sevx
Lurker
This worked for all of my conversations.
That sounds exactly like what I was experiencing. I'm sorry the fix didn't work for you!
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JR Smith
Lurker
I am still having this issue and it is only getting worse. I created a question in the Hangouts Forum and hopefully someone will figure this out. I am almost done with Hangouts because of this.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/9QI42xAgU28;context-place=forum/hangouts
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/9QI42xAgU28;context-place=forum/hangouts
Statici
Lurker
I just opened up my in-phone contacts and found that there were three entries for the phone number that my broken contact has. I deleted the ones with no name association, leaving only the contact that had the hangouts link.
Finally, I went into contacts.google.com, searched for that number again (NOT the contact name) and found that it was in there under <number>@verizon.etc (whatever the phone-number-email-thing is), so I deleted that.
That seemed to fix it; I can now search for that contact (in hangouts), and in the textbox, the little icon that lets you select your carrier number, google voice number, or hangouts, actually shows hangouts along with the texting options.
Finally, I went into contacts.google.com, searched for that number again (NOT the contact name) and found that it was in there under <number>@verizon.etc (whatever the phone-number-email-thing is), so I deleted that.
That seemed to fix it; I can now search for that contact (in hangouts), and in the textbox, the little icon that lets you select your carrier number, google voice number, or hangouts, actually shows hangouts along with the texting options.
** Definitive solution here **
(Edit on 6/27: turns out this only temporarily fixed it. More notes in another post below)
I tried several of the suggestions in this thread, no help.
I called Google Fi support. (If you're not on Google Fi yet, why not? Get there!)
They had me:
1. Settings > Apps > Hangouts > Storage > Clear Data and Clear Cache.
2. (same screen) Uninstall Updates to Hangouts.
3. Open Hangouts.
My historical conversations were all gone, but immediately started to re-sync from server. They all had full contact information displayed!
Hangouts then asked to update again. I let it. All's well.
The Helpdesk guy said he thinks that Google Play may have retained my update history from my old phone, and when I got my new Nexus a couple of months ago, it may have applied an update that was not appropriate for my new phone. Going through these steps caused it to update to the appropriate version.
(I'm using a Nexus 6P that I got about 3 months ago, on Google Fi. Was previously on a Samsung Galaxy S5, on Verizon.)
(Edit on 6/27: turns out this only temporarily fixed it. More notes in another post below)
I tried several of the suggestions in this thread, no help.
I called Google Fi support. (If you're not on Google Fi yet, why not? Get there!)
They had me:
1. Settings > Apps > Hangouts > Storage > Clear Data and Clear Cache.
2. (same screen) Uninstall Updates to Hangouts.
3. Open Hangouts.
My historical conversations were all gone, but immediately started to re-sync from server. They all had full contact information displayed!
Hangouts then asked to update again. I let it. All's well.
The Helpdesk guy said he thinks that Google Play may have retained my update history from my old phone, and when I got my new Nexus a couple of months ago, it may have applied an update that was not appropriate for my new phone. Going through these steps caused it to update to the appropriate version.
(I'm using a Nexus 6P that I got about 3 months ago, on Google Fi. Was previously on a Samsung Galaxy S5, on Verizon.)
Last edited:
cruzanenergy
Lurker
WOW! knwpsk you ROCK! Your Fix WORKED!!!!
I have literally tried every potential solution listed in this thread for 3 months and NONE of them worked. Called GoogleFi and they were shocked because apparently nobody has ever reported this issue. GoogleFi could NOT fix this issue.
Your FIX worked!!!!!
I am also using Nexus 6P on Google Fi.
I have literally tried every potential solution listed in this thread for 3 months and NONE of them worked. Called GoogleFi and they were shocked because apparently nobody has ever reported this issue. GoogleFi could NOT fix this issue.
Your FIX worked!!!!!
I am also using Nexus 6P on Google Fi.
Happy it helped you. For anyone else calling Fi support... the initial agent started telling me a bunch of standard script stuff, and I told him to stop and get me someone who could understand Hangouts and the Nexus 6P. He did -- a guy named Roy, who nailed it. Roy told me he's a specialist in "hardware and Google Play store". That seemed to be exactly what I needed.
Important note:
I don't know why, but Hangouts reverted to old behavior after my previous post where it was fixed.
I ran through the "same" steps again, and it did NOT fix it this time. Tried several times. Finally got it to work, and here's the rub:
When you're in Settings > apps > Hangouts, **do not Force Stop or Disable** the app, before you uninstall updates. This caused the solution to fail. Rather, click the top-right "..." menu and choose "Uninstall Updates" (after clearing data), and then open Hangouts again. That works.
I don't know why, but Hangouts reverted to old behavior after my previous post where it was fixed.
I ran through the "same" steps again, and it did NOT fix it this time. Tried several times. Finally got it to work, and here's the rub:
When you're in Settings > apps > Hangouts, **do not Force Stop or Disable** the app, before you uninstall updates. This caused the solution to fail. Rather, click the top-right "..." menu and choose "Uninstall Updates" (after clearing data), and then open Hangouts again. That works.
So, continuing my saga that started with 6/20/2016 post just above.
After a few days (having thought it was fixed), Hangouts started to again display conversations with only the phone number, no names (for known contacts). What's even more "interesting" is that:
- Hangouts on my desktop PC would show the same conversation, with a name on it;
- But sometimes Hangouts desktop would show other conversations with only a phone, no name, where Hangouts on my phone DID show the name. (Again, all of my notes here are for known contacts. All of my contacts are synced to my Gmail account, not to phone, etc)
Called Fi support again, with these updates. Jerry (agent) told me that he sees this is a widely reported problem. He confirmed that Google employees have reported same problem and it has been escalated to their engineers. I'm supposed to get an email when there's an update.
After a few days (having thought it was fixed), Hangouts started to again display conversations with only the phone number, no names (for known contacts). What's even more "interesting" is that:
- Hangouts on my desktop PC would show the same conversation, with a name on it;
- But sometimes Hangouts desktop would show other conversations with only a phone, no name, where Hangouts on my phone DID show the name. (Again, all of my notes here are for known contacts. All of my contacts are synced to my Gmail account, not to phone, etc)
Called Fi support again, with these updates. Jerry (agent) told me that he sees this is a widely reported problem. He confirmed that Google employees have reported same problem and it has been escalated to their engineers. I'm supposed to get an email when there's an update.
isch
Lurker
I tried a number of things from this thread, but fell short of clearing the Hangouts app data. Seems like that worked well for some people, and my girl, who is having the same problem may try it. If it works for her, I'll report back.
A little info. I use hangouts for all messaging - SMS through Google Voice. Or at least I have since Hangouts supported that. It'd appear that in one of the recent updates, a setting got reversed. This didn't change the behavior, and I was still sending from my GVoice number all the while, but upon looking at the settings as others suggested, Hangouts was not set as the default messaging app. I don't know if this was related to the issue.
Regardless, none of these toggles worked for me. My contacts are properly sync'd between Google cloud and my phone. Some contacts contained country codes and some didn't for the conversations that appeared as numbers instead of names.
The solution that worked for me was to archive the conversation in question and then add the contact's SMS number to a 'new' conversation. This created a conversation associated with their name, and the message history was obviously retained. Thankfully I did not have a large number of conversations to do this for. And the exercise reminded me to go an archive a ton of automated messages, voicemails and people I no longer talk to, cleaning up my conversation list
Hope this helps
A little info. I use hangouts for all messaging - SMS through Google Voice. Or at least I have since Hangouts supported that. It'd appear that in one of the recent updates, a setting got reversed. This didn't change the behavior, and I was still sending from my GVoice number all the while, but upon looking at the settings as others suggested, Hangouts was not set as the default messaging app. I don't know if this was related to the issue.
Regardless, none of these toggles worked for me. My contacts are properly sync'd between Google cloud and my phone. Some contacts contained country codes and some didn't for the conversations that appeared as numbers instead of names.
The solution that worked for me was to archive the conversation in question and then add the contact's SMS number to a 'new' conversation. This created a conversation associated with their name, and the message history was obviously retained. Thankfully I did not have a large number of conversations to do this for. And the exercise reminded me to go an archive a ton of automated messages, voicemails and people I no longer talk to, cleaning up my conversation list
Hope this helps
Tylor Elm
Lurker
It's unfortunate, I use Google Voice with the Hangouts App for GV-SMS. I was having this issue until I cleared the cache/data. Then I can see the contacts just fine. I'm concerned about it going away over time. I have about 5000 contacts in my phone and I'm not sure if that has any affect on anything. - Also a thing of note is if I go to hangouts.google.com and use the web app I see all the names. But what is interesting is when I go to send a text thru the web app I can't search for those contacts who only show up as numbers. I have to type them in manually or I have to search using the phone icon then click SMS. Clearly there are two layers of contacts going on here and I have a feeling it has something to do with contacts that are Google+ based profiles, but haven't had the time to look into it. I just assumed over the past 4 months this issue would be solved and it hasn't been. It's very frustrating and perhaps the issue is that I'm using a Google Voice number, and perhaps Google is putting that by the wayside. Any other thoughts or suggestions?
After I saw Tylor's note yesterday, I realized I hadn't updated this thread since the last call I got from Google in June. (See my two posts above.)
They finally did call me back and explained that they think there's a problem in the synchronization between the Hangouts mobile app and Google's servers. Specifically with the synchronization of your contacts. (This *implied* -- they didn't say it explicitly -- that the Hangouts app doesn't actually look at your contacts in the Contacts app...)
Anyway, they agreed that it's a bug with Hangouts. And they agreed that you can delete the cache from Hangouts and it will temporarily seem to fix the issue, but that the issue will come back soon after that (which matches my experience). They acknowledged what I and others have stated here -- that this only happens in the mobile app, and not on the Hangouts desktop app. And after they had me try a couple of things... they said they know of no workaround.
Of course, it's Google, so they wouldn't say much more, e.g. when they might debug it or when another release might come out.
I gave up on Hangouts. Had too many problems with it. I switched to the Google Messenger app, and it works seamlessly. The "only" tradeoff I have found is that there is no desktop version of Messenger (which I really liked, in Hangouts).
They finally did call me back and explained that they think there's a problem in the synchronization between the Hangouts mobile app and Google's servers. Specifically with the synchronization of your contacts. (This *implied* -- they didn't say it explicitly -- that the Hangouts app doesn't actually look at your contacts in the Contacts app...)
Anyway, they agreed that it's a bug with Hangouts. And they agreed that you can delete the cache from Hangouts and it will temporarily seem to fix the issue, but that the issue will come back soon after that (which matches my experience). They acknowledged what I and others have stated here -- that this only happens in the mobile app, and not on the Hangouts desktop app. And after they had me try a couple of things... they said they know of no workaround.
Of course, it's Google, so they wouldn't say much more, e.g. when they might debug it or when another release might come out.
I gave up on Hangouts. Had too many problems with it. I switched to the Google Messenger app, and it works seamlessly. The "only" tradeoff I have found is that there is no desktop version of Messenger (which I really liked, in Hangouts).
Tylor Elm
Lurker
Thanks for that information.
I wonder is Hangouts going to be abandoned for this feature in the future for Messenger?
The issue with the Messenger App is I do not believe it can link up to your Google Voice number.
The problem with the old Google Voice app is you cannot receive MMS messages.
So it seems like I'm juggling one issue over another with Google Voice as my main number, and text messages, and missing names, and MMS issues. Basically pick which issue I'd like to have.
I wonder is Hangouts going to be abandoned for this feature in the future for Messenger?
The issue with the Messenger App is I do not believe it can link up to your Google Voice number.
The problem with the old Google Voice app is you cannot receive MMS messages.
So it seems like I'm juggling one issue over another with Google Voice as my main number, and text messages, and missing names, and MMS issues. Basically pick which issue I'd like to have.
Ah, yes. I might have mentioned GV. I was on GV, too, but switched my carrier from Verizon to Google's Project Fi a few months ago. I have to say, since that switch, my experience has been great, and all of "this stuff" we're talking about works much better (e.g. SMS, MMS, group text messages just work like you expect, with not caveats or aggravation, or having to explain to Mom that I have three different phone numbers...).
I'm just purely speculating here... but I wonder if at least part of the reason that some of "this stuff" hasn't been solved is that Google has been focused on making Project Fi work?? Maybe that's why GV still doesn't integrate well, etc.? I would have to guess that their stack of development priorities is really complicated and intertwined, with all of these various initiatives going on.
Tylor Elm
Lurker
That does make sense, however it appears to be using Sprint's network as only 3G is available in my area. So that wouldn't be the best choice unless I'm missing something. I use AT&T's network as it's the best coverage in the area.
Thanks for all your input, that's an interesting thing to think about. And I'd switch in a heartbeat if the coverage was better than what Sprint has to offer.
Tylor, Project Fi uses Sprint AND AT&T. The Nexus phones actually have three different cellular antennas in them (so they could use Verizon too, but so far Verizon hasn't agreed). The phone connects to whichever network has the strongest signal at the time. (They can also seamlessly switch off to calling via Wifi.)
Out of the box, you can't even tell whether the phone is on Sprint or ATT at any given time. But (of course) someone wrote an app which lets you monitor that. So I can see that mine switches between them frequently as I move around town.
I'd definitely encourage you to try Fi. Several of my friends and coworkers are on it now. No complaints.
Out of the box, you can't even tell whether the phone is on Sprint or ATT at any given time. But (of course) someone wrote an app which lets you monitor that. So I can see that mine switches between them frequently as I move around town.
I'd definitely encourage you to try Fi. Several of my friends and coworkers are on it now. No complaints.
Timothylcooke
Lurker
Here's how I fixed this issue.
I have 2 phones. One is old, the other is new. I had previously taken the old phone to Austria for a week for business and added an Austrian SIM. I use Hangouts for GV SMS, and during that week, I used the default messenger app for SMS to Austrian contacts. Normally, it all goes through Hangouts.
Before that week, all my contacts were stored in a US format (XXX) XXX-XXXX. But now, the SMS messages weren't going through until I prepended a "+1" to the number. So while there, I manually updated all my contacts. I've since found the app Twitch! Contacts, which claims to do this quickly for big contact lists, but I have not tried it myself. So now all of my numbers were in the format +{country code}{number}, and Hangouts displayed them all correctly.
Then, when I got a new phone, the new phone showed all of the contacts back in the US format again, instead of the international format. And unfortunately, it wasn't finding the numbers in my contact list (i.e. it wouldn't find (XXX) XXX-XXXX in my contacts, even though one of those contacts was in fact +1XXXXXXXXXX). So now, my old phone had the contact names and the new phone only showed the numbers. I didn't just have a foreign SIM card lying around to fix the problem. What's weird is that the new phone did show the contact names for a few contacts (seems to be mostly contacts with the Hangouts app associated with their phone number).
My solution was simple. I just tried to send an SMS to an Austrian number (+43). When I tried to send it, it showed me an error message saying that I could only send GV SMS messages to US/Canada. But that fixed the issue. Internally somewhere, that flipped a setting that Google didn't expose in the app's settings. My Hangouts is now in "international mode." So now it sees the numbers as +1XXXXXXXXXX instead of (XXX) XXX-XXXX, which means it finds the numbers in my contact list, and shows the contact names instead of numbers.
I have 2 phones. One is old, the other is new. I had previously taken the old phone to Austria for a week for business and added an Austrian SIM. I use Hangouts for GV SMS, and during that week, I used the default messenger app for SMS to Austrian contacts. Normally, it all goes through Hangouts.
Before that week, all my contacts were stored in a US format (XXX) XXX-XXXX. But now, the SMS messages weren't going through until I prepended a "+1" to the number. So while there, I manually updated all my contacts. I've since found the app Twitch! Contacts, which claims to do this quickly for big contact lists, but I have not tried it myself. So now all of my numbers were in the format +{country code}{number}, and Hangouts displayed them all correctly.
Then, when I got a new phone, the new phone showed all of the contacts back in the US format again, instead of the international format. And unfortunately, it wasn't finding the numbers in my contact list (i.e. it wouldn't find (XXX) XXX-XXXX in my contacts, even though one of those contacts was in fact +1XXXXXXXXXX). So now, my old phone had the contact names and the new phone only showed the numbers. I didn't just have a foreign SIM card lying around to fix the problem. What's weird is that the new phone did show the contact names for a few contacts (seems to be mostly contacts with the Hangouts app associated with their phone number).
My solution was simple. I just tried to send an SMS to an Austrian number (+43). When I tried to send it, it showed me an error message saying that I could only send GV SMS messages to US/Canada. But that fixed the issue. Internally somewhere, that flipped a setting that Google didn't expose in the app's settings. My Hangouts is now in "international mode." So now it sees the numbers as +1XXXXXXXXXX instead of (XXX) XXX-XXXX, which means it finds the numbers in my contact list, and shows the contact names instead of numbers.
Timothylcooke
Lurker
Did you try sending an SMS to a foreign number? Say for example, "+43 699 9999999". You don't have to send an SMS. Just start an SMS conversation.
Phil Hormel
Lurker
I had a similar problem with my Nexus 6 using Verizon service, but it happened in my text messages: phone number of the person sending me the message would be displayed rather than their name, even though they were in my contacts.
Here is what worked for me for this situation, which I will put here in case it helps others:
(1) In the message window, click on that three-dot button in the upper right hand corner.
(2) Click on "People & Options".
(3) Touch a phone number where the name is not being displayed.
(4) Click on the pencil icon.
(5) You will see the first and last name is blank on the contact (in my case, my contact's name was listed under "Notes"), so enter their name and hit save. Their name should now appear in your text messages!
Here is what worked for me for this situation, which I will put here in case it helps others:
(1) In the message window, click on that three-dot button in the upper right hand corner.
(2) Click on "People & Options".
(3) Touch a phone number where the name is not being displayed.
(4) Click on the pencil icon.
(5) You will see the first and last name is blank on the contact (in my case, my contact's name was listed under "Notes"), so enter their name and hit save. Their name should now appear in your text messages!
