found missing contacts after ICS Android 4.04 Update

[ksanger35]

We've found some of my missing contacts after the recent Android ICS 4.04 Update to my Droid RAZR. Only after hours of agravation and online searching. First I'ld like to thank Derek of Verizon on Jefferson Rd in Rochester NY. He took my ranting and raving and actually helped me out. I'm still upset with Verizon for allowing Google to push this to our phones though. And I still have other issues.

What we found is:
1) Verizon Backup Assistent had no deleted contacts. It actually only contained one recent contact for me which I probably put their after the update. When you add a new contact you have to select where to back it up. Even if Bakup Assistent is not enabled in Settings Backups.
2) Log into Gmail.
3) Click on the Mail icon to bring up a drop down menu and select Contacts. (This is the trick as its not in the list under Mail). Typical Google user interface foobar. Obvious to no one that there is a hidden list on a button on a page.
4) Go through each group and add the Contacts in that Group to your Contacts list. I can't look up how to do this as Derek and I just did this and there are no more "Groups" with missing contacts in them for me to try again. Typical Google user interface foobar. I believe we selected all Contacts within the group, then found a menu with Add to Contacts as an option. Now groups are nice if you use them. But I entered most of these contacts on my phone and they ened up on my Gmail acount under Other Contacts. I didn't move them, Google did. I didn't delete them from my phone, Google did. Google didn't solve my issue even after searching online for hours of my time.

After the upgrade I knew it was trouble when I went to text my brother and his name didn't bring up his mobile number. The "Downgrade" placed his number in a group and was no longer listed under Contacts. I believe there is a bug (Enhancement NOT) to the text messaging application that doesn't check groups for contact info. Plus contacts are constantly being moved around. This is terrible terrible coding practices. Surely Google hires brilliant programmers but right now I wouldn't hire any of them. Yesterday I went to my Contacts list to phone my other brother and guess what. He was no longer listed on my phone. All his contact information including his name was missing. Today I spent another hour at Verizon's store to file my complaint. And they ended up helping a little which makes me feel sheepish but I shouldn't. I'm paying Verizon for service and this is what we get. Hopefully they provide feedback to Google and change their contract to recoup the expense of upgrading customer's phones.

Derek also showed me the Play Movies app that does find my videos stored on the phone and shows them to me with only one extra click. Previously I had accidently started Verizon Video and it stole ownership or moved where my videos were stored such that they were no longer in the photo Gallery app. After ICS Verizon Video no longer shows your stored videos so when I went to show one to a collegue we couldn't find it. Again, nice downgrade. I've since found them under Gallery. Gallery has a feature called Albums which is not the same as Folders and there is a Video Album. From the Album view one may see the Video Album and an All Pictures Album but not the Folders I've place the Pictures in. Typical Google User Interface foobar creating another name for Folders and calling them Albums and moving everything around so the user can't find them.

I have more issues such as battery life after the downgrade. I will not recommend any Android product at this time. Not until Google announces a better policy to let us keep our phones as they are. And stop removing functionality from existing apps. I was an extremely satisfied customer up until ICS. Not now. I've wasted over 8 hours of my life due to their negligence.

Derek did recommend I take an Android class to learn of all of ICS's new "Features" and I told him I'm not taking a class to learn how to use a phone. I've had an Original Droid and I've been programming and building micro processor circuits since 1978. I have a hacked Nook Color, and numerous PCs in the house. My last build is running Ubuntu 12.04. If I need to take a class then most of Google's customers are going to need a lot of help. The only ICS feature that I've read about and actually might use is the ability to capture a screen shot. That wasn't worth 8 hours of my life though.

I have a better solution than "Getting Started with Android" classes. Don't buy an Android device.

[joshxdroid]

I'm sure your battery issues can be taken care of with a few simple steps. The very intelligent members of this forum have helped many with their ICS issues. Overall i think most people have been happy with their upgrade. But I'm sorry to hear about tee problems you ran in to. I'm amazed you found a Verizon agent that actually knew anything. In my experience VZW people have been less helpful than a stump or a rock might be.

[hgmichna]

Just want to confirm that I observe the same defect on a Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.1.1 - at least one contact is missing on the phone, but is present on the Gmail web site.

Has anybody found a workaround? I guess I could try to delete that contact on the computer and re-enter it manually. Not good if many contacts are missing.

Google seems to be unreliable. We apparently have to be careful not to entrust them with important data. Don't ever think of storing things "in the cloud" without regular local backup, which renders the whole cloud idea questionable.