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Facebook Contact Photo Sync Question

tardman91

tardman91

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
1,170
398
Tampa Area, FL
When you synce your contacts with Facebook are the photos supposed to update automatically when your friends change their profile pictures? Mine aren't. I'm pretty sure I remember them auto updating on my old Nexus One, and maybe even my old iPhones? (3G and 4). Am I imagining things, or am I missing something? My 4S definitely displays old Facebook profile pictures when people call. I think in the past I have un-synced and then re-synced the contacts to update the pictures, but it seems it should do that automatically.
 
Honestly, I know that mine are not updating either. I don't think that they do. I've tried almost everything. I hope that this helps, but if anyone else can help it would be great.
 
Yeah, I can't recall for sure if they ever updated or not, but I noticed recently that they definitely aren't updating, so I figured someone around here might have some more insight.
 
I actually had it running perfectly as soon as I got my 4S. Then I noticed it would randomly delete my wife's profile pic and I would have to re-sync. I bought an app (.99) called "Smartsync" This app is great and will sync all of your contacts and even add their info to your contact you have for them. Of course you have to manually sync for every update, but you can have a notification to sync your contacts.

Personally, I just sync manually every so often because I was annoyed with the app telling me to sync. I think it's a worthwhile app for what you're looking for... Although, it doesn't update their pics on its own.
 
The Facebook app does a fine job of syncing the contact photos, and I don't really want anything more than that. I'm really just wondering if anyone's updates, or used to, or if the app is supposed to do that or not, or ever did at one point.
I just manually re-synced my photos and chose to replace existing contact photos. Now they're current. I'll keep an eye on them to see if they update automatically.
 
Can you guys tell me step by step how you are syncing your phone contact photos with facebook? I have been looking for this!

Thanks
 
Hey dudes, I have a weird error that I don't think I've seen anyone else mention. Before today, my contact photos synced just fine with Facebook, but now half of my contacts get this weird little navy blue box instead of their actual photos. For example:

a5awie.png


Anyone know what's going on? I tried deleting the photos through Facebook, deleting the photos manually, and both times those same contacts still come out this way.

Drew1204 said:
Can you guys tell me step by step how you are syncing your phone contact photos with facebook? I have been looking for this!

Thanks
Click to expand...

On your Facebook app, go to "Friends" then hit the little arrow on the top right corner and you'll get the "Sync Contacts" option.
 
k.i.t.t.o. said:
Hey dudes, I have a weird error that I don't think I've seen anyone else mention. Before today, my contact photos synced just fine with Facebook, but now half of my contacts get this weird little navy blue box instead of their actual photos. For example:

Image

Anyone know what's going on? I tried deleting the photos through Facebook, deleting the photos manually, and both times those same contacts still come out this way.



On your Facebook app, go to "Friends" then hit the little arrow on the top right corner and you'll get the "Sync Contacts" option.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I synced them and now I too notice that blue box, except the box on mine is a bright royal blue...weird
 
Drew1204 said:
Thanks! I synced them and now I too notice that blue box, except the box on mine is a bright royal blue...weird
Click to expand...

Hmm. Now that I think about it, the app did get an update a few days ago, so maybe it's a bug related to that. So unless I'm wrong, maybe the next update will fix it. At least I hope so...
 
Hi, I have a similar issue

I have managed to sync facebook pics and info with my iPhone, but not all the profile pics have been synced, some have, but others for some reason have not. I have tried to turn the settings off, and back on again, but the same pics don't sync!

At the end of the day, it's only a minor thing, but just wondered if anybody knew why, or maybe had any ideas as to why some sync and some don't
 
Griffis said:
Hi, I have a similar issue

I have managed to sync facebook pics and info with my iPhone, but not all the profile pics have been synced, some have, but others for some reason have not. I have tried to turn the settings off, and back on again, but the same pics don't sync!

At the end of the day, it's only a minor thing, but just wondered if anybody knew why, or maybe had any ideas as to why some sync and some don't
Click to expand...

Make sure the names in your Contacts exactly match the names of your friends as they're listed on FB.
 
rosemary1 said:
Make sure the names in your Contacts exactly match the names of your friends as they're listed on FB.
Click to expand...

They do, I've double checked that.
This will sound very strange now, but most of the contacts I would expect to have synced actually have...but none of the contacts that I would expect (due to different names, or nicknames etc) that start with the letter 'L' have synced! I have checked the names over and over. Only reason I'm checking really is because my girlfriend's name starts with L, and her profile pic won't sync...maybe I should just do it the old fashioned way and take an actual picture directly on my phone and use that one lol
 
Griffis said:
They do, I've double checked that.
This will sound very strange now, but most of the contacts I would expect to have synced actually have...but none of the contacts that I would expect (due to different names, or nicknames etc) that start with the letter 'L' have synced! I have checked the names over and over. Only reason I'm checking really is because my girlfriend's name starts with L, and her profile pic won't sync...maybe I should just do it the old fashioned way and take an actual picture directly on my phone and use that one lol
Click to expand...

Another way to do it is to manually add the short link to a person's FB page to their Contact entry. If you look at a Contact that did sync, you'll see an address that looks like fb://profile/XXXXXXXX where the Xs are the person's profile ID number. Then sync again and it should work.
 
the sync function worked fine for me but they only replace the contact picture on the phone, I also sync my contacts from google and soon after the FB image appears google just replaces back to what it was before.

Anyone have a solution?
 
kicko said:
the sync function worked fine for me but they only replace the contact picture on the phone, I also sync my contacts from google and soon after the FB image appears google just replaces back to what it was before.

Anyone have a solution?
Click to expand...

Same problem...any resolution? I see the new Facebook pictures for a second, then they all revert back...
 
mbaran said:
Same problem...any resolution? I see the new Facebook pictures for a second, then they all revert back...
Click to expand...

I have not found anything yet. Probably there is not solution other then importing your FB pics into google contacts directly. That doesn't appeal to me so much because I believe its something you would have to keep syncing.
 
I grabbed SmartSync for .99 and it seemed to work just fine... sucks that FB won't do it, but oh well.
 
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