All My Contacts Got Deleted...

I guess it's a bit late to post to this thread, but this happened to me today. I use mobile me and tried the solutions associated with that but it didn't restore my contacts.

The thing that jumped out at me from your issue, Mitragorz, is that I, too was on a flight today. Everything on my phone was perfectly fine before the flight. On board the plane, I first put my phone on "airplane mode" and then turned it off for the duration of the flight. Then when we landed, I turned the phone back on and turned airplane mode off. After I got home, I opened messages and saw no names only phone numbers, just like you. Then went to contacts and nothing was there.

Did you ever find a solution?

I have the exact problem. My iphone text messaging app kept crashing when I got a text last night. I first closed all the app by holding the home botton. It still was crashing, so I tried again but got the same result. Then I did a hard reset and when the phone came back, the message app worked but within a second all the names turned to phone numbers. I went to my contacts and they were there and within a second gone. Then I went to my favorites and the same thing, I see the names then just numbers!! I moved to Hawaii recently and gave my brother my old computer with my latest back up but he's in Los Angeles. I haven't updated in a long time because I heard the new iOS had issues. I'm still on version 5.1.1 (9B206). Just like you, when I slide to the left on the home screen and search words that are in text messages the correct contact shows up on that screen. When you click the text message though, the top will show just the phone numbers just like in the above example.

If I update to the lastest iOS, would this bug get fixed? I never set up another sync but will do so after I recover my contacts.

Tony- I know this was quite a few months ago, but this just happened to me this morning. I have 3 sets of contacts on my phone, and the iPhone contacts list, which is the one that has all my phone #'s in it, spontaneously disappeared. My text messages app just kept crashing when I opened it. So I turned off the phone. When I reopened it, just numbers. Some names started to show up. I went to my contacts, and it said no contacts. I tried a few different things, but nothing has recovered them. Now the option to list iphone contacts is gone all together.

I too have not updated for the last 2 software updates. I'm wondering if you ever figured anything out, or updated software, and what happened. Thanks so much!

Okay, it seems we have a lot of people having this problem from time to time, and I am the most recent victim of it. This morning, when I texted my wife, it showed the nickname I have for her in her contacts, but then later this afternoon when she texted, just her phone number. That was weird. But then I looked in my phone list, and it was _all_ phone numbers. I went into my contacts file - no contacts. I usually set iTunes to sync to my computer, so I thought my contacts would be in my Address Book app on my computer right? Wrong! My address book app was also empty. Fortunately, my contacts are saved in iCloud (although how did my contacts get into iCloud if I'm syncing with my computer instead?) Now, how do I get my contacts back into my phone from iCloud?

Thanks!

I love this thread because here I am more then 3 years later and I too have the same issue. I am more than angry as there hasn't been a solution offered. Any search I've made through any search engine always brings up these lame Apple Discussion threads where one of two things happens, either a mac radical puts the original poster down through obvious belittling comments (and you didn't know this? Geeez, what planet are you from OP?) or someone gets on stating that this is for users and Apple staff do not participate. ***? Okay, so people start holding these Updating liars accountable. Why is this very serious issue not solved? If it is why isn't it popping up in the search engines first like well first entry? They update your iOS to frustrate you and they don't update anything. There are issues from 2007 that are recurring. Have you noticed they still don't accurately time stamp your texts? Oh honey, yeah I was with Jim for drinks just check my text, wait ummm, well you see here it shows my original text at 6:00 pm right, but you see that one, **** where's the time, oh forget it let's divorce thanks Apple!

Okay, well anyway, all I did was delete ****** Yahoo from my email settings and next thing I know all my contacts are gone. The majority of those were never associated with Yahoo in the first place, so I spent a lot of time away from my backup frustrated and struggling to find individuals I needed to speak to. This was embarassing, and potentially could have cost me a lot of money. So Apple, why are you disregarding every single complaint? And if you are addressing them, why does this thread exist? You won't answer this question because you can't participate in these forums. Well, people I did recover my contacts finally through the backup on my Mac Mini, but I was sceptacle about that due to the convuluted and inane language Apple uses to describe their settings. Word of advice Apple - Keep it simple. I'm ******.