Contacts keep disappearing

[thicebear]

Hi! I am using /e/OS 2.7 on my Fairphone 5. I save my contacts locally. Somehow, some of my contacts keep disappearing after I save them. For a few hours, they stay available, but later on they are suddenly deleted. I tried multiple ways of saving the phone numbers: by manually adding them through the contacts app, saving them through my recent calls logbook or saving them through Signal. All methods provide the same results. Any ideas on how to fix this? I wish not to sync my contacts with Google. Thanks in advance!

[tcecyk]

Android has “composite contacts” so it merges contacts from different providers (local, signal, caldav). I wonder if it’s due to this. Which addressbook has preference in the settings? What happends if you disable all but “device / local”?

[thicebear]

Thanks for thinking along! It’s a place to start. The ‘standard account’ for new contacts is ‘Device’. Visible contacts is set to ‘All’. Can’t really find something useful there…
I did look at the ‘composite contacts’ section (accounts) where I found all of the apps that share contacts. In my case, Signal, Whatsapp, Telegram. Only for Telegram, contact syncing was disabled. I enabled that. Time will tell whether that has any effect. I’ll keep this thread updated if I notice any change.

[aibd]

@thicebear

The ‘standard account’ for new contacts is ‘Device’.

I am fairly confident that this refers to Contacts on SIM card. My memory is that years ago these contacts could be used “seamlessly”. Now I believe you have to take steps to get these contacts to join your account. This link shows the Google perspective Add or move contacts - Android - Contacts Help but very similar will apply to the account on /e/.

@thicebear

I wish not to sync my contacts with Google.

So contacts on SIM card I can see would help to prevent this!

I would be fairly confident that a properly set up /e/OS install and account will not allow this sort of wholesale sharing, however of course there is the opportunity for contacts to be shared by apps if given permission.

[thicebear]

That would make a lot of sense! I have a very large list of contacts, so if the device tries to save everything to the SIM, it might just be a storage capacity problem. I’ll make sure to research that and try the ‘move contacts’ action you linked to. Thanks!

[aibd]

Within the Contacts app, top left 3 bar menu > Settings is the opportunity to Export your contacts to .vcf file.

This would give the chance to know you have a backup before you make changes.

Potentially you might use this backup to Import contacts into your “Contacts Account” as found on the page found at Contacts app, top left 3 bar menu.

[thicebear]

Thanks! So far, so good. My contacts have not (yet) disappeared since I last saved them. Don’t exactly know what (seems to have) fixed it since I tried a bunch of stuff and e/os has updated in the mean time. At least I’m happy and I hope others will be able to fix this issue with your help provided above. Thanks again!