[jtv1]

Jhimmel, I've never used link, it just does it and I never noticed it when I first got my phone, probably a month or two after

jtvberry

[KingOfQwerty]

Rules as per KB articles: (Small changes)
1. Any local contact created in device will be written on writable sources like say outlook.com address book. It seems this KB info is void from 10.2 as one can select on what writable sources the new contact has to be created.
2. Any manually linked or unlinked files will not merge again automatically. ie if any automatic merging logic is over ruled manually, those contact will never merge again automatically.
3. One of the merging basis is mobile number field. If same mobile number is available in two contacts, it will be merged.
4. If same source account contain two contacts with same name it will not be merged.

Actions: Day 2
a) As 386th contact is still not received in device, contact sync is switched off and on. Lo, all 386 contacts appeared on device.
b) Status: 386 outlook contact and 1 BBM contact
c) In outlook.com, moved a name from last name field to first name field and it is reflected in device roughly in half an hour
d) Added mobile no in one of the contact in device and same is reflected in outlook.com immediately
e) Added mobile no in one of the contact in website and as a result total number in device reduced to 385. That means missing contact. But technically that means some contacts are merged.
f) A quick search on the website revealed that, the same mobile no I have added to a contact is available already in another contact. So rule no 3 applied by BB10 and both the contacts are merged.
g) Observation: When BB10 does such action it neither asks for confirmation nor gives a notification.
h) Removed the mobile no from other contact in website. Waiting for proper transfer of contact modification. Not happened. Again do Contact sync slider off and on and Lo all contacts appeared properly.
i) Observation: It seems automatic de-linking is not happening in BB10. One has to reset the contact syncing process via Contact sync slider off-on.
j) Created a new contact in outlook.com website, after 2 min, properly updated in device
k) Created a new contact in device for only outlook account. After 2 min, updates on website also.
l) Created a new contact in device for only outlook account and local account. After 2 min, updates in website also.
m) Created a new contact in device for only local account. Checked in website whether wrongly it updates Outlook.com, but not updated. Tried Contact sync slider off - on. Not updated in outlook.com website.
n) Status: 1 local, 1 bbm, 389 outlook contacts. So far so good.
o) Setup Facebook account in settings. Immediately, contact population starts. Within 5 min 151 FB contacts arrive on device. But there is only 149 showing in outlook website where I have already synced Facebook with Outlook.
p) Found out the reason: Extra contact 1 - It was a latest addition and outlook has not updated but BB10 has correctly updated. Extra contact 2 - There are two FB contacts with the same name. (actually same guy who has two accounts). Rule no 4 is applied. In outlook I had merged manually earlier.
q) Status: Outlook-389, FB-151, BBM-1, local 1. All showing 498 whereas theoretical summation is 542
r) That means BB10 has linked some contacts.
s) Observation: While the FB data came immediately, FB contact photos took overnight to populate in device.

[jtv1]

jtvberry

[Omnitech]

That's one I forgot to mention which has lately and after knowing it was in your contacts folder, then conveniently disappears when you look into your contacts again.

Even at times, you correct a contact then it reverts to what has already been fixed.

I've observed this.

I had a couple of contacts that had only the character "S" in their first name field. Possibly a slip of the finger when swiping (S = swipe? ), when there was no existing data there. (ie company contact with no firstname/lastname)

Deleted the "S" on both affected contacts. When I go into "Edit" mode - there is nothing in that field. But in "View" mode - or if I search for contacts using a string that includes one of those contacts, the 'deleted' character is still there.

I even tried exporting those contacts using a couple of different 3rd-party contacts apps. The "S" character does not appear in the exported data. But it keeps showing up in either view or search modes on-device.

I know it is a new platform, but the the contact folder of a phone should be stable, everything else should be attached after should be come secondly and even thirdly.

I will never do IPhone or Android but may have to move to Windows as my port visitation for my work and study, then come back to my bb when they decide to open the ears, stop rushing where angels fear to tred and listen to their customers directions.

I agree but I don't think it's a matter of "listening to customers". The flaws, bugs and architectural brokenness of the contacts app in BB10 are such that any rational human that uses it for any significant length of time will discover these things. It's mind-boggling to me how broken that app/functionality is. Like many other elements in BB10, it leaves the distinct impression that it was designed by amateurs that had no idea what they were doing, had never done this type of software before, and were simply "winging it".

The email functionality in BB10 has the same kind of problems, though the fallout is a little different. Some of the worst bugs have been corrected by now.

[Omnitech]

It's an initial nuisance, but you just un-link them. They don't re-link themselves. They need to give us the option to completely disable the linking of contacts though. Don't need it, don't want it.

The company is on-record as having espoused this idea that the legacy BBOS devices were "too complicated" and had "too many menu choices" so there was apparently this mission to "simplify" everything. (Personally I think they fantasized about following in Apple's footsteps here)

But the problem is, it's actually more difficult to simplify something correctly - so that it does not handicap usability - than it is to design something complex. It also requires a deep understanding of a wide spectrum of potential use-cases, and strong UI design expertise such that you can design something "simple" that is not "simplistic" and "constraining".

Well, they don't do a very good job of it.

All sorts of options are removed with the mindset that either they are "not necessary" or "too few people would want them". Worse, there is very little in the way of user notification when something happens or does not happen, no useful error messages or logs, everything is "blind". e.g.:

g) Observation: When BB10 does such action it neither asks for confirmation nor gives a notification.

One of the worst examples: I don't know who the jerk was that thought it was a good idea to "fade away" long text strings, as if people don't care about them, and should not care about them. Instead of giving people a way to click or press something to expand these things, they just arbitrarily truncate them.

Case in point: here's what my contact list entries for the following state agencies look like in the contacts app on the Z10:


"California Department of Fair Employment and Housing"







"California Dept of labor standards enforcement"







And here is what the search results look like if I do a contacts search that includes these records:







So the ONLY way I can see the contents of those fields is to go into EDIT mode on each record.

What despicable human-being signs-off on these design choices?!?!?

And this stuff is all over the OS - and even worse, in many cases there is no workaround as we can do here to go into edit mode and see the full content.

[KingOfQwerty]

Rules as per KB articles: (Small addition)
1. Any local contact created in device will be written on writable sources like say outlook.com address book. It seems this KB info is void from 10.2 as one can select on what writable sources the new contact has to be created.
2. Any manually linked or unlinked files will not merge again automatically. ie if any automatic merging logic is over ruled manually, those contact will never merge again automatically.
3. One of the merging basis is mobile number field. If same mobile number is available in two contacts, it will be merged.
4. Contacts will automatically form a link if they share the same information for any of the following:
First and Last name
Email address
Social networking profile (for example, same LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook profile)
Mobile Phone number
PIN
BBID email address
5. If same source account contain two contacts with same name it will not be merged.

Actions: Day 3
a) Reconciliation done between outlook website and BB10. All contacts are clear.
b) Status: BBM-1, Local-1, Outlook-387, FB-150, All-484 (Sum-539) So far so good.
c) Observation: BB10 list my own FB details also as a contact whereas outlook doesn't.
d) Setup LinkedIn account in settings. After contacts are populated, there is an issue of 6 contacts between outlook website and BB10. Carefully went through outlook+linkedin contacts between device and website and eliminated duplicates and merged some entities.
e) Tip: To do the above check, in device via setting only select to display Outlook and LinkedIn contacts. (This will show local contacts also). In outlook.com website, select outlook and LinkedIn to display. First tally totals at each alphabet level between website and device. If you notice a difference, check every contact in that particular alphabet. You can find why total is not tallying and can sort out the issue.
f) Observation: First name and last name or vice-versa display has problem in BB10. Universally, "last name, first name" format is used to display but BB10 is displaying "Last name First name" without comma. So far BB10, "Chen John" and "John Chen" are same but doesnot recognize "Chen, John" as the same person.
g) Status: Local -1, BBM -1, Outlook - 387, FB - 150, LinkedIn-53, All-517 (Sum-592). So far so good.
h) Twitter account is added. 17 contacts populated in device against 16 in outlook website. Reason: BB10 imports my own account in twitter as one contact. Since my twitter contacts are in no way connected to local or other social contacts, no linking took place.
i) Tip: If one want to link contacts between social accounts, say FB and LinkedIn, manually check as some may not link properly because people sometimes don't have same exact profile in both of them. See rule no 4
j) Status: Local - 1, BBM -1, Outlook - 387, FB -150, Lin-53, twitter -17, All - 529 (Total sum - 609). So far so good.
k) Observation: Available field between Outlook.com format and BB10 format are different and may create an issue. Ex: I added some info in nickname field in Outlook format but since in BB10 this field is not available it is not displayed in device. However in device if you search within contact app with nickname, the relevant contact is displayed. So it seems, info is available in BB10 but not displayed.

[amjass12]

Are we nitpicking at wanting improvements for contacts app? Do blackberry have the best Co texts app with all its integration or are there better apps.. don't know about android, but ios contacts app is nowhere near as good as blackberries.. that much I know

Posted via CB10

[jtv1]

I like how Omnitech puts it

Ok, so you have contacts as normal, their email address, social accounts and instant messenger. All in the hope that (if they got two or more phones), that you will get in contact with them.

So on then to the basics, "strings"; you have BBM, what'sapp, Skype (WinLive), yahoo messenger, Viber, Tango, and many more.

Could they not all use the same format like most do and succeed or is it against the law. Does being different mean totally messing everybody up, is ok, rather than it, being a way of achieving the same goal, for whatever reason, at different levels of service and security.

jtvberry

[Omnitech]

So on then to the basics, "strings"; you have BBM, what'sapp, Skype (WinLive), yahoo messenger, Viber, Tango, and many more.

Could they not all use the same format like most do and succeed or is it against the law. Does being different mean totally messing everybody up, is ok, rather than it, being a way of achieving the same goal, for whatever reason, at different levels of service and security.

The various chat networks have their own proprietary way of doing things because that is typically seen as their competitive advantage.

Back when most IM networks were owned by large companies like Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft, there was a push to document the protocols they used so that people could write cross-platform messaging apps that allowed you to talk to people on various disparate IM networks without having to install a proprietary app for each one. I was (and am) a big fan of such apps.

But because each company fiercely protected their network tech and userbase - thinking that "interoperability" would allow other companies to lure their customers away - they fiercely fought this, and in some cases (as with Microsoft), whenever someone would successfully reverse-engineer their IM communication protocol, they would change it again, rendering that 3rd-party app incompatible until they reverse-engineered the new version again. (This is reminiscent of how email communications were up until the point where standards-based internet email increasingly supplanted proprietary email systems, starting around the early 1990s.)

For contacts, it seems that the most common "standard" for data exchange is vCard. Unfortunately, vCard is pretty rudimentary as far as data containers go, IMHO. So even if you have a nice well-organized contacts format with uniquely-identified field objects etc, you lose all that stuff once you have to "dumb it down" to vCard in order to exchange it with other entities. (ie Gmail, Yahoo)

Perhaps this is a key advantage for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) based contacts syncing - because it's probably a much more sophisticated data-exchange format than vCard is. But its sophistication would have to be matched on the device side (ie uniquely identified field objects) or else you could squander its benefits. I don't know how well BlackBerry 10 does this.

[meltbox360]

All I want is an option labeled "Don't F***k With My Contacts" that turns off all syncing and linking and let's me make a single local copy.

I swear it's out of hand. Luckily I've found that duplicates tend to appear when I have the BlackBerry Link account enabled in the contacts app. Once I disabled that it seems to have begun to respect my wishes. It would also be nice if there was a way to back up only the local contacts because contactx just wants to back up all of them. Duplicates and all. Makes reloading the OS a pain where I have to manually reenter every contact.

Posted via CB10

[Omnitech]

It would also be nice if there was a way to back up only the local contacts because contactx just wants to back up all of them. Duplicates and all. Makes reloading the OS a pain where I have to manually reenter every contact.

If I were you, I'd avoid Contact-X at this point. I believe the original developer is gone, OS compatibility is limited and it contains a bug that will potentially lose some of your data on export. See my post linked below (post #99 of that thread - you'll have to navigate to it manually if you're using the CB10 app):

http://forums.crackberry.com/general...l#post10273600


Now that they've fixed other data-exchange bugs, I feel pretty good about:

ContactsExchange
Backup Pro

Contacts Exchange by manysmallapps will allow you to export by selected account.

[Omnitech]

I edited my last post a couple of times, you may want to review it if you didn't see the "final" version.

[tombstonebb]

Doesn't it seem ironic that one of the features that the average BlackBerry user values the most is security yet many are syncing their contacts with Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and social media?

Why do you suppose these commercial entities which provide these "FREE" features are investing so much time and money into it? Is it out of the goodness of their hearts?

Oh you bunch of Sheeple.

[wilkto]

Here's a thought. Recently downloaded "Movie Library". It has a built in feature to backup the database, for that matter so does "Password Keeper". Why can't the contacts app as well. I'm not a Dev but surely it can't be that difficult. Anything has to better than Link.

Posted via ZedTen

[anon(5818411)]

keep this thread going!

[jtv1]

Spent all day unlinking unnecessary contact links, and if not unlinking editing.
Once done, I backed up with, Fire Chest, rebooted, went back and synced on the PC via BlackBerry Link contacts and calendar.

Found I got some doubles and triples come back and sorted them out again..

I'll let you know by this time next week what works I got, cut out for me.

jtvberry

[hoovermac]

There use to be option to not sync contacts when you initially set up social accounts. I don't rem if it was there when I installed beta FB.

But contacts still show up in app unless toggled off. And right now on 10.3 the toggle won't remain in off position.

I know what I'm doing when entering contact for first time. Yet I have same issues if doubles, triples, quad duplications. I use Gmail strictly for contacts on my phone, otherwise I don't use Gmail at all. Not even for email. So only changes I make are via device.

And I've cleaned up contacts once already since I restored after install. Last night a few had begun to duplicate again.

And as others has reported, I've had them disappear as well. Luckily I still have my torch 9810 and was able to find on it and add back.

And it's not just names being duplicated but info inside the contact (number, email, address) being repeated over & over.

So...... even if someone doesn't know what they are doing..... I doubt they are entering same number, address, etc multiple times within the contact itself.

Posted via CB10 - the app that may or may not exist

I really can't say for sure how many times I have linked contacts together in the BB10 contacts app, only to have them randomly and mysteriously disappear afterwards. Another weird issue is that the headers for text messages sometimes display the phone number, sometimes the contact name, and if it does display the phone number, it will show a random variation of the contact's phone number. It's a little bizarre! Never saw this issue in BBOS6?

Posted via CB10

[ZeroBarrier]

Guys I have had my contacts on my Hotmail account since the conception of Hotmail, and I've had zero problems with bb10 synching with it.

I've never used "local contacts" and don't see the reason why one does.

Please ide love to know what kind of problems do you guys face.

I have 736 contacts fully cleaned up with emails phones accounts etc.

I don't think I belong to the Uber connected category but close to a thousand is fair I guess.

Q10 On Steroids running on pure Awesomeness

I don't understand it either. Nearly 3,200 contacts and absolutely no issues other than the contacts app displaying the same number multiple times when linked to social media accounts for contacts that have their number included on their accounts. That is the one and only issue, and it doesn't bother me all that much as I do all my work from hub or from universal search (I think I open the contacts app maybe once a month).

Posted via CB10

[jtv1]

Yes, it took just one movie for a few to come back, cleaned up and I'll be back before the end of the week.

jtvberry

[KingOfQwerty]

Day 4:
a) Status remains same except that from Twitter one contact is missing. Found out that my own name is taken back.
b) Next Step: Linking with my laptop.
c) In Macbook's (where its Contact is with zero record because OS X Maverick is not connecting with Outlook.com) BlackBerry Link, setup Contact syncing and synced. No BB10 contacts transferred to Macbook.
d) Reason: All my contacts in device are linked to some external sources like Outlook, Facebook etc. The only dummy contact I have created in device is only for Local. So no contacts from BB10 was transferred to Macbook.
e) Created a dummy contact in Macbook and it synced with BB10.

[jtv1]

Oh one more thing I noticed, is when you pick a letter from the alphabetical index, and it just stands still.

I really feel it's a built-in bug or it acts like there's one or I have a built-in worry, this is an open door for a bug to walk in and out at will.

jtvberry

[b121]

Hi all

BlackBerry is working on different parts of the contacts app and functionality. Features are not even final at the moment.

I am currently reporting different errors related to contacts to BlackBerry but they are hard to reproduce so all I can do is to document them with screenshots and hopefully BlackBerry can figure out what is going on.

The issues I have reported are:
- wrong names shown in call log but correct number (phone app)
- wrong number dialed when contact called
- wrong contact shown when doing a redial.
- incorrect linking of contacts (improved on 10.2 though)

Seems like the made the contacts handling too complicated to implement without bugs...

I switched from my z30 to my z10 and back to my z30, and all of my bbm contacts got jumbled and I can't figure out how to fix them. Many were linked together, now I have the wrong pictures, numbers and emails between them. By far my biggest complaint to date.

I'd recommend they test the issues, which are hard to reproduce, with many accounts on the phone (Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, bbm, bes10, active sync, etc), and try to break it. They also need utilities to clean contacts with duplicates and better linking/unlinking control. It seems they need better update controls and validations in the interfaces to the phone, but I'm no expert on how this was developed. Good luck bbry!

Posted via CB10 (7250 -> 8703e -> 9530 -> 9550 -> 9650 -> 9930 -> PlayBook -> Z10 -> Z30)

[HotFix]

This thread inspired me to go clean up my contacts, and here are some oddities I noticed.

#1. If I have a personal email contact with just a first name populated, and it is linked to a Facebook / LinkedIn contact that has a first and last name populated, no matter what I do I can't get the last name field in my personal email contact to update unless I unlink the two contacts and update the personal one that way.
#2. 90% of my contacts had their email address listed as their "work email address" even though it is their personal email address. This could have been some setting in Exchange contacts but I don't remember seeing "work" in my contacts email addresses.
#3. Even though I used the Settings --> Accounts --> three dots --> clear local contacts, I had a number of contacts with a local contact that I had to unlink and delete. The local contact was essentially blank bit still linked.
#4. Skype contacts appear like the are local contacts, but the afore mentioned command did not remove them (thankfully).

I'm still annoyed by the lack of a "," character when contacts are displayed as "Last name, First name".

Posted via CB10 via Z30STA100-5/10.2.1.2947

[jtv1]

A new problem has just occurred!

Most of my contacts pictures have disappeared.
After all the unlinking cleaning, editing and resetting, WHY ARRRRGH

jtvberry

[anon(5818411)]

Hopefully they look at Easily.Do and Accompli how how they manage contacts. 100x better

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe.../#post10398111
https://beta.webapps.blackberry.com/...w/22922#112345

Like it bump it BB needs to see this!!!