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Solution

Phonebook problem

TimBruce
3: Seeker
3: Seeker
"People" app has lost most of my phone numbers.
Some numbers must be in the phone somewhere as I can reply to a previous call.
10 REPLIES 10

BandOfBrothers
17: Community Champion
17: Community Champion

Hi

 

Do you perhaps use gmail as your contacts will be on there. 

Current Phone  >

Samsung Galaxy s²³ Ultra 512gb Phantom Black.

 

 

I do not use Gmail - I think my ISP email is based on Microsoft Exchange but I don't think there is any syncing taking place.
But thanks anyway, B o B

AnnS
17: Community Champion
17: Community Champion

Hi @TimBruce

 

if you have installed Microsoft contacts back up or backed up your contacts to your Microsoft (Hotmail, Live) account or to OneDrive, you should easily be in a position to download your contacts when logging into your account.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/p/contacts-message-backup/9nblgggz57gm

 

It might be an idea to get rid of any bugs before downloading the contacts, this is done by backing up and doing a factory reset.

 

If you continue to have problems, a Vodafone Store can always help.

 

 

In reply to AnnS.
I have previously struggled to get access to OneDrive so no backup.

The only entries in "People" seem to be those recently added or those with email addresses.
Phone call history seems to match names to phone numbers but this does not seem to link to the phonebook.

Thanks for link to message backup - will try that later.

Local Vodafone shop cannot help with Windows phone and Vodafone support refer me to Microsoft who say they do not support Windows phones but refer me to support.b2x.com in Germany who may help if you pay them.

Rahim
Moderator (Retired)
Moderator (Retired)

@TimBruce Were you able to fix your issue from the advice given by @AnnS?

Please keep us updated. 

Thank you, Rahim.
It's a bit late now, I know but I am going to take a couple of backups to SD card(s) before trying to regenerate the phonebook. (With hindsight, loading an SD card is the first thing to do with a new Lumia phone. My previous Lumia 1020 did not allow this so I didn't recognize the importance of doing this.)
I will also make a list of contacts and phone numbers/ email addresses before following the advice from @AnnS.
I will post the results here.

I get the impression that back up to OneDrive is more concerned with photos or texts than contact details. And although backups can be made, I am unable to locate a menu to restore from a backup.

Tash
Moderator (Retired)
Moderator (Retired)

Hi @TimBruce, were you able to resolve this with the SD card? Please let us know how you get on. 

At last I have got hold of an SD card so I fitted it.
This meant switching off the phone to remove the battery. I also took out and replaced the SIM.

On restarting the phone, it immediately sensed the new "device" and asked what I wanted to use it for.

Once this was done, I looked at "People" and to my great astonishment, the phone numbers were back again. I have a feeling links between duplicate entries were lost. [ It took several attempts to transfer contacts from my previous Lumia phone and I think where someone had, say, home mobile and work numbers, each number was transferred separately. I then had to link these together.]

I do not understand why adding the SD card should have this effect, unless it caused the phone to boot up differently and somehow reconfigure the contact information after realizing it was corrupted.

Now I need to find out how to reliably save contact information and how to restore from a saved copy if necessary. The menu  choices on the phone are not clear about how to do this.

My thanks to everyone who has responded to this plea for help.

So far phone is OK.
Just wondered if the raw contact data was clean but phone number indexing had got corrupted, resulting in apparent loss of contact data. And something I did when adding SD card triggered index regeneration.