Droid Charge, lost contacts.

[spurs21]

I do not have a Charge, but my daughter does. She says a few days ago, presumably during a back-up, all her contact list was lost. Has anyone else experienced this problem with their Charge?

[WCMack]

Dear spurs,

Where was she backing up to?  Was she using the Verizon Back-Up Assistant?  If so, she should be able to recover her contacts.

Thanks.

[Wildman]

I am guessing BA was used and I can say this has been reported on other forums, if you are able to restore the info I would suggest you use Google for this info because it seems to work better for smartphones.

By the way have you tried checking to see if the info is still on site but not on phone?

https://nbillpay.verizonwireless.com/ba/secure/backupassistant.action

Google Contacts

https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#contacts

[spurs21]

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WCMack wrote:

Dear spurs,

Where was she backing up to?  Was she using the Verizon Back-Up Assistant?  If so, she should be able to recover her contacts.

Thanks.

---

She backs up thru back-up assistant, so maybe it will still be on the website. I'll have her check.I wasn't aware google had a service to back up contacts, maybe she should check into it.

[WCMack]

Dear spurs,

Google does not exactly "back up" your contacts. Your daughter can get (or she may have) a Gmail account for Google email. The email client allows her to create contacts (or import them). She can then set up the same Gmail account on her phone, and allow it to sync contacts from her online Google account. It is sort of automatic backup because her contacts are maintained on Google's servers.

If you need more information on how to set up Gmail online and then sync with the phone, let us know by posting back to this thread.

[Confusedjim]

I have been trying to add contacts to my contact list and have noticed that several times the information I added for a contact did not get recorded and in fact there have been instances when the entire contact was erased.  Don't have any solution yet.

[Kingweebo]

This happened to me today.  All of my contacts were replaced with gmail addresses.  My text  messaging history was not labeled by name, but by phone no, since I had no phone nos. in the contact list.  Spent about 2.5 hrs with tech support and Samsung tech support and half hour at the verizon store. The tech there could not find my contacts, and online backup assistant did not list any of my contacts.  The only contacts were the 4 utility contacts that start with "#".   He suggested I bring my old phone in, and at least get those transferred.  He was going to do a system reset, which would wipe out my apps, etc.  He did back up my text messages to the SD card.  I decided not to do that and just add contacts from my old phone.

There is an application on my phone call "Buddies Now".  Just for the heck of it, I pressed the "+" sign to add a contact, and all of my contacts appeared.  Went back to the home page and pressed contacts, and they were all back.  Immediately, did an export to the SD card.  I still don't know what happened, but if you have the "Buddies Now" app, give it a try.

[thripsey]

I also lost all my contacts on my phone too.  This happened to me this Thursday (again).  The only contacts that remain are those from Google.  This is at least the third time this has happened to me.  In the past, I was able to sync them back to my phone from the Backup assistant, but it will not work this time. They are listed on the online backup, but they will not sync to my phone no matter what I do.  Additionally, when I went to the online backup assistant Thursday, many of my contacts were in the trash folder and I had to "undelete" them. The first time I lost my contacts a few months ago (after a system update to the phone), my online backup didn't have my contacts either -for about 2 days, after which they showed up again - all of them in the trash folder.  Then, after I "untrashed" them, they showed up multiple times in my contacts and I have been unable to delete all the extra listings.  I will delete the extras, but they will reappear in my contacts list, meaning I sometimes have up to 4 listings for the same person.  In the past Verizon did not even respond to my forum and email inquiries about why this happened or how to fix it.  At least before I was able to get the contacts back to my phone (even if there were duplicates) -can't seem to do that this time.  Then Tech Support won't help because we have an employee plan - they tell us to contact the company's rep - who is not a tech person, so that does no good.

  Seems like whatever periodic system updates they do for this phone erases your contacts from your phone and Verizon also has problems with the online Backup.  I think once the contract is up on this phone, I will get another due to this repeated problem. 

[crraine]

I'm having the same problems..........mine keeps losing all my comtaacts.......having to go to my backup asst. and try to reload all my contacts.......this time it wont resend them to my phone.......this has become a real piece of garbage in the last five or six weeks......and I'm getting really tired of it...

[JerryF]

Until you get your problem solved try this.  It's awful to completely lose your conracts list.

In order to get a bit more protection for your coveted "Contacts List" back your Contacts up to your SD Card too.  Here is how to do it.

Go to your Contacts list.  Then press the MENU button at the bottom left corner of your phone.  Next touch the "Import/Export" icon that came up.  Then touch "Export to SD Card."  That's it, they are now saved on your SD Card.

If you want to see the saved file go to the Home screen and touch the icon "My Files."  Then go down the list  of folders to the folder named "external_sd" and touch it.  Your first Contacts file backup will be named "00001.vcf" and so on (00002, 00003, 00004) for further backups.

See what I mean, this may be the easiest procedure you've ever done on your Charge Phone!

Then, it's just as easy to load them back into your phone.   Go to your Contacts list.  Then press the MENU button at the bottom left corner of your phone.  Next touch the "Import/Export" icon that came up.  Then touch "Import from SD Card."  That's it, they are now reloaded back onto your Charge phone.

This may not fix your problem but it might SAVE you contacts list.

JerryF

[thripsey]

I am very frustrated as I have lost my contacts multiple times and Verizon gives me no answer as to why this keeps happening.  It seems to happen after system updates/downloads that happen automatically.  I have also gotten no assistance from Verizon as to why they won't sync back to my phone from the online backup.  An online backup is useless if you can't get the info to your phone.  I am looking at getting a new phone and going with Sprint service.  My husband has Sprint and they have always been helpful when any issues have arisen (which hasn't been that often).     If you get an answer, let me know!  I will too!

[jco23]

use google (gmail) to sync/store your contacts.  they'll appear for you forever (even if you switch phones).

[IamKinman]

Well, I'm happy to see I'm not the only person with this issue... I noticed all my contacts, with the exception of my Google contacts, are no longer in my phone yesterday. I have tried messing with the display options in the contacts, but the "all contacts" category that used to have 1200 or so contacts now says 0... Whomp whomp. And when I log onto the new "backup assistant plus" online, it doesn't show any of my contacts either...Even though that's how all my numbers got onto this phone in the first place last year.  I'm so frustrated right now.

I will definitely start using my Google contacts from now on, but does anyone know if there is an easy way to transfer contacts from your phone or backup assistant (if I figure that out) to your Google contacts?? I don't want to manually enter over a thousand numbers.

[Ann154]

@IamKinman

There were a couple of suggestions for how to export your contacts from Backup Assistant or your device and then import them into your Gmail account in this discussion. Try those suggestions.