Contacts lost after full reset and restore

[randomscandinavian]

I reset my Lumia 930 hoping to fix some sound bugs I've been experiencing. After restoring from my backup however, several things are lost.

One example of this is my contacts. My People list is virtually empty even though I am logged into all my accounts and apparently synced. I have about five people there from a second Microsoft account from work.

On my even older phone, also logged into the same accounts, my contacts are all present. But can they be transferred manually somehow?

Hoping for a quicker way than to write them in again one by one.

 

[Shamshi-Adad]

I reset my Lumia 930 hoping to fix some sound bugs I've been experiencing. After restoring from my backup however, several things are lost.

One example of this is my contacts. My People list is virtually empty even though I am logged into all my accounts and apparently synced. I have about five people there from a second Microsoft account from work.

On my even older phone, also logged into the same accounts, my contacts are all present. But can they be transferred manually somehow?

Hoping for a quicker way than to write them in again one by one.

Go to your OneDrive account online. From the 9dots (top left) Select Outlook (NOT People)
when in outlook Select Contacts/People
Give it a couple seconds to load.
Are they all there?
Peace. Alan
Galaxy S7Edge [MM6.0.1] Full Dresser
Lumia ICON [Win10M 14977.1000] Sportster
Even when I lose, I win.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Alan, thanks! I don't have an Outlook icon in that menu. Only People. (all contacts are there in People). I can go to outlook.com and log in, which also gives me the exact same menu with People in it. But I cannot see contacts/people anywhere on either page.

 

[randomscandinavian]

I see that there are both an email account, a Hotmail account and a Microsoft account on the phone, all with the same address/user name. There is such a thing as an Outlook account as well available from the new account menu, but it won't let me add one since I'm already logged in to it, it says. On the older phone there is no Outlook account but maybe that is because it wasn't called that back then? Maybe I should delete the Hotmail one or something and it will let me add Outlook as a separate thing?

 

[shmsnh]

Outlook is the new hotmail. There's no difference. If the contacts are visible on Outlook Web using your hotmail account, then those contacts will be available on any device using the same hotmail account.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Well, they aren't. Which is the problem here unfortunately.

Tried removing the Hotmail one from my phone and adding it again as Outlook just to see if adding it again would help. It didn't. Still no contacts on my phone.

 

[shmsnh]

Well, if you can't see contacts on the webpage, it means there are no contacts to sync. You said you had another device with the contacts. Do those contacts sync with a Microsoft account?

 

[randomscandinavian]

I can see the contacts on a web page. On the same account. Yet they are not synced to the handset. They were before and they are on the older phone.

 

[shmsnh]

Since you say that the contacts are visible on the webpage, the problem is clearly with the device. It has been a while since I used a device with Windows 10 Mobile, so I do not know the exact terminology being used. The two things to check are: i) contacts sync is enabled for the account, and ii) contacts from this account are set to display in the People app.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Check and check. Unfortunately. It should sync but doesn't. So the affected areas are People, Messages and phone calls. All my contacts show up only as phone numbers.

 

[shmsnh]

Would it be possible for you to do a hard reset but not restore from backup? Because I can't think of anything else.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Hmm. It took me maybe four hours to set things up again with the backup, so without it... no I would rather buy a different phone then. Which I will need to do eventually anyway, this being a dying platform unfortunately. I'm trying to get this to work so that I can hang on to WP a little longer, even though app after app is discontinued.

It would take me less time to add all of the contacts one by one manually. Perhaps I can import them to my Outlook work account through the web interface. But I don't want them to be accessible to other team members. Don't quite know how that works.

 

[randomscandinavian]

I added a ficticious new contact in Outlook online and then exported the entire contact list of hundreds of people with the intent to import it into a new account. But only 12 names were exported. Mr. Ficticious Contact was one of them.

I have also noticed that in settings in People on the handset, there is no option to sync contacts or calendar, only mail. In settings the same preference panel has these options and they are turned on.

 

[shmsnh]

What do you mean by 'export'? A csv file? Clearly, there's something wrong if only 12 contacts are exported instead of all. Honestly, I am out of ideas regarding this issue. You seem to have the correct settings.

Maybe someone else here will have better ideas.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Yes a csv file. I'm about out of ideas myself. Since only 12 contacts are exported maybe the rest aren't actually from that account but linked to it from some previous ancient account I didn't know I was using anymore.

Also it is odd that my microsoft/Outlook account doesn't have an actual @hotmail or similar extension. The account name and login is the same as my regular email, which is on a domain of its own.

Thanks a lot though for all your help!

 

[shmsnh]

You might be right about the ancient account. I tried exporting my Outlook contacts, and all of them were there.

Your Microsoft Account does not necessarily have to be @hotmail/live/outlook.com unless you have signed up for an email account with Microsoft as well. If you don't have one of these accounts, it might be a good idea to create an alias for your current Microsoft account that ends with @outlook.com (since hotmail/live are no longer options).

 

[randomscandinavian]

Hmm. An alias you say... you mean I just take the same username and replace the domain with outlook.com? Or do I need to set it up somewhere as an alias?

Btw, there is apparently an old hotmail account in my life with the same username@hotmail.com that just discovered and I tried to get into today. It was already blocked on my first attempt due to too many wrong login attempts. Tried to recover it but the recovery question didn't seem familiar. Can't think of any favorite person I have in history.

 

[Jules W]

I am also having Account Sync issues, contacts and appointments lost after reseting my phone, my brand new phone won't sync either. Various errors when try to Sync. Cortana can see appointments but not the people hub or outlook. Suspect m.outlook.com servers are not operating correctly, but its been like that for weeks, so Microsoft is not going to fix it ina hurry.so I will be returning my new Lumia 650 tomorrow

 

[shmsnh]

Go to account.microsoft.com and sign in using your current Microsoft account (the one with the non-Microsoft domain). Go to 'Your Info' and then click on 'Manage how you sign in to Microsoft'. You'll be able to set up an alias there.

 

[shmsnh]

I am also having Account Sync issues, contacts and appointments lost after reseting my phone, my brand new phone won't sync either. Various errors when try to Sync. Cortana can see appointments but not the people hub or outlook. Suspect m.outlook.com servers are not operating correctly, but its been like that for weeks, so Microsoft is not going to fix it ina hurry.so I will be returning my new Lumia 650 tomorrow

Since it has been like that for weeks, it is clearly not the Microsoft servers. It would help to know what you have tried, but since you are returning your device anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter.