iPhone 4 Contacts Disappeared After Receiving Text Message

Same thing happened to me today - although I have a 3GS. All of my local iPhone contacts just disappeared, after they were all there the last time I checked this morning. I didn't synch or update my phone in the meantime. Anyone got their contacts back?

This has just happened to me, I was online with Apple Mobile Me support trying to set my mobile me mail account up on my phone (although they didn't ask me to touch my phone in any way). Next minute I received a text message showing the name of who it was and when I opened the message I noticed the name had been replaced by the phone number, same as all my other texts! So I checked my contacts have every single one has disappeared!!!

I went back to Apple chat and told them, they asked me to access my account online (re MobileMe) - didn't mention the missing contacts, so I tried to login to my account online and once I had done so, I went back to my Apple chat page and they'd gone!!

This is unacceptable - I can't believe they haven't posted a solution to this!

Exact same thing happened to me just now. Edited one contact, then contact list switched to all "No Name," and now No Contacts. Thankfully I sync my address book w/ my desktop, so I SHOULD still have everything. But I have had zero iPhone 4 problems. Strange one of this calibar would start up now. Behind-the-scenes iCloud syncing bugs perhaps?

any solution to this?

im experiencing the same problem. phonebook is empty, all my messages are there. when i use search i do find messages from a certain contact with its name on it but when i open there is no name to it. help please. this is very frustrating

A friend of mine with an iPhone4 and iOS5 reported to me he could not find some contacts in the address book. When i used the spotlight-page (swipe in the homescreen so you get to see the screen to the left of the homescreen) COULD find the contacts. So the contacts where there, but the Address Book just wouldn't show them! I am still looking for a fix for this, but i wonder if this is also a problem for more people finding this page...

today I received a text and my whole contact list of over 400 names, phone numbers and addresses was wiped out. I run a biotech company in seattle and apple was of no help. they said I should have backed up my list but I havent done so for 1 year due to other gliches in the calendar sync update that I ran into. Bottomline -this is a mysterious bug that im sure apple knows aboout b-but guess what if you havent bakced up your contacts and it merely disappeared - you are SOL -they don't know how to fix it - and I had to start finding my contacts and repopulate all over again which should take be 3-4 weeks!

Apple support also had me purchase apple support for $70 for 2 years and I thought they would know the answer to getting my contacts back -and after 3 calls and 2 hours on hold -they still didn;t know what to do - even after talking to 2 technical persons; bottomline this is a bad thing with no explanation as to why it happened and no remedy to help me- bunch of bs -shame on Apple -get it right and get it fixed!

They should know better as what is going on!!!!!

Ok I woke up one morning last week and found all my contacts wiped out!! I have not done any syncing for months but still this crap happens. Clueless I went online for solutions but the only thing I found was restoring from my backup which I've tried but gonly ot another "error message 3194" which is quite frustrating really.

I'm beginning to feel iphone just a nice phone with form no substance, design without the function and reliability of a mobile phone.

This is a BAD apple!!!

FIXED IT!!

Had/have same issue with iphone 4. I do not use Cloud, but do sync via Exchange with my work.

This is what I did to fix it (so far, fingers crossed): rebooted phone using the two button method, then turned back on while holding the main button (two button method). Everything came back and, so far, is still there.

MOST frustrating experience EVER with my contacts appearing and disappearing before my eyes! Abracadabra!

Go to Settings; then go to mail, contacts, calenders; then go to wherever your contacts are (iCloud is where mine are), turn off contacts, then select keep on phone; then wait a second, turn it back on and select merge. Your contacts should be back! Hope this helped!

Doesn't work with Exchange contacts and says so when you try via iCloud. When trying via Exchange the only option is to delete your contacts. Now gotta figure out how to transfer Exchange to Sim card....

iPhone 4 with OS 5.0.1: Contacts homeported on MacBook and iMac. iCloud and MobileMe.

I have tried all the recommended fixes (except texting) and NOTHING has worked to restore contacts that first disappeared and reappearred randomly, and now seemingly have disappeared altogether. When connected to iTunes and syncing, Contacts never, ever appears on the iTunes screen, much less being synched.

Apple's apparent deaf ear to this apparent chronic problem is unworthy of them.

For me, losing contacts has reduced the phone's utility about 90%;

Ironically, the only way I managed to restore some contacts was by syncing with GMail via ActiveSync (double irony there, I guess). Few days later, I just put my iPhone on eBay and activated a Samsung Galaxy S that I already had.

Well, a kind person in my local Apple support community suggested that the problem "probably" arose because of Mobile Me and iCloud having a problem getting along. Because I cannot yet delete Mobile Me (my MacBook is not upgradable to Lion, and I have too many serious un-upgradable applications on the iMac), I chose Mobile Me and turned off iCloud in settings.

Voila!

All my contacts suddenly reappeared.

Do I have any more wisdom? No. And...I do not know what I will do after 12 June.

Lost all but 3 of my contacts on Christmas Day. Didnt do much to phone for a couple of days hoping they would reappear...no luck. Started trying to rebuild my contacts yesterday and what a mess! Manually adding only to find them disappearing again with no rhyme or reason.

recently actived a mobileme...could this be the problem?

This has happened to me three times now. I don't even know what MobileMe is and I only sync with Itunes on my pc. But I did find a quick fix to make the contacts reappear, but it probably won't stop it from happening again. Someone did do this halfway, but needed to take one more step to complete the process.

1) Swipe to the left of the homescreen to search your iPhone

2) Type in a name or however you save your contacts and your iPhone WILL find the contact (but it's still not in contacts list yet).

3) Select the contact (or any contact) that the search found (be sure it's within the "Contacts" icon to the left of the list).

4) Close out the contact, and then go back into your contacts list and all contacts should have reappeared.

As I said, I doubt that this will stop the problem from happening. But it will dispell all of the anxiety (momentarily at least).