iPhone iMessage briefly displaying phone number instead of contact name...

[^^BIGMac]

Problem I started experiencing a few days ago.

When I launch the messages app it briefly displays the contacts phone number instead of the contact name then reverts to the contact name. It's brief but annoying. If I leave the app open it's fine. If I kill the app and reopen it the weird behavior is there. I've tried everything and even talked to a senior advisor at Apple. They couldn't come up with a solution.

So I'm wondering if others have experienced this and if there is a fix. I've searched the InterWebs and saw others who have experienced this as far back as 2017 but no real definitive cause or solution. This behavior just started lout of the blue and is only happening on may iPhone 15 Pro. My iPad and even my wife's iPhone works as expected.

 

[ladolcina]

Problem I started experiencing a few days ago.

When I launch the messages app it briefly displays the contacts phone number instead of the contact name then reverts to the contact name. It's brief but annoying. If I leave the app open it's fine. If I kill the app and reopen it the weird behavior is there. I've tried everything and even talked to a senior advisor at Apple. They couldn't come up with a solution.

So I'm wondering if others have experienced this and if there is a fix. I've searched the InterWebs and saw others who have experienced this as far back as 2017 but no real definitive cause or solution. This behavior just started lout of the blue and is only happening on may iPhone 15 Pro. My iPad and even my wife's iPhone works as expected.

Hmmm, I haven’t had this happen to me, I’ve only had temporary graphical glitches with contact photos in Messages before, where they sometimes didn’t show up in notifications.

The only potential causes I can think of, is do you have multiple SIM cards on the phone? Or do you have multiple contact lists, where the same number may be showing up twice, so it gets confused on which display name to use?

(Unrelated also, but amazing profile avatar!)

 

[BigMcGuire]

I get this rarely when I hard reboot my phone (the volume up, volume down, hold power) - temporarily. But I've never had it happen outside of that to my knowledge.

It's tied to the contacts app so if you have a 3rd party app that's messing with your contacts, might be that?

 

[^^BIGMac]

Multiple SIM cards … no.

Two contact lists but no duplicates.

As I mentioned the phone has acted as expected until about three days ago when I noticed this happening.

It seems a glitch in iCloud syncing but Apple had me try all sorts of things to trouble shoot and nothing help.

Turn off contacts in iCloud and then back on. Restarted the phone. No difference. Did a hard reset which didn’t help.

I’m wondering if signing out of iCloud and then signing back in may help. Haven’t tried that yet.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Multiple SIM cards … no.

Two contact lists but no duplicates.

As I mentioned the phone has acted as expected until about three days ago when I noticed this happening.

It seems a glitch in iCloud syncing but Apple had me try all sorts of things to trouble shoot and nothing help.

Turn off contacts in iCloud and then back on. Restarted the phone. No difference. Did a hard reset which didn’t help.

I’m wondering if signing out of iCloud and then signing back in may help. Haven’t tried that yet.

Depends on how much data you have in iCloud, that's the nuclear option (especially for me (I've got ~160GB of photos and lots of other things)) - hopefully someone else replies with more experience / similar issue.


I wonder if it's a bug with the latest iOS with multiple contact lists?

 

[^^BIGMac]

Yeah I was hoping somebody experienced the same thing and has a solution. I’ve read reports as I mentioned but no specific fix that absolutely worked.

I may call Apple back and maybe get a more knowledgeable Senior Advisor.

 

[^^BIGMac]

I wonder if it's a bug with the latest iOS with multiple contact lists?

Nope. Phone has operated perfectly with then current iOS. I updated yesterday but that clearly isn’t the issue.

 

[^^BIGMac]

OK nothing fixing this except a restore and setup as new. Damnit.

I restored but loaded in my backup. Just brought the problem over with the backup. I’m out of idea and Apple Support has not been helpful.