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telephone numbers are messed up

P

paulold

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 3, 2008
401
5
Washington, DC
Has anyone else seen this? I'm not sure when it started, but many of the phone numbers in my Contacts on my iPhone 3GS now have a strange symbol that appears first before the number. The symbol looks like a tall cross. Now when I want to call someone, I have to check to see if the cross is there. If it is, I have to edit the number and delete the cross before I can dial. Very annoying.

Oh and yet again, I have duplicate contacts in my Address Book. (I am a MobileMe user.) Many, but not all, of my contacts appear twice in my phone. I will have to check to see how my address book at home looks (MacBook Pro) when I get back home.
 
For the duplicate contacts....

1. Make sure contact syncing is turned off in iTunes.
2. Check and make sure your contacts arn't doubled on me.com or your address book.
3. Delete your mobile me account.
3. Add mobile me again, and have it replace contacts on the phone with the mobile me ones
 
Any ideas as to why my contacts duplicate themselves? It's not the first time this has happened and I am getting tired of cleaning them up. Am I not supposed to have the contacts syncing via iTunes? Is that the problem? It's trying to sync via a couple of ways?
 
paulold said:
Any ideas as to why my contacts duplicate themselves? It's not the first time this has happened and I am getting tired of cleaning them up. Am I not supposed to have the contacts syncing via iTunes? Is that the problem? It's trying to sync via a couple of ways?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you are syncing via MobileMe you SHOULD NOT check the box in iTunes to sync contacts. Apple shouldn't have changed this. Previously it wouldnt even allow you to check that box. Now it does and everyone is complaining about duplicate contacts.
 
Thanks for the help! I will check my settings. I'm surprised the guy at Apple Support didn't tell me this over the phone when he helped me fix my contacts about a month ago...
 
contacts still messed up

Turns out that I did not have Sync Contacts set in my iTunes for when I sync my iPhone. So, I really don't know where the duplication of my contacts is coming from. The duplication is not as wide-spread as I've seen in the past but there are definitely duplicates throughout my Address Book. And what's interesting is the only difference in content in some cases between two duplicate entries is just the order in which the phone numbers appear. Everything is identical in terms of content. But that's not always the case - sometimes the records appear exactly the same. Strange.

As for the funky symbol that is messing up my phone numbers, I'm attaching a screenshot so you can see what I am talking about. I just scanned my Address Book on my laptop - all of my contacts there look fine - no messed up phone numbers. But many of the phone numbers in my iPhone Contacts are messed up with this funky symbol. I have to go to edit mode to fix them before I can dial the number. Sometimes I have to actually delete the little cross - other times just going into edit mode fixes the formatting of the phone number without me doing anything such that I just have to enter edit mode and then hit save and that contact is fixed. Any ideas as to what is causing this problem? A friend of mine suggested it looked like I had some sort of international prefix setting turned on but I could not find anything like that going on in the Settings on my iPhone. Do I really have to go through my hundreds of contacts and fix all my phone numbers???
 

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have you got multiple email accounts which are copying between each other..

I found a rather fun way to pass 2 hours or so by accidentally clicking sync when in isync (with yahoo enabled) it synced everything up nice n proper though lol.

Might wanna check that isync isnt doing 15 different accounts behind your back

Might help,

PTP
 
I'm pretty sure I am only syncing my contacts with my Mobile Contacts on my MobileMe account. These then I believe sync with my iPhone. I think that's how it works.

Interestingly, I just checked my Mobile Contacts - the funky symbol appears throughout the contacts on Mobile Me. So my laptop is fine, but my MobileMe and my iPhone contacts are messed up with that symbol appearing in many of the phone numbers. The duplication appears in all three. All three address books contain the same number of contacts (364).

I guess I will try to resync my contacts to my MobileMe to see if I can clear out the bad data and get rid of those funky symbols that way. I would sure like to know how they got there in the first place and to know where the duplication is coming from. I now have to go thru my contacts yet again and delete the dupes. Surely this is supposed to work better than this, Apple...
 
I just tried resetting the contacts in my MobileMe, sending the contacts on my laptop's Address Book to my MobileMe and no change. The symbols are still there. This is really annoying. Where is the problem stemming from? My Address Book on my laptop (which appears fine) or MobileMe?
 
I have never had problem using mobileme, itunes, and iphone. If i would you, i would just start again from the top :)

Sorry i cant be more help

PTP
 
Interesting... I just noticed that my Address Book on my laptop had automatic formatting of my phone numbers. Just out of curiosity, I turned it off and voila! there were the funky cross signs screwing up my phone numbers. I just couldn't see them cause the auto-formatting was hiding them. So I guess I have to go thru my address book and fix them all. Ugh.
 
OK - So I just went thru and cleaned up all the phone numbers and removed the duplicate contacts. Now I am down to 339 contacts. Let's see how long it lasts before I have problems again...
 
What happens when you try to call the number with the cross in the front?

Does Jesus pick up? :p

Haha just kidding.. but really, does the call go through?
 
LOL - nah - it wouldn't work. I don't remember exactly what happened but I first discovered them when I tried to make a call and it failed. I'm pretty sure it was after the call failed that I noticed the cross. I've erased all the crosses so I'm not able to try it anymore. Have no idea how to get the cross back in there. : )
 
Jesus loves

It's clear to me these people have allowed Jesus into their hearts.

At least you now know who your "friends in Christ" really are, lmao! :p

On a side note, has anybody ever had an issue where you add a contact into your phone, yet every time the person texts or calls you, it shows their phone number and not their name? I've deleted it and added it several times. I've dropped the Google contacts and calendar exchange, and added it, and deleted and added it through the phone and through Google. Still every time, shows the guy's number. Really weird...:confused:
 
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