Joined Contact Display Conflict

[imdachosenone]

I have joined my facebook, google, whatsapp and phone contacts. The problem starts when the display names are different.

Now the phone has its own mind which contact name to display. I tried un-joining them and leave the name i want to be displayed "in this case PHONE and join them back again.

This resolves the problem momentarily, but whenever I come back , its the same.

This issue is also with Whatsapp connections, the contact name within whatsapp is apearing as per phone contact, but in joined view it displays from other accounts of the same person. This is very irritating.

Can I choose which account's name is to be displayed by default in joined contacts?

I am running 4.0.3 ICS.

[greenman]

The problem arises when you have duplications on different accounts. If you import all contacts to Phone, and then in Accounts & sync turn off sync contacts, that should resolve the problem.

[imdachosenone]

Tried that, sync is off.
Just want the contacts to be displayed with name under phonebook, not with other accounts. There are no duplicates (in one account) many contacts do have profiles on all the added accounts.

I cannot know if above account starts displaying with Skype name in the contact list and on incoming SMS and Calls.

[RichH]

Join the contact with the display name you want last. It will usually pick up the last joined contact as the name for all the joined contacts.

[imdachosenone]

Its the other way around. The contact which is first retains the name. I have already done this excercise for about 500 contacts (very tedious) But the thing is, next time I check a contact its display name has been changed.

[greenman]

Ok, think I'm seeing what you want to do.
In Contacts, press menu > Contacts to display and choose.
You probably have 'All contacts' when 'Phone' would be better.

If that still doesn't help, saving your contacts to sim will use that info by default.
However, sim is very limited - no picture of caller being one of them.

Or, looking at your last post, you may want to check if you have contacts on sim that are duplicated elsewhere.
If the 'elsewhere' is preferred, then delete your sim contact.

[imdachosenone]

1. Phone is selected, even "only contacts with phone" is checked. Still few contacts are being displayed as per facebook and skype names.
2. Tried for a few contacts, no avail.
3. Absolutely no duplicates on any account.

[greenman]

If the contacts have been synced to your phone they will remain there until you cancel sync and remove the contacts from that account off your phone.

The cleanest way I can suggest of getting only the contacts you want on your phone is to have them on one account only - and I would suggest gmail.
Thereafter, remove sync to contacts on other accounts, and remove duplicated entries on your phone.
There should be no way that the contacts can then come back.

[imdachosenone]

I believe I am not clearly describing the problem. The contacts go no where, Its just that joined contacts with different names <as in abobve screenshot> appear, in merged contact list with names other than the phonebook.

As in the above screenshot. The contact appears as "A|i" not as "Ali Kashif QM", the latter is the name in the phonebook rest are all read-only contacts from synced accounts. Why is that? I have turned off the sync.

If I unjoin all accounts accept for "phonebook" and then join all accounts, the display names changes to "Ali Kashif QM". But after some time it automatically chnages back to either "Ali Kashif" OR "A|i".

[Tufftoad]

I believe I am not clearly describing the problem. The contacts go no where, Its just that joined contacts with different names <as in abobve screenshot> appear, in merged contact list with names other than the phonebook.

As in the above screenshot. The contact appears as "A|i" not as "Ali Kashif QM", the latter is the name in the phonebook rest are all read-only contacts from synced accounts. Why is that? I have turned off the sync.

If I unjoin all accounts accept for "phonebook" and then join all accounts, the display names changes to "Ali Kashif QM". But after some time it automatically chnages back to either "Ali Kashif" OR "A|i".

Do you have any of your contacts stored on Google?

I understand the problem that you are on about but there is no easy solution, not that I've come across for now anyway. I have Skype, Voxer, Whatsapp and Google contacts, so had to join some of them up too.

When I joined the contacts the 'Linked' contacts use the Google contact as the Primary Contact. The only other contact which didn't do this was a contact that I added recently and could be due to the fact that I added her info to Google last.

Edit: Not sure if this is the case but...

...contacts that are stored on Google's server may take priority over the Phone, Sim or other social accounts. If you have no Google contacts then the device may not know which type of contact to use as a base?

Think I will have a look into this and see which is the best way to organise contacts or if there are any decent apps out there which can sort this for you.