Lost contacts, iPhone 4

Hi All,

This is my theory, food for thought - Before you rage i am PRO PC!

Having the same problem with 2 iPhone 4S and an iPhone 4. All Apps crash, restart phone and lost all contacts.

All started around a month after iOS 6 was released and devices that were synced after iOS 6??

Do i believe its to force everyone to upgrade to iOS 6? yes i do!! i have been operating these phones on iOS 5.1.1 for over 12months without an issue until iPhone 5/iOS 6 has been released.

I have an iPhone 3GS on iOS 5.1.1 and it has not had one problem since day 1 and still maintains its contacts the only difference from the iPhone 4's is it hasnt been synced to itunes since iOS 5.1.1 was installed.

With the iPhone 4 hasn't been synced since the first time of losing contacts and it hasn't lost contacts in awhile.

I have stopped syncing my iPhone 4S with itunes and just synced my contacts with iCloud i have not lost my contacts twice in the last 3 months opposed to every week when i was syncing all the time.

Is the problem with iPhone 4 or is it with syncing to itunes maybe its both??

I have noticed that upgrading to iOS 6 solves this issue.... if thats the case then how is it that iOS 5.1.1 has been operating faultless for over 12months then decides to crash every app until you restart then all your contacts are gone? This can't be a random bug that was missed, sureley it doesnt take 12 months for a lose all your contacts bug to develop to over 100k users in a couple months after the new iOS has been released?

Is this the real reson why iOS 6 has been released? and figured that users would upgrade to iOS 6 thus reducing the amount of ****** off customers to a bare minimum and offer an upgrade to iOS 6 as a resolution?

As a user of the iPhone's iPad's iMac's iPod's, i do believe that all Apple seems to care about is the dollars not the product. The iPhone 5 is a prime example. They released a phone that in my owns was only to compete with the competitions models which were again more powerful more responsive more standard builtin features and less buggy at time of release.

Before i start Troll War 3000 ill end this with.... Apple Please fix this issue without trying to rip off your customers trust and belief in your product. I hope the iPhone 6 will be taken into another direction and provides what the customers need/want for example built in digital radio tuner (instead of using an app to stream) in my eyes would sell for alot of people that commute 30mins to 1 hour a day on a train.

I just had the same issue take place. Applications were crashing as soon as I opened them. So I restarted my phone, only to find my contacts deleted!

Here's what I did to get them back:

*On my phone, went into SETTINGS and then iCLOUD. An error message came up and said that my password was incorrect so I tapped the button to correct it. And boom! My contacts were back!

I don't know how this password was incorrect in the first place, but now it's correct! Hope this helps!

Just lost all my contacts, too, iPhone 4, software 5.1. I can see the phone numbers (no names) of recent calls, but there is nothing at all under the "Contacts" section.

I do have a recent backup to iTunes on my PC that I hope has my contacts information included, but I'm a little scared to try the restore because it seems like there is just one chance to get this right. iTunes says all media and other data will be erased if I restore, so I'm also worried that I will lose all my text messages and voicemails. I'm not sure it's worth it to restore my contacts if I lose all my text messages - do I have to choose?

I'm also afraid to do another backup now, because it seems that will backup what's currently on my phone only - not sure the older backup would save? I can't tell about this, either! None of this seems intuitive.

Any thoughts appreciated - may go to Apple Store but doesn't really look like they want to help with this kind of problem.

Oh, and I had the same symptoms of phone crashing and acting up right before I lost my contacts.

STOP!

Yes, you will only get once chance.

Do NOT plug your phone into PC/iTunes.

iTunes has the most recent back up.

Look to see if this backup can be "saved as..." - something like that, because as soon as you connect your phone to iTunes it will copy from your phone to iTunes - not the other way around.

So STOP, and do some checking / hunting.

Maybe someone here can help - but ignore them if they say to plug your phone in.

Also, check if you were backing up to iCloud - if you were, you will probably be okay, and there are enough posts here to tell you what to do.

Thanks, Garrett - I had same idea to save backup elsewhere just in case! I used to use the cloud but it's been so long since I backed up to there it's practically useless. I did disable the autosync so I can plug in my phone to computer. Going to try apple store and see if they are willing to give me me scoop. Will give update - should be an easy question for them to answer if they are willing to do this.

Hi Zoomer271,

I encountered a similiar problem this month, my genius brother took my iPhone 4S(I don’t know when) he deleted all my contacts & text messages... Finally I found this tool on Cnet which saved my phone and retrieved all my data, Hope it can help you.
Download trial: http://software.bigbigsoft.com/ipod-ipad-iphone-recovery
Actually the deleted files are still in the database of your iPhone, so you can use professional phone data recovery tool to bring them back.

This is what I did and got my contacts back. I had the same problem today and had just updated Facebook app and then suddenly got spit out of mail app. Rebooted and lost all my contacts. Did not have iCloud. My solution:

1. on iPhone settings Mail, Contacts, Calenders - iCloud - contacts set to off

2. on PC, downloaded and opened up iCloud panel.

3. signed in with my Apple ID.

4. chose to only upload Outlook contacts, calenders and tasks

5. wait till everything is on the cloud

6. on iPhone settings Mail, Contacts, Calenders - iCloud - contacts now set to on

7. set calenders to on

8, look in contacts and they are all there

Caveat: this will only bring back what you have on your PC. Anything you added manually since last sync will not be there. Luckily for me it wasn't much lost.

Good Luck!

Thanks ramvaswani.

I did something very similar (went to Settings -> iCloud, and turned "On" my Contacts, dunno how it managed to turn itself off) and that did the trick to get back all my contacts from iCloud. However, I did lose some contacts (I guess since the last sync to iCloud didn't have them), but at least most of them are back now 😉

why is it apples fault that you dont backup your phone? Its technology and nothing is set in stone that something isnt going to malfunction and you can lose everything. That is why they give you the option to backup to TWO thing icloud and itunes.

Same issue... problem with apps first (especially with the keyboard. After trying to use it in the apps they closed) Also I update my facebook app. I don't know wich of those was the cause of lost contacts...

I have a back up, but not from the last month, that have importants contacts...

Kolt you say "why is it apples fault that you dont backup your phone? Its technology and nothing is set in stone that something isnt going to malfunction and you can lose everything. That is why they give you the option to backup to TWO thing icloud and itunes." As I stated a number of times, it is Apple's fault because there is no AUTOMATIC way to restore from the backup taken a week ago, instead of the backup taken just now when you plug into iTunes. In my case, I plug into iTunes daily (or more) but didn't notice the lost contacts immediately.

Does anyone know if there is any class action under way to force a resoution of this? I don't accept that this is a bug...this is an intentional or a hack that is not being acknoledged. I paid for certain functionality that is removed in the latest ios 6 release and if that is the proposed solution then I want remediation...PERIOD! I am so sick of getting screwed by big corporations. Something was pushed out to our phones to corrupt the contacts lists.

Almost 20 pages and still no resolution. I guess Apple is going Charlie Sheen on this issue: "Already got your money, dude."

Same exact issue as everyone else. I would try restoring my iPhone, but the laptop that it was synced to stolen, and I I sync it to another computer, I will lose everything. I guess I'm screwed. I could stomp and cry about how I'm going to run off and get a Samsung Android phone or whatever, but what does Apple care? They already got my money, dude.

This is pathetic. I lost all my contacts and I cant restore from backup in itunes because since my last backup I have added some new contacts. On top of iTunes becoming more complicated to use, now this? iPhone my ***, never buying one again.

Apple won't post a resolution here because they don't monitor these boards. If people want to get this fixed, they need to start using the "Contact Us" link on the bottom right of this, and every other page, in the support and discussion pages.

This happened to me. I was out of date with my iOS version. Heads up to all: software updates happen to make things better and to wipe out bugs and known issues. Being up to date is step one in preventing crap like this.

Also, when this happened to me, I had the tiniest bit of space left, then I updated an app. Then it happened-likely because there was no room left for buffering during multitasking.

So.....update, check your space and use "contact us" to let Apple know before 20 pages turns into 100. Update before you call though; how can you expect them to troubleshoot outdated software?