Had to revert back to my GS3 from an LG G3. Why are the contacts not completely syncing?

[johnnybiggles]

My LG G3 suddenly died... and I had upgraded 2 years ago to it from the Galaxy S3. I recall having to initially sign in to Google, and by doing that, it synced my contacts & apps up and life was good again. The G3 died for no apparent reason, while talking on the phone, and I cannot seem to get it to start back up, even with a new battery. I've heard of motherboard issues with it, so it looks like I'll either need a different one or I'll have to send it back to LG. As for the GS3, it's obviously missing all the contacts I've added to the G3 over the last 2 years. I thought because I originally signed in to my Google account that it stays logged in and syncs periodically by default, since I never turned it off and it worked out when I first set it up. I went into my Google account and there are less contacts listed there than on my GS3...?! The GS3, now that I've reactivated it until I get the G3 back up, show that it synced as recently as today! However, the GS3 has 429 contacts (scrolled all the way down to the bottom), but the account in Google (logged in via PC) shows only 199?? How is that, and where are the rest of my G3 contacts? Google shows most frequent and for some reason, there's an "Other contacts" category and then the main contacts all which add up to 199. WTF? Is there a limit or something??

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! On most phones, when you enter a contact, you can choose to save it to your Google account (which syncs automatically with your Google Contacts in the cloud, assuming you have auto-sync turned on) or your local Phone account (which doesn't sync anywhere -- you have to manually back those up yourself using 3rd party software). There might also be other accounts, like the Samsung account on Samsung phones.

My guess is that all of those missing contacts were entered into the Phone account. Unfortunately, there won't be any easy way to retrieve those contacts, since (a) the G3 seems to be dead, and (b) even if you could access its storage, the local contacts are saved in an SQLite database file in a protected file directory, which means you can't access it unless the phone is rooted. Sorry!

 

[johnnybiggles]

If the motherboard is replaced by LG or a local repair tech, is there any possible chance of preserving any data or those contacts? Are they on some permanent SSD type of internal storage? It seems to just be a power issue. I would expect that it's saved to a config file or storage since if it were RAM memory-based, none of that would come up anyway if the power were removed or if it was shut down. I've read about the LG phone dying randomly because of motherboard issues.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not an expert, but I would guess that replacing the motherboard would lose the contacts, because they'd be saved on one of the memory chips on the motherboard. I don't think technicians can remove those chips easily and transfer them to a new motherboard (or if they could, it would probably cost a lot more).