All my contacts on my iphone 4s disappeared yesterday. In the cloud but not the phone. I have even tried to add my contacts manually but when I open contacts there is nothing at the top - no plus sign, nothing - so I cannot even do that. HELP!

First, try a reset: Hold down the home button along with the sleep/wake button until you see the apple, then let go.

Post back with results.

http://www.seangw.com/wordpress/2011/10/ios-5-upgrade-lost-my-contacts/

This site helped me restore my vanished contacts, they all vanished after someone who is on my contacts sent me a whatsapp message (dunno if thats to blame or not!)

in particular this hint...

This seems to be the most popular solution if you can see your contacts in your text messaging:

1. Open a recent Text Message
2. Tap the top of the screen (scrolls to the top of the message)
3. Tap “Contact”
4. Edit the contact in some way (add an email, new fake phone number or something, you can delete later
5. Hit the “Back” button

Hope it helps you, I did a rather rapid back up as soon as I got my contacts back! Also check your icloud settings are on for contacts etc...

Thank you!! I had the same problem. I tried everything (nothing else worked), but this got everything back.

I tried this, and it restored 50 contacts, but I had hundreds, and unfortunately, they are not in the iCloud. Is there anything else I can try?

This was the only thing that actually worked. I have 3 iPhones, and 3 iPods on my account. All of the devices could see and use our contacts and calendars, except mine all of a sudden. They were there yesterday, and today I went to use my contacts, and poof, gone@!

My settings had been changed somehow, so that my cloud sync was off for calendars, notes, and contacts. I never did this, and my phone is password locked, so my kids couldnt have. I went and turned them all back on, but they wouldnt show any synced data, even though I was plugged in and on my home wifi.

I tried this trick, but starting a new iMessage, add a contact, go and add/edit a contact, and suddenly I could see all the data. All my contacts were there to choose from to edit an existing contact. I edited something simple, and then saved it, backed out, checked my contacts data and calendars, and they magically appeared again.

This seems to be a problem in iOS as the data was apparently there, but not showing. Now I am good. Thanks a ton for the tip!!!!