Google's Gesture Search won't search my Contacts List

[Mary614]

Hi,

I'm new to both the Droid and this forum -- and trying hard to learn from each.

I loaded the free "Gesture Search" app onto my new phone, after the sales guy showed me how cool it was. BUT -- it searches everything on the phone EXCEPT my contacts list -- which I why I want it in the first place.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling 4 times now; removed battery; called Verizon, AND the sales guy, who can't figure it out either.

If anyone has any light to shed on this, I'd love to know your thoughts! I need to go out of town soon and would love to have this function working.

Thanks so much! I'm really looking forward to learning off this great board.

P.S. I did do several searches of the forum re: this issue, and couldn't find anything about the Gesture app.... Thanks!

 

[hookbill]

Hi,

I'm new to both the Droid and this forum -- and trying hard to learn from each.

I loaded the free "Gesture Search" app onto my new phone, after the sales guy showed me how cool it was. BUT -- it searches everything on the phone EXCEPT my contacts list -- which I why I want it in the first place.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling 4 times now; removed battery; called Verizon, AND the sales guy, who can't figure it out either.

If anyone has any light to shed on this, I'd love to know your thoughts! I need to go out of town soon and would love to have this function working.

Thanks so much! I'm really looking forward to learning off this great board.

P.S. I did do several searches of the forum re: this issue, and couldn't find anything about the Gesture app.... Thanks!

So don't use gesture. Just press the search button, and then the microphone and speak the name of the contact. It will find it for you that way.

 

[AnneDroid]

Hi,

I'm new to both the Droid and this forum -- and trying hard to learn from each.

I loaded the free "Gesture Search" app onto my new phone, after the sales guy showed me how cool it was. BUT -- it searches everything on the phone EXCEPT my contacts list -- which I why I want it in the first place.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling 4 times now; removed battery; called Verizon, AND the sales guy, who can't figure it out either.

If anyone has any light to shed on this, I'd love to know your thoughts! I need to go out of town soon and would love to have this function working.

Thanks so much! I'm really looking forward to learning off this great board.

P.S. I did do several searches of the forum re: this issue, and couldn't find anything about the Gesture app.... Thanks!

First of all, welcome to the forum, Mary! I have Gesture Search and LOVE it. Have you done this yet? Open Gesture Search and then touch the Menu soft key at the bottom of your Droid (four lines). Go to Settings and be sure that Contacts (and whatever else you want it to search are checked), then just exit out and you'll be good to go. BTW, that's also the place where you can wipe your search history if you need to. Let us know if you still can't get it to work.

:welcome:

 

[Mary614]

Hi,

Thanks for the fast replies. Wow.

I do have the contacts selected as part of the search -- and have tried on/off on that also, to see if it would change. No luck so far...

And I see the point, Bill, but after watching the sales guy's cool app work great (and reading about many others who love it), I'd sure like to get mine to work, too. I can't be the ONLY person it doesn't work for... can I? ;-)

Thanks again... I'm still trying to get it to work.

 

[jsh1120]

Mary,

You may have already tried this, but file it away for future problems. When you encounter a problem like this the very first thing to do is turn your phone off and then back on. See if the problem still exists. If it does, the next step is to remove the back of your phone and remove the battery for a few seconds. Then put it back in and start your phone again. If you're still having problems, then ask for some help before you undertake the next step which is a factory reset.

P.S. One other thing to try with gesture search is to "re-index" your sources. It's another choice when you push the menu button at the bottom of your phone.

 

[Mary614]

It's so nice of you to reply to my post.

I should have mentioned, I did do the power off / battery out route also, with no change. I DID just try the "re-indexing" -- again, no change yet..

I'm not quitting -- I keep hoping there is one key item that will make it work.

Thanks again for all of you for the help.

 

[Mary614]

The Mystery was in an Error when my Contacts Transferred

Well... it took 48 hours, but, I think my new phone works now.

It turns out that when I transferred my (long!) contacts list from Backup Assistant to my Gmail, and then they sync'ed to my new Droid phone, SOMEHOW the list of phone numbers was screwed up (sorry, I don't know the technical term), so each contact was listed in my new phone as "NOTES", NOT as a regular-looking phone number.

That is why I was unable to make calls directly from the contact list, and also why the Gesture app never worked, either.

I did the list export/sync 4 times myself, and the nice salesman with the wireless dealer even did it twice this morning on a store laptop, and, each time it was wrong -- the contacts stayed listed as notes, not numbers. He then imported a few of my contacts to HIS personal Droid phone, and they were also corrupted, and showed as Notes. So -- we knew it wasn't just my phone.

He and I were both out of ideas -- so then I went to a Verizon store to ask them to directly move my numbers from my old phone to the new phone. I just wanted my phone to work! But, they tried the import/sync ONE LAST TIME, and for some unknown reason, it worked.

No one has ANY idea why it did what it did, but, I am happy to have it working.

Thanks so much for the replies here. I look forward to learning about this cool phone now!!!

 

[AnneDroid]

Well... it took 48 hours, but, I think my new phone works now.

It turns out that when I transferred my (long!) contacts list from Backup Assistant to my Gmail, and then they sync'ed to my new Droid phone, SOMEHOW the list of phone numbers was screwed up (sorry, I don't know the technical term), so each contact was listed in my new phone as "NOTES", NOT as a regular-looking phone number.

That is why I was unable to make calls directly from the contact list, and also why the Gesture app never worked, either.

I did the list export/sync 4 times myself, and the nice salesman with the wireless dealer even did it twice this morning on a store laptop, and, each time it was wrong -- the contacts stayed listed as notes, not numbers. He then imported a few of my contacts to HIS personal Droid phone, and they were also corrupted, and showed as Notes. So -- we knew it wasn't just my phone.

He and I were both out of ideas -- so then I went to a Verizon store to ask them to directly move my numbers from my old phone to the new phone. I just wanted my phone to work! But, they tried the import/sync ONE LAST TIME, and for some unknown reason, it worked.

No one has ANY idea why it did what it did, but, I am happy to have it working.

Thanks so much for the replies here. I look forward to learning about this cool phone now!!!

Well, there's something that doesn't happen every day - or at least I hope it doesn't. I'm afraid I would never have suspected your import as the cause. Great to know you got it all resolved though! Now go have some fun with that new toy!

 

[jsh1120]

Well... it took 48 hours, but, I think my new phone works now.

It turns out that when I transferred my (long!) contacts list from Backup Assistant to my Gmail, and then they sync'ed to my new Droid phone, SOMEHOW the list of phone numbers was screwed up (sorry, I don't know the technical term), so each contact was listed in my new phone as "NOTES", NOT as a regular-looking phone number.

That is why I was unable to make calls directly from the contact list, and also why the Gesture app never worked, either.

I did the list export/sync 4 times myself, and the nice salesman with the wireless dealer even did it twice this morning on a store laptop, and, each time it was wrong -- the contacts stayed listed as notes, not numbers. He then imported a few of my contacts to HIS personal Droid phone, and they were also corrupted, and showed as Notes. So -- we knew it wasn't just my phone.

He and I were both out of ideas -- so then I went to a Verizon store to ask them to directly move my numbers from my old phone to the new phone. I just wanted my phone to work! But, they tried the import/sync ONE LAST TIME, and for some unknown reason, it worked.

No one has ANY idea why it did what it did, but, I am happy to have it working.

Thanks so much for the replies here. I look forward to learning about this cool phone now!!!

Well, this one gets filed under the "Never give up...Just keep beating your head against the wall" heading for solutions.

Although at this point you obviously cannot (and don't want to) duplicate the problem, I'm curious if there was any correlation between using wifi vs 3G in the efforts to import your contacts. Second, you mentioned that you have a lot of contacts. Just wondering how many contacts you had. I know there's a limit of 3000 contacts at a time. Were you anywhere close to that limit?

P.S. Ahhhh...Wait a second. Just realized you used the Verizon Backup Assistant for the transfer. Right? If I'd known that it would have set off alarm bells for me. I've had personal experience (my wife's phone) with errors in that approach. For those who must use that approach, be careful.

 

[Mary614]

I wasn't able to get anyone to even GUESS how this blip happened -- mostly they all just said "Man, this is WEIRD!" ;-)

And as for contacts, I had 695, but everyone said that shouldn't have been a contributing factor in the hang-up. They DID appear normal in the Backup Assistant files, but.. who knows where the fault was. And, they did all transfer fine at the Verizon store this afternoon. I told the young girl she was Good Luck!

Thanks again...