I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS5 yesterday and immediately had some problems. The upgrade seemed to want me to create an iCloud account and wouldnt let me finish the set up without the iCloud account, so I went ahead and tried to set it up. The phone immediatley decided to back up to iCloud.
When the phone restarted after the upgrade and iCloud back up I had lost my contacts and my calendar items (all of them) from the phone. PANIC….
Several minutes of googling and I uncovered the following very interesting information on Sean Walther’s blog, and I tried most of these fixes. None of them worked. I then figured that perhaps as im still running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) that maybe I shouldn’t have let my phone try to set up an iCloud account. The process didn’t complete and i sensed that something wasn’t right at the time.
Fortunately I hadn’t allowed the phone to back upto iTunes after the iOS5 upgrade, so I was able to pop into iTunes and force iTunes to restore the contacts and calendar items back to my phone using the “Advanced” pane in the “info” optionwhen selecting my iPhone in iTunes.
Click on your iPhone on the left, then select Info > Advanced and let iTunes restore your contacts and calendars. Seems to work and my phoen seems to be backing up correctly to iCloud (even though I cant access it at the moment. I feel an upgrade to Lion coming on…
I hope some of this is useful to someone else. The stuff below is copied verbatum from Seans blog, so thank him for these other tips, and pop over there for a whole load of other useful stuff.
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Thought I’d post something specifically regarding iOS 5, and some solutions that are out there. Personally I had no problems upgrading, and think losing contacts may just be because the initial “sync” hasn’t gone through yet (remember an iOS upgrade resets your phone to base iOS 5, then imports your information after).
Please post a comment if something works for you (and maybe which iPhone you have, and your carrier). I’ve found comments extremely useful in determining what does and doesn’t work.
Solution #0 – My Fix Without Trying It
Sorry to throw this in, but I feel the contacts disappearing is just because your phone isn’t done syncing:
Connect your iPhone to iTunes
Click on your iPhone in the left panel under devices
Click “Sync” in the lower right corner.
Please give your phone a chance to restore. Remember, a new OS means a fresh install, and restoring a backup. If you interrupt that (as I did) you may not have all your apps, settings, songs, etc.
Solution #1 – The Text Message Fix
This seems to be the most popular solution if you can see your contacts in your text messaging:
Open a recent Text Message
Tap the top of the screen (scrolls to the top of the message)
Tap “Contact”
Edit the contact in some way (add an email, new fake phone number or something, you can delete later
Hit the “Back” button
You should have your contacts back. Please delete the “edit the contact in some way” if you don’t want it.
Solution #2 – The iCloud Fix
This is probably related to problems with iCloud:
Go to “Settings”
Click on “iCloud” (it’s in the app section if you scroll down)
Turn off your settings
Turn them back on
Again, this probably triggers a “re-sync” with iCloud to force contacts back
Solution #3 – The Import from SIM Fix
This fix relies on you storing contacts in your SIM card most likely:
Go to “Settings”
Click on “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
Click “Import SIM Contacts”
I wouldn’t rely on this as it may vary based on carrier.
Solution #4 – Reset Your iPhone (Thanks Josh — see comments)
This fix was submitted by a commenter, and it worked for him (basically the same as everything … reset and force a sync):
Make sure you are connected to iTunes and online
Turn off your iPhone
Turn it on again
iPhone should sync automatically (this could take time, don’t interrupt it!)
Hope it works!
Solution #5 – Restore Your iPhone
This fix submitted by Chris (thanks!) in the comments, and seems to work for a few people:
Plug iPhone into Computer
Launch iTunes
After it’s done syncing, right click on iPhone (under devices in the left) and click on “Restore from Backup”
Choose one (it may not be the most recent, some folks have bad backups just before the upgrade)
Let the iPhone restore completely
DO NOT CONNECT TO iCLOUD
Keep the feedback coming! You’ll lose anything you’ve done since that backup, but you should have your information back.