Help Simple password change wreaks havoc

[Vcize]

While using gmail this morning on my PC I got a prompt to change my password due to an invalid log-in attempt. I did so, and of course that caused problems on my S3 since it now had the wrong gogle password for me.

I figured this would be as simple as entering the new password, but apparently there is no way to re-enter your password on the phone. The google recommended fix is to delete your google account on the phone (!!!), clear the data from all your apps that use google (!!!), and re-add the account.

I did that, and other than the extreme annoyances of having to re-do all my settings for those apps, my sync settings, etc (all for just a simple password change), the big problem is that now all of my contacts are gone.

I thought I had it set up to sync with my google contacts, but apparently if you add a contact through the contacts/phone app it doesn't do that (???) and re-syncing my google contacts just adds a bunch of email addresses. If I go into my app manager there is an application called "contacts storage" which is 9mb and I'm guessing has all the contact info that was saved to the phone? If so, how do I load this back?

 

[Rukbat]

Apps added as Google (or "account" ) contacts are synced. Phone and SIM contacts aren't. (And they still haven't added an edit function to change the type of contact. Even though it's been needed since the first contact app was written.)

BTW, the original fix was to delete your gmail account and add a new one with the new password. You wouldn't have lost anything.

 

[Vcize]

Apps added as Google (or "account" ) contacts are synced. Phone and SIM contacts aren't. (And they still haven't added an edit function to change the type of contact. Even though it's been needed since the first contact app was written.)

BTW, the original fix was to delete your gmail account and add a new one with the new password. You wouldn't have lost anything.

Hmmm, when I add a new contact manually it gives me the option to create it as a google contact. However, when I add a contact using a phone number from a text message or recent phone call it does not give me that option, which is of course is the way that I add contacts 90% of the time.

Given that those were probably phone contacts, and I still have 9mb in my "contact storage" app, is there a way to retrieve those? I'm pretty sure that they're still there on the phone, and I don't know why removing my google account would delete them.