Turn the phone off for a few minutes, that may solve the problem. It could just be a glitch.

Have they tried recovering from icloud? Also, I’ve had great luck with apple customer service helping, even if you don’t have a service contract or are out of warranty.

I was just asking him if it's fixed. He spent some time with IT. They had him check a few things, but said the contacts probably got dumped. Hoping it comes back on it's own, that it's a fluke.

Ugh. some glitch recently happened to my calendars ( which have never synced properly with my macbook). I spent 3 hours on the phone with apple trying to get back all the appointments and birthdays that got deleted or moved. It still isn’t fixed so but I gave up.

If one doesn't use iCloud storage (I don't), an iPhone's data can be backed-up to iTunes on a computer. Refresh the backup on an appropriate frequency per individual needs.

Apparently they're back now, but I sent him your advice, dadoes. Good to know.

it's always best to connect your phone to iCloud (stores all your phones photos, notes and contacts) PLUS make sure you update your phone with iTunes often. My phone automatically is set to update when it's connected to Wifi in my house so I don't have to manually do that. Also: if your phone is lost or stolen, iCloud gives a pretty good location of where it was last seen while turned on.

I cloud.... be careful. Last month I lost my iphone in an area I was working with a tractor. I used my computer to login to my icloud to locate the phone and found it under 6" of water and mud but it was smashed and bent because I ran over it with a 3000 lb tractor. I couldn't believe it still transmitted a location but it did.

Here's where the problem started, I tried to log back into icloud but this time I needed a security code which was sent to my phone. (not set up for 2 factor) The phone was smashed and couldn't get the code, and didn't have any alternate trusted phone numbers added before I lost it. Apple instructions stated it would take several days to verity my identity. So I slipped the Sims card into another Android phone of the same carrier and it worked, so I was able to now get into the cloud for contacts.

So a heads up, make sure you add alternative trusted numbers to your cloud accounts.

@outpaientzero, you should have been able to recover it through iTunes. Also: I download my pictures to my external hard drives (yes, plural with an S), quite often just in case.

The one time thus far that I restored an iPhone via iTunes was when AT&T sent a new/updated phone to me. I did a backup of the old phone immediately before activating the new phone. The restore included everything ... phone calls, texts (both read and unread), contact list, photos, and installed apps (which there aren't many, and each one had to be verified via App Store login at first use on the new phone). I don't know if perhaps the call log and texts restored via AT&T but I doubt that's the case.

I routinely offload photos and videos to my computer for permanent storage.

Is it an older iPhone? That happened with my last iPhone when it got to a point where the updates no longer applied to the model I had. The subsequent update severed the connections in my Contacts list so they were still there but the phone couldn't find them. I told my husband "My phone has developed Alzheimers".

Your friend's only solution would be to purchase a newer model iPhone and have all the stored info in the older phone migrated over to the new phone.