Siri suddenly doesn't recognize most of my contacts

I've been beating my head against the wall with this until today when I stumbled upon a solution that worked for me.

Go into your Settings >Mail,Contacts,Calendar. Click "iCloud". Then turn off "Contacts". Turn contacts back and and let it resync with iCloud.

Siri works perfectly for me. I don't know what or what it did, but this was the last ditch effort that did the trick.

Good luck.

Siri does this to me, too. E.g., I call Nena Smith several times a week. One day, it said "sorry, there is no Nena Smith in your contact list" which was ridiculout. After several requests (and blood pressure going through the roof of my car) I was able to turn off the phone and then turn it back on. After the reboot, Siri again recognized that Nena was in my contact book by the time I pulled up to her house.

Funnily enough, today I called Nena again. I say "Call Nena Smith" and Siri says "do you want to call Laura Smith?" and I say NO! and Siri says "whom do you wish to call?" and I say Nena Smith, and Siri says, "do you want to call Laura Smith . . . and we're off. It refuses to call Nena Smith and will only call Laura (a person I seldom call). I rebooted, but that didn't solve it.

Another one: Call Ann Roberts.

There is no Ann Roberts in your contact list. Would you like to call Robert Jones or Ann Roberts?

Even if I say Ann Robertssssssss it refuses to call her!

What is wrong with Siri? These are only two of many examples.

And more important, even with humans with a problem, the important question is

How do I fix this?

Thanks.

I have the same problem, even simple names in my contacts are not being recognized. It seems like something is wrong in ios7 siri.

Unfortunately I can't offer any help, but I have got the exact same issue. All names are being recognized as a series of words, not names. I had about 98% accuracy with Siri untl about 3 weeks ago.

I am experiencing this on both my iPhone 5 and 5s, as well as my wife's 5c.

Here's hoping Apple may take notice. The problem came out of nowhere which makes me think it's a server back end issue.

Come on Apple,help us out!

It's getting worse. Now, I ask for "Lynn Carr" ( had to change it to two entries: Lynn Home and Lynn Carr to stop Siri from being confused) and, instead of dialing Lynn Carr It asks me "do you want to call linker?" Apparently, it doesn't like my saying Lynn CAAHerr and wants me to learn Siri English. I'm not willing to do this.

Is there a way to teach Siri to speak English. I usually do a very good job as a pronunciation teacher for adult immigrant students, but Siri is getting defiant. Does anyone know where I can get help? Write to gmail.

Having the same problem since upgrading my iPhone 5 to iOS 8.1.3 a few days ago. Same as phineasboggs. Commands like "Call John Smith" or "Tell John Smith" result in Siri responding with "Do you mean John Brown?" or similar. After responding "no," Siri offers a list that usually excludes the person named (although Siri has on occasion included the correct name on the list). Yet the contact is clearly in my contact list.

Siri seems to hear just fine. It just will not recognized named contacts. These features worked just fine a few days ago!

I've tried power cycling, resetting (home/power buttons), disabling and re-enabling Siri. This is thoroughly infuriating.

Just curious about these recent Siri issues ... are you all using Siri directly through the phone or with a car Bluetooth? I've determined she understands me fine when I'm speaking through the phone ... but if I am speaking via the Bluetooth connection on my car, I can say, "Play xyz," and Siri will say, "Calling So-and-so," or some such. When I first got the phone in October, Siri could understand me fine through Bluetooth. I was hoping the latest iOS update would put it back in order, but, alas, no.

As I mentioned above, Siri seems to understand me perfectly fine. In fact, Siri will even say, "I don't see a John Smith in your contacts." However, there is clearly a John Smith in my contacts and Siri all of a sudden cannot find the contact. This has nothing to do with whether I am speaking into the phone directly or via a Bluetooth device such as a headset or the car. All of these input devices have the same results. The input devices clearly work just fine because Siri clearly recognizes my instructions (and displays my words on the screen perfectly).

Siri simply chooses to not find the contact in my contact list, whether I am placing a call or trying to send a text message. Siri cannot find the contact. Further, it does not seem to matter which contact list the contact is from. Siri finds similar names on the same or different lists and cannot find various names on various lists. It does not matter if the contact is a favorite, as I have tried removing the contacts from favorites to no avail. It does not matter whether the feature to show favorite or recent contacts in the app switcher is enabled or not.

I had changed no features or settings when the issue appeared. It has since been an issue for all but about an hour a couple days ago.

THIS is exactly the problem that I have. Siri echos my request just fine, then complains that she cant find the person in my contacts list, which is clealry there. Sometmes she will replay "Uh oh! I cant do that right now."

Really silly that there might be some back end server problem that prevents local voice dialing.

It looks like this has been going on with some users for a while with no answer. I noticed it about a week ago. I don't use this feature a lot, but I do in the car from time-to-time, and it no longer works.

Same thing happened to me. This worked for me as a solution. Although potentially risky to data if you have to proceed to method 2 or 3, method 1 worked fine.

http://appletoolbox.com/2016/01/siri-not-working-with-ios-9-2-1-how-to-fix/

Ok here is what fixed mine. Turn off Hey Siri. Then turn off Siri. Then reboot your phone holding power and home button. Then power your phone back on. Turn Siri back on. Leave Hey Siri off. Texting now recognizes contacts.

OK had same problem. Tried every solution, reset, Siri settings, network settings, etc. nothing. Even tried editing the contact pronunciation that didn't work

oh a hunch I tried something. I noticed lately something about the new update now is collecting data on contacts from multiple sources. When you search contacts you find multiples. So I checked them out. They say from email or whatever. You can then combine them with your main contact. Once I did this bam now everything worked again. So any contact that is not being recognized search your contacts and see if it shows more results than just the main one. Merge them. Hope that helps

Same problem and the last fix doesn't work. Seems it's all been said - a common name spoken to Siri in my contacts that I have used again and again to call a family member and Siri tells me that 1) The name is not in my contacts 2) Gives me a name or a list of names that may have the same last name but not the person I asked for... Frustrating, very frustrating. The only way I could solve it for my wife is to phonetically type in her name or in the case of my son or daughter tell Siri how they are related to me. Frustrating! Seems as though this happened with the last iOS upgrade of 9.3.1. Apple please fix this annoying software glitch. Thanks!