Contacts missing after IOS 5 update

Can't find nothing in utilities :(

Wow u mean u have a Utilities app and nothing's in it? Bummer

I have got exactly the same problem no contacts whatsoever! My contact app is in my utilities but empty and i seem to have all my apps but to be honest I would rather lose the apps than my contacts 😟.

Yes, I've exactly the same issue with the missing contacts, also tried all solutions in this and related threads with no success.

Just wasted 3 hours updating my daughter's 3gs iphone because she wanted a new ring tone and I could not download it unless I updated to the lates ios! Well now all of her contacts are gone and every fix stated here did not work to bring them back. I'm beyond irritated! This is BS.

Thanks Namratha Singh This resolved my issue that was driving me insane. Big Props to you!

Thank you for taking up for us who are not as advanced with this stuff. I just updated to version 5.1 last night and it wiped out all of my contacts. My situation was like yours and all I could see in text messages was the phone numbers. I did not have the option to edit a name or contact information. After reading a few other posts, I right-clicked on my device and had a restore available from a backup in March of this year. I restored the phone from that backup and it brought my contacts back. I didn't even know that you could manually backup and restore your phone. I have a 3gS. After restoring everything and making sure that it was all there, I did another manual backup that way I will have it if it happens again. When restoring the phone from the March backup, it runs through the entire process of signing in with your Apple ID and then it asks if you want to backup to iCloud. It gives you the option of turning iCloud off which you can change in your settings should you want to use it later. I selected do not use iCloud and everything was restored while keeping the new software update. This may not work for everyone, but I got lucky and it worked for me. I like the capabilities of these phones but Apple has been the worst company that I have ever worked with. Every person I have talked to has been rude and treated me like I was stupid. I live in Arkansas and the Apple store in Little Rock is just as bad. They blame everything on User Fault and not on the system or software. Hope this helps someone having the trouble that I did.

I've the same issue, text message solution doesn't work for me. I've an iPhone 4. Any other solution without using 'Restore' function in iTunes?

My iPhone contacts were seemingly gone after the first time I synced with the iCloud. I guess it was a temporary glitch. I found some detailed explanation of why iPhone contacts disappear upon sync/update with the iCloud and some solutions for going around this.

This worked for me 2 1/2 years after your post! Thanks!!