All my contacts vanished (I was not synching or updating)

Thanks for your reply. As background... I used to synch to gmail, but when I try to start synching again, itunes gives me warnings that it will merge all my contacts (which I did once before and don't want to have to clean up again) or overwriting the contacts on the phone (but I want the ones on the phone because they are more up to date). So I stopped synching... but I do make backups on my computer, so I can restore my contacts from the backup...

However, the problem is that after I restore them, a few hours later they were get magically zapped off somehow. That is the real problem (not getting them back). Why should I have to expect that the contacts could just get erased on any random day?

btw - I don't think I need a 3rd party app. I can restore to my phone and then synch to gmail (merging them all) or to icloud. But I'd really like to figure out the reason why the contacts are getting zapped. Even if I was synching every day, I'd still be going through the hassle of restoring all my contacts in some way or another. Every day.

Do you think it could be a conflict with an app? I updated a few of them over the weekend. The ones that were crashing were facebook or wechat, both of which use Contacts. I figured they were crashing because the phone was busy deleting contacts, but do you think those (or some other apps) could be causing them to be deleting?

My fear is that if I were synching to iCloud or gmail or wherever... that once the contacts get zapped from my iphone... that the synching/backup process would think I purposesly deleted my contacts and then it would synch (i.e. it would delete them from iCloud of gmail). Then I would have no contacts on my phone or on my chosen backup location.

I don't mind setting up the process again (like I said, I used to synch to gmail) but I would like to be able to export the contacts to a safe location (like my hard drive) in a form that is viewable/printable in case I need to resort to it if my phone and backups get zapped. It might also help in the case I ever switch to a different phone and not all the contacts move over seamlessly. Thanks.

Yeah, it sounds like you are experiencing the same problem as I am. I have an appointment with the apple genius bar tonight. However, I have no idea what causes the contacts to get deleted, so I will not be able to recreate the scenario for them. I will let you know if I learn anything useful. I think it may have something to do with the wechat app and the iphone messages and contacts. I had been using wechat around the time (both times) that I lost all my contacts. But it's odd, because I've had that app for awhile without issues. It's not a new app...

Thanks for showing me the other discussion, engineermusic. More people seem to be finding that post. I think I will join that discussion... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4776038?start=0&tstart=0

Btw, I talked to an Apple Store genius last night, but he hadn't heard of this (yet). He ran some diagnostics on my phone. (iphone 4S, iOS 5.1.1 - just like those in the other post)

His suggestions were to either:

a) restore to backup, although if I have corrupt files in my backup, I would just get them back

b) system restore (which would also move to iOS 6), which he could do for me right there or I could do later (so he emailed me detailed instructions)

c) next time I get my contacts back (whichever method), synch to iCloud. Then go to ICloud and export the contacts. I can view them, print them, save this file (in case anything were to happen and I needed to refer)

In reading the other thread, there is a post about an app called "My Contacts backup" which lets you email the contacts to yourself as a one file attachment. Keep the email and if you lose the contacts again, supposedly you can open the attachment in the email and they all come back.

Of course, this doesn't explain why the contacts disappear, but it does let you get them back no matter where you are. I am going to try this.

If you search google for "missing contacts' or "iphone contacts disappearing" or whatever, you find a lot of people having issues. However, the issues are generally due to synching or upgrading. There really weren't many people complaining of contacts getting deleting until recently. Like it was noted, there seems to be a new issue that has surfaced in the last month. The other thread already has 20+ people saying they have the same problem and everyone is describing the same thing. It is true that we aren't synching (and maybe we should start doing that), but synching is optional and it shouldn't cause the contacts to be deleted. Something else is clearing going on now...

Hi KiltedTim. Can you help me set up my iCloud synch?

There does appear to be a real (new) issue with the contacts getting zapped in the last week or two. There are many people describing the same problem on the other thread. That is the root of the problem and hopefully it gets addressed. However, in the meantime, I was trying to set up the synch to iCloud, but it's not working.

I am trying to set my phone up to:

1. Backup to my pc via iTunes (like it's always done), and

2. Sync (apps, music, etc) to iTunes (like it's always done), and

3. Sync (contacts, notes, etc) to iCloud

ITunes backup and synch both work fine, but the ICloud sync does not. I first tried to set up Contacts to sync to iCloud from within iTunes, but there was no option for iCloud. So I changed the iCloud setting from the phone. When I chose Contacts, it said it would merge my contacts with what was previously synched to the pc. I didn't want this, but there was no other option, so I said ok. It also made me sign up for an iCloud email address...

But nothing is synching...

I went into iCloud and there is only one contact (myself). When I go into iTunes, it says that my phone is set up to synch contacts with iCloud. There are no longer options to choose anything else. That seems to make sense. It says to change the iCloud sync settings, I need do this on my phone. But I cannot find any place to change the sync settings. (I want to find setting that say when and how the sync occurs). I found one button to click to synch, but it just initiated the normal iTunes pc synch (it was connected to my pc at the time). That's not what I want. When it's not connected to iTunes, I don't see any buttons to click. I want something like "synch to iCloud now"... or somewhere I can set it up to synch when plugged in to charger and on wireless... or whatever.

Right now, it looks like it's set up. ITunes says it's set to synch to iCloud. The phone has it's set to synch to iCloud. I have an iCloud account and email. But nothing is synching... When I log into iCloud, it does not show the contacts or notes that are on my phone.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

What do I need to do to activate it?

update on my synching problem:

I turned on synching for everything (notes, contacts, etc) except for bookmarks. For some reason, reminders were already turned on. I don't know how they synched since iphone claimed my iCloud password was invalid, but it worked. Nothing for contacts, notes, calendar, etc though...

I then turned on the iCloud backup option on in my phone's iCloud setting. I am trying to sync to iCloud, not backup to it, but I thought i'd try this anyways. This now turns off my backups from the pc. In any case, now the contacts do sync to iCloud. My existing calender items do not synch, but if I add new ones, those sync. My notes do not synch.

On would think that each of these categories would work the way my Remiders do. (i.e. I turn the iCloud button from off to on and then they synch). All the other ones work partially, but in their own unique way. I don't really care about any of them except contacts and notes though. That free app My Contacts Backup seems to be the answer. It lets you email yourself a file containing all your contacts (which you can click on to restore them from your phone) or email yourself a file that can be viewed or printed from Excel. Good enough...