IOS – Message, Phone apps started showing only phone numbers, not names

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About three days after upgrading from iOS 11.4 to iOS 12 my messages and phone apps (recents & voicemail) started showing only phone numbers, not contact names. In some cases, they would display "Maybe: [name]".

Trying to figure this out, I noticed that my contacts app was not formating numbers correctly. Instead of (123) 456-7890, it would show 1234567890.

I tried a lot of fixes that were suggested on the internet (edit one contact, restart, stop the apps and re-start, etc.) but none worked.

How can I fix this?

Best Answer

I figured this out. Note that this fix works for an iPhone 5s running iOS 12, with contacts synced to Google/Gmail. Your mileage may vary.

The problem seems to be that the phone numbers in the contacts app have lost the proper format. They should be in the form (123) 456-7890 and they have become formatted as 1234567890. It seems that iOS does a really literal comparison and it can't resolve this difference. I tested this theory by editing a contact to put a "+1" international code in front of the number. That forced the number into the correct format and the phone app and messages then displayed that person's name.

The challenge was how to do this without editing every phone number.

I fixed this by changing my region from the US to Canada. That evidently forces a re-formatting of the erroneous numbers. Then I changed it back to the US.

Go to Settings, General, Language&Region, Region, select "Canada", then press "Done" (I bet selecting any region would work). The change takes a bit of time. When it is complete, look at your recent calls, voicemails and messages--they should be displaying names. Look at your contacts--phone numbers should be correctly formatted. If so, the problem should be fixed. In any case, change the region back to "United States."

Good luck, I hope this works for you.

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Applescript to Create Contacts:

    set phoneDad to "Dad Mobile" --Use your own custom variables imported from CSV
-- would need to parse CSV

    tell application "Contacts"

        set thePerson to make new person with properties ¬
            {first name:"John", last name:"Doe", organization:"ABC Apps"} ¬


        -- see the "Contacts" AppleScript dictionary
        -- for other attributes than may be added

        make new email at end of emails of thePerson with properties ¬
            {label:"Work", value:"john@example.com"}
        make new phone at end of phones of thePerson with properties ¬
            {label:phoneDad, value:"555.555.1212"} --Use a variable to replace hardcoded number
        make new url at end of urls of thePerson with properties ¬
            {label:"Work", value:"http://www.example.com/"}     
        save

    end tell

You can set custom variables based on your CSV parsing.

This should point you in the right direction. So, in answer to your question, with Applescript you can add custom fields. Just use a similar syntax to the above code. You just need to parse your CSV files accordingly. I don't know what 3rd party app you use, but this is routinely done directly from database apps such as Filemaker.

Best Answer

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