Help with contacts!

[wmhjr]

Hi all, new here. Been using a Galaxy S3 on VZ for the past couple months, having switched from an iPhone 4. Lots of struggles so far, with a ton of issues. The issue I'm trying to fix right now is repairing the (ridiculous to me) "joined" contact syndrome. Don't know what that feature is intended to do, but it is FAR too easy to accidentally "join" contacts. Now, I can't "unjoin" them. When I select a contact that I discover has been "joined", and on the menu select "unjoin", I do get the two different actual contacts listed with red check marks to the right. However, no matter what I do, the contacts simply will not unjoin.

Can anybody help here? The lack of any real native synchronization capability with any of my long standing communication apps prevents me from any other easy solution. I've searched different forums, and google in general, but have found no solution whatsoever that works . Before long, I'm going to have to blow away contacts and manually deal with this.

BTW, the phone was recently (and without either notice nor option to avoid) upgraded to 4.1.1. I'd also like to understand if there is a way to prevent these upgrades without being able to control the scheduling. This upgrade caused me issues and was at a very inappropriate time.

Thanks!

 

[Shadez]

Where are you experiencing the 'join' contact? What app?

 

[wmhjr]

I'm experiencing it in the core "contacts" part of the Android OS/etc as deliverd on the Galaxy S3. The other "apps" I mentioned are the ones on my PCs, etc. I have not installed any "contacts" app or anything else for phone/contact management. This is pure Android/Galaxy.

 

[Shadez]

I'm looking there now and I don't see 'Join' anywhere... I must be missing something.

 

[Shadez]

Or are you talking about all your contacts from every social media group being combined in contacts?

 

[wmhjr]

No, I'm talking about "Contacts".

On the Galaxy S3 with 4.1.1 OS,

Click Contacts

Select a contact

Press the menu button

4th from the top will be a "join contact" option

This is not the only way to get there.

Just below this there is an "separate contact" option.

This option has yet to work a single time for me.

I have contacts that have accidentally been joined. I can not separate them.

 

[Shadez]

Ok I found where you are at. And I'm just taking a guess here. Is it all your social media friends showing up or something else? What contacts are being added. If it's like yahoo or something you need to go to accounts, open it up and turn off synch. Unfortunately for me, I did this and had to go through and long hold down each contact I wanted to delete... kmi

 

[wmhjr]

No, I'm trying to be very clear here. Please excuse my blunt description here, but I'm not being clear enough otherwise.

I have never, ever, ever imported, involved, added, edited, linked, etc with ANY "social media" contacts in any possible way.

This is totally, completely, and solely related to contacts which were added to "contacts" in the Galaxy S3. These are phone and email contacts. That's it. Not a single, solitary facebook, twitter, or whatever other type of data. Only phone number, address, email address. Only native contacts in the traditional sense of contacts.

Contacts are not being "added". Contacts are being "joined" together. More specifically, here's an example.

Two separate contacts exist on the phone, each with separate phone numbers, etc.

Accidentally, the two get "joined" with the utterly ridiculous "join contacts" function on the S3/Android OS.

Now they appear as "One contact". They are not separate. One of the "names" effectively goes away.

I need to reverse this. There is a function called "separate". It's documented (improperly and out of date) on the Android help sections. It has apparently not been updated since 4.1. Furthermore, the 4.1 section has not been updated to include the Galaxy S3 as one of the devices.

 

[Shadez]

I understand you are saying now, I'll look into it today as this is I heard of it. I'm guessing, purely speculative, it's a setting that's somehow being activated when you press one contact after another. Again, I'll see what I can find out..

 

[Shadez]

After you click menu in the contacts area, do you see sych data? Is that checked?

 

[wmhjr]

I do not.

However, if I instead hit menu,and then accounts, there is an "auto sync app data" option which is checked, however which I do not believe does anything related to this.

This is even according to Android unrelated to any synch, etc. It is apparently a miguided and poorly executed (in my opinion) way to join two contacts, likely if there were two contacts with multiple numbers, etc, that are really the same contact. Other PIMs have for years had different and less problem prone methods to do this. The bigger issue here is that the prescribed method to "separate" seems to be totally non-functional. Perhaps an Android bug?

 

[Shadez]

What happens if you select or long press down the joined contacts? Does it give you an option to remove one?

 

[wmhjr]

No it does not.

Again, the only thing I can do with the "joined" contacts (which are the inaccurately and inappropriately combined two contacts which have nothing whatsoever in any form to do with each other) is select the menu button. Then if I select the "separate" button, it brings up the two former different contacts. Each of them has a red minus sign to the right. However, if I press that red minus sign next to one of the two former "separate" contacts, it asks me if I want to separate them. Options are Cancel or OK. If I select "OK', it says in the bottom, "Contacts Separated". However, they are in fact not separated.

It sure seems like a quality issue where there as a bug in the OS. It simply does not work. There are IMHO several quality issues with this incident. First is that the feature/function in the UI is not well designed so it's easy to accidentally "join" contacts. The second is that it appears as though the "unjoin" function simply does not work - or it does so in a fashion that is currently impossible to utilize.

I have to admit, this phone is starting to really frustrate me. Been a REALLY long term "smart phone" user and this has been the absolutely most difficult and frustrating phone to try and get accustomed to. Lots of flexibility and features, but short so far on quality and intuitive UI. Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[debrad0307]

Ok, not trying to be rude, before you bash the phone or OS you need to try again. I just joined two different contacts in my phonebook and separated them with no issues. They aren't linked to any social app either. They are regular Google contacts. So... you're not doing something right here.

Sent from my Synergized SCH-I535

 

[wmhjr]

Not to be rude, but I've been excrutiatingly clear about the steps I've taken. I've repeated this at least 50 times now (attempts, not posts obviously). I understand what it "should" do but it is clearly not doing it.

If it worked for you, I would appreciate the exact steps you used that are different than what I posted in clear detail. I'm not bashing the phone. This is a real issue, I've been attempting for days to try and resolve it, have gone through all steps, etc. The Android help section is clearly out of date (fact - not opinion). I have said the phone is very powerful, however these core functions have been extremely problematic on this phone. I've been using smart phones since their original inception more than a decade ago. I would LOVE to find that I'm doing something wrong and could get through this issue!