Lost contacts, iPhone 4

This just happened for the second time in less than 6 weeks. It's almost as aggravating and annoying as Apple's lack of a response or a fix. Bottom line, if you have an iPhone that is used for anything more than playing games or social media, back it up weekly, at a minimum. They're just not reliable enough to take any chances with.

FOR VERIZON USERS:

I just had a successful attempt! I called verizon and I was syncing with their APP "Verizon Backup" or something. It "deleted" all of my contacts. I logged in on my verizon account online and view my stored contacts. They were there! Under the "deleted"/Trash tab. Why!? I dont know. I moved them over and HOORAY I used th verizon APP and my contacts were back on my phone.

Using Icloud and exported contact list.

:-)

this had happened to me thrice and happened to my girlfriend's iphone twice, and the only solution is to update your iphone to the current iOS. that should prevent it from happening again. backing up your contacts will do the trick but who is not lazy enough to backup their phone everyday, every hour.. and what if your outside having a party then suddenly it occured then what would you do? i would rather go to a different phone like nokia 3310.. hahaha! 🙂

so to all party people out there.. just do your thing.. update your iOS..

ciao!!

I tried some of the solutions on this thread with no luck recovering my contact list. My iCloud backup had an incomplete list.

This worked for me guys.

I'm on an iPhone 4 ios 5.1.1

1. Unlock your phone and go to the main page with your apps.

2. Swipe to the right to make a search

3. Search a missing contacts name (one that was deleted or no longer appearing on contacts).

4. Click on the missing contacts that appears.

5. Now exit by hitting the home button and click on the contacts Icon

6. you should have all your contacts back.

This worked for me. I hope it works for you guys too.

My phone is currently doing the same exact thing the first two times my contacts were deleted so it is about to happen again. I am frustrated beyond words.......

I tried doing what the above poster did by searching for missing contacts and it's not showing anything at all when i do a search. I think i am about through with Apple products.....

maybe try and update software.. when your software is out of date everything gets messed up

MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP THROUGH ITUNES

6.1.3 is the highest software and for iphone 5 is 6.1.4

thats why apple make these software updates is so that these things dont happen

always make sure your computer and itunes are always up to date

Exactly! I couldn't agree more!

iOS is an operating system and it requires updates just like any other OS. ALL smartphones require updates; when phone owners don't do updates, they might expect problems! Switching phones is useless if you're just going to let your phone rot away with its origional software.

This is the same as buying a car and never replacing the oil!!!! Sooner or later the engine will seize.

Another user with exactly the same problem. iPhone 4 - IOS 5.1.1. Messages, Maps and other apps would immediately crash and I'd be returned to the home page. I restarted the iPhone and all my contacts are gone. I travel overseas a lot and have just got back from a 2 week trip. This happened at the beginning of the trip and I've been getting by - barely - without my contacts since. I now don't want to restore from Backup because I've got a ton of messages and photos from the previous 2 weeks that I don't want to lose.

Come on Apple, at least respond as this is obviously a major issue.

TunesFan: "This is the same as buying a car and never replacing the oil!!!! Sooner or later the engine will seize."

Only in this case, the analogy is you change the oil, and suddenly your radio won't work and you can't trust your maps anymore.

Whether Apple intended this or not, there have been numerous reports that they broke several things in developing iOS 6, and people can rightly be cautious in upgrading (plus Apple has been very clear that in their other OS {MacOS}, they have fully intended to leave many existing users behind). My wife just got a new iPhone 5, so she is running 6.1 - but she's not a big user of maps on her phone, so we haven't been able to evaluate the other third-party options.

I'm probably not going to stay at 5.1.1 forever. But I'm going to do my due diligence before 'upgrading'.

You say "I now don't want to restore from Backup because I've got a ton of messages and photos from the previous 2 weeks that I don't want to lose." Well here is what has me so angry about this. I plug my phone into iTunes at least 4-5 times a week. Everytime it does a "backup" So here is what happened, I noticed that my contact list went from around 150 to less then 10. So i figure, ok, I will restore. I plug into iTunes, and right of the bat, it does a backup right. Well what that does is over-write the prior backup, so when I go to restore, all that it can restore from is the backup of the system WITHOUT the contacts. Without manually copying the backup directory off yourself, and restoring it, there isn't a **** thing you can do. What is the point of trying to do a restore if the first thing iTunes does is blow away any good backups? I've been in systems management and software development (including disaster recovery design) and a backup system that doesn't allow for restoration of multiple prior backups is a joke and any company that feels that this is acceptable is a company that I really don't trust.

And saying "well you should install the current updates" is an insult. This happened to me in early March, at that time iOS 6 had been out for less then 6 months, which, if Apple expects corporate customers to use these devices, is far to soon to expect massive rollout (consider that many corporations still run on Windows XP)

You say "MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP THROUGH ITUNES" That doesn't help, because iTunes backup don't provide any AUTOMATIC method to restore from a prior backup. So what happens is this:

1 - I notice that my contacts are lost, so I plugged my phone into iTunes

2 - The first thing done is to backup the current phone settings. However the idiots at Apple wrote the backup software so that it over-writes the prior backup.

3 - I went to restore, so guess what got restored? The just taken backup, that doesn't have the contacts.

Please tell me what good that does? I wasted a few hours doing a restore of the messed up system.

If you restore from a backup if your iTunes is up to date before restoring if you look there will be a drop down box of which back up to restore from with the date and time they are smart phones, every smart phone has flaws switch if you want idc but there aren't very many companies you will find that stands behind their products like apple does if you buy the AppleCare or AppleCare + they will stay on the phone until you find a issue resolver trust me my grandma bought AppleCare and she's always calling in (very illiterate wen it comes to phones in general)

Awesome solution, ramvaswani.. It helped! Thanks a ton! My contacts were restored.

Yesterday while driving across the southeast, my phone kept kicking me out of apps. The phone would not do much, it was just locked. I turned it off, and then back on several minutes later, ALL MY CONTACT WERE GONE!

I don't know what Apple is up to, but this is not a coincidence, that is apparent.

I think their system has been hacked and Apple is trying to keep it a secret! There is no way all of us are experiencing the same EXACT problem the same EXACT way and its not explainable. No one was updating, and we use different pcs, so Apple is the only common denominator. Plus, the contacts are swiped clean out when we turn phones off and back on.......

As for backing up, I no longer have my pc, I originally used to set up my phone and iCloud wasn't backed up to date, so my newer numbers/contacts aren't saved! I am livid! I am on the road and I don't know who to call, because I don't memorize phone numbers. I own 4 iPhones in my home and I will not ever buy or support another! GALAXY here me and my family come!