Our Stake Split -- Now Tools Won't Show All Members In Other Wards

A week ago our stake was divided. I expected to not see the new stake name for 1-2 business days so the Membership Department could do their thing with the data in GDir. By last Wednesday I still couldn't see my new stake, but the former stake was still there and all the wards for the new stake had disappeared.

I tried a manual sync. No change. I then went into Settings > Apps > Member Tools > Storage and cleared the data and the cache (I'm on Android). Still no change. I performed my first manual sync after clearing the data, but still showed up in the old stake and could see no trace of my stake or wards. Finally, I used the feedback method in the app to generate a support ticket. A half hour after that I tried another manual sync and this time my new stake name appeared, along with all the correct wards, Success! Or so I thought. My ward was all there (as far as I could tell), but the other wards in our new stake had mixed results. One ward showed four families in it. Another showed 19 families. None of the other wards had more than 20 family surnames listed. Our stake was effectively gutted.

I finally heard back from the GSD and it went exactly as I feared it would. I got a copy/paste of the KB article for how to do a manual sync of the data and they closed the ticket without receiving any feedback from me about whether that worked or not (I was several steps past those instructions). Last Friday I called the GSD and spoke with someone for several minutes about the situation, was put on hold for more than 15 minutes while he tried to talk to his floor lead and get in touch with Tier 3 support, but he had no success. He told me he re-opened the ticket and would escalate it to Tier 3.

On Sunday I got the Bishop's permission to talk to the Gospel Doctrine class for a few minutes at the beginning. I had them all check their phones. Nearly all of them showed the correct new stake name and all the wards, and they thought things were fine because our ward members were all there. I then had them look in the other seven wards and we discovered that not one person in the room showed the number of families that should be in a normal ward other than our own. Most showed fewer than 20 families. I took screen shots for every ward and submitted them via email to update the ticket, but there was no response from anyone today.

I don't know what else to try at this point. In my mind this is a P1 because it is impacting everyone (as far as I could tell) within the stake. I talked to several people from other wards and they have the same experience of seeing all of their own ward but very few people in other wards. This is not limited to my device. I have wiped the data and cache once more since this happened and I get the exact same refresh of data. I suspect that any other units that might have been created two Sundays ago when ours was may have the same kind of data refresh problem. There is nothing more I can do to troubleshoot this from my end, and I don't expect the GSD to have a single solution to offer. Someone from Tier 3 Support needs to investigate this. I suspect there is a synchronization error between GDir and the database they maintain that feeds the individual apps.

The one thing I didn't see was Member Tools > Settings > Refresh Data. That fixes a lot of things that "sync" won't.

The other thing I'd try is going to Ward Directory and Map to see what's listed there. I could be wrong, but I think Member Tools adds an extra layer of things that can go wrong. Until it's right in WD&M, I wouldn't expect Member Tools to be right.

Just for kicks and grins, it would be interesting to contact one of the families in the other ward that does not appear and have them check and make sure their privacy settings didn't somehow get set to "Ward" or "Leadership". There have been complaints from time to time of privacy settings that seem to change themselves. But I've never heard of it happening en masse.

Yes, I used the refresh. But since this was happening on every single phone in my Gospel Doctrine class yesterday, why focus on my individual phone? Is it possible that Member Tools is so fragile that being moved to a new unit can cause the entire database to become unstable? If the Bishop and Second Counselor in the ward next to me were visible prior to the stake split, why are they now invisible? Privacy settings makes no sense. Oh, and I should mention that the entire class went to the last alphabetical ward in the list and we compared notes on who we could see and who we couldn't. It was not the same for everyone. There were variations on who could see which families, but for most of us it was five families or less. One person said she could see about 20.

SingerGuy wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 7:07 pm A week ago our stake was divided. ...

I suspect that any other units that might have been created two Sundays ago when ours was may have the same kind of data refresh problem. I suspect there is a synchronization error between GDir and the database they maintain that feeds the individual apps.

It sounds as if you have two problems. A new stake was created last week. But two weeks ago some new wards were created, as well. That means someone in the old stake needed to move all of the membership records to the new ward(s). That may not have happened during that week, and now the wards in the new stake own the records and cannot access them until the stake division settles.

Member Tools will sync once all of the new units are in place and the membership records have been moved to the correct new wards. In my experience, this usually takes a week or two and only happens after the ward clerks pull the trigger and start the change.

The ward clerks should be busy resolving this issue and making sure all of the membership records have been sent to the right place. Tools will take care of itself a few days after that work is completed.

The new stake was created on 4/27. There were no changes to any units prior to that, and no unit changes on 5/4. This was ONE CHANGE to create the new stake.

SingerGuy wrote: Mon May 05, 2025 8:25 pm The new stake was created on 4/27. There were no changes to any units prior to that, and no unit changes on 5/4. This was ONE CHANGE to create the new stake.

Okay, much simpler then. The new stake was probably in place by May 1st or 2nd depending on when the general authority turned in the paperwork from the conference after he returned to Salt Lake. The Church membership system would then update in 2-3 days. Member Tools would then update a day or two after that.

So you should be good this week sometime, especially with a Refresh Data. Tools is a little slow to update on its own, especially when there have been major changes such as yours that would just now be completing in the main systems.

It's been a few years but when our stake last split it was close to two weeks before everything showed up again correctly in LCR and member tools.