Droid 4 contacts sync failure

[drjcolby]

I have had this problem with multiple phones including my previous Droid 2.
My Contacts have continuously failed to sync. When I get a new phone, my old contacts from verizon's backup assistant will load (contacts from 5 years ago or so), facebook contacts will load, but gmail contacts will not. When I try to force a sync, I get a 'Sync is experiencing problems. It will be back shortly.' message.

I have tried a few fixes I have found in the forum, with no luck. Deleting the data and resyncing doesn't work. I cannot find a file for contacts on the phone.

My phone is not rooted, but I was attempting to back up my phone on my computer to save pics/vidoes so I could do a factory reset because it was acting weird and I realized that I could not find a folder for contacts. I found an app to export my contacts as an excel file and that worked, so I have everything at least.

This time, I told the phone to ignore backup assistant so I could know exactly what was coming through from gmail. The answer was NOTHING. All my phone has now is the basic verizon phone numbers.

Since the problem has existed through multiple phones and multiple factory resets, I am considering opening a new gmail account to see if that one will work. Perhaps it is somthing wrong with my gmail? Calendar is syncing normally, tho. I went to the verizon store a few years ago to try to get help and that just sucked away a few hours of my life. :-\

Any suggestions? It is getting really old having to put in all my contacts. I am not very tech savvy, so I hesitate to root my phone, but if I need to I will.

TIA!
Jessica

OK- I just created a new gmail account and put in some contacts, then added account to phone and it will not sync with the new account either. emails are downloaded, calendar works both ways.... this is just so... weird and frustrating.
again,
thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! That's frustrating. I've seen this issue crop up occasionally in the forums, but the cause isn't always identifiable. When this happens to me, I go to Settings>Accounts-Google>[Google account], uncheck the Google app that isn't syncing properly, then check it again, and it often syncs correctly. But since this seems to be a systematic problem for you, my guess is that probably won't work.

What other phones did the sync fail on? Were they older phones, or pretty new ones (i.e., running Jellybean or above, preferably 4.2 or higher)? If none of them were newer phones, you might consider asking a trusted friend if you could test out your account on his/her newer Android phone (like a Galaxy S4/S5, Moto X, HTC One, or Nexus 5, for example). See what happens if you try to add your Google account to that phone.

 

[drjcolby]

thanks for the reply.
It started with my Droid 2 a few years ago (4years?) which I got to replace my Treo when the Droid 2 first came out.
When Droid 4 came out, I got one and I have had to replace it once because of water damage.

I can try to add it to my husband's droid 4 and see if it will sync on his.

OMG. Well, B Diddy, you fixed it.

I had downloaded Contacts Sync Fix to see if it would work and it didn't. It kept giving me a 'fake systems group' message.
I happen to be at work tonight and connected my phone to wifi. I ran Sync Fix again and it gave me the same error, I tried the 'uncheck contacts' in my google account (again- while I was writing this reply), and then sync fix popped up with a 'too many deletes' message. and suddenly all my contacts are there and they seem to all be correct. I hadn't added any contacts onto my phone yet because I was trying to trouble shoot this.

bizarre. I am so happy that the hours of reading online resulted in a positive outcome.

B. Diddy must have magical powers.
thanks,
Jessica

 

[B. Diddy]

It's all voodoo

Posted via Android Central App.
Please excuse any typos or autocorrect derps.

 

[drjcolby]

OK, I am just posting this in case it helps some one else in the future. I was trying to think of everything I did before my sync actually worked. I went to My Contacts on gmail on my laptop and I had noticed that there were 8 subgroup folders of 'my contacts' that were empty. I also noticed that I had one imported contact that had not been merged with my other contacts. I told gmail to merge it. perhaps this imported v-card was the hang up? It was from over a year ago, but wouldn't account for the ultra long term problems I have had, but then perhaps there were just different problems that seemed to merge into one because I was not educated enough in the problem to recognize that there were multiple issues.

who knows. magic.