Syncing contacts

[jerethi]

I have a question about how contact syncing works from multiple Android devices.

Here's my basic situation. Earlier today, I used my phone to change the name of one of my contacts. This contact is synced with my Google account, not stored on my phone.

I later went to my Nexus 7 tablet to review the contact. To my surprise, the contact's name hadn't changed, and still displayed the old name. To see if my devices are properly syncing, I added some random text to the "notes" field to see if that would sync. I went to my phone, and, happily, I saw the added text.

So, my question is, how exactly does contact syncing work across multiple android devices? How come one edit showed up, but the other didn't?

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[Aquila]

When the second one changed, did the first?

 

[jerethi]

When the second one changed, did the first?

No, unfortunately.

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[Aquila]

Okay, that's weird. Generally the API facilitate a 2 way sync between the account (generic) and the device. As such, changing a Google Contact will push the modification to the device, when an account sync occurs on that device. You may be able to force a sync to see if that corrects it (settings>accounts>Google>(your google account) (green sync button)) on both devices, first the one with the modification then the other. I haven't been able to reproduce your issue with my phone and Nexus 7 so I'm checking some sites but so far no luck on an identical issue.

 

[jerethi]

Thanks for your responses and help. This is an odd issue. It does seem like some of the fields are syncing (the notes field, for example) but changing the name doesn't, apparently.

For what it's worth, I do see that the contact has updated when I view it in gmail (although it took some time for that to happen). Also, I am using haxsync to sync Facebook pictures to my Google contacts as well, although I don't see why this would cause any issues.

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[jerethi]

Do updates to a Google account from one device sync to another? In other words, if I update a contact's name on my phone, will that update necessarily show up on my tablet?

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[Aquila]

Thanks for your responses and help. This is an odd issue. It does seem like some of the fields are syncing (the notes field, for example) but changing the name doesn't, apparently.

For what it's worth, I do see that the contact has updated when I view it in gmail (although it took some time for that to happen). Also, I am using haxsync to sync Facebook pictures to my Google contacts as well, although I don't see why this would cause any issues.

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Do you have the haxsync contact linked to the other? It's possible the name change is tied to that and not the linked Google account, depending on which direction that link goes.

Do updates to a Google account from one device sync to another? In other words, if I update a contact's name on my phone, will that update necessarily show up on my tablet?

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Each device syncs to the generic account independently. So your phone is synced to the Google server version of your contacts which links to your tablet separately. Given both syncs in both directions, the files on all three should be identical without any other considerations (which may be present).

A good test might be to change it through the web browser, then sync each device and see what happens. If it doesn't update on one or the other, it's probably related to another service, such as haxsync.

 

[jerethi]

How do I know which is the Google server version? This appears to be the problem. I tested another contact and the sync worked perfectly. So, it seems I'm trying to update a contact that is not the Google server version.

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[Aquila]

How do I know which is the Google server version? This appears to be the problem. I tested another contact and the sync worked perfectly. So, it seems I'm trying to update a contact that is not the Google server version.

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Check it out on a browser here:
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#contacts

 

[jerethi]

I'm still experiencing odd syncing issues. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I have multiple Google contacts with the same name. I think what I might just end up doing is cleaning up my contacts so there's only one contact card with all phone and email info (rather than having separate cards that I "join" on my phone) and see if that clears this up.

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[Aquila]

I'm still experiencing odd syncing issues. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I have multiple Google contacts with the same name. I think what I might just end up doing is cleaning up my contacts so there's only one contact card with all phone and email info (rather than having separate cards that I "join" on my phone) and see if that clears this up.

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Sorry I'm not able to better directly help, I wasn't able to reproduce it myself. I did have a couple other people look at this and I haven't heard back, but I'm guessing you're probably troubleshooting it exactly the same way we would. I'm kinda hoping an expert from elsewhere in the forums jumps in here and clarifies it all for us Please do post back if you get it solved!

 

[B. Diddy]

I agree that joined contacts is probably the problem. Contacts that are joined on your device remain separate on your main GMail account (and possibly other accounts like Facebook and Yahoo). So when you changed the name on your device, you may have actually changed one of the multiple contacts, but not all. You'd have to search your contacts on your desktop for the change, but I bet it's there somewhere.

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[patruns]

My contacts all sync over various devices. Not always immediately though. Timing is everything. Phone sync are fairly quick as I am always connected. My tablets take a little longer since they are only connected when in a wifi area. As to cleanup, I always found it easiest to just sit at my computer and go to the Gmail website and do it all from there.

 

[jerethi]

This morning, using a desktop browser, I cleaned up various duplicate contact cards and generally cleaned up my Google contacts (to avoid having to use the "join" feature on my android phone).

Everything seemed to sync properly across all devices EXCEPT for the contact I had wanted to change that prompted my original post! There were different names for this contact on my phone than on my tablet and computer (the tablet and computer were the same), but other fields for this contact (e.g., the "notes" field) were synced properly across all devices. I finally went ahead and deleted this contact and recreated it.

Everything works as it should now.

Some thoughts on all of this: it seems that somehow either Google or my phone thought that the name field was properly synced, even though it wasn't. This could explain why other fields synced instantly and properly, but not the name. I also suspect all the duplicate contact cards may have had something to do with this issue as well, so merging those through gmail contacts seemed to help. I do not suspect haxsync was causing the problem.

So, in the end, problem solved. Thanks, everyone, for all the thoughts and troubleshooting help!

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[jerethi]

OP here. Since I have admitted difficulty with not tinkering with things even after I've supposedly resolved them, I have a small update to this thread.

I think the actual culprit here was the "Mark as default" option on my Galaxy S3. As the name suggests, it's a way of specifying "default" options for a particular contact; mobile # or home #, for example. As I am using Haxsync, when I tap on the "Mark as default" option, one of the selections that I can select a default option for is "Name" - I can chose either the name as it appears on my Google contact -OR- the Haxsync name (i.e., the facebook name). I'm virtually certain that, for the contact I was having troubles with, I had selected the Haxsync name as the default name. So, when I went to edit the name on my tablet or computer, the name change was properly syncing with my Google contact; indeed, I could edit other parts of the contact, and those changes would show up. However, since I had specified a default name for the contact on my phone, changing the name of the Google contact (from anywhere) would not cause the name change to appear on my Galaxy S3 (again, because a different default name had been selected).

Anyway, I doubt this will actually be helpful for someone, but I figured I should post the correct resolution for this.

 

[Aquila]

Glad you got that figured out, thanks for the update!