Lost contacts, iPhone 4

TunesFan - What a BS comment "Update before you call though; how can you expect them to troubleshoot outdated software?" First of all, real software companies support the prior release for at LEAST 1 year after the new release comes out. Second, the CRAPPY backup support in iTunes causes older (ie valid) backups to be wiped out when you connect to iTunes. As I mentioned before, I backup every day, but when I clicked on Restore, the only backup that could be restored was the backup taken when I connectted to iTunes. So I connect in order to restore, the first thing the CRAPPY software did was backup the current (almost empty) contact list. Then I restored. Guess what? After waiting for the restore, I had the same almost empty contact list.

And as for the "Apple won't post a resolution here because they don't monitor these boards." This is a a page that is on the Apple web site, under a tab called "Support" I didn't post this on a random website, I posted on a site hosted by apple.com, with the expectation that support looked at it.

So I found this tool to be really great ! copytrans ..... backup all your stuff to somewhere other than itunes and icloud. especially other than icloud ! And with this tool you can see exactly what is getting backed up. Store your stuff on a USB and take with you also. Cheers.

http://www.copytrans.net/

re copytrans

its excellent software..and unlike apple they respond to support requests. Unfortunately copytrans contacts that I bought won't solve this issue.

The issue as I see it is that text messaging strips the name and only shows a phone number. Even if I open a contact by name and send a text, it sends but only shows the phone number now.

Copytrans contacts will import your contacts from in my case win 8. However the bug rears its ugly head too...I have 100 or so contacts in win 8 contacts list, all intact with names numbers emails etc. When copytrans imports them to my 4s, almost all the contacts get stripped of name and other info and all that shows up are phone numbers, no names. This has to be an intentional hack on the part of apple. This always worked a few months ago...no updates were ever done on my phone, so something was pusehd out to it to break this.

Copytrans is trying to solve the issue but I fearits beyond an apple app developers visibility into the IOS...prbably by intention. Stating to evaluate Droid...really really ****** off at Apple and truly hope we can bring suit against them. This is malicious and illegal.

I've just had the same problem, lost all my contacts. I followed the advice of others, went into icloud account via settings and it relisted my contacts. I had never to my knowledge backed them up before. Is interesting whether it is a ruse by Apple to get people to start to use the icloud features.

I hope everyone who has the same problem gets it sorted.

Under General, section 6 of the terms ALL OF US AGREED TO:

https://discussions.apple.com/static/apple/tutorial/tou.html

PS, Apple is a real company. They offer great support when you actually use the correct support options d-bag

Thank you to all the posters on here with helpful comments! That's most people. 😉

Here's what happened to me: I went to Apple Store, and they helped me restore from my backup (based on my sync with iTunes). The guy was very nice and patient - I was there almost 2 hours. I'm a little unclear on what their policy is on providing free support to a PC user like me who hasn't paid for anything extra, but I was pleasantly surprised to get the help I did.

I was very lucky that I had backed up a few days before the crash, because I don't do this too often. The restore from backup is something I could have done myself, but it just didn't look right to me from the main iTunes page. We finally figured out, based on my old iPhone (4), outdated iTunes app and PC use, that the restore from backup was best done via a right click over on the left side where my phone shows up. Looks different now on newer version or via Mac. I had already disabled the auto-sync under Edit-Preferences-Devices. I would not recommend doing another backup or updating your iTunes first if you are restoring from backup.

I did not lose any texts or voicemails stuff from prior to my backup because this is phone carrier based. I did lose everything that happened after the backup up til the crash. Honestly not sure why this is the case, but that's what's up. Not a big deal.

I have updated my iCloud settings so this will actually work now - before, it wasn't working because I had too much data for the "free" backup. I changed the settings on this so that I am just backing up my contacts - this seemed like the most important thing after this experience. I'm not real hip on updating iTunes and backing up via sync cord all the time, but I guess this is the price to pay.

This is aweful! All my contact have gone missing for no reason, went to AT&T and they said sorry nothing we can do about this that I shuld have backed them up???? My question is if you have a $400+ 4Sphone why should I need to back up anything??? I had blackberry 's for 8 years never had these issues!!! The weird thing is if I go to text and type in a name the contact shows up but won't show up in my contact list? Any suggestions? 1 More year on my contract and then I can get rid of apple for good!

Here we go again. Yesterday, everything was crashing on the iPhone, so had to restart. And, as expected, bye bye contacts.

No problem - fire up iTunes, restore. Great, until I checked the phone.

Every photo in my contact list was of a different person. Every. Single. Photo. No, I don't look like that. Neither does my wife. And no, that other person doesn't have curly blonde hair.

Took 4 times (delete / resync) & a computer restart before I was able to get the faces matched up with the names.

I just don't have time (especially on a busy holiday weekend) to deal with this anymore. So, I resigned myself to upgrading to 6.1.3, and am now dealing with all the minor annoyances of all the seemingly-pointless changes made to important apps like Mail & Maps. :\

And we'll see if the contacts decide to stick around at the next restart.

This is what I did, it worked for me.

The context:

Have to mention that I have a restore point on iTunes. But after every "Restore Backup" just in one or two minutes all my contacts were gone. Also I saw that I had no contacts on iCloud at all. So I assumed that the iPhone restore the contacts, but the empty contacts folder from icloud synchronize with the phone, so this is why in just few minutes my contacts list form the phone is empty again

What I did:

I took a program that can export the contacts: The program I used was "Cleaner - remove Duplicate Contacts". You can find it on Apple Store, not expensive. After I installed it, I did a restore from iTunes. After that I closed al the data connection from the phone (Wi-Fi and mobile data). So I closed the connection with iCloud". All my addresses were in place. With cleaner I selected all the addresses and I put them in a vcf card. Than I imported the vcf card in ICloud. That’s all. ICloud has the same addresses I have in the phone

blown contacts again last night. Something occurs once every week or two on a saturday night. Woke up this morning and email crashes, phone app crashes, messaging crashes..have to reboot phone to recover, contacts corrupted again....whats weird is its not all of them and I can't find a correlation as to why some and not others. The text messaging reverts to all phone numbers and no names...even when you edit contacts its gone. I finally updated to latest ios 6.1.3 after this but I think the b ug is still there, Reason why is, I have copy trans contacts I bought. When I try to impor my contacts from win 8, nearly all get the name info stripped and just a phone number gets imported to the phone. No change in this behaivior from ios 5.1.x.

I am going to see if I can file a complaint with my state attorney general office(MA) on tuesday. I urge everyone to do the same, maybe we can bring some pressure on Apple if enough people complain to their state consumer affairs.

rich

This is exactly my point as well. All my contacts just suddenly deleted for no apparent reason on my iPhone 4s, something that has never happened with my various Nokias, Samsungs and LGs over the years. No, I haven't updated my iPhone software because I've heard nothing but how horrible it is, and no I don't sync my iPhone to my computer regularly because, quite frankly, its a pain in the *** and a massive waste of my time. That shouldn't be used against me for why my entire contact list was suddenly and inexplicably removed. But right now I've gone through about 10 options listed on various websites and in the comments section here and nothing has worked so far. This phone only reinforces what I've been hearing and experiencing over the last few years, simply that Apple products are overpriced and no longer have that reliability they were once known and respected for. In addition to this most recent issue, my iPhone 4s has been sluggish since about 3 months after I purchased it with programs not working properly and constant crashes. There's a possibility that if I spend my Saturday in the Apple store they maybe can fix this, but this simply shouldn't have happened in the first place to so many people.

The sync/backup does not work. This has happened to me twice now where all of a sudden my iphone is erased. It was "backed up" on my computer every 2 weeks. When this location was opened, only a back up from 1 & 2 years ago was there

I just lost all my contacts too! Even my old flipphone could manage to maintain my contacts, but apple can't manage his?!? Apple, seriously kids, this is the most basic function of a phone. This shouldn't need to be explained to you! This is absolutely unacceptable. If your phone can't manage to function on it's own, you need to rethink the basics of how these work.

Round two… Lost them again, only this time it was while I was using the phone.

Here is the succession of what happened:

I was at a local bar. I checked in on Facebook after turning on my wifi since at&t is the worst service provider and the signal is abysmal. So then I went back into Facebook to comment on my check in, an then the app crashed. I reopened it, as this has happened before with no ill effects, and it crashed again after I clicked the comment button. The third time, same thing. So I guessed that this was the issue that other have had.

I had a bad feeling about what was about to happen, but I decided to do an experiment to help this community narrow down the issue, since apple does not care. I clicked on the setting icon on the phone, and it crashed almost immediately. I tried it a few more time and even tried to hit the airplane mode and tried to scroll. It was locked up before I could do anything and it crashed. I even tried closing all the apps in the background and the ones that were crashing. No change…

I then tried opening my text app. It crashed over and over. Nothing showed up but a white screen. Same with the phone app. Then I tried the weather app. It worked until I tried to add a city to my forecast. I then tried the maps which also crashed after about 2 seconds. I tried the stocks app, and it did not crash. I found that humorous. I tried another app that did not come stock on the phone, and it worked until I tried to use the search function which brings up the keyboard. I then went into the app store. It worked fine until I tried to do a search which brings up the keyboard.

So I see the trigger for crashing has something related to searching and the keyboard. I then deleted the Facebook app and then tried everything again after closing all background apps. Same issue. I then went into the app store and re downloaded Facebook by clicking: categories/social networking/facebook. I loaded the new app, started it, and it worked until I had to enter my login name which brings up the keyboard… Hopeless.. I then went to the home screen on the iPhone and did the right swipe to do a search. That worked fine with the search iPhone feature.

I decided to not reset my phone, but to take it home and do a backup, and then restore. After doing so the apps all worked as normal, but I still lost all my **** contacts again!!! Over 100 contacts gone. Now I have to go into the phone and rename all the people that just show up as a phone number in my texts section. This is unacceptable! Facebook and apple are responsible parties. If the Facebook app is the problem, then apple should have tested the integrity of the app before letting the gunny pigs test it for them. I also run a business, so many of the contacts cannot be retrieved as I had no text correspondence with them.

These are the most expensive phones on the market, and they should work nearly flawlessly. Thats what I expect from one of the most profitable companies in the world that I've given over $20k to in my lifetime. Enough said. Lets start up a forum page for those that will be getting a non apple phone.

It has happened to me now 9 times in the last 2 months. The bad part is that i've been out of state away from home the past two months so i haven't gone to get a new phone. In addition, for some unknown reason, i have never been able to get iCloud to work for me so i have no backup. And to add to that, i have a different computer for work since the last time i did a backup that way so i am pretty much screwed. While it is my fault for not having it back up and not keeping the software up to date, there is no F'ng way this should happen. We pay way too much for these phones and the monthly bill to have to worry about our contacts randomly disappearing. I had over 300 contacts, including a lot of business contacts and the only ones i can get back are the ones i had text message conversations with. Apple is on my sh*t list right now!