Contact photos gone

filip.k · 3 January 2022 08:40

I’m pretty sure that avatar photos are not changed but it’s something changed about permissions of apps reading them.

It happen again on my X 10 with 4.3 release. I’ll try reimporting all.vcf from freshly created backup. At least that helped a few releases back.

carmenfdezb · 3 January 2022 10:39

I have te same issue and never got to solve it. Finally I added avatars manually for my contacts (I only had 10-15 contacts with avatar) and I did a backup.

spheniscus · 3 January 2022 10:57

YES. Absolutely. 100%. Was a picture I assigned to the contact approx. 3 years ago. Reliable behaviour back in the day: Take a photo - assign to contact - delete photo in Gallery, but is still shown in Contacts App. Makes me guess the photo is “coded” into the contact’s details, independent from the Gallery.

spheniscus · 3 January 2022 11:10

Additional DEBUG info: I compare two contacts now, in the Contacts App.

An “old” one, picture taken 2-3 years ago. Contact photo does not exist as a stand alone image on the device, nor SD card. Image is shown in the “Favourites” of the Contacts App.
When I tab that very contact in details view, no image, just the dummy head/shoulders.
Now I choose “Edit”. The area left to First name, Last name, Nick name is just empty. No head and shoulders, nothing. Blank area.
I tab that area. Options now are “Choose from Gallery” - and “Delete Avatar”. Cancel. Back to Contact App’s main view.
Another contact, as old as number 1, but picture recently refreshed by hand, as it got missing for whatever reason. Tab on contact for details. Image is displayed properly. Choose “Edit”. Picture shown left to First/Last/Nick name section. Tab on image. Same info given as above, two lines to choose from, BUT the distance between those options is larger than in case 1, estimate: 4-5 lines. Cancel.
Both contacts are stored in the (local?) Address Book (“Adressbuch” in German).

What I recently changed, in general: Enabled Android support and added some Apps from F-Droid store. And updated SF OS, of course, as of now: 4.3.0.12 on Xperia XA2.

Hope this helps.

spheniscus · 3 January 2022 15:26

Would like to help debugging (a little, at least - as long as I am still in the post New-Year’s-Eve-mode

I could look up differences (?) on my phone, but need help as I have no idea how contact images are stored these days. Thought they were part of the database (or .vcf), but discussion above shows me they are not (any more).

So my question is: How are images attached to contact data? Stored somewhere on filesystem, linked via UID?

PizzaProgram · 5 January 2022 09:51

You can click “Backup” button on your phone to create a .tar file.
Inside that >> People dir > data dir > all.vcf file.
That is a simple text file you can view or edit. The bigger sections include the photos.
You can compare with older backup to see the image code difference.
(I did that too … but had no time to extract an old + a new one to copy here to show the difference yet.)

spheniscus · 7 January 2022 16:17

Confirmed. My files are dated: 2021-12-04 and 2021-07-21

Newer one is 75.9 kB in size, approx. 3039 lines
Older one is 16.9 MB in size, approx. 218650 lines
Looks like the .jpg code is totally missing in the newer file

What I did NOT do in the time between July and December:
a) Delete 98% of my contacts
b) Change any of the contacts backup settings - I would not know where, and how

My conclusion, as of now: Contact photos are missing in the all.vcf backup file. Something has (been) changed in the backup behaviour.

spheniscus · 15 January 2022 23:15

Any confirmation, disproof, or bugfix available?

Thx in advance

dyraig · 13 February 2022 17:31

Just another data point: when I finally upgraded my Xperia X from 4.1.0.23(? - stable version) to the latest 4.3.0.12 (I upgraded to the stable 4.2 first, then upgraded again to 4.3), I also lost most of the avatar pictures I had set at some point in the past. Like described above, they do shown up if someone sends me an SMS, but not in the “People” app. The “People”-tab in the “Phone”-app is even worse - there, none of the avatars are displayed anymore. The contacts are also synched to a Nextcloud account, and there, I can still see some of the avatars, though in some cases I only see an older avatar.

NodaUK · 13 February 2022 21:49

I think this may be a known problem.

You’ll need to get the all.vcf file from a previous backup and reimport the avatars: but I don’t think this is a permanent solution.

Previous posts on this topic by me follow, with much input by more knowledgeable people than me.

remote · 13 February 2022 21:55

I just gave up on contact photos. This is bad.

spheniscus · 25 February 2022 21:59

Updated to 4.3.0.15 on XA2.
Phone App - contacts/persons: Only one contact I recently added a new photo is shown. All the rest of my favorites only show: Last name, first name instead of an image :-(.
Contacts App: Same (as of now) six favorites here. Image is shown for a total of FOUR contacts, thereof: three older ones and one picture recently taken.
Two native Jolla Apps, different behavior?
For me, rolling back to an (outdated!) .vcf file that contained more pictures is not an option.

Professional, future-proof solution appreciated.

filip.k · 26 February 2022 08:13

+1

I use a workaround: create a fresh backup, extract file all.vcf and manually merge missing pictures with a GUI diff tool from backup that contains them. After import contact pictures are back. It’s manual process but at least it works.

spheniscus · 26 February 2022 22:37

Yes, filip.k, this is an approach. But…

Hey, this worked back in the day. I am too much “just an ordinary user”. Although I know what diff is, this is NO!!! solution for me. Not for regular backup, or update process.

Strictly speaking, some whatever-whenever update of Sailfish OS deleted! my! user! data!

I apologize, but consider this to be a bug. Once it worked as it should, now it is worse. I still hope for a fix. As of now, there are 1-4 contacts left ;-( I have a nice/working image of.