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I lost all my contacts.

I suddenly lost all my contacts that were linked to my iphone via outlook.com. And i tried disconnecting the outlook account and adding it again but it didnt work. All the contacts are still available on outlook. Please help. Thanks!

iPhone 6, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on Apr 6, 2016 5:22 AM

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13 replies

Apr 6, 2016 10:03 AM in response to Umallive

On April 6 at around 7:00 PM CST, my iPhone running iOS 9.3.1 stopped syncing with my Microsoft Outlook account.

The first thing I noticed was all of my Contacts were missing on my iPhone (but, they were still on my PC).


I haven't had any problems with my iPhone syncing with my Outlook email over the last 5 years until now.


My Outlook account is at these servers -

for web mail:
https://blu183.mail.live.com/

for Windows Live Mail 2012:
https://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v2.0.0/sync.aspx


I've tried deleting my Outlook account from my iPhone and re-setting it up and the Outlook account "verifies" correctly - but, this does not solve the problem.

The iPhone keeps displaying a pop-up message:
"Cannot get mail" "The connection to the server failed"


My iPhone is syncing correctly with my Gmail and iCloud accounts.


Also, I set up my Outlook account on my daughter's iPad which is running iOS 8.1.2 and I have the same problem.


This seems to be a situation of Apple's servers not syncing with Microsoft's servers.


I have another Outlook account I use for people I do not know very well. It is on these servers:
for web mail:
https://snt146.mail.live.com/default.aspx

for Windows Live Mail 2012:
https://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v2.0.0/sync.aspx

I receive the same error message on my iPhone for this Outlook account, also.


Thanks

Apr 6, 2016 10:17 AM in response to Umallive

This fix worked for my phone:


1. Delete the two outlook.com and one Hotmail account from my Mail, Contacts, Calendars (under settings)

2. did a full backup of my phone to my PC (for the first time ever :-) I didn't need to, but I did this just in case.

3. Go to Settings, General, Reset, Reset All Settings. It sounds scary, but other than your wallpaper, passcode and wifi password, all your other content remains intact. I checked my app data after restoring and it was fine

4. After restarting, added a new account, of type Outlook, and entered my settings. And voila, all was good.


NOTE: Mind you, for point 4 above, the apple support representative did say I should add an email account of type "other", ignored this but was lucky it was ok. So, if this doesn't work for you, do another reset and try and add an account of type "other".

Apr 6, 2016 11:28 AM in response to Umallive

Umallive,


I want to thank you for solving this problem for me.


Your solution is very, very much appreciated.


I have no idea why it worked. I've added multiple Outlook accounts to several iPhones and iPads and none of them worked. I wonder what the power-cycle is doing to solve the problem? iOS must cache some kind of Outlook setting that won't go away until you power-cycle the iPhone - even after deleting the Outlook account. And, it must be cached in all Apple devices - even those that have never had an Outlook account set up on them.

I lost all my contacts.

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