iPhone won’t add contacts to Favourites

I have iOS 16.5.1

I am no longer able to save contacts as Favorites. I go through the same steps as previously worked:

-- select contact from Contacts list

-- tap Add to Favorites

-- tap Call

-- tap the number I want to add as a favorite

But the number is not added to my Favorites list.

(Adding using + in Favorites tab won’t work either)

I have about 15 contacts in favorites, so nowhere near a 50 limit I heard of

actually it’s even worse than this - I have deleted 2 contacts and I still I’ll cannot add the contact I need or any other for that matter (tried with another random one of my contacts to see if the contact I want to add is the problem)

I noticed this problem also in previous versions so no use to wait and see it fixed, it is something particular to my iOS but I have no idea what it is.

anybody else has inning into this?