts disappeared leaving a just few which are of no use. After googling and some small rnd I found the life saving option "Restore Contacts" in gmail contacts. I got them back. Didn't know the reason but thought it would never happen again. Today again this thing happened which really pissed me off.
I have used all of the android OS starting from GB to ICS but this thing never happened. I also found that whatsapp, facebook, wechat contacts are not synchronized properly without any reason. Contacts are not properly shown under "Contacts to display" option. Guys is this problem common in JB 4.2.2 or I am missing something to properly configure my phone. Please share your views friends.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd be looking into apps here - if a contact is deleted on your phone, this deletion will be sync'ed back to Google with the symptoms you've reported. Have you scoured your phone for a potential rogue here (either malicious or, more likely, buggy)...?

thanks for getting it finally
thanks daern for understanding my problem. You read my mind. This prob should not happen. Do you mean that any malicious programs are running in my phone?? or any other issue is causing this weird problem. I am not sure tomorrow morning I will see all the contacts vanished again. Its been 2 times I am facing this.

subhasis005 said:
thanks daern for understanding my problem. You read my mind. This prob should not happen. Do you mean that any malicious programs are running in my phone?? or any other issue is causing this weird problem. I am not sure tomorrow morning I will see all the contacts vanished again. Its been 2 times I am facing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Chances are some (non Google) app on your phone, which has access to your contacts is deleting them. I would backup your storage and "factory reset" your phone. If the problem returns, try removing apps with access to your contacts.

SpookyTunes said:
Chances are some (non Google) app on your phone, which has access to your contacts is deleting them. I would backup your storage and "factory reset" your phone. If the problem returns, try removing apps with access to your contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a similar problem but in my case there is absolutely no doubt that it is Google deleting contacts from my Nexus 4. I do not even want my contacts synchronized or backed up on Google's servers and prefer to use the phone memory (because I use other apps to back up my contacts). The first time Google deleted my contacts from phone I realized that I had only disabled synch for "contacts" but neglected to also do it for "people" so I made sure all of that was disabled before I went and started deleting duplicate contacts from Gmail (that's right, it not only deleted it from the phone it duplicated them there). I then proceeded to restore my contacts from a .vcf file directly to the phone memory and it worked fine at first. Then, the next day, Google had AGAIN deleted all contacts and again duplicated them on Gmail. The phone has Android 4.3 and is stock other than being rooted. I am hoping to avoid having to delete the google account from the phone altogether. Any ideas?

Related

Problem with Google Contacts Sync on updated ROM?

I just wanted to ask whether anyone else had run into the same problem or now. I have installed HTC Generic 2.73.405.5 with radio 63.18.55.06EU_6.35.06.18 on my unbranded Hero and it has been great. Really fast and it seems less buggy.
However I had one major issue. When I turned on my phone this morning all my contacts were gone! So I went into data synchronisation and made sure the box was ticked.
I ticked and unticked it, however things aren't quite syncing up properly at the moment. The contacts are back, but when I make edits on my phone they are not carrying through to google's servers ... Any advice? Anyone else having this problem?
EDIT: I have tried syncing my contacts again. After the little arrows stop spinning the last updated time still stays the same. It's stuck on 07:22 at the moment and it's 07:39 here ...
EDIT2: This problem exists on the wifi and mobile data connection.
Could it be that this is a problem on Google's end?
Woah! And we're back!
It seems to have fixed itself!
Not for me. Still have this issue, does anyone else?
God damn! My Hero deleted all its contacts again. It takes ages to sync changes and if you do too many at once it just doesn't do it, crashes and deletes all your contacts.
NOT awesome!
I have posted a support ticket with HTC, I'll see what they say.
I already experienced an "issue" with a delay from google contacts.
But I deleted everything, then synched and after a while (about 15 minutes) all contacts where shining in my Hero.
I have similar issue.
I can get my contacts from Google but cannot make new ones on the server side. I will check it thoroughly later on and report you back.
Google add to contact
The whole option to add to Google contacts is missing on mine. Google contacts are still present and seemingly updating.
So not exactly the same behaviour, but might be worth checking your phone.

Phonebook Contacts keep disappearing

Hi guys, this is my first post but ive been lurking here for a while trying to learn more about my phone.
This is a bit long winded so please bare with me..
I bought this phone about a week ago from rogers wireless. It's locked to rogers and i updated the phone with the SE updater to the latest version they have. I bought the phone under my contract and then gave it to my wife (her old phone broke so i thought it would be nice to give her a new one)
She's now using her old simcard in the phone and other than the phonebook contacts keep disappearing, everything else works fine and all the txt msgs are intact.
1) whenever i switch sims from her's back to mine, the phonebook will be cleared.
2) today she told me that the phonebook cleared even though she didnt touch the simcard.
any idea as to why this is happening? she thinks the phone is defective i think its just something software. Im going to try and do a factory reset on the phone and setup the entire phone w/ her sim instead of mine (which is what i originally done) and then update again on SE updates.
Gmail sync
Hi
I've had the problem too. It turned out that the synchronization with Gmail was the culprit. The phone saw that a given contact was not in the contact list in Gmail and therefore deleted it from the phone instead of adding it to the Gmail contact list. The same goes for changes to contacts - if I change something on the phone, it disappears when the phone syncs. If I want to keep the changes, I have to make them in the Gmail list. I don't know how to change that behaviour.
- Martin
Martin5000 said:
Hi
I've had the problem too. It turned out that the synchronization with Gmail was the culprit. The phone saw that a given contact was not in the contact list in Gmail and therefore deleted it from the phone instead of adding it to the Gmail contact list. The same goes for changes to contacts - if I change something on the phone, it disappears when the phone syncs. If I want to keep the changes, I have to make them in the Gmail list. I don't know how to change that behaviour.
- Martin
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's just BS. I didn't sync with Gmail right at the start, so when I finally did it last weekend, I lost all of my 249 contacts. Luckily, I had them backed up on my old sim card, so I restored them, but all the contact pictures, facebook links etc were lost
Gmail sync fail
wow! thanks for solving the mystery Martin!
Any idea how i can either import all those contacts to gmail's contacts (other than manually inserting them.. )
Man it's so friggin annoying to have to restore my contact book every time the damn google sync does a check.
badhobz said:
wow! thanks for solving the mystery Martin!
Any idea how i can either import all those contacts to gmail's contacts (other than manually inserting them.. )
Man it's so friggin annoying to have to restore my contact book every time the damn google sync does a check.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could just turn off google sync
well it seems like ive turned off google sync and yet it still has this problem. I figure it might be attributed to her having to log into google accounts??? there is a message on the notification bar sometimes that asks her to log into her google account. Could that be it?
Every time it doesn't detect a password/or has the user logged in, will it purge all the contacts? Is there even a safe way of backing up the contacts on SD card and then transferring that file to my HD so i can reformat the phone for her?

FaceBook Contacts Sync

My FaceBook contacts keep giving me an error when trying to sync them? Everything else Twitter Myspace Google Gmail etc etc sync just fine. is anyone else having this issue? Can someone please force a sync and see for me its driving me insane I rely on that for my contacts
rjmjr69 said:
My FaceBook contacts keep giving me an error when trying to sync them? Everything else Twitter Myspace Google Gmail etc etc sync just fine. is anyone else having this issue? Can someone please force a sync and see for me its driving me insane I rely on that for my contacts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have found that you must sync through contacts instead of settings for it to actually connect and sync/link them. Go to contacts ->Menu ->Accounts ->Add Account. Then add an "Integrated Contact Account" at the top. Once it's added, click on Menu-> Get Friends.
VassagoX said:
I have found that you must sync through contacts instead of settings for it to actually connect and sync/link them. Go to contacts ->Menu ->Accounts ->Add Account. Then add an "Integrated Contact Account" at the top. Once it's added, click on Menu-> Get Friends.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This technique does not work. I have tried every possible way multiple times. Ticking facebook to "get friends" does not even do anything. Doing research about this problem with other phones seems to point toward FB servers as the problem. Pretty much FB = epic fail. I have only gotten my FB contacts to sync twice but it never updated - one was right when I got the phone but did not like the epic syncing 390430.39 contacts to my gmail (since there is no option to choose what to sync or even what groups to export!!! annoying i decided to do a hard reset). I had my fb contacts sync one more on my 3rd hard reset but i had to do yet another HR to clear a notification error due to conflicting apps. Now I am about to do my 5th. FML!
I wish FB would actually announce their issues
my voice search has stopped working other than opening browser to google. no calls, no music search, no nothing. apparently you have to sync ur contacts with google for the voice search to analyze your contacts to find the one to call. You can not have them stored to your phone group. switched all my contacts over to my google group and nothing happened. I was hoping maybe it would and that would also be why fb would not sync. guess not.
Mine synced today after turning on 4g for awhile.
richabi said:
This technique does not work. I have tried every possible way multiple times. Ticking facebook to "get friends" does not even do anything. Doing research about this problem with other phones seems to point toward FB servers as the problem. Pretty much FB = epic fail. I have only gotten my FB contacts to sync twice but it never updated - one was right when I got the phone but did not like the epic syncing 390430.39 contacts to my gmail (since there is no option to choose what to sync or even what groups to export!!! annoying i decided to do a hard reset). I had my fb contacts sync one more on my 3rd hard reset but i had to do yet another HR to clear a notification error due to conflicting apps. Now I am about to do my 5th. FML!
I wish FB would actually announce their issues
my voice search has stopped working other than opening browser to google. no calls, no music search, no nothing. apparently you have to sync ur contacts with google for the voice search to analyze your contacts to find the one to call. You can not have them stored to your phone group. switched all my contacts over to my google group and nothing happened. I was hoping maybe it would and that would also be why fb would not sync. guess not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't sound like a FB issue as mine synced immediately after doing what I outlined and has stayed since.
think it was coincidence
I think you trying that technique and getting it to work was just timing. I just checked to see if I can add contacts from my FB and it is the first it let me in a week trying every day. Has to be server side. People from other carriers and phones were reporting the same issue...
richabi said:
I think you trying that technique and getting it to work was just timing. I just checked to see if I can add contacts from my FB and it is the first it let me in a week trying every day. Has to be server side. People from other carriers and phones were reporting the same issue...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
People reported success with this technique on other forums too, where going through the actual settings didn't work for them. IDK, it's whatever...
I'm sort of having a similar problem, except with MySpace, I haven't been able to log in since I got the phone. Any suggestions? I've tried it on both wifi & 3g (no 4g where I live) have flashed different roms and gotten the same result. Any ideas?

[Q] Duplicating contacts

Hi guys,
I have to say, since I bought the Wildfire I'm amazingly unhappy.
This phone is seriously ****.
It's slow, it freezes, it crashes, it reboots by itself.
Today I tried to do a factory reset.
I used MyBackup to do a backup of everything.
Obviously it was a failure: it didn't save the apps, so now I have to reinstall everything by myself. It didn't save the data of the apps. I lost nothing important, only the data of some stupid game, but I lost it. It saved apparently all my data and settings.
I restored the contacts and now I have another problem.
They are duplicated. I delete from my gmail accounts the duplicates, but they are still there on the phone. And the ****ing phone synchronizes again all the contacts to my gmail account. And over and over and over.
Is there any solution to this problem beside removing manually on my phone? There are more than 300 duplicates!
Turn auto sync off... Is that so hard? As for the slowness, nothing wrong about mine or most other peoples phones.
When youre restoring your contacts make sure you only list to display one of your accounts e.g your gmail acc
This is obviously a user end problem and not the phone.
Turning off Auto sync doesn't fix the problem. It just avoids the problem. I already did it!!!
In this way, I will not able to sync anymore my contacts to Gmail since as soon as I started autosync again it starts again to sync in only one direction!
Yes sure, an end user problem caused by the lack of functions of the phone.
And for the slowness....probably you missed all the comments about people overclocking and complaining about it.
The overclocking complaints aren't about the phone being slow, its just not working on some sense roms. And imo the phone has all the necessary functions. Perhaps you should get it fixed.
Whenever i feel my wildfire is sluggish, i back up the phone, do a full factory reset and flush a new rom. Makes a huge difference. Sadly i still havent figured how to solve the duplicated..... no quadriplicated contacts that appear.
i think you guys should do a factory reset, add all your contacts once, back them up to sd card, and then when you install a rom, don't sync your contacts, just import them from the sd card file.
although i haven't had any issues with duplicates with syncing my contacts anyway. :S
Must admit the phonebook setup is a bit pish on the Android system, it tries to link everything together when all you want is just a simple phonebook with peoples numbers and emails.
So i've spent ages deleting all duplicates and unlinking ****. Finally after a number of hours it resembles a simple phonebook with people linked only to there facebook accounts and nothing else. Sometimes the software just tries too hard!
Did you sync facebook contacts ? I would recommend you to not do so. Facebook gave me quite a problem with contacts when i just got the phone.
Other than that, google contacts sync works just fine for me.
Finally the continuous synchronization stopped. I was able to remove duplicates from my gmail account. But....surprisingly several contacts disappeared. I used the "merge duplicates" function on Gmail.
Now I installed again the backup I did. My phone book is not synchronizing at all with gmail. Moreover, something else happened. It is not synchronizing with Facebook. When I go to view it says Facebook for HTC sense 0 contacts. But if you go do Online directory, they are there! But I cannot see to link in the contacts.
Oh yeah, obviously I still have 4 contacts per person.

Contact pictures disappeared!

Not sure what when wrong, but I no longer have any contact pictures, only Skype contacts have pictures now. In google pictures are still in place, they simply disappeared from the phone contacts. I have a strong suspicion that this happened after recent update of Skype... Anyone faced a similar problem? And how shell I restore pictures now???
gorbick said:
Not sure what when wrong, but I no longer have any contact pictures, only Skype contacts have pictures now. In google pictures are still in place, they simply disappeared from the phone contacts. I have a strong suspicion that this happened after recent update of Skype... Anyone faced a similar problem? And how shell I restore pictures now???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried to go to Contacts(People) and checked on settings which contacts are displayed? If that's not the case try to unlink your Gmail account from your phone...but that means you would have to reset.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
I tried to go to People->Accounts-> chose my google account. There was an option to force syncing. It showed me that everything is synced now. Yet there are no pictures!
gorbick said:
I tried to go to People->Accounts-> chose my google account. There was an option to force syncing. It showed me that everything is synced now. Yet there are no pictures!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to go in to Settings>Accounts>Google, then select your account. Then hit your menu in top right corner and remove the account.
Then you re add it and it will sync up.
However removing the account will delete all messages,and other data from it.
So if you want to save the data or messages better back them up first.
somehow I was hoping there is a more elegant way of sorting this out....
This skype, it only brings more and more trouble with every next version, should have removed it years ago!
somehow I was hoping there is a more elegant way of sorting this out............
well:
1) Go to GMail contacts in your computer (not on the phone).
2) Select ALL your contacts or only My Contacts and mark them as "Starred in Android".Or even better: make a new label lets call it "repair" and mark all the contacts/my contacts as "repair"
3) The previous step forces Google to sync the contacts in GMail with the phone (with picture and all). It will take a while depending on the number of contacts that you have, so be patient and leave the phone alone while it is doing the sync.
4) After some 10 or 15 minutes (I have about 300 contacts), all the pics of GMail contacts appeared on my phone
5) Now, go you may to GMail contacts again and select ALL your contacts and uncheck the "Starred in Android" or "repair" option. Again, this will take a few minutes while GMail syncs with your phone.
I prefer to use only "My contacts" as it will be logical thats the only place with pictures in it.
----
By the way. I have the idea that, as soon as you restart Skype on your Android your pictures dissappear again.
Be very careful with contacts on your phone who lost there picture. If you edit one of them on your phone it will synch to Google of course without the picture.
------
So no Skype to be used?
Thanks Microsoft. But I fully understand that it is very difficult for such a small company to make decent software.
P.s. A part of this solution I stole from another forum. Unfortunately cannot find anymore where I got it from to give the full credits to.
I just copied it in my Evernote.
P.s. 2: I have a galaxy II so I suppose this thread should be under Android software.
That was a good advise indeed! I managed to restore contact pictures. Then I started skype again - and now I have no more pictures again. So I can definitely say this problem is due to skype... So now I have dilemma: either live without contact pictures, or live without skype... Nice
gorbick said:
That was a good advise indeed! I managed to restore contact pictures. Then I started skype again - and now I have no more pictures again. So I can definitely say this problem is due to skype... So now I have dilemma: either live without contact pictures, or live without skype... Nice
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed, Skype destroys the pictures.
However strange that not many people complain about this.
herpi said:
Indeed, Skype destroys the pictures.
However strange that not many people complain about this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes, it is really strange that this problem is not bothering anyone... Or is it just me who have this problem?? I tried to google it, thinking that maybe there is a solution somewhere in skype settings. But I could not find anything! For the moment I just disabled contact syncing with skype via telephone settings. Let's see if it helps...
gorbick said:
Oh yes, it is really strange that this problem is not bothering anyone... Or is it just me who have this problem?? I tried to google it, thinking that maybe there is a solution somewhere in skype settings. But I could not find anything! For the moment I just disabled contact syncing with skype via telephone settings. Let's see if it helps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disable Skype contact synching! That's seems to solve it. Great idea. never thought about that option.
Huib
Even I had the same issue and had to disable Skype syncing so that i get the pictures back.
How can MS release the update without testing it properly!
Also, there is nobody on the internet talking about it except some few of us...i don;t know why aren't they bothered at all...as good as nobody noticed it...
seaheye documents
herpi said:
Indeed, Skype destroys the pictures.
However strange that not many people complain about this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Happened to me too yesterday. Microsoft..yey!
Quick fix with ON/OFF starred contacts in android.
Definitely stop syncing Skype contacts! :good:
There's already a thread by me about it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2351825
I wasn't sure it was caused by Skype until just now, when I found this thread and similar thread on Skype forums - http://community.skype.com/t5/Andro...ing-all-non-Skype-contact-photos/td-p/1735257
And so do many others, probably... They don't blame Skype, I think.
i actually have the same problem.( GALAXY S4 ) it started about a week ago, contact pictures decided to dissappear, after i updated skype, im gonna try to uncheck the contact sync for skype and will report back
Sure - Skype
Same problem - HTC Desire X. After installing Skype 4 update all contacts photos (Google) disappeared. Syncing via Starred, after Skype sync photos again disappeared. Uninstall Skype 4, install 3.2 = contacts photos OK, but Skype contats synced only cca half... and without avatars.
gorbick said:
That was a good advise indeed! I managed to restore contact pictures. Then I started skype again - and now I have no more pictures again. So I can definitely say this problem is due to skype... So now I have dilemma: either live without contact pictures, or live without skype... Nice
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, I just couldn't live without skype.
But you can alter to Whats app or viber.
Recently I use Wechat. That's a instant messaging app from a Chinese firm. Convenient but still Skype holds most users.
Poly136 said:
Same problem - HTC Desire X. After installing Skype 4 update all contacts photos (Google) disappeared. Syncing via Starred, after Skype sync photos again disappeared. Uninstall Skype 4, install 3.2 = contacts photos OK, but Skype contats synced only cca half... and without avatars.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try to change the settings IN Skype where you can opt for NOT synchronizing contacts?
That should be enough.
Skype works fine with that option switched of..
And it will show all your existing Skype contacts.
Huib

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