Help Unfortunately Contacts Has Stopped

Bruce_205 · Mar 6, 2015

I am getting this message frequently when I try to access the dialer OR contacts in order to make a call. It will say "Unfortunately Contacts Has Stopped" and exit out. If I keep tapping them I'll sometimes get this message 5 times or so before it'll finally launch and let me call. This is very serious, without this condition I cannot make a call at all!

My phone is not rooted and uses the stock contacts app. Can anyone help figure out what this is?

Kartzol · Mar 10, 2015

I was facing this issue since I upgraded to Lollipop (5.0). I found the following 2 things to do ...

1. Wipe Cache Partition using the instructions below
2. Clear out Google+ updates & stop its notifications

1st option did not help but after clearing Google+ updates, I have not had it for the past 3 hours(earlier I was getting the error every 15-20 mins.
Note here that once you clear Google+, you wont be able to sync your photos, etc if you are using it .. for me, the error was more irritating. This until Android folks find a better fix

***************************************************************************************

Wipe cache partition

If the phone is not working correctly, you may need to master reset it and also clear the cache partition. These two resets clear different parts of the phone storage. Unlike a master reset, wiping the cache partition does not delete your personal data.

To wipe the cache partition, follow these steps:

Turn off the device.
Press and hold the following three buttons at the same time:
Volume Up key
Home key
Power key
When the phone vibrates, let go of the Power key but continue to press and hold the Volume Up key and theHome key.
When the Android System Recovery screen appears, release the Volume Up and Home keys.
Press the Volume Down key to highlight 'wipe cache partition.'
Press the Power key to select.
When the wipe cache partition is complete, 'Reboot system now' is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device

Clear Google+ Updates

App manager
Google+
Uninstall updates
Disable notifications
So far 24hrs without the contacts stopped popup

Bruce_205 · Mar 10, 2015

Could my issue be due to a lack of RAM? I noticed today that I had only like 50mb of RAM free. All the processes were using 800mb or so!

Kartzol · Mar 11, 2015

Today I ended up updating Google+ by mistake & the error came back after almost 23 hours ... as soon as I uninstalled the Google+ updates, it stopped.

Any idea if this is a generic Google+ app issue with Lollipop or specific to Samsung phones?

Bruce_205 · Mar 11, 2015

Well my phone is a Moto Droid Razr Maxx HD and I do not have Lollipop. I uninstalled all the Google+ updates and now a whole day it has not shown that error! In the Play Store, how do I hide updates for Google+ so that it won't update?

seVer · Mar 12, 2015

I suggest changing the auto update settings in the play store to not auto update. that way you have control over it.

Bruce_205 · Mar 14, 2015

That's the way I have it. Nothing auto-updates but they all show in the list of available updates. I'd like to hide it from that list.

DStreet323 · Mar 18, 2015

I get this error in log cat I have the same issue on my note 2.
03-18 09:27:02.065 9288-9288/com.android.contacts E/AndroidRuntime﹕ FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.android.contacts, PID: 9288
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.android.contacts.detail.ContactDetailFragment.buildEntries(ContactDetailFragment.java:2009)
at com.android.contacts.detail.ContactDetailFragment.bindData(ContactDetailFragment.java:1623)
at com.android.contacts.detail.ContactDetailFragment.setData(ContactDetailFragment.java:1405)
at com.android.contacts.detail.ContactDetailLayoutController.showContactWithoutUpdates(ContactDetailLayoutController.java:641)
at com.android.contacts.detail.ContactDetailLayoutController.setContactData(ContactDetailLayoutController.java:468)
at com.android.contacts.activities.ContactDetailActivity$6$1.run(ContactDetailActivity.java:675)
at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:733)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:146)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5602)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1283)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1099)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Lars · Apr 7, 2015

I'll add my vote to uninstalling g+. Both my rhdm and employees droid maxx immediately fixed fc on contacts by doing this.

seVer · Apr 7, 2015

Chiming in again... Facebook was giving me fits (crashing TouchWiz) so I removed it. No contacts crashing and phone runs a ton better. I even have G+ installed and updated, without any errors.

Lars · Apr 7, 2015

I haven't installed the FB app in years because it is so invasive and slows the phone. The few times I go to FB from my phone I just use the web version. There is an app called Fast for Facebook that is very lightweight and allows some feed browsing as well as photo sharing to your timeline without messing up your phone. I also limit the number of widgets heavily as they tend to bog down the phone. Every time you push home all those apps have to get loaded and refresh.

Lars · Apr 7, 2015

Bruce_205 said:
That's the way I have it. Nothing auto-updates but they all show in the list of available updates. I'd like to hide it from that list.

Go in to settings and then apps and "all". Then disable google plus and it will be gone the play updater screen. You can do that many worthless built in apps. Zappos WTF??

Bruce_205 · Apr 8, 2015

That works, thanks.. but that will mean I cannot use Google+ anymore... there's no way to keep an app active but just disable updates?

Lars · Apr 8, 2015

Not really. There may be a work around. There is an app called apk permission remover ( yellow sheild icon) It recompiles apps and the original signature is lost. Maybe that works but maybe Play just uses the name.

Apk permission remover is something every Android user should have if they don't have App Ops/root. It allows non rooted phones to take away permissions from individual apps. I have to say, the iPhone blows away Android in this area of privacy/security having those functions built in.

Rodger Alley · Aug 6, 2015

Bruce_205 said:
I am getting this message frequently when I try to access the dialer OR contacts in order to make a call. It will say "Unfortunately Contacts Has Stopped" and exit out. If I keep tapping them I'll sometimes get this message 5 times or so before it'll finally launch and let me call. This is very serious, without this condition I cannot make a call at all!

My phone is not rooted and uses the stock contacts app. Can anyone help figure out what this is?

This may sound stupid...but I have done EVERYTHING. Deleted Contact Cache. Deleted Contact Data. Disabled Google+. Wiped All Cache from the reboot menu. Deleted Facebook and all 3rd Party Apps.

It was my freaking voicemails. I DELETED MY VOICEMAILS. Problem solved. Try it. You're welcome.

Uniquename Parker · Aug 27, 2015

"It was my freaking voicemails. I DELETED MY VOICEMAILS. Problem solved."

Thank you, Rodger Alley. That did it. FINALLY!!

Rodger Alley · Aug 27, 2015

Uniquename Parker said:
"It was my freaking voicemails. I DELETED MY VOICEMAILS. Problem solved."

Thank you, Rodger Alley. That did it. FINALLY!!

Glad I could help. It drove me batsh*t crazy. Lol

Udit Sharma · Feb 12, 2016

I seem to have a solution:

There is nothing wrong with your phone or google+

Step 1
Go to Gmail > Contacts (Old Version) > Left Pane > Scroll down to Other Contacts (you must be having tons of them - I had 5000+) > delete all of them

Step 2
Go to Gmail > Settings > General Tab> Scroll Down till you find "Create contacts for auto-complete:" > now select I'll add contacts myself

Let your phone sync.

Problem solved.

golf18 · Feb 27, 2016

Rodger Alley said:
This may sound stupid...but I have done EVERYTHING. Deleted Contact Cache. Deleted Contact Data. Disabled Google+. Wiped All Cache from the reboot menu. Deleted Facebook and all 3rd Party Apps.

It was my freaking voicemails. I DELETED MY VOICEMAILS. Problem solved. Try it. You're welcome.

======
YES...... This solution worked for me ALSO!!!
Thank you very much...

grapplerdan · Apr 30, 2016

Rodger,

Thank you! The voicemail was the issue and your recommendation was the only thing that fixed it. I had searched like crazy to find a fix, had rebooted, cleared cache, everything. Thank you mucho. I know it is an old post, but this is all that worked. Thanks again.

Dan

EricM23 · Jun 5, 2016

Hi, i have been having a similar problem on my HTC One M8, the message is "unfortunately people has stopped" it started showing up when i tried to call someone from my contacts, but not i cant even click on the phone symbol without it showing up.
I have tried all the suggestions above except the voicemail because i cant get to my voicemail due to the error. I also havent tried clearing data in the People app as im worried i will lose all my contacts.
Can anyone help me?

John Schumacher · Jun 12, 2016

Rodger Alley said:
It was my freaking voicemails. I DELETED MY VOICEMAILS. Problem solved. Try it. You're welcome.

I was moments away from factory reset when I finally found that post. Thanks so much.

I gotta tell ya, I've been on apple forums trying to solve problems for the wife and kids... the apple forums suck. Mostly poor saps like me begging for help and being told they're stupid. I've never seen that on any android forums.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who posts solutions to android problems.

smokiibear · Jul 11, 2016

For me, even deleting voicemails didn't work. I have google voice with option to view and play voicemails from the phone call log. When I toggled it off, the message stopped. When I toggled it back on, it seemed to work fine for now.

By the way, does anyone still use google voice on their android. It sure worked a whole lot better on ios then on the android. For the past two years, my application never plays a message without stopping several times and needed to be re-played to get to the end of the message.

skabam287 · Aug 18, 2016

smokiibear said:
For me, even deleting voicemails didn't work. I have google voice with option to view and play voicemails from the phone call log. When I toggled it off, the message stopped. When I toggled it back on, it seemed to work fine for now.

By the way, does anyone still use google voice on their android. It sure worked a whole lot better on ios then on the android. For the past two years, my application never plays a message without stopping several times and needed to be re-played to get to the end of the message.

I know this is an old post but this is also what finally worked for me! Toggling off "view and play vmails from the phone call log" in Google voice. Had been driving me crazy for weeks, my contacts app would crash everytime I went to my recent calls list. Thanks for the tip! I'm on a Galaxy S5 running Marshmallow.

smokiibear · Aug 21, 2016

skabam287 said:
I know this is an old post but this is also what finally worked for me! Toggling off "view and play vmails from the phone call log" in Google voice. Had been driving me crazy for weeks, my contacts app would crash everytime I went to my recent calls list. Thanks for the tip! I'm on a Galaxy S5 running Marshmallow.

You Bet. It has continued to work for me, too. I still wish I could have google voice play messages without stopping every two seconds. I also found that I cannot have the voicemails integrated in recent call log, as this usually causes some bugs to occur.

Best to you,

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