Help S7 gmail contacts won't sync with desktop

[Stavia]

Hi guys. This is my first post so please forgive me if I am clumsy explaining things.
Have a Samsung Galaxy s7 for 2 months now. Everything fine until today after some massive updates which happened when I deleted the keyboard data from the application list menu and restored yesterday's Samsung data. I did this because I have just installed LastPass today and the Samsung keyboard saved my LastPass login password lol!! Which I thought was terribly insecure.

My Gmail on the phone no longer gives me options of email addresses when I start typing in the recipient field. To send an email I have to click on the three little dots and add from contacts and then it gives me a list of EVERYTHING. Every single contact ever. Sigh.
I have been trawling through the forums and tried 1.synching several times. 2. Rebooting my phone several times. 3. Restored contacts from backup on my desktop from yesterday and resynched my S7 Gmail contacts. 4. Tried the adding stars to some contacts on the desktop "work about" I saw on the forum and otherwise making changes to contacts on the desktop and resyncing. 5. Tried the Samsung email app with my gmail account and same thing - slightly better in that it gives a searchable list but is still trawling through all my phone contacts. 6. Ran an app that was recommended by another user on the forum. 7. Checked that my settings were as recommended on the boards but I may be missing something obvious.

Did I break it or is this an inevitable bug? Is it a LastPass conflict?
Please can someone take pity on a helpless newbie.
I'd hate to have to hard reset.
Or live with the current situation....
On the bright side if I can remember how the email address starts the Samsung keyboard remembers the rest!!

 

[El Presidente]

Which Android version are you using? I'm presuming Marshmallow (6.x)?

I'd a similar issue with Gmail and it turns out Gmail hadn't been granted permission to access my contacts. I'm not sure where the option would be on the S7, but try Settings -> Apps -> Gmail -> Permissions and see if Gmail is allowed to access your contacts.

 

[Stavia]

Yip marshmallow. And you are a GENIUS!!
How on earth did that happen????
I swear it wasn't me .....looks around.....
Thank you thank you thank you

 

[El Presidente]

Glad you're sorted!

Marshmallow introduced granular permissions, so apps will only ask for permission when they need something. However, for some reason, I've found Gmail doesn't so the permission to use storage/contacts etc has to be granted manually.

Catches me out every time I flash a new ROM.

 

[Stavia]

Makes complete sense now. Very interesting.
My next logical amateur step would have been to uninstall and install again but of course it wouldn't let me.
This is a fantastic community. I have lurked previously