Updated to iOS 5.1.1 and lost contacts?

[GonzagaDynasty]

So I just updated to the new iOS and lost all my contacts..

I didn't lose anything else. Even all my text messages saved.. Just no names.

I tried to sync my contracts. Nothing. I restored to a backup. No contacts..

I restored to a backup from April, and my contacts were there, but I lost everything else... So I didn't want to do that, and restored to a backup from today.

Am I screwed? I was fooling around with syncing between iCloud and my iTunes library, I don't know if that messed anything up.

I'm getting so tired of these phones... Too much going on. Why in the hell do they ever even give you the option to somehow do something that would delete all your contacts..? Like that's something we want?

 

[JediMeister]

Were you syncing contacts to the phone through iTunes, through MobileMe/iCloud, or maybe another service, Exchange? What OS does your Mac/PC run?

 

[bloutrein]

I didn't lose anything else. Even all my text messages saved.. Just no names.

I tried to sync my contracts. Nothing. I restored to a backup. No contacts..

I restored to a backup from April, and my contacts were there, but I lost everything else... So I didn't want to do that, and restored to a backup from today.

It seems to me that you used to sync your iPhone contacts to your computer via iTunes up until April. From then on you used the iCloud to sync your contacts. Is that correct?

Log in to your iCloud account from your computer (icloud.com) and go to the Contacts app. Do you see your contacts? If yes, make sure on your iPhone you have enabled iCloud contact sync. This will bring back your contact entries from the iCloud to your iPhone.

If you do not see your contacts in the iCloud, however, you would need to restore from that April backup entry as it could be the only backup containing your iPhone contacts.

Careful when restoring with iTunes. iTunes would keep track of your backups up to the 10th most recent backup entry. Each time you restore your iPhone, iTunes automatically creates a new backup entry and removes the earliest of your iTunes backup entries replacing it with the latest such.

 

[FSMBP]

So I just updated to the new iOS and lost all my contacts..

I didn't lose anything else. Even all my text messages saved.. Just no names.

I tried to sync my contracts. Nothing. I restored to a backup. No contacts..

I restored to a backup from April, and my contacts were there, but I lost everything else... So I didn't want to do that, and restored to a backup from today.

Am I screwed? I was fooling around with syncing between iCloud and my iTunes library, I don't know if that messed anything up.

I'm getting so tired of these phones... Too much going on. Why in the hell do they ever even give you the option to somehow do something that would delete all your contacts..? Like that's something we want?

Turn off "Contacts" in iCloud settings. They should reappear.

 

[GonzagaDynasty]

Turn off "Contacts" in iCloud settings. They should reappear.

Thanks guys... But no matter what I did, the contacts weren't saved anywhere! Weird... Too many different options for syncing, IMO. Confusing. I love the simplicity of the apple products themselves, but all this extra BS with iCloud is annoying.

Anyways, what I did is I just typed allll my contacts from the april back up into a word document, went back to my latest backup, and manually put in all the contacts.. A pain, but problem solved now.

 

[bloutrein]

Check out this thread to be sure to back up your iPhone contacts before it happens that you loose them again.