Samsung Health friends shown as asterisks: why it happens

Open the Together tab in Samsung Health and spot a string of asterisks sitting where a friend's name should be, and the first thought is usually that something broke. Samsung Health friends shown as asterisks is a real, documented behavior, but it only applies in one specific spot: the Global Challenge ranking. A Samsung Community post describes it as intentional, not a glitch, stating that other participants' names and profile details there get masked on purpose (Samsung Community, two days ago).

That answer only covers one version of the problem, though. Two other reports describe completely different symptoms: a friends list that empties out, and a separate bug that blocks invitations after an app update. If the asterisks sit beside names you don't recognize inside a Global Challenge leaderboard, the masking explanation accounts for it. If a friend you actually know has disappeared from your list, or you can't invite someone to a new challenge, that's a different situation with far less official clarity behind it.

Why Samsung Health Together asterisk names appear in Global Challenge

The clearest explanation comes from a Samsung Community response posted two days ago. It states that inside the Global Challenge ranking, found under the Together tab, names and profile details of other global participants are intentionally hidden with asterisks to protect user data (Samsung Community, two days ago). The same post adds that the same privacy logic applies to Samsung Health more broadly, though it doesn't specify which other screens, account types, or regions that covers beyond Global Challenge itself (Samsung Community, two days ago).

That's the whole explanation behind the Samsung Health Global Challenge hidden profiles design, at least for the strangers you're ranked against. If the asterisks you're seeing belong to global participants inside that specific ranking, this is the documented answer.

What the Global Challenge explanation leaves unanswered

The cited source never clarifies whether profile photos get masked the same way names do. It also doesn't mention any setting that reveals those names, so there's no evidence one exists to toggle. And since the post only discusses "global participants," it leaves open whether the same masking applies inside a Together Challenge you built yourself with people you actually know.

That distinction is worth checking on your own screen before assuming the two situations behave the same way. A Global Challenge ranking packed with strangers from around the world is a different experience than a private challenge you created with your own contacts. If asterisks show up on people you recognize, inside a challenge you set up, that doesn't match the specific Global Challenge explanation Samsung posted. Compare it instead with the separately reported symptoms below.

Samsung Health friends disappeared: a missing list and a separate invite bug

A Samsung Members Korea thread titled around friends disappearing from a Samsung Health friends list was marked resolved two days ago (Samsung Members Korea, two days ago). The resolved label only confirms the thread was closed. It doesn't tell you what caused the disappearance, whether Samsung traced a root issue, or whether the original poster's list actually came back. Treat it as evidence that at least one other user hit the same symptom, nothing more.

A separate thread, posted nearly three months ago, describes a narrower problem tied to a specific app version. The original poster said that after Samsung Health updated to version 7.xx, inviting a friend to a newly created Together Challenge stopped working, and they backed up the report with a recorded video (Samsung Members Korea, nearly three months ago). The same report noted that Together Challenges created before the version 7 update still showed friends normally, which separates those older challenges from the newer ones affected by the invite failure (Samsung Members Korea, nearly three months ago).

Support initially couldn't reproduce the problem, then confirmed it after reviewing the submitted logs and video. A follow-up response in that thread said the invitation failure had been checked by the responsible department and that a fix was planned for a future update (Samsung Members Korea, nearly three months ago). Nothing in that thread names a released version that contains the fix.

Both threads come out of Samsung Members Korea and describe single accounts, not a company-wide acknowledgment of a widespread defect. Neither one ties its cause back to Global Challenge's privacy masking. Treat them as regional user reports rather than confirmation of how the feature behaves everywhere.

How to identify the screen and symptom

Match what's in front of you against the table below. Each row reflects a distinct report rather than a confirmed cause, so use it as a symptom match, not a diagnosis.

A few questions help narrow things down further:

• Is the screen Global Challenge, a Together Challenge you created, or your main friends list?
• Are the asterisks attached to global participants, or to people you personally added as friends?
• Are names simply masked, or are contacts missing from the list entirely?
• Can you still search for and successfully invite a known contact, or does the action fail or hang?
• What Samsung Health version is installed, and was the problem challenge created before or after your last update?

That last question matters because the version 7.x report specifically distinguished challenges made before the update, which still worked, from new ones created after. If your symptom follows the same split, note it, though one account doesn't establish how widely that pattern holds.

What to do now

If asterisks only show up on global participants inside the Global Challenge ranking, no troubleshooting is indicated. The cited source frames this as a privacy design, not a bug, and mentions no setting to reveal those names.

If a friend you added has gone missing from your main friends list, that matches the thread marked resolved two days ago. The resolution confirms the thread closed; it doesn't confirm Samsung found a root cause or restored anyone's list. Checking your installed Samsung Health version and noting roughly when the friend disappeared gives you something concrete to submit if you report it.

If you can't invite a known contact to a newly created Together Challenge, that resembles the version 7.x report from nearly three months ago. Check whether older challenges on your account still display friends correctly, since that split was part of the original report, and update to the newest available release as a verification step rather than an assumed fix. Nothing in the cited thread confirms the planned repair has actually shipped in the months since that report was filed.

Avoid deleting app data, factory-resetting Samsung Health, or removing and re-adding friends based on asterisks alone. If a known friend stays missing or invitations keep failing once you've confirmed your version and screen, document it with a screen recording and submit it through Samsung Members, the same kind of evidence that accompanied the version 7.x report before support responded.