Lost contacts, iPhone 4

Years of using iPhone 1 / 2G upto FW 3.1.2 - Never lost contacts like this

2 years of using iPhone 4 with iOS 4.x.x - No issues.

Upped to iOS 5.1.1 b just 1-2 months back and this is what I get?

I synched with iTunes 34 days back so I am hoping to get something back but I cannot understand.. HOW THE HECK CAN CONTACTS/ ADDRESS BOOK just disappear?

Is this the case for everyone on iOS 5.1.1 ? Or are other people with Higher and Lower Firmware affected by it.

Full story:

http://www.sinfuliphone.com/showthread.php?p=981079#post981079

Could you please OUTLINE CLEARLY - Exactly the steps you took to make that happen?

sullimom24 wrote:

iPhone number 2 (daughter number 2) crashed yesterday. The first incidence was February 4th (daughter number 1). Same scenario, differnet app: trying to upload to Facebook, the app started failing, she tried to stabilize her phone by turning it off and then back on - contact information was gone - some numbers but no names. She has a 4S iOS 5.1.1 which she refused to update to iOS 6 because her battery already drains very quickly and she made a conscious decision not to update to an OS that is reported to exacerbate that problem.

I've been following this thread since February and had her follow the iCloud solution - successfully. Even though we all share an apple id and cannot use iCloud successfully AND have it disconnected on our phones - her contacts came back by signing in to iCloud and following the prompts to merge contacts.

It's disconcerting that iCloud has obviously continued to store her information even without being signed in and having deleted the account. The power of Apple is overwhelming. (I think I am being sarcastic)

Had you enabled Contacts Sync on iCloud?

kojokylea wrote:

This just happened to me and I solved it by going to settings > iCloud > Account

For some reason it said my password was invalid although I have not changed by password in months. I re-entered my password on the account page and it reloaded all my contacts back in. Hope this helps!

+1

Iphone 4 / iOS 5.1.1

Still no solution.

I went through the whole thread.

There are only 3 ways to get the contact info:

1 - From the Phone - If it is stored somewhere in one of the SQLite DBs for AddressBook

I tried this and it did not work.

2 - iCloud Sync - This would work IF and ONLY IF, somewhere before you had enabled iCloud Sync with Contacts enabled.

This did not work for me and could not as I had never enabled iCloud + Contacts.

One way to CHECK ahead of time if this MIGHT work is to go online into iCloud account and see if some CONTACTS data has/ was stored there.

3- iTunes | Outlook | Windows or Mac Address Books - Assuming you saved or synched/ backed up to them.

Here you have to be careful not have:

- Automatic Sync

- 2-way Sync

The only way is to do a ONE WAY sync > REPLACE info on Phone - Contacts (gets the info from PC/ Mac)

That is what is outlined by Spirit in more detail.

- ETC:

The "Searchable" Name with the Blanked Address Book/ Contacts is most likely only the CACHED addressbook in RAM and not the complete AddressBook DB on Storage. iPhone caches some contacts and probably not the entire AddressBook.

There is high likelihood that this may not be available sometime soon

- MORE:

I'd like to diagnose further as to what caused this and prevent it from happening again. I might say I was using FB around the time and might have been victim to that.

spirit wrote:

I found an easy solution. The last backup on the iPhone 4S was Feb 8 and the contacts disappeared last week. I didn't want to lose all my texts since then. So I replaced all the contacts on the iPhone with the contacts on my Mac's Address Book by simply selecting the below checkboxes in iTunes' Info tab. (Ignore my selection in the Sync Google Contacts checkbox as I don't think that matters.) Also, I keep Address Book Archives so in case my contacts on my Mac were ever erased then I have a backup; in Address Book see menu File > Export. Using iOS5.1.1, OS10.6.8 and iTunes 10.7. Problem solved 🙂

I lost all my contacts facing same prob , apple any solution please update asap

You mentioned using facebook. I am having issues with Facebook right now where every other day it would give me a "Network Problem", and the only way I could fix this was to delete Facebook and reinstalling it.

Now, I also see the problem is that everytime I uninstall and reinstall Facebook, and after I sign in on facebook, later on, my contacts list would disappear after a text message sent to me. This has been going on constantly. Thankfully, I back up my contacts list periodically, so I can do a quick fix on iTunes, and check the "contacts" bar under "Replace information on this iPhone".

Recently, I complained about the Facebook problem to facebook and on these forums. I have never synced my contacts list with Facebook, but somehow, there seems to be an iPhone glitch that is intertwined with the Facebook app being reinstalled, signed in, and texting all leading to the mysterious disappearance of my contacts list.

hi all it seems like many of us are having the same problems. Yesterday, something strange was going on with my iphone 4 iOS 5.1.1. When I get a call, the call was always disconnected and then I suddenly didn't have any signal. So I had to call back again until the connection was ok.

I can't remember if the apps were acting strange.

All I can remember was, when I woke up today, I read messages from facebook and even posted a reply to one of my friend. Then I sent sms to a friend where I was still able to select her name on my contacts. I charged it as I only had 1 % when it was like 78% I took it and went out from a building. I was about to send an sms to a friend where I was still able to see all my contacts as I was still able to select the name, when I realized that I didn't have a signal. So I did restart my phone to get the signal back again. When I restarted it and wanted to send sms to my friend, it says "No Contacts" I thought I was just in a different folder, then when I looked up all my sms it listed only the numbers.

So I don't know... I was pretty sure that the contacts were still there before I restarted my phone.

Perhaps a mysterious bug with iPhone 4. Apple Technical Support please help 😟 I am very frustrated

Lost contacts twice!

First time I thought it was just something I did.

Found this thread after the second time.

Clearly not too much interest from apple.

Yes I have facebook app installed but haven't reinstalled it.

Didnt do a restart before loosing contacts either time.

Pretty mad especially as not near my pc for the last few days and don't have cloud backup.

Running 5.1.1.

So guess must upgrade to 6 or change to Andr..d!!!

Cheers

My Mom, 78, lost all her contacts today on iPhone 4, IOS 5x

She used her phone last night, powered it off, then this morning when she powered on, contacts missing.

Arrg. Its going to be difficult for me to walk her through all the steps to try to recover from her PC remotely - last time I was there, I sync'd for her.

.

Whats up apple? New products in engineering are more important than existing customers?

Apple - your policy not to respond to any technical problems highlights how little you care for your customers.

It may have been a good policy during the boom years but I am really starting to expect more from a company I choose to give money to. I expect a little transparency or some feedback or some help. All I can do is imagine you all in your boardroom patting each other on the back about how far you've managed to distance yourself from the customers in the street. You must find us really irritating asking for some help or some answers. Well done on not listening or talking to your customers, first rate business model you've got there.

I suggest that everybody tweet something about this problem--

Here's mine

Apple's continued arrogance toward loyal but out-of-warranty customers re iOS malfunction

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4776038?answerId=21769600022#21769600022&ac_cid=tw123456#21769600

(Feel free to copy & paste!)

Nice work Apple. I appreciate you chuckleheads wrecking my wife's contact list with an unannounced bug, that you STILL refuse to even admit, as far as I can tell.

Bah.. Wife's getting Android in Aug.. The Walled Garden is not amusing (fill in the censored blanks), when there is no benefit and crap patches like these are rolled out to owners..

I once had a N97 I moved away from Nokia for a reason....

Hash tag #missingiphonecontactsagain

Do love my iPhone but... I know this problem is not my making...

16th April, running ios 5.11 same issue. SMS app dropped off ,so attempted a hard reboot only to discover

in horror all my contacts over 1000 deleted . I am so heavily dependent on my contacts for work it's incredible a BUG on iOS would do this. While I have an old back up on itunes I believe Apple have really let me down by not communicating on this problem. Clearly from the no. of instances here this is not a one off. Will now attempt to restore but from threads above there are pit falls for not following that process exactly, by a mile losing contacts and photos are what us customers don't want to have to face to come on Apple make it easier for addressing a quick restore fast track when your software fails on us !!!