Fixing 'No Google Profile for Contact'
Kyle Niewiada on July 04, 2016
2 Minute Read | Small project
Updated on October 01, 2021
If you’re around me enough, you learn that I love to use voice commands. I’ve been known to walk into a room and shout “okay Google” hoping to hear a device accepting my query. Since early 2015, people have been able to use Google Now to send Hangouts messages. I tried jumping on that bandwagon but every time I attempted to send a message, I was greeted with the response No Google profile for <Contact>.
No Google profile found on my phone
It worked fine if I was sending an SMS, but never with a Hangouts message. There are a few examples of others finding their own solution or having a server-side fix rolled out on the Google Support Forums. But this was not the solution for me. I tried everything from factory resetting my phone, sideloading the Google contacts app, even loading an Android ROM on a backup phone and retrying the voice commands. But nothing worked.
First There Were Three
It wasn’t until a few months ago that I realized I had somehow acquired three Google+ profiles tied to my email. This was a little strange.
- My first Google+ account was set up and tied to my primary account.
- My second Google+ account was created as a separate profile for my YouTube account described here.
- When I was managing my accounts I noticed that I had a third one. It appeared that Google had made a Google+ business page for my YouTube’s Google+ account. Or maybe I did this by mistake, but I don’t recall going through the creation process.
Now I had three Google+ accounts tied to my primary email. When I tried to speak a Google Now Hangouts command, it would not find any contacts. Honestly, I can’t remember if it ever worked before then.
I had a theory. I thought that there might be a conflict in which route my Google Now commands were following to gather my contacts. The first thing I did was delete my Google+ business page because it wasn’t linked to anything. Next, I tried to delete my Google+ page linked to my YouTube channel. However, because it was linked, I could not delete it. This setting allowed me to switch my connected Google+ profile on my YouTube channel. After severing the link, I was then able to close my old YouTube’s Google+ account.
Then There Was One
Now I was down to a single Google+ profile. I tried ringing off my voice command “okay Google, send a hangouts message to <Contact>”… And it worked! Unlinking and removing the excess Google+ profiles fixed the path for Google Now finding my contacts. It appears as if there was a conflict between which Google+ account the commands were using.
If you’re scouring the Internet ripping your hair out like I was trying to find a solution for the ‘No Google profile for <Contact>’ message, check to see if you have any excess Google+ profiles tied to your account. Remove/unlink them if you can, and maybe it will fix your problem like it did mine.
