[Solved] Phone has stopped working - Android

[HuggyBear]

Bit of a wierd one I need help with please guys...

Our suite of Android 9 devices are having an issue:

When going into phone contacts, tapping on a contact causes the app to lock up and close - no contact details are shown nor is there an ability to call/message the contact.

There was no settings changes made prior to the issue occuring.

Initially I thought it would have been because I had an app whitelist, however, I have switched to a blacklist, but the issue persists.

Does anybody else have the same (or similar) issue? I'm open to suggestions to attempt to resolve.

Cheers

[PeterJames]

Hi @HuggyBear ,

Removing both white/black lists will show if this is the part related; sometimes vendors put in their own bloatware/apps and trying to figure out these apk package names is sometimes a nightmare.

If this is the case...the above also explains what you need to figure out 🙂

Thank you,
Peter James

[PhilipDAth]

Did it start happening to the phones one by one?  If so, it is probably an update on the phone side.

If you have an empty blacklist then it can't be that - as that allows everything.

I'm assuming these devices are running in device owner mode?

[HuggyBear · Accepted solution]

I think I may have cracked the case...

I think it may have had something to do with contact groups - the "Groups" menu item that was in contacts, when tapped, would show a message of no affiliated application, which, is expected when using a white list option.

Added com.samsung.android.contacts to the white listed applications (I had com.samsung.android.task.contacts white-listed)

Then I simply going to Settings > Apps > Contacts > Storage and click on Clear Data

Our contacts are synchronised from a shared Google account so simply re-downloaded them.

Voila!

We now have contacts back, along with "Groups" menu item working

Thanks for your insights.

Hopefully, this will help someone someday!

[BlakeRichardson]

@HuggyBear  Nice problem solving and thanks for sharing the fix. Its handy to know what the solution was in case someone else has that issue in the future.