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iMessage on Mac not showing contact names

I don't understand why people keep saying that changing the country code on each contact is the solution. I understand some may prefer to do that so not to have the hassle of iMessage on Mac not working correctly. But the point is iMessage shouldn't and doesn't usually require adding the country code manually. Its really on Apple to fix this and not up to the user to find work arounds. Its ridiculous that after several months of people suffering with this Apple still haven't fixed it.
 
The problem exists only with iMessage, FaceTime shows the contact names correctly. I think the problem is they removed the Location dropdown from the preferences menu. If you look in FaceTime and Contacts you can find the Location dropdown but not in iMessage. Hope they bring it back.
 
I tell you what, I am fed up with the morons posting on this forum. I'd love it if you could make users take a small test before they post "solutions" to determine if they have the advanced knowledge they need on here.

The stupid comments like "manually type the country code on all your contacts" is the kind of thing that makes me want to slap these people hard, with a blunt instrument, or, failing that, an old MacBook.
[doublepost=1507549593][/doublepost]
echinox said:
The problem exists only with iMessage, FaceTime shows the contact names correctly. I think the problem is they removed the Location dropdown from the preferences menu. If you look in FaceTime and Contacts you can find the Location dropdown but not in iMessage. Hope they bring it back.
Click to expand...

this is not correct. although its true iMessage used to be able to manually select the country of origin, iMessage did work on El Capitan and Sierra without the manual country selection option, I think it worked due to the regional settings on your Mac OR your the country your Apple ID was registered in, or something else.
 
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Hicksmat1976 said:
can we say this issue only exists on the MacBook Pro? Mine are the 2015 models.

My Air, which is earlier, works fine with iMessage.

all devices on High Sierra.
Click to expand...

My MBP = Names
My iMac = Numbers
My wife's MacBook = Numbers

All devices on Sierra.
 
It appears that this is caused by the country code prefix.

A friend sent me an iMessage and it doesnt show his name. The message shows in imessage as +44...

if i then go to Contacts, and update his number to have the +44 prefix, iMessage shows his name.

Fix up Apple
 
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Mr Baldman said:
It appears that this is caused by the country code prefix.

A friend sent me an iMessage and it doesnt show his name. The message shows in imessage as +44...

if i then go to Contacts, and update his number to have the +44 prefix, iMessage shows his name.

Fix up Apple
Click to expand...

Proof that this thread has become too long to read.
 
Hicksmat1976 said:
I thought the format of the phone number might have a relevance. I'm in the UK so we use +44

If I alter one of my contacts to have +44 as a prefix and then try iMessaging that contact it works. weird.

this is just started happening today.[/QUOTE
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1507847110][/doublepost]The problem (which was driving me crazy) was solved for me by going to Settings - contacts. After that clicking gmail accounts/messages (Left hand column) and then checking contacts and messages in the right hand column.
[doublepost=1507847272][/doublepost]The problem (which was driving me crazy) was solved for me by going to Settings - contacts. After that clicking gmail accounts/messages (Left hand column) and then checking contacts and messages in the right hand column.
 
This is a problem that has surfaced numerous times over the years since iMessage has been available on the Mac. I can't speak to the technical reason it occurs, but it is clear to me it's just some sort of sync/cache issue with iCloud. However, when it happens, I can (and just did, again) fix it by:

1- Quitting iMessage at the machine
2- At the affected machine: completely logging out of iCloud including turning off find my mac so that it'll fully turn off, as well as allowing it to delete whatever files it threatens to delete.
3- Toggle OFF iMessage at the iPhone
4- Repeat step 2 at the iPhone with the same caveats.
5- Reauthenticate iCloud at the iPhone and ensure Contacts are part of the sync
6- Reauthenticate iCloud at the affected machine
7- Relaunch iMessage

I just went through those steps on an iMac i just stood up today. It's AnnoyingAF, and will almost certainly happen again, but that has always done the trick.
 
I know this hasn't worked for others, but simply disabling the account on imessage, quitting the app, enabling the account once more resolved this for me. I like the OP have too many contacts to go about manually editing phone numbers. Hopefully this will stick!

Running the latest High Sierra 10.13

EDIT!

This lasted all of what....45 minutes... back to as it was before. Ugh!
 
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Hicksmat1976 said:
there are too many people posting who are posting rubbish frankly. Tech people like myself need a place to talk to other tech people, no disrespect.
Click to expand...

Hi everybody,

I have exactly the same problem.
I'm in macOs 10.13 High Sierra with a MacBook Pro 15" TouchBar.
Messages shows only phone numbers and not contacts names.
Before update to High Sierra, messages works fine .... No one solution in this thread works for me.
 
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Hicksmat1976 said:
there are too many people posting who are posting rubbish frankly. Tech people like myself need a place to talk to other tech people, no disrespect.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same issue

Clean install of High Sierra 10.13 ... sign in to iCloud ... open iMessage ... cannot send messages without adding +44 to contacts & new messages from random number prefixed +44

iMessage not tying messages to '07' contact numbers.

Apple? Useless.
[doublepost=1508149012][/doublepost]I have several hundred contacts pulled in from Google - iMessage has ran faultlessly for years, now High Sierra has borked it badly.


People recommending adding +44 to contacts? Well thats just great. Why should I manually do this, or seek out a script to add +44 to all my contacts?

I live in the UK.

I work in the UK.

All my contacts live in the UK.

They all have numbers prefix '07'.

I do not want a list of contacts displaying '+44' prefixes, I just want to see their actual UK numbers.

Apple are really dropping the ball these days. There can be little coincidence that since Steve Jobs passed away we have had these god awful releases from Apple. Has anyone tried 10.13 APFS-encrypted for instance? I sincerely hope not.

How can something as simple as sending an iMessage be so difficult for them to stuff up?

What is even MORE infuriating is that FaceTime on HS works absolutely fine! It pulls in contacts and I can make/receive phone calls to the correct contacts without the need of this +44 malarkey.

I have very little confidence in Apple now...

From 'it just works' to 'it sometimes works' - we're approaching Microsoft levels of reliability. I do wonder if the USA iMessage in HS works, and Apple have forgotten that there are other countries/markets out there.



I very much hope that a 10.13.1 is on the way soon to resolve this!



Please Apple, sort out the iMessage +44 issue!!!
 
For what it's worth, I submitted a bug report with a sysdiagnose which has been marked as a dupe of 32848418.

Original Bug Report - 32848418
@dai.hop Bug Report - 34734893 (29th Sep)
My bug report - 34766190 (2nd Oct)

Looking at the sequential numbers seems Apple has known about this for a bit. Looks like we need to sit tight and hope they can fix in a new release...

For all those posting 'sign-in and sign-out' etc, whilst I appreciate it has fixed it for you, if you look back at Page 5 of the posts you'll see some of us have tried some pretty major attempts at this with mixed luck. Consider yourselves lucky you fixed it!
 
So, I have had the issue with my new MacBook Pro. I’ve since tested iMessage on different fresh builds of MacOS, and it seems to be happening as far back as 10.12.4 I think. My initial build of 10.12.3 worked fine, but that might have been when they took out that location option, which I think is the issue. It only seems to be for fresh builds though. My iMac I’ve just upgraded each time new OS updates come out, and that is running 10.12.6 and it still works fine, probably because the location was set in the previous build. So not sure how to fix it and it’s super frustrating when you are trying to use contacts to send the iMessage, and it errors. All my contact photos sync still so it’s matching the number properly, but it isn’t showing the name, just the number with the country code. Not sir how then it’s knowing what contact to associate with. I called Apple too and they couldn’t fix it. I’ve just tried it on a fresh 10.13 too and it still isn’t fixed. And I don’t want to have to go through and change all my numbers to +61 for Australia as it was all working fine in an earlier build.



Hicksmat1976 said:
Hello

I have 2 Macs all running the latest MacOS and an iPhone running the latest iOS. All three devices are using the same master iCloud contacts list and there are no other contacts accounts activated.

One one Mac I have an issue whereby some of iMessages are showing as phone numbers rather than resolving to the contact name.

logging out and in again to iCloud and rebooting has not resolved the issue. Anyone else seen this?
Click to expand...
 
colinchuang said:
My initial build of 10.12.3 worked fine, but that might have been when they took out that location option, which I think is the issue. It only seems to be for fresh builds though.
Click to expand...

This aligns to my experience.

I installed two new Sierras builds in the space of two months due to a failing SSD. The first (presumably 10.12.3 or earlier) was fine. The second new Sierra build a few months later, same machine different SSD, had the issue.

In short this issue appears to affect all non-US domiciled new builds from around 10.12.4. Feels like that's a big catchment! Macrumors should update their front page :)
 
leroyyy said:
This aligns to my experience.

I installed two new Sierras builds in the space of two months due to a failing SSD. The first (presumably 10.12.3 or earlier) was fine. The second new Sierra build a few months later, same machine different SSD, had the issue.

In short this issue appears to affect all non-US domiciled new builds from around 10.12.4. Feels like that's a big catchment! Macrumors should update their front page :)
Click to expand...
leroyyy said:
This aligns to my experience.

I installed two new Sierras builds in the space of two months due to a failing SSD. The first (presumably 10.12.3 or earlier) was fine. The second new Sierra build a few months later, same machine different SSD, had the issue.

In short this issue appears to affect all non-US domiciled new builds from around 10.12.4. Feels like that's a big catchment! Macrumors should update their front page :)
Click to expand...

I’m glad I’m not the only one having this issue. And it’s surprising that this hasn’t got more traction to be fixed, but I guess if it’s working in the USA then they don’t think it’s broken. I wonder if there is an issue of where the location was when the fresh install was done, because on one of them, after I installed it I had to change the location from some random place in two seperate settings, so somewhere in the system, iMessage still thinks it’s that other location. Not sure why it doesn’t take the location you are in when you install it in the first place. I wonder if it’s different with an out of the box install on a a new machine rather than an internet rebuild?
 
Thing is that somehow the pictures of contacts are shows correctly to the names, so it knows who is who, just the names are broken.
I am in Romania, same issue, for me any contact without +4 is broken (ex 07.....) so yeah, global lame-ing for apple.
 
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