After contact refresh a 'Deleted account' conversation appears

[bme13]

Guidelines

• [x] I have searched searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• [x] I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• [x] This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

Bug description

After refreshing contacts a new conversation appears that's called 'Deleted account' containing Deleted account is on Signal!. The conversation also contains an Invite to Signal button as if it's no Signal contact. More strangely the related notification that was raised did contain the name of the contact though. In addition, on IOS a new conversation did appear with the proper name. This is a more recent installation though.

Screenshots

Device

Samsung S9

Android version

Android 12

Signal version

7.38.7

Link to debug log

https://debuglogs.org/android/7.38.7/f30dfbf514b1cb921bb97bc99273692c40009e6b289af3613599aca2894e6c92

[aalrehn]

Can you please attach a screen recording of this?

[bme13]

Obviously this can't be reproduced since it will only create this on a new detected contact. It's also not clear what additional information this would provide. There's a normal notification that someone has joined Signal. This notification contains the name of the contact and after that there's a new chat as can be seen in the attached screenshot.

[bme13]

It's unclear to me why you're responding like that. I just explained why there's no screenrecording and I'm trying to understand what additional information you're hoping to get so I could perhaps provide that by other means. I'm not sure if you're related to the Signal organization but this kind of response does not really encourage me to report issues. Also please keep in mind that you might deal with persons who's mother language is not English so the tone might be a bit strange.

[goonerDroid]

Tried deleting contact and then refreshed contacts on Signal, was not able to reproduce this issue mentioned. I was able to open the chat screen of the deleted contact and as intended it shows with the number as chat name and not like the one shared above.

@bme13 if you can share the steps to reproduce this issue or a screen recording like mentioned above it would be really helpful!

[bme13]

I don't think this is about deleted contacts but about deleted accounts. To me this seems a contact who previously had Signal installed, but then deleted it (or perhaps removed the account correctly) and than (much) later reinstalled Signal again. I'm not sure but perhaps this can be reproduced by:

• Ensure you have notifications on for new contacts
• Have a contact in your phone that does not have Signal (perhaps a test number)
• Install Signal for that account
• Get the notification is on Signal
• Remove Signal for that account (the proper way so not only removing the application but unregister that account)
• Contact refresh (This might give you the Deleted account chat)
• Reinstall Signal again for that account (I assume you should not restore it by using the pin but don't know if that would make a difference)
• Perhaps you now get the is on Signal notification again and the Deleted account conversation state

[bme13]

One additional remark. If I search for the contact that was in the original notification this seems to be a Signal user. So I guess the notification is correct but somehow this cannot be matched to the existing (Deleted account) conversation. That only exists of some previously notifications x is on Signal.

[greyson-signal]

@bme13 aalrehn is not part of the Signal org, apologies. The information you have provided is enough for this issue. Thank you!

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been closed due to inactivity.

[bme13]

The exact same thing happened with the latest version (7.52.0). https://debuglogs.org/android/7.52.0/b477332d3c3f59973959b06edd1db56ce4d6033de10767fe8ae7df8cdc7514d1

[bme13]

This happened again but the behaviour is a bit different now. Normally I archive this 'Deleted account' is on Signal chat. That's what I did this time as well but after archiving this chat it reappeared after a while, now showing the number instead of 'Deleted account'. This happened a couple of times. When looking into this I've noticed that after opening the chat while showing the number it changed to 'Deleted account'. After archiving the chat while it showed 'Deleted account' it sometimes reappears immediately in the chat list while showing the number again. If I archive it while it shows the number it remains archived for a while (perhaps a couple of hours) before reappearing in the chat list. To me it seems it occasionally this chat changes between 'Deleted account' and the number and this triggers the reappearance in the chat list. Note that this is on the beta but I think it relates to this specific chat. Archiving other chats works as expected.

https://debuglogs.org/android/7.59.0/ad758d02d59f2944f5b074595d57c1e60a13f0b9a8270adff8cc57e3776b7133

[bme13]

After keeping the specific chat unarchived this chat is indeed switching between listed as number and deleted chat. Here's a log containing a number of those switches. https://debuglogs.org/android/7.59.1/6f1b44bd8e760d98a67ec4709d4a8aabae9c640844fb8d4901ae3a337efe187b

[bme13]

It seems that now the correct name is connected to the chat. Don't know when/how that happened. However this chat looks like the 'deleted account chat' so it says X is on Signal but it also shows the Invite to Signal button. If I use the search function to start a chat with this contact it doesn't give any result. The attached logfile is after I've noticed the name is connected. https://debuglogs.org/android/7.59.1/c9cc2480e61eb5fa7d72c1661dc521685cdcc762a65d959b8294587fdd555819