Why has my HTC ONE stopped syncing its "People" list with google's "Contacts" list?

[jc1742]

Why has my HTC ONE stopped syncing its "People" list with google's "Contacts" list?

For the first couple of years, the HTC ONE would sync the People list in the phone app with the gmail Contacts list. It worked "out of the box". As of a week or two ago, it no long works, and doesn't give any visible error messages.

I just added a couple of test contacts in both lists, with names starting with "A" so I can quickly find them. I've done everything I know to do a sync, including a USB connection and HTC Sync Manager. It said it was doing a sync, which took about 2 minutes. When it said it was done, I checked both the People and Contact lists, and neither had the two new names I'd added to the other.

I've poked around in the settings, to no avail. Of course, I can't claim to understand everything there. I've also searched Android Forums (and with google), and found lots of questions about this problem, but the answers I've seen have all failed. Usually I can't even find any of the things they say to do, on my HTC ONE or the connected Macbook Pro or at gmail.com via a browser link.

Is there somewhere a clear, step-by-step explanation of what ducks need to be aligned to make it work again?

The phone is an HTC ONE M8; I don't know what other version info might be useful (or how to even find it). I think everything is up to date, but I'm probably wrong about that. ;-)

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: Why has my HTC ONE stopped syncing its "People" list with google's "Contacts" list?

When you add the new contact, is it being saved to your Google account or the local Phone account?

 

[jc1742]

Re: Why has my HTC ONE stopped syncing its "People" list with google's "Contacts" list?

Well, it shows up in my phone's listing. I have no idea what "the local Phone account" might mean. It doesn't show up in the Google "Contacts" list like it used to, but I don't know what "saved to your Google account" means. I've seen claims that google actually supports several kinds of lists of people, but I haven't yet found anything to explains this or how to know which you're using. Documentation on all this seems to be rather sketchy. ;-)

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: Why has my HTC ONE stopped syncing its "People" list with google's "Contacts" list?

When you save a contact, you can choose which account it goes to -- it's typically at the top of the contact edit screen. If you choose your Google account, it gets synced automatically to your Google Contacts in the cloud. Conversely, if you choose the local Phone account, that only gets saved locally, and doesn't back up or sync anywhere.

In the Contacts app, you can usually choose which accounts to display (by tapping Menu>Contacts to Display>Customize). If, for example, you have it set to display only your Google account's contacts, and if you're entering new contacts into the Phone account, then they won't show up in your Contacts app's display, since it's only set to show your Google contacts. On the other hand, if the Contacts app is set to show All Contacts, then they should show up.

Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly, though. When you mention the Gmail Contacts list, are you talking about your Contacts app, or the Gmail app's ability to recognize a contact as soon as you start typing in their email address in the "To:" field? The Gmail app doesn't have its own contacts list -- there's an option in the menu (when you're composing an email) to Add From Contacts, but that will just open your Contacts app.