Contact Sync Issues

[CattieBrie]

I have been having some random issues with my S6 Edge, so I did a factory reset. After doing the restore, I noticed that a couple of important contacts were missing. After trying some different options like removing and re-adding my Google account and doing another factory reset, I am still missing many of the 300-ish contacts that I can see when I log in via my computer. I spent over an hour on a chat with Samsung support last night, and probably an additional half hour on a new chat today - and they couldn't come up with anything to try that I hadn't done. In the end, they told me that my phone needed to be replaced, but it was out of warranty. (It's not, but that's a battle for another day.) I stopped in to Best Buy this afternoon to chat with someone at the Samsung Experience who spent at least another half hour working with my phone. I have more contacts, but I am still missing some vital ones and some of the records are partial. There's a first name but no last name and if I try to use the contact, I get the "Unfortunately, Contacts has stopped." message. Rebooting has not fixed the "Contacts has stopped issue." Has anyone seen a similar issue? If it helps, I am also having a similar issue on my Galaxy Tab S2. I just purchased it, so I should be able to return it if necessary.

Also, I have seen reference to this site for help with contacts issues and Samsung phones, but it no longer works. http://justingale.com/2014/01/fix-contact-sync-problem-samsung-update/ Is anyone familiar with it?

 

[B. Diddy]

As a test, what happens if you remove one of those contacts from your Google Contacts website (on your computer browser), than re-enter the information?

 

[CattieBrie]

So far, nothing has changed. My phone shows the last sync was 10/27 at 10:19 PM, despite turning sync on and off and tapping the arrow circle. My tablet shows a similar date and time with the arrow circle, also despite turning sync on and off and tapping on the arrow circle. All the rest of my Google account shows that it has synced sometime today.

Is this a Google account issue or a device issue? I have access to an old Motorola Droid Maxx that I was going to try to use to see if it will sync properly as a test. Is it worth the time?

 

[B. Diddy]

I've noticed this sync date/time discrepancy from time to time as well, but the odd thing is that most of the time, the information actually does stay synced correctly, despite that discrepancy.

Have you already tried going to the App Manager, selecting Contacts and Contacts Storage, and Clearing Cache/Data from both? Then wait a few minutes for it to resync again.

 

[CattieBrie]

Yes, I have cleared cache and data for both and anything else that looked like it might access my contacts, shut the phone down, and wiped the cache partition before syncing again and still no improvement. I turned on my husband's only Droid Maxx and added my Google account and the same 30-some contacts were the only ones to sync which makes me think that somehow, something, somewhere got corrupted. I have exported my contacts to a .CSV file, deleted them all, and imported them to my "old" Google account with no issues. For now, that account is syncing with my phone just fine and the only issue is that I don't have access to my contacts via Gmail. I'm not sure what my next step is, but I am thinking of importing the .CSV file to my phone into my primary Google account

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[B. Diddy]

Hmm, that sounds like the best move. Before you re-import the contacts into your primary Google account, you may want to completely delete all of the contacts from that account first, so that you don't end up with duplicates of all of them.