I got on my phone this morning, and realized that I had a missed text, from a number.
I then realized that number was my wife's number.
I looked at my call history, and all the names are gone, and just phone numbers in their place.
I then checked the 'contacts' and it is empty.

Everything else seems to be working correctly.

WTF.

Any help on getting all of the contacts back would be greatly appreciated.

3/6/2013 1:07:10 PM

Happened to my wife's phone too.

Mine only deleted half a dozen or so. They stayed intact probably because I have most of my contacts synced to my gmail account.

No idea how why it happened or how to fix it other than syncing with itunes...which neither of us did with our contacts.

3/6/2013 5:05:50 PM

Resync them with whatever service you store them on? (apple, gmail,exchange, etc)

3/6/2013 5:09:35 PM

That may work, though I haven't plugged my phone into a computer in over a year.
From reading through google, contacts aren't a standard item synced through itunes.

I think I may be SOL with 8 years of names/numbers

3/6/2013 5:42:44 PM

Unless you've turned off some default settings or purposely opted out of iCloud backups, they should be backed up on iCloud automatically. You can go to iCloud.com in a web browser and see if they're there.

3/6/2013 5:48:14 PM

Never had the cloud, or consciously put anything there.

3/6/2013 7:26:45 PM

As I said, unless you purposely opted out, it automatically backs your shit up for you by default. It tries to be dumbass proof and you should have to try really hard to make it not work.

3/6/2013 7:54:45 PM

Quote :

"That may work, though I haven't plugged my phone into a computer in over a year. From reading through google, contacts aren't a standard item synced through itunes. I think I may be SOL with 8 years of names/numbers "

Not to criticize but why didn't you just manage all your contacts through Gmail? They automatically sync to your phone and Gmail allows you to pick and choose which contacts get sync'd (i.e. only the "my contacts" get synced not the massive contacted list).

3/7/2013 9:39:11 AM

physically syncing contacts in 2013? why?

3/7/2013 9:45:17 AM

Quote :

"physically syncing contacts in 2013? why?"

I don't know if anyone suggested that. There's so many numerous cloud options now it's even harder to lose your contacts. I think as ^^^ said iOS automatically backs up your contacts unless you tell it not too.

3/7/2013 10:03:32 AM

Ive never used icloud before but my contacts may be on there? what?

3/8/2013 12:12:04 AM

http://consumerist.com/2013/03/07/hey-what-happened-to-all-of-my-iphone-contacts/

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4776038?start=0&tstart=0

[Edited on March 8, 2013 at 12:03 PM. Reason : .]

3/8/2013 12:01:59 PM