searchContacts with phone number query is broken

Question

Using the [searchContacts API method] (https://developers.google.com/people/api/rest/v1/people/searchContacts) used to support searching by telephone number - indeed this is called out in the documentation:

The query matches on a contact's names, nickNames, emailAddresses, phoneNumbers, and organizations fields that are from the CONTACT source.

It no longer returns results when using a phone number as the query. Is this deliberate, or a bug?

As per google people api search by phonenumbers I have tried a query of "canonical format without plus". I have also tried "canonical format with plus" and "exact number as stored".

Name query still works

https://people.googleapis.com/v1/people:searchContacts?readMask=names%2cphoneNumbers&query=Go Ogle&pageSize=30

returns

{
    "results": [
        {
            "person": {
                "resourceName": "people/c832768086350305259",
                "etag": "%EgcBAgsuNz0/GgECIgwxZGVYd20reHpEUT0=",
                "names": [
                    {
                        "metadata": {
                            "primary": true,
                            "source": {
                                "type": "CONTACT",
                                "id": "b8e96298f3117eb"
                            }
                        },
                        "displayName": "Go Ogle",
                        "familyName": "Ogle",
                        "givenName": "Go",
                        "displayNameLastFirst": "Ogle, Go",
                        "unstructuredName": "Go Ogle"
                    }
                ],
                "phoneNumbers": [
                    {
                        "metadata": {
                            "primary": true,
                            "source": {
                                "type": "CONTACT",
                                "id": "b8e96298f3117eb"
                            }
                        },
                        "value": "020 7031 3000",
                        "canonicalForm": "+442070313000"
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}

Phone number query fails

https://people.googleapis.com/v1/people:searchContacts?readMask=names%2cphoneNumbers&query=442070313000&pageSize=30

returns

{}

Answer 1

The query function does indeed seem to be broken at the moment. My tests gave the same results and the question you linked shows that it clearly worked in the past.

I found a bug report on Google's issue tracker. A Googler already replied to it saying that they were able to reproduce it and filed an internal report. It's a matter of time until they fix it so you may want to keep track of that thread or post on it yourself to apply some pressure.