Disappearing contacts after canceling data plan

[noiseordinance]

Hi there. Just wanting a bit of info about why my phone might be acting strange. I got the G1 about 2 weeks ago. Today, I turned off my data plan since I'm always around wifi. Additionally, I changed my phone number (I had an old out of state number previously).

Dispite the TMobile rep swearing it wouldn't even allow phone calls, the phone works nearly fine. I can make calls and send texts (though MMS won't work, even after manually adding the settings mentioned in other threads). However, when I went to view contacts, I had an annoying black box that would obscure my contacts. I hit menu > edit sync options > unchecked "sync all contacts". Restarted the phone. The black box went away, but so did half of my contacts. What am I doing wrong? I readded the contacts, but that's just strange. Is there a way to save these to the SIM or will that not deter the phone from throwing out contacts?

Thanks!

 

[punkzanyj]

Hi there. Just wanting a bit of info about why my phone might be acting strange. I got the G1 about 2 weeks ago. Today, I turned off my data plan since I'm always around wifi. Additionally, I changed my phone number (I had an old out of state number previously).

Dispite the TMobile rep swearing it wouldn't even allow phone calls, the phone works nearly fine. I can make calls and send texts (though MMS won't work, even after manually adding the settings mentioned in other threads). However, when I went to view contacts, I had an annoying black box that would obscure my contacts. I hit menu > edit sync options > unchecked "sync all contacts". Restarted the phone. The black box went away, but so did half of my contacts. What am I doing wrong? I readded the contacts, but that's just strange. Is there a way to save these to the SIM or will that not deter the phone from throwing out contacts?

Thanks!

your contacts are stored on your gmail account. When you lost data connectivity they disappeared. You actually didn't need to add them back manually, just needed to connect on wifi and sync. Don't know what the black box is.

 

[noiseordinance]

How can I keep my contacts though if I don't want a data plan? I can connect via wifi, sure, but are you saying that every time I leave a 3g / edge area, I'm going to look my contacts? I'm lost.

 

[punkzanyj]

How can I keep my contacts though if I don't want a data plan? I can connect via wifi, sure, but are you saying that every time I leave a 3g / edge area, I'm going to look my contacts? I'm lost.

If you sync them back using WiFi, and then turn OFF the sync, they should stay. At least that's my guess.

I discovered this issue when I first got the phone, and T-Mobile gave us all free data for the first week, and then forgot to convert a bunch of us to our selected plans. I logged in and removed my data plan, then added it back, and it fixed itself in a matter of hours. But while my data was out, the data-based(non-gps) location info didn't work at all, my contacts and calendar appointments disappeared.

This phone is designed to be used with a data plan. Without one, it's in many ways handicapped, which is why they push the data plan so hard. Technology is moving away from localized info and into "cloud computing" where your information, email, calendar, even files, are stored on the internet and your device/computer has a semi-constant data connection to access the information. It obviously has some drawbacks at the moment.