android 2.3.5 + htc sense 3.5 + facebook do not play nice...

I finally tracked down the incredibly annoying problem of incoming calls crashing com.android.phone (ie: the process that actually handles the incoming call!) Turns out something was attempting to draw absolutely nothing onto the canvas of the dialler (thanks android logs!). It was in fact a Facebook linked contact (with no image).

While there are a few documented work arounds. The simplest (albeit brutal), is to stop Facebook from synchronising contacts. More details are on the google group. In short:

Load Facebook app:

• Settings -> Syncronize -> None
• Logout

Android Settings:

• Accounts and sync
• Remove Facebook
• Remove Facebook for HTC sense

Start answering incoming calls :-/