All contacts have changed to "custom"

[user9KwkDWDHky]

March 28, 3025 noticed all names of over 1000 of my contacts changed to "custom." Have most recent update on my S24+. Use Gmail app with 2 accounts - Gmail and Comcast email. Sent report thru samsung members app. Any wisdom?

[realaud]

Where are you storing your contacts?  Samsung account? Google contacts? SIM card? phone? Try clearing the phone's cache and see if it comes back to normal.  Also clear the cache of the contacts app. If you are storing your contacts in multiple places, you should move them to one place.  You contacts should be being synced to Google Contacts, even if they are in another storage location.  Open a browser and go to contacts.google.com and see if they are listed there.  Go to your contacts app (not the contacts tab of the phone dialer) and open the side menu (3 bars on left).  Tap on "All contacts" and see where your contacts are stored.  If they are all over the place, choose manage contacts and select move contacts (select the from and to locations).  I suggest you move them all into Google so that you can access and edit them from anywhere. I suggest you don't do this, however, until you sort out the naming.  Make sure Google Contacts sync is on (settings/google/all services), so that when you add a contact from your phone or website they will be synced. After you do any/all of this return to the contacts app and tap on "all contacts" and select the default contact location (if you moved your contacts to Google, that will be the place the phone will automatically store new contacts).

[user9KwkDWDHky]

Tx a bunch. Will take some time but at least o have some things to try. Turned your message into sort of a checklist to keep me organized.

[DeltaBravo94]

That's a neat trick. Your post is 100 years and 1 week in the future.

[skibik]

Your still about 900 years off! It would be 1000 years in the future not 100.

[DeltaBravo94]

Yep that's last zero fell off my reply.

[user9KwkDWDHky]

Below is link to my checklist of things did and discovered. Maybe you can figure out next step ? Tx
https://1drv.ms/w/c/7e930e7d767f43f1/EVL9sVu7ZLJHssFxlCBFey0BvX3biVPpvo2nUAzSEyBENQ?e=27MKLy

[realaud]

Something got messed up.  Just so I am clear, are you saying all the *names* got set to "custom"? So all your contacts have the same name, "custom"?  I don't even know how that would be possible. At the very least, since the name field has to be manually filled, a glitch should revert it to blank.  

I suggest you do copy the contacts to Google to make sure they are backed up, even as they are, and then bite the bullet and do a factory reset of the phone and restore your backup.  Hopefully, whatever glitch caused this problem will reverse itself with the reset and hopefully your contacts come back.  

Also, FYI, since Gmail is a Google service, any contacts you have in Google will appear in your Gmail app and any contacts you add in Gmail will populate into Google contacts.  You don't have to actually use your Gmail account for this to be true, as you must have a Gmail account to use an Android phone. This is why your contacts automatically sync with Google, no matter where they are actually saved.

[user9KwkDWDHky]

Before I start trying other things, below link to screenshot of one problem contact. Name of whole contact still intact. All names of different phone numbers in the one contact have changed to "custom," does this help?

https://1drv.ms/i/c/7e930e7d767f43f1/Eb80aKWMvWtItf09nwxVrn8BvIGvmMyp3Pfo-_vUX8YCkg

[realaud]

OK, so that's basically an easy enough fix, though not if you have to manually do it for every phone number for every contact.  The contact name is intact, so that's good.  The telephone number identifier has reverted to custom.  All you need to do is use the drop down to change it back to mobile, main, home, etc.  It is tedious if you have hundreds or thousands of contacts with multiple numbers, but there is no way to automate the process.  I'm going to assume the number you listed first for the contact is the number you usually use to contact them by, so you can still reach your contact and know who you are calling.  The rest you will have to reconfigure when you are waiting for a train, in a doctor's waiting room, watching TV or otherwise killing time.    I would start with the people you contact most frequently and anyone really important, then go on to the lesser used ones when you have time to spare.

As I said, backing up your contacts, doing a factory reset and restoring your backup may clean up whatever glitch caused this change. The worst that happens is it stays the same and you will have to go through the process I outlined above. 

BTW, you know you can just upload screenshots directly to the app.  If you are using the app, tap the "+" next to the text window to add the screenshot.  If you are using the web interface on a computer, tap the camera icon on the toolbar of the text window.