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Level 1

9 points

Siri says "I don't have a number for" and content not available

I'm posting both the problem I faced and the things I tried that failed in case anyone else runs into this problem.

I had a strange problem recently when trying to use Siri to "call my wife." This used to work (usually) well. However, it recently stopped working. I would say "Call my wife" and Siri would respond with "I don't have any numbers for Stephanie [our last name]" even though when I looked at her contact record there was clearly a phone number. There was also a Content Not Available message below Siri's response. I found the solution (and perhaps the cause).

First, I tried a bunch of things: turning off an Exchange account I had for some Contacts, restarting the phone, turning Siri off and then back on (losing some data that makes Siri more responsive to me in the process). None of that helped.

Finally, I removed the "spouse" relationship from my wife's contact record. That worked! I put "spouse" back. Broken again. Then I removed the spouse relationship from MY contact record. Then I tried Siri again. It asked "What is your wife's name?" I told it, and now everything works.

I think what happened was that I had a contact for her in a different account (Exchange for work), linked it together with my record for her in iCloud in Contacts, and then later removed the Exchange account's record of her (since it was redundant and being based in Exchange her "iPhone" number was stupidly always labeled "other"). Unfortunately, it seems that somehow Siri/Contacts had linked to the now-gone version of her record.

I'd like to see Apple improve this and other error messages in iOS - a lot of folks wouldn't be able to figure out a fix. I am a programmer and have been an IT support specialist, and this one stumped me for a while, since it seems like a rare problem and there wasn't much advice on the Internet.

Hope this helps folks who run into the same problem in the future.

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1.2

Posted on Aug 24, 2014 7:05 PM

21 replies

hepcat72

Level 1

23 points

Sep 18, 2014 7:18 AM in response to loyking

Yay! Great loyking! I had called and on-line chatted, but gave up when they wanted me to take drastic measures, as they recommended for you. I'd even submitted a bug report about the issue, as I have for many other issues, but they never seem to do anything about those.

gvocca

Level 1

4 points

Sep 18, 2014 12:00 PM in response to loyking

Sorry to read it didn't work. In any case you did the right thing, I am going to do the same as soon as I have some time.

Definitely there is no unique solution, it is not a transient failure there must be a bug somewhere

hepcat72

Level 1

23 points

Sep 18, 2014 12:57 PM in response to gvocca

Yup, not transient. It is either a bug or corruption. But if it was a bug, I would think the behavior would be more consistent, i.e. the same or similar solution would likely work for everyone, which is why I lean toward the corruption cause.

teachGr4

Level 1

4 points

Oct 12, 2015 4:12 PM in response to Krioni

My problem with "no number/address" started when I upgrade the iOS. My solution required a slightly different edit. I had to contact cards linked. Once I unlinked the cards and edited the contact to have only one profile...voila, Siri could now call/text no problem.

rnb2

Level 1

25 points

Oct 18, 2015 12:02 PM in response to Krioni

I'm having this problem, but in reverse - "Call/message my wife" works, but doing it by name doesn't. I don't have a middle initial in her contact, and unlinking the iCloud and Facebook contacts didn't do the trick. At least I know how to send a message to her now - I always used her name in the past, and this thread let me know to try "wife" instead, but the mysterious issue persists.

@JDH.

Level 1

5 points

Nov 20, 2015 5:43 AM in response to rnb2

I think I was having the same problem... Siri said that she did not have phone numbers or emails for any contacts who were related to me in my contact profile. Here are the steps I did to fix:

Turned off iCloud Contacts and selected 'Delete from iPhone'
Deleted the 'My Card' contact that remained on my iPhone after I turned off my iCloud contacts
Turned on iCloud Contacts and gave it a few minutes to sync up all of my Contacts

My iPhone automatically picked up 'My Card' again once it was synced and Siri now works with all of my related contacts. Definitely a bug in there somewhere with the 'My Card' sync.

Siri says "I don't have a number for" and content not available