Signal-android: Restore accidentally removed contacts

Created on 1 Oct 2016 · 8Comments · Source: signalapp/Signal-Android

I have:

[x] searched open and closed issues for duplicates
[x] read https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/wiki/Submitting-useful-bug-reports

Bug description

In my Android address book the Signal contacts (with "Signal Call" and "Signal message") were seperated from the real contact (with the phone number, mail address and other stuff) (this isn't the bug I want to report here, it could be caused by moving my contacts from google to owncloud). I thought I can just remove the "duplicates" (signal contacts), refresh contact list and this will be fixed, but now the contacts are broken (see Actual result).

Steps to reproduce

open address book
remove the signal-part from the contact
open signal
refresh contact list

Actual result: The contacts appear as SMS-only users, but when I click on them, a secure Signal chat opens
Expected result: They should appear as Signal users again

Screenshots

For privacy reasons, I don't want post screenshots or debug logs

Device info

Device: Oneplus X
Android version: 6.0.1
Signal version: 3.19.1 (Google Play Version)

App state

Signal messages and calls registered, SMS enabled, passphrase disabled, dark theme, default notification settings, using chrome app

Source

mueller-ma

Most helpful comment

I think an easy way to fix this would be an option to rescan all contacts in the contact book and add missing signal parts to contacts.

Although there's no explicit option for that, you can still go into your Android settings, go to _Accounts_, delete the Signal account (don't worry about the warning), open Signal, tap the blue pencil, and pull down the contact list to refresh, at which point the Android account should be recreated together with the contact associations

haffenloher on 5 Oct 2016

👍6

All 8 comments

Might be a duplicate of #5730

ByteHamster on 3 Oct 2016

Related, but no duplicate. #5730 workaround is matching contacts manually again.
Here no workaround possible, since the contacts are gone

mueller-ma on 3 Oct 2016

Unfortunately this sound like an Android issue more than a Signal issue. Loads of apps have the same issue because of the tantalisingly crappy AOSP contact implementation. allways trying to automatically sync to your gmail etc.

E3V3A on 5 Oct 2016

I think an easy way to fix this would be an option to rescan all contacts in the contact book and add missing signal parts to contacts.
An option in Threema sounds like that: "Checks connection between Threema contacts and Android contacts and corrects them, if necessary"

mueller-ma on 5 Oct 2016