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I just got my Ally and am having problems being able to access my contacts while texting when I enter through "messaging." What am I doing wrong?

Posted by Nicole515 on 25 Jul 2010 22:50 PM:

I just got my Ally and am having problems being able to access my contacts while texting when I enter through "messaging." What am I doing wrong?

Do you see your contacts in the Contact list? Android is pretty intelligent in how it manages contacts. It tries to combine the same contacts from different sources into one contact. So go to Contacts then options and then Display Options, make sure it is set to show ALL contacts.

I can't think of what else would cause your contacts not to show up when Txting.

I have the same problem.  For example I have 12 contacts that begin with the letter d when i try to type the 1st few letters of the name only two contacts with the letter d comes up.  I checked in contact set up to see if there is any thing different from the contacts that work an the ones that don't.  Could not see any thing that wasn't common.

Posted by dh on 30 Aug 2010 20:06 PM:

I have the same problem.  For example I have 12 contacts that begin with the letter d when i try to type the 1st few letters of the name only two contacts with the letter d comes up.  I checked in contact set up to see if there is any thing different from the contacts that work an the ones that don't.  Could not see any thing that wasn't common.

This is interesting.  I have three occurrences of a "Stuart" in my contact list, and when I generate a text message or just search for a contact  I can see all of the "Stu..." that I have in my contact list.... 

Have you tried editing these enties, just editing the first (Or Last Name) However you are searching..  I have seen in the past where an "Invisible" Character has gotten into the mix and it wouldn't work until I cleared the whole field and started again....  Let me know what happens.

If it's still not working,   I'll Ask around internally.  I can also pass your comments on to Development.

Thanks for the prompt reply.  I have edited, deleted, and tried to reverse last name to first name and vice versa.  I'm at a lost.  Any help would be appreciated.

Posted by dh on 31 Aug 2010 17:22 PM:

Thanks for the prompt reply.  I have edited, deleted, and tried to reverse last name to first name and vice versa.  I'm at a lost.  Any help would be appreciated.

When you are in txting mode, and you enter the first few letters, you see two contacts appear below  the "To:" Box.  Have you tried pressing on the Line where the names are and while pressing try scrolling in to the right...  All names matching your search criteria should be there you just have to scroll to them.

So when you pull up the Contact list you see all 12 of the 'd' contacts?  Do all of these contacts have phone numbers?   There is an option under 'display options' that allows you to turn off contacts without phone numbers...  Also under Display Options, do you have it set so that all "Groups" are visible?

When the 2 'd' contacts show up and the others don't...  Is it always the same 2?

1) yes

2) yes yes and yes i have it set to "all groups"

3)  yes it always the same two  example:  i have  4 names that begin with Do.  The only two that come up are Doug Wilson and Doug Miller.  Don Simony and Donna Hart never come up.  Same with Da i get Dave V. and Dave Smith but Darcy F and Dave Swanson are not found

Posted by dh on 31 Aug 2010 19:52 PM:

1) yes

2) yes yes and yes i have it set to "all groups"

3)  yes it always the same two  example:  i have  4 names that begin with Do.  The only two that come up are Doug Wilson and Doug Miller.  Don Simony and Donna Hart never come up.  Same with Da i get Dave V. and Dave Smith but Darcy F and Dave Swanson are not found

I assume you have the latest software (Ver 8) on your Ally?  I don't have anything prior to Ver 8 to test but on the Ally that I have the name selection process when txting seems to be working like it should.  I will have to ask around to see if I can find any reason why this would fail for you.

How did you originally get your contacts to the Ally when you first set it up?

i assume vs740zv8 means version  8? if so yes.  contacts were set up by verizon employee from bb storm then creating a gmail account i assume.  thanks for continuing to try

Posted by dh on 01 Sep 2010 16:27 PM:

i assume vs740zv8 means version  8? if so yes.  contacts were set up by verizon employee from bb storm then creating a gmail account i assume.  thanks for continuing to try

I have tried to duplicate your issue here on some of the Allys we are using here, and I can't seem to duplicate what you are seeing... So Just thinking about possible solutions, I thought we could try Backup Assistant. 

If you have the time to test, and since you have "Backup Assistant" on the phone I would activate it (I think it's free) and have it back up your contacts to Verizon's Web Site.  Once the contacts are backed up you can go to the Verizon Web Site (MyVerizon) and click on the Services Tab and select Backup Assistant.  First off, once your contacts are loaded to the web site, use the web site to review your contacts and look for discrepancies or differences that might affect there display.  Next make any changes, if you need to, and then Sync them back to your Ally.  This will give you another "Group" of contacts to play with.  Open the Contact manager on the phone, then choose settings, next choose Display Options, here you will see where you can turn on or off contacts from different sources.  Turn off the display of all contacts other than Backup Assistant and see if the problem persists.

I'll continue you to look around for answers on this end.

I found a work around and you won't believe it.  Not sure why it worked but it did.  I took one of the contacts that didn't come up went into add contact on computer set up a new contact with incorrect spelling for example "don smith"  i set up new contact "ond smith"  deleted the original contact which was don went back into the mis-spelled "ond" changed it back to don and now he comes up.  Go figure!!!!!!!!!

Posted by dh on 02 Sep 2010 16:51 PM:

I found a work around and you won't believe it.  Not sure why it worked but it did.  I took one of the contacts that didn't come up went into add contact on computer set up a new contact with incorrect spelling for example "don smith"  i set up new contact "ond smith"  deleted the original contact which was don went back into the mis-spelled "ond" changed it back to don and now he comes up.  Go figure!!!!!!!!!

That's what I was thinking, that's why I suggested the Backup Assistant method...  Your solution is much cleaner and simpler as well :-)

We have seen in the past that sometimes when the contacts are updated to a phone in the store that somthing strange happens to the contacts and they don't work correctly.  So I'm glad you found a work around, and I do apologize for the trouble!

Good Luck!