tmobile contacts constant syncing

[Turbo Brian]

so the wife has been whining that her battery sux. i told her she was probably running something that was sucking up the juice and she's a talker and a texter so i just assumed she was over using it or something. so last night it flat out died at dinner so when i plugged it in i went to do some digging. i noticed the sync icon in the status bar. ok, phone just booted, maybe thats normal. i looked at screen timeout and apps installed etc. i notice its still syncing... i look at teh sync settings and i see all kinds of stuff being synced. way more than i have (i have a nexus one). i start checking each one to see the sync interval. when i get to tmobile contacts it says its syncing. its been syncing for several minutes at this point. i stop it. i do a sync now and again, it just continuously syncs. i have turned this off completely now. ill find out tonight how much it helped. what exactly is it syncing and is it supposed to be a continuous sync? i dont have that on my phone.

 

[stryder06]

From what I understand about the syncing, it's suppose to update the information for apps set to sync. If her contacts are synced with facebook then it's probably checking for facebook updates. You can check Running services under Settings -> Applications. I did that just a while ago and saw that I had a few apps running, that I hadn't even started, that had been running for a few days now.

 

[Turbo Brian]

no, there are entries for every app that syncs in the phone's settings. there is one for facebook, twitter, news, weather, gmail, tmobile contacts and a couple others i dont recall off the top of my head. they all have their own sync intervals set (every X hours). the tmobile contacts ones seems to be continuous though.

 

[cre8ivenail]

This is a bug that is supposed to be fixed with an upcoming update. Not all phones do it, and some phones do it randomly while other do it all the time.

 

[Jaan_Black]

I see the same thing happening but it's with the gmail accounts...that icon is at the top of the screen and when I stop the sync, I won't receive emails. I am looking into the 1400 mAh Li-ion battery for this thing and if I can, I want the 1600 but I need it to be official, not some generic, bulky thing that might kill the phone...I actually love the phone minus the slightly incapable battery but I am notorious for carrying every charger I need with me anyway

 

[cre8ivenail]

IMHO I would wait for the update. I have talked to many T-Mobile techs and people who actually work in the stores. I think the battery drain will slow down when this issue is fixed.
I also learned that it is bad on a battery if you keep it plugged in to a charger and I know this is "old school" but I went through the batterrry conditioning steps and I have seen some improvement with battery life.

A tech also told me to turn off wifi (I left mine on all the time) as it does not improve all of the things that I thought it did, i.e. phone preformance.
He told me that I should only use wifi when surfing the web, talking on phone when reception is poor.

I thought wifi helped me receive mms pictures faster but he said that mms does not use the internet for transmission.

Bottom line, wifi is a big drainer and should be used wisely.
I'm not implying that you are guilty of these things, I am merely sharing my story to help some one else who may stumble upon this thread.

 

[Turbo Brian]

hmm. interesting. like i said, ive turned it off and last night after a full day of use (even longer than normal, as she got up to leave at 430am rather than the usual 830) it still had battery left when i looked at it about 7pm. much better. guess we'll just leave that sync off which i dont think is a big deal. i dont really know what it does except maybe backup her contacts to tmobile or something.

 

[chadmd23]

Just to clarify, the TMO sync, sends your Faves to TMO's web backup. I think if you get the TMO mobile backup from the market, it does all of your contacts. Unless you change your favs often, I suggest turning it off.

 

[smakmauz]

Yeah I'm having this syncing issue too!!

It happens to me everyday. All I have set to sync is just my google gmail and thats all... i don't use faves or twitter or any of that crap and I just my contacts synced with gmail. I think gmail only syncs up once a day other than the push messages that get set to the phone and it just seems to get stuck. the sync icon is there but its not actually doing anything.... you can tell because the 3g indicator isn't doing anything. when I go into the account and sync tab and click 'cancel sync' and then go to 'google' and hit sync now manually it clears it up and doesn't usually happen until the next morning.

so this is a known issue?? and supposed to be fixed with this upcoming update?? Not a real deal breaker for me because I still love this phone but its still very annoying.

 

[nvillamob]

I turned my tmobile syncing off. Two reasons: 1. it tries to sync all the time. 2. it doesn't actually connect to t-mobile.

When I have turned it on in the past, it just times out b/c it doesn't connect w/ tmo online. I tried to sync directly from the website and it timed out from there as well. need to call cust svc about it this weekend. it must've synced when i first turned on the phone b/c there are still a ton of contacts that I've since deleted from my online acct.

 

[Kittyfae]

I have the syncing turned off, but it still tries to sync. This happens mostly when it is plugged in, but not all the time. Is there a way around this?

Also, something that I have noticed is that the handset just says it's own phone number is "unknown." Is that an issue with the phone, causing my issues, or with the SIM card, or perhaps both? (I noticed that some N1 users had a similar issue.)

 

[clitrenta]

Even if you turn off T-Mo sync, it will still try once a day. For what it's worth, it does sync better over WiFi. I just keep mine turned off and if I see the sync icon on (usually early morning), I just go in and cancel the sync. I have found however, that if I leave my WiFi on at night while charging, the sync icon will not be on in the morning. For the record, even though I had T-Mo sync turned off, I found my BEST battery improvement when I turned off the sync for Facebook and Twitter. Now I only use auto sync for Google and weather and my battery lasts a very long time (moderate use usually). I refresh/sync Facebook and Twitter when I go into them which is usually a few times a day.

 

[NxJ]

I just started having the same syncing problems with my phone yesterday and I've had my phone now for 3 weeks. Its stuck syncing Google Calender and Google Mail. I dont have facebook or twitter to sync. It just started happening yesterday and I dont know why.
Is this suppose to be fixed with the Froyo update? If so, it'll probably be a while till it comes out. I'm already annoyed with this. I depend on my Gmail to be synced.

 

[nvillamob]

I contact cust svc about this and they told me that I needed to download a t-mobile app called "mobile backup." was told that this would fix the problem. installed the app, ran it, but still won't sync. frustrating.

 

[noonehereyet]

so the wife has been whining that her battery sux. i told her she was probably running something that was sucking up the juice and she's a talker and a texter so i just assumed she was over using it or something. so last night it flat out died at dinner so when i plugged it in i went to do some digging. i noticed the sync icon in the status bar. ok, phone just booted, maybe thats normal. i looked at screen timeout and apps installed etc. i notice its still syncing... i look at teh sync settings and i see all kinds of stuff being synced. way more than i have (i have a nexus one). i start checking each one to see the sync interval. when i get to tmobile contacts it says its syncing. its been syncing for several minutes at this point. i stop it. i do a sync now and again, it just continuously syncs. i have turned this off completely now. ill find out tonight how much it helped. what exactly is it syncing and is it supposed to be a continuous sync? i dont have that on my phone.

Honestly if your read the specs on the web site you would have seen how poor the MT slide battery life is i mean they are saying AT BEST you get 4 hours talk time... (Unsupported Browser ) not much you can do but the same fixes used on the old G1. Turn of 3g, wifi, gps etc unless your actually using them also disable background sync and whatever parts of the sync you are not actually using... dim the screen etc....

As for the sync it does everything from your calander to your contacts to whatever else you might have tied into your downloaded apps with also make sure you have "share with google" turned off as that updates google constantly too...

 

[Robinelli]

I didn't read all of the responses but I had the same problem and I posted about it in the lounge a couple of days ago. I copied my post and here you go:
I had some trouble with my contacts doubling, then tripling. I could delete them on my contacts but they were still showing in the text message menu. I spoke with customer service and they couldn't help. I went in to a store and met a really knowledgeable guy who helped me out. I thought I'd share some of his tips here.

For duplicate contacts:
1) Tmobile sync and Gmail sync FIGHT each other. Both should not be running at the same time. Turn off both for the moment. (You'll turn on gmail again in step 3).
2) Go into gmail and select contacts. Clean up the contact list by deleting the duplicates.
3) Go into the phone and turn on the GMail sync. Leave the TMobile sync off. Do not use it.

For battery life:
1) Install the GPS on/off toggle app. Put it on your main screen. Keep GPS off unless using a map or navigation. Easily toggle on when using those functions
2) Turn off Tmobile sync (already done if you did the above). Turn off all automatic syncs that you don't use. Turn syncing to manual or the longest interval allowed between updates.

I HTH! I am going to post this in this forum as a separate topic to help others w/ the same issue.