iPhone 4 Contacts Disappeared After Receiving Text Message

Don't store anything in the iCloud except your calendar entries. I kept losing contacts when stored in the iCloud. If you turn that off and resynch your phone on the primary computer you sink with, you might get them all back.

I got to this forum page because I'm having the same issue. I had just updated about 20 apps and about an hour later, my husband texted me and they all were lost.

I have a few people that have multiple numbers and when I went to resave one after losing my contacts, I saved the new contact. So then I went to the next number for that same person, went to save it under the new contact. Her old contact popped up. So it shows as two different threads in my text messages now and loads to two different contacts - only from the text thread though. I can only see the new one in my contacts list.

And... one contact has an old firmware look, and the other contact has a new look.

Someone had mentioned they thought the contacts were still there but just wouldn't view, and I'd have to agree. The other thing is that I have a friend that I'd never assigned a photo to, and now her photo is a photo of my aunt. *** Apple? You're slipping!!!!

It does seem to have been initiated by receiving the text... And I did update 20 some apps so I could see that being a factor somehow... I did not change my Apple software update though.

I have emoji though and it was not one I updated, I will see if removing that helps...

I'M NOT ALONE THEN?

I am really lucky.

I have never had a problem with my iPhone until today!! A few apps started acting strange wouldn't open up (E-Bay & Faceache), so turned off phone & turned back on again. Tested the apps all worked fine. 1 hour later i get a text & notice that it hasn't come from a stranger but someone who is a contact. I'm in a shop no where near a PC when i discover the full extent of this as check my contacts & there is not 1 contact listed - oh s&*^e is my 1st thought, oh double s&^*e is my 2nd thought.

I ain't so lucky now!!

i thought i will back up phone to the back up it did on 22.2.13 when i get it connected to PC, i get home i plug my iphone into the PC & it does auto back up & sync despite my efforts to stop it - that doesn't work. Thought i would delete that backup & went ahead & did that. So now i have a back up of no contacts which means i have no contacts. I don't use iCloud - never have nor do i use MobileMe its a trust thing, i don't put my contacts in Exchange or Yahoo, again a trust thing.

I have trawled the WWW for hours & found 3 different programmes that can find old backups, installed them but GUESS WHAT? No they bleeding can't!!!

I have an iphone 4s, on version 5.1.1 (refuse to upgrade to version 6), on a windows 7 PC

APPLE, APPLE, APPLE - come on, its time to respond with a FIX/SOLUTION

So while i wait (i'm not holiding my breath, this is an old discussion), can i import my contacts from my sim card again & then work out the rest again from text & emails? Painful i know but i am willing to do it

Any other suggestions would be gratefully received

Cheers, Hacked Off of London

I ended up synching from iCloud which I used once a long time ago... so I got my old contacts back from like 2011. That really does not help in fact in 2011 I was hoping to delete my contacts but there is no easy way to do that unless you don't want it to happen apparently.

So I'm just facing the fact that all of the new contacts (a lot) I've added in the past year or so are gone. Well... In hiding - I am convinced they are still there. Not sure about updating from SIM card. I did see that option but it scared me. I guess I should be grateful I got some of them back. Facebook was one that I had just updated... Ugh. Good luck, I've heard that so many people have to have the same issue before they consider it a bug... Well their list is growing!!

Yes they are there somewhere, i totally agree because if i swipe left of the home screen & then type the letter S in the search bar then it shows texts from the contacts that were saved under S (not all of them) & when i go into the text, there is no name, just the number.

Have tried to do import from SIM but there is nothing there - AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

Triple s&*^e :-(

Today I just ran into the same problem. I was trying to open my message and the app kept closing like 3 times, so I turned my phone of and when I went to my message no names were there. I've never backed my phone up so idk what to do. Any suggestions?

This problem was the last drop that made me ditch the iPhone and go for Android. Ever since I started using Android and syncing all data to Google account I had no problems with contacts or calendars. All the data stays in tact when upgrading phone software and switching from one phone to another.

HELP!!! I was trying to open my message and the app kept closing like 3 times, so I turned my phone of and when I went to my message no names were there. I've never backed my phone up so idk what to do. Any suggestions?

This just happened to me. Apps kept closing last night, so I turned my phone off and turned it back on, and now this morning all my contacts are gone. I don't use iCloud or any syncing. What's going on?

i'm having the exact same issues. was running version 5 software still on my iphone 4, don't use icloud or anything and rarely sync it to itunes on a pc. noticed that apps were crashing over the past few days, turned the power off & back on today and then after receiving a text from my wife just about all of my contacts disappeared, including hers. the only contacts remaining are ones that were somehow assigned to my work email account. all of my other contacts that were just on my phone are gone. i updated my phone to version 6 software but the contacts did not come back.

none of these supposed other fixes in this thread are working for me. hopefully there's a way to get them back, the randomness of how it just happened is the most frustrating part beyond well, actually losing all of the contact information.

Friday 01 March 2013, received a text message this morning, contacts gone. Don't use icloud, mobile me or any email contact lists. I just save the contacts straight to the phone. Last back-up would have been mid Jan. Still running ios 5.1.1, don't want to update.

This is not a minor inconvenience. Losing a contact list is a big deal.

Is apple going to address this?

My wife's iPhone 4S experienced this exact issue: she received a SMS and then all her contacts are gone. We tried a few of the fixes in this thread with no luck. If we search a contact name, it brings up old text message threads with the contact name in the search results, but if you go to that text thread, only the phone number remains. The only thing she did differently (earlier today) was update about a dozen apps. If I had to guess, I'd say this is caused by an update to a common app a lot of people have - like Facebook or Pinterest -or- an iMessage vs SMS data exchange conflict, my wife recently switched her messages from iMessage back to regular SMS.

Like many in this thread, we haven't recently synced and don't use iCloud. If Apple is reading this, iOS version was 5.1.1

We all should have synced/ backed everything up more frequently, sure, we'd all be in the same situation if phone was dropped into water or stolen... but this seems to be a very specific glitch and ongoing issue for over a year. Help Apple, help!

Same thing happened to me last night. IPhone 4, AT&T 5.1.1 not syncing with iCloud. Got a text message - attempted to open it and the messaging app crashed. Tried 2 more times but the app kept crashing. Rebooted the phone and then I could open the messaging app but all my contacts are gone. Everything else is there.

Anyone able to get them back by taking it to an AT&T store?

spent most of last night trying to recover my contacts to no avail. no available backup in itunes or verizon backup assistant. decided to manually re-enter everyone that i could find through my wife's contacts and some other family members. there's a good amount of people though that i'm sure i'll never get back, like friends from college and some work contacts. not people i talk to every day but it ***** to lose their contact info for no reason. i'm not even 100% sure who i've lost or not as there's not a way for me to double check everything & i'm just going off of memory.

since i started re-entering my contacts i've since created a backup in itunes and have been using verzion backup assistant. hopefully this won't happen again & i'm not counting on apple to do anything about it.

Just happened to me too! I updated a few apps and now my contacts are all gone! Based on the most recent responses, I am thinking that a common app update would be to blame and one that has access to your contacts. I think the only app I updated that would fit that is Facebook. Anyone else? I got an older version of them back by turning off iCloud contacts syncing and choosing "Keep Contacts". It's not current, but at least its better than nothing.