Siri can't find a phone number to send text/iMessage

Question

Level 1

16 points

Siri can't find a phone number to send text/iMessage

Up until iOS 9, I had used Siri quite frequently to send text messages to my wife from my iPhone 5S. Now, whenever I try "Send a text message to my wife" it tells me:

"You have two contacts named <WIFE's NAME>, and neither of them has a phone number or email address. Who would you like to text?"

This is clearly wrong. If I ask Siri to "Call my wife, mobile" it works and calls her iPhone.

I have two data sources for contacts: Gmail and my work Exchange. I've tried the following as attempted fixes:

Reboot phone (no change)
Disable Gmail Contacts, then re-enable (worked for about 1 day then started failing again)

Note that it works as expected if I use Siri on my iPad Mini 2 (also running iOS 9.0.1). That is, if I tell Siri on my iPad to send a text, it sends her a text.

Further note that Spotlight doesn't seem to present either of the contacts as an option on the iPhone. If I search All Contacts, I can clearly find my wife's information and one of the phone numbers is even listed as an iPhone.

Anyone have other suggestions to try short of rebuilding the phone completely?

iPhone 5s, iOS 9.0.1

Posted on Sep 29, 2015 8:33 PM

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Answer 1

sberman

Level 10

272,712 points

Sep 29, 2015 8:43 PM in response to Aphoid

You've done a very good job of describing the symptoms and exactly what you have tried.

But you did omit one possibly relevant detail:

Do you and your wife have unique and separate Apple IDs?

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Answer 2

Aphoid Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 29, 2015 9:20 PM in response to sberman

We have separate apple IDs. They are related in that we both are on the same iCloud family for app purchases.

Facebook is another source of contact information.

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Answer 3

xthen

Level 1

0 points

Sep 30, 2015 7:12 PM in response to Aphoid

Having the same problem, very annoying. Haven't found a solution yet.

My husband's contacts that are merged are Facebook and iCloud.

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Answer 4

antipus

Level 1

5 points

Oct 2, 2015 4:44 PM in response to Aphoid

I think I found a work around for this issue. My phone had a linked contact with icloud and facebook for my wife. Here's what I did:

1. Turn off facebook contacts from settings -> facebook

2. Tell siri to message my wife. (I had to tell siri who my wife was again)

3. Actually send a message to my wife using siri. I said "message my wife."

4. Turn back on facebook contacts.

Hope this helps. Wish I had an idea of the root cause of this!

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Answer 5

Aphoid Author

Level 1

16 points

Oct 2, 2015 4:44 PM in response to antipus

Disabling Facebook contacts seems to at least temporarily fix the problem.

Settings:: Facebook
Under "ALLOW THESE APPS TO USE YOUR ACCOUNT" uncheck "Contacts."

It seems to take a few minutes or a reboot to get access to your contacts again.

I'll update if the fix continues to work.

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Answer 6

Oct 7, 2015 4:33 PM in response to Aphoid

I have this exact issue, except I don't have Facebook connected to my contacts, so that doesn't seem to be a problem.

Saying "Send a text to Jane" always worked before, or "send a text to jane doe".

Now however, since installing ios 9 apparently, I have to say "send a text to Jane's mobile" for it to work. Otherwise Siri says she can't find a phone number or email address for Jane. Even though the contact (synced from google) clearly has a phone number.

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Answer 7

camdyn

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2015 5:26 PM in response to Aphoid

TO fix this. Try sharing the contact with yourself. Now delete from your contacts List. Now create a new contact from your shared text message to your self. Siri should now recognize the contact.

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Answer 8

Jan 7, 2016 10:49 AM in response to camdyn

I was having the same problem where Siri was telling me it couldn't find my wife's contact info to send her an iMessage. Sending her from Messages and calling worked all the time. I don't use Facebook sync so that wasn't the problem. Camdyn's solution helped me. The issue is resolved.

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Answer 9

Mar 14, 2016 4:05 AM in response to DavidDawson

I fixed it! person had both an iCloud address and a cell number - deleted the iCloud address. that fixed it on the iPhone . to fully fix Siri's failure to find my

buddy on iPhone and apple watch, I had to delete the various text message streams buddy was part of. Voila! it worked!. had some more recent problem with texts not going through to my buddy from apple watch. deleted text message streams - voila again!

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Answer 10

Mar 19, 2016 2:50 PM in response to antipus

Worked perfect for me.

Thanks!!!

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Answer 11

Jun 11, 2016 9:11 AM in response to Aphoid

I'm blanketing the Internet with my fix. Siri seems to differentiate "mobile" and "home". If I set it to "mobile" then it says I can't find the number. If I set it to "home" then it works.

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Answer 12

Jan 4, 2017 9:14 PM in response to camdyn

Thank you Camdyn! This actually worked!

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