The situation where you see only a gray silhouette or a standard avatar on the incoming call screen instead of a friend or colleague's face is familiar to many owners of Redmi and POCO smartphones. It's not just an aesthetic flaw in the MIUI or HyperOS interface, but often a signal that data is out of sync in the system or an application access rights conflict. Users may not notice problems until an important call arrives, and the lack of a visual identifier is confusing.
In most cases, the problem lies not in the hardware, but in the software settings that may have gone wrong after another update of the operating system. Cached phone book data or incorrect permissions for the Contacts app often become the root cause of the disappearance of images. Understanding the mechanism of the Android shell in conjunction with Xiaomi’s proprietary add-ons will help quickly return functionality to normal.
We're going to look at a comprehensive approach to diagnostics, from simple settings checks to deeper system interventions. It's important to not miss a single step, because different versions of firmware may have different menu items, and the stability of the call interface has a direct impact on the overall usability of the device.
The main reasons for the disappearance of subscriber avatars
The first thing to understand is that the system only displays photos if it has a clear priority of the data source. SIM-And the other one in Google's account, the phone can get confused about which contact to use to display the image on the screen.
Another common factor is the aggressive battery optimization inherent in MIUI shells. The system can force the background processes of the Contacts or Phone application to stop, causing images from the cloud or local memory to be loaded with a delay or not at all.
It’s also worth considering the human factor: the image may have been deleted accidentally or not saved after editing, and in some cases, the problem is massive and involves errors in Google’s sync servers, making it temporarily impossible to obtain subscriber data.
- 📱 Duplicate records in different sources (SIM, phone, cloud).
- 🔋 Aggressive energy saving settings MIUI.
- ☁️ Temporary Google account sync failures.
- 🚫 Lack of permissions to access memory for call applications.
Checking display settings and contact sources
Diagnostics should start by checking the display filters in the standard Contacts app. Often, the phone only shows the records that are in the device's memory, ignoring the cloud data where the photos are stored, and make sure that the All Contacts display mode is selected.
Go to Contacts, click three dots in the corner or the menu button, and select Settings, find Displayed Contacts or Contact Filter, and activate All Contacts, and if you select Phone Only, no avatars saved to your Google account will be displayed.
Also, it’s worth checking whether Simple or Minimalist mode is included in the design theme.Some third-party themes downloaded from Themes store may not properly handle the graphical elements of the call screen, replacing them with standard stubs to save resources or due to poor optimization.
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Before changing the theme settings, try switching to the standard “Classic” or “No Limits” theme to eliminate the impact of third-party design.
The image format is an important aspect: the system can ignore photos if they have an unsupported format or resolution that goes beyond reasonable limits (for example, an ultra-high 4K image that the system does not have time to process at the time of the call).
Configure access rights and application permissions
Security in Android is designed so that the Phone app must have explicit permission to read data from the Contacts app and access storage, and if these rights were revoked by the user or reset by the system after the update, the image will become impossible to display.
To check, go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Find the Phone app (or “Mi Dialer” / “Google Phone” depending on version) in the list. Go to App Permissions. Make sure that the sliders opposite Contacts and Memory (or Files and Media) are active.
The same procedure is required for the Contacts app itself, and it must also have access to storage to be able to upload and cache subscriber images for quick access, without which the system will only show text information.
☑️ Access rights verification
There is also a hidden setting in the Special Features or Security and Privacy section that may restrict access to personal data for certain processes.Make sure you don't have Guest Mode or restricted profiles that hide personal information when you lock your screen.
⚠️ Warning: If the problem persists after all the permissions have been granted, try forcefully stopping the Phone app through the settings menu and then running it again, which will reset the current processes and force the system to request the necessary data again.
Clearing the cache and resetting the phone book data
Accumulation of temporary files or damage to the contact database is one of the most common technical causes of the problem. The cache of the application may contain outdated links to images that have been physically deleted or moved, leading to the appearance of “broken” thumbnails or their complete disappearance.
To fix this, go to Settings → Apps → All Apps → Contacts. Select Memory (or Storage). Click Clear Cache. If that doesn't work, you can try a more radical method - Clear Everything (or Reset). Don't worry, your numbers won't disappear if they're synced with your Google account, but local display settings will reset.
After the Contacts application resets, it will take some time (5 to 15 minutes) to re-sync with the server, at which point the phone may get slightly warmer and the battery is used up more actively - this is a normal database recovery process.
| Action. | Impact on data | Need for a reset |
|---|---|---|
| Clearing the cache | Securely, only deletes temporary files | Not required |
| Clearing of data (dumping) | Resets view settings and sorting | Recommended |
| Removal of updates | Returns the factory version of the app | I'll be sure. |
What to do if the contacts are lost after the reset?
Sync problems with Google and Mi Account
Xiaomi’s ecosystem is closely integrated with Google’s services, and often the conflict occurs at the junction of the two platforms. If there is an error in the sync settings, the phone may not receive current avatar data. Check the sync status in Settings → Accounts and Sync.
Here you'll see a list of all the accounts that are linked. Click on your Google account. Make sure the Contacts switch is on. If it's already on, try turning it off, waiting a few seconds and turning it on again. This will trigger a forced process of sharing data with the server.
Similarly, it’s worth checking out the Mi Account. Although Xiaomi is gradually moving away from using its contact cloud in favor of Google, on many devices the feature is still active and can create duplicates or priority conflicts. If you’re not using the Xiaomi cloud, it’s best to disable the contacts sync there to avoid confusion.
⚠️ Note: When you turn off sync, make sure your contacts are actually saved elsewhere (e.g. exported to a.vcf file or saved to Google.
Sometimes, removing your account completely and adding it again helps, and it shakes up all Google Play services, forcing them to re-download all settings and data, including high-resolution images for contacts.
Application version conflicts and system updates
Xiaomi smartphones can use different “callers”: the standard MIUI Dialer or Google Phone. After major Android updates (for example, the transition from Android 12 to 13 or 14), the old version of the application may not work correctly.
Check in the Play Market or GetApps store for updates for Contacts, Phone, and Google Play Services. Often bugs are patched in patches that come separately from the firmware update. If you have a MIUI beta installed, the problem may be a known bug that will be fixed in the next weekly update.
Also worth looking at are third-party applications that can intercept calls: Number detectors (like Truecaller) or chat recording apps sometimes interfere with the process of displaying the call card. Try temporarily disabling or uninstalling such programs for verification.
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Most often, the problem is solved by updating the Phone and Contacts apps through the Google Play Market, as older versions may not work correctly with new versions of Android.
Third-party themes and interface personalization
The MIUI and HyperOS shells allow for deep customization of the look, but third-party themes are often written with errors. If you've recently installed a new theme, changed fonts or icons, the photo problem may be a consequence of this.
Themes have their own set of graphical resources. If the theme code has a stub instead of a real photo (for traffic saving or because of the developer's laziness), then no system settings will help. Go back to the standard theme in the Themes app.
Also, some Always On Screen (AOD) features may conflict with the main call screen. Try turning off the AOD or changing it to a standard one to see if the problem goes away.
- 🎨 Reset the theme to standard ("No Limits" or "Classic»).
- 🔤 Return the system font by default.
- 📵 Turn off the “Always on screen” for the test.
- 🔄 Reboot the device after changing the topic.