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Help Google Contacts Merged When Downloaded to Bionic

Well, at least they know about it. Since the contacts are not merged in your regular GMail account, wonder if you'd be willing to try something for me?? It'd require installing an ICS leak and re-setting up your phone and apps manually since we need to see if the ICS merges them as well.

Actually, scratch that, unless you still want to give it a go. I have an idea that may also be causing it.

Since you have so many contacts, I bet if your connection goes crazy / fades out in the middle of a contact update, when it tried to restart the info is getting merged b/c the phone knows where it should be but the Google Account sends different information than it should be sending, resulting in the merge.

Care to walk through some tests (I'll first and foremost walk you through making a safe backup of all your Google contacts from your account onto your PC, but for the next day or two we;ll need to make sure you do not add any new contacts)
 
First, I am traveling so typing on Bionic will limit my response.

The problem exists on both Gingerbread and ICS (other posts that I saw showed that).

Also the merging had nothing to do with a loss of connection. I have done the merge from Google to Bionic ( from a blank Bionic) numerous times and the same contacts get merged.

I am not really to interestEd in testing anything unless I really believe it has a good chance of success.
 
My dad's Bionic had this issue. It was merging my grandfather with my brother (very similar first names). This is a feature that may cause ill effects, unfortunately.

Here's how to fix it, or at least how I fixed it.

Open up the contact that is merged, then hit menu and then edit. Then hit menu again, and there should be an option to separate the contacts.
 
He has 2500 contacts, and does not want to go through each one individually. He wants the phone to stop merging then.
 
johnlgalt said:
He has 2500 contacts, and does not want to go through each one individually. He wants the phone to stop merging then.
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You don't have to go through each contact, just those that are merged. But if there are so many merged that you can't go though them, then I don't know. I'm just offering up the solution that I know. It's built into Android. I don't know how to change that unless there's a SQL database edit that changes the way the phone handles contacts.
 
tehsusenoh said:
You don't have to go through each contact, just those that are merged. But if there are so many merged that you can't go though them, then I don't know. I'm just offering up the solution that I know. It's built into Android. I don't know how to change that unless there's a SQL database edit that changes the way the phone handles contacts.
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Think about that for a second. How will you know which ones are merged and which ones are not?

In one of the two lists, you have to go through the entire list.

As far as being built into Android, I don't think so - I've never had contacts automatically merged, and in fact I always have to manually merge contacts with the EXACT SAME NAME but from different sources.

Or, more to the point, it is an Android problem only with certain contacts, whether it is because those are older contacts, with the entire name being listed as the first name / last name, (older versions of Google Contacts, IIRC, never had a separation for first middle and last, etc.), or whether it is with some other identifying data.

As it the the OP does want to test unless he is assured that the test will fix the problem, and that is simply not the way testing is performed. If I knew the solution it would not be a test, I'd be proposing a solution. Even Motorola has admitted that they have seen the problem but there is no known solution.
 
johnlgalt said:
As it the the OP does want to test unless he is assured that the test will fix the problem, and that is simply not the way testing is performed. If I knew the solution it would not be a test, I'd be proposing a solution. Even Motorola has admitted that they have seen the problem but there is no known solution.
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I am back home and can typemy thoughts a little easier. I did not mean to be rude about your suggestion for testing but I have done a lot of things to my contact database without any success. As I said I have my contacts in Gmail and synced. I also eliminated all of the contacts and then used a third party program One Media Hub which has all my contacts in the database on the web and then downloads into a One Media Hub database on my Bionic which is then sent to the normal Bionic contact list. The One Media Hub contact list on both phone and web have the correct number of contacts but the the Bionic contact list still merges contacts and it seems to merge the same contacts. So I am pretty pessimistic about resolving this issue.

I am willing to listen to ideas and based on my evlauation I might try the suggestions but I really think it is hopeless until Google makes a change in the Android software.
 
Since contacts are rather personal, it's hard for a true test. The best would be if you hat another Android device to test if the same contacts from the same account get merged on another phone. If not, it us probably Motorola specific. However, the myriad if threads you referred to probably indicate otherwise.

As for bring rude, you weren't. I was just making tehsusenoh aware of what you had said.

If we could discern a pattern, i could then forge some similar contacts to test the automatic merging. However, without rhyme or reason, it's hard to test.
 
I do not have another Android device. I know a certain set of contacts definiteley get merged using either Google or One Media Hub. I could very easily send you these contacts in a pst file or tab or comma separted format if you would like to run some test I would not send you the entire database but a limited subset). I have not tried it but I assume that I could send to you through a private message?
 
If you don't mind me having the contacts for a brief period of time, sure. I have a stagnant Google account I can add to my phone and I can put them in there, so there is no mixing with any of my contacts on all 6 of my Google accounts....

I don't think you can send me the file via PM, but I can get it via email. Ir you want, the .csv will be the best as Google contacts will allow me to upload via .csv....
 
PMd you my email address. I probably wont get a chance to look at it tonight, I'm about to go to bed. Have an early day tomorrow.
 
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