Contacts disappearing and mixed up

Jacques Wegier · Nov 3, 2020

Hello,

Today I wanted to phone my daughter and was surprised to find that her contact portrait was the portrait of one of my clients. The client himself was not to be found anymore among my contacts, and my son also disappeared from my favorites and also from my contacts list.

How to solve this problem?

Thank you very much

Jacques Wegier · Nov 3, 2020

Since I posted my post, I removed the portrait of my client from my daughter's contact info. I manually added the info of my client and also of my son.

But now the portrait of my daughter, in my favorites is the portrait of my son. I removed the photo of my son from my daughter, but soon after his portrait appeared again on my daughter's contact info.

ocnbrze · Nov 3, 2020

what phone do you have? was this all of a sudden or after an update? have you tried rebooting the phone?

Raniyah · Nov 3, 2020

Have you turned on the "Auto Sync data" function? just check it via Settings >Accounts and backup (according to my device). If it's turned on, try turning off it.

Jacques Wegier · Nov 3, 2020

ocnbrze said:
what phone do you have? was this all of a sudden or after an update? have you tried rebooting the phone?

My phone is a Pixel 4a that I purchased a month and a half ago.

Yes, I rebooted my phone several times after this happened, but it did not solve the problem.

:I did not mention in my post that, when I clicked on my daughter's portrait in the Favorites list > Contact Info > Edit contact, I found in the list of phones that she supposedly has, her mobile phone number, landline phone number but also the phone number of my client (which portrait replaced her portrait) and also my son's phone number!

ocnbrze said:
was this all of a sudden or after an update?

It happened all of a sudden, and not after an update. When I think of it, I should mention that it happened just after I downloaded, tried and then immediately uninstalled, one after the other, 3 different Dialers apps (Drupe, Simple Contacts and Truecaller) and also 2 different Calendars. Since all these apps have access to my contacts, maybe that's the reason?

After posting, I have manually set back all the contacts that had changed or disappeared, deleted from my daughter's info the phones that were not hers, and replaced all the portraits. Ten hours have passed, and all seems to be back to normal.

Thanks.

Jacques Wegier · Nov 3, 2020

Raniyah said:
Have you turned on the "Auto Sync data" function? just check it via Settings >Accounts and backup (according to my device). If it's turned on, try turning off it.

Nope, I did not. Actually, I notice now that Automatically sync app data is turned on.

Thanks

mikedt · Nov 4, 2020

Jacques Wegier said:
Hello,

Today I wanted to phone my daughter and was surprised to find that her contact portrait was the portrait of one of my clients. The client himself was not to be found anymore among my contacts, and my son also disappeared from my favorites and also from my contacts list.

How to solve this problem?

Thank you very much

Maybe it's just a glitch in the software? Have you tried restarting your phone or tablet?

Jacques Wegier · Nov 4, 2020

mikedt said:
Maybe it's just a glitch in the software? Have you tried restarting your phone or tablet?

Yes, I restarted, but that did not solve the problem. I had to manually set back the 3 contacts that have messed up info. As I mentioned in another post, the mess happened right after I downloaded, tried and then immediately uninstalled, one after the other, 3 different Dialers apps (Drupe, Simple Contacts and Truecaller) and also 2 different Calendars. Maybe this caused the problem with my contact list.

Right now, all is back to normal, but I would like to understand why it happened.

puppykickr · Nov 4, 2020

Jacques Wegier said:
Yes, I restarted, but that did not solve the problem. I had to manually set back the 3 contacts that have messed up info. As I mentioned in another post, the mess happened right after I downloaded, tried and then immediately uninstalled, one after the other, 3 different Dialers apps (Drupe, Simple Contacts and Truecaller) and also 2 different Calendars. Maybe this caused the problem with my contact list.

Right now, all is back to normal, but I would like to understand why it happened.

My best guess as to what happened is...

One or more of those apps you installed (possibly TrueCaller, but maybe one (or more) of the others) added some contacts, and jumbled some info as you discovered.

TrueCaller uses an online data base for contacts and calls to block, and it disrupted multiple contacts of my own.
It even kept identifying me by the name of Kevin- which is not my name- but is the name of the last person to have my cellphone number.

So, when you uninstalled these apps, how exactly did you do that?

Did you just uninstall them, or did you delete the app data first?

Sometimes (often, you could say) files, ads, and other unwanted info is stored in files not included in an app's data.
So when you just uninstall, some of that data can be left behind on your device.

That is why, even though it is less convenient, it is advisable to always delete an app's data first and then uninstall it.

In fact, some people have even reinstalled an unwanted app, run the app, then gone back to delete the app data and then uninstall the app.

This method could possibly have saved you the 10 hours of PITA frustration.

I know how aggrevating that must have been.

Jacques Wegier · Nov 4, 2020

puppykickr said:
My best guess as to what happened is...One or more of those apps you installed (possibly TrueCaller, but maybe one (or more) of the others) added some contacts, and jumbled some info as you discovered.

Hi puppykickr,

When I tried to understand the cause of the mess in my contacts, I looked into what I have done during the last half day before, and my guess was like you say, that one or several of the apps I have installed during this half day was the culprit (and I did not install any apps for several weeks)

puppykickr said:
So, when you uninstalled these apps, how exactly did you do that? Did you just uninstall them, or did you delete the app data first?... it is advisable to always delete an app's data first and then uninstall it... In fact, some people have even reinstalled an unwanted app, run the app, then gone back to delete the app data and then uninstall the app

I just uninstalled them, I did not delete the app data first. Thank you very much for the useful info. I will proceed this way next time.

Xavier Black · Nov 5, 2020

I wouldn't thought of that..that's a lovely way of fixing when forgetting deletion of pesquy data..nice advice..I always practice the deleting before uninstalling(except I've forgotten once or twice)..but have never reinstalled to delete what was left behind..except for the Busybox.

Very clever!

puppykickr · Nov 6, 2020

Xavier Black said:
I wouldn't thought of that..that's a lovely way of fixing when forgetting deletion of pesquy data..nice advice..I always practice the deleting before uninstalling(except I've forgotten once or twice)..but have never reinstalled to delete what was left behind..except for the Busybox.

Very clever!

I would love to take credit for it, but I actually learned that technique from my time here on Android Forums!

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