Contacts not syncing between new Galaxy Note 9 and Samsung Gear S3 watch

[Android Central Question]

I just replaced my old note phone with a new note 9. When I connect my Samsung gear 3 smart watch to the new phones my contacts do not sync (can only get about 10 out of 300+ to transfer). This watch worked fine with the older phone so that tells me there must be something in the settings for contacts that is not allowing the watch to communicate with the phone for contacts. I have adjusted multiple settings and tried re booting and resetting several times and nothing seems to work. Has anyone experienced this issue and if so what settings adjustment fixed the situation? I'm trying to avoid going to the local Verizon store. Thank you

 

[B. Diddy]

I moved this to the Gear S3 forum for more specific traffic.

 

[mcgowen_fran]

I finally got contacts on my gears3 from note 9. Backup contacts from note 9 to Samsung. Unpair phone and watch. Turn off bluetooth on both devices. Uninstall Galaxy Gear. Clear cache...phone maintenance app.
Turn the watch on, then the phone. Turn on bluetooth on both. Reinstall Galaxy Gear. Connect devices. My contacts are on the gear!. Turn off sync for watch...may not be necessary but I did. Hope this works for you.

 

[Rob Heiser]

It is looking like this is a common issue across all carriers. My Gear S3 is not showing most contacts since the recent update in March. Also, I just noticed it isn't reporting Sleep in the Health app, either on the watch OR to my Samsung S10. I had the phone just long enough to be able to say ALL contacts were showing on my watch and it was reporting Sleep time correctly prior to the update.
Does anyone know if Samsung is working to fix this?

 

[Nyvideo]

I've talked to Samsung and they are aware of the issue, but don't have an estimated time for an update. They suggest bringing it to a repair location to get a firmware refresh to go back to the older version with working contacts. The problem with that is the Wear up will keep saying updates available and how do you know when it's safe to update to a fixed version without ending up in the same place!

 

[daswooski]

I've talked to Samsung and they are aware of the issue, but don't have an estimated time for an update. They suggest bringing it to a repair location to get a firmware refresh to go back to the older version with working contacts. The problem with that is the Wear up will keep saying updates available and how do you know when it's safe to update to a fixed version without ending up in the same place!

I lost my contacts as well and I really liked using the 4-Contact Widget but I cannot choose the Contacts to fill it now ....my watch only shows a handful of available contacts to choose from...this is ridiculous.

 

[Giantsandpiper]

Next time you talk to Samsung can you have them switch to Wear OS...

 

[pizza_pablo]

I have one particular contact that periodically falls off of both my Gear S3 and my Gear Sport. Sometimes a watch reboot foxes it. Aubergine I have to do the Samsung Cloud contacts backup > delete > restore.
Usually, I just wait a day or two and he comes back. Odd behavior.