Deleted contacts after iOS 17.0.2 update

I have iPhone 14 plus. Last night I skipped the two 16 updates and opted for the 17.0.2. Today, I noticed that 90% of my contacts had been deleted from my phone. (They appear to be added from about 4-6 years ago to present) The contacts app was removed from my phone, and all contact archives deleted from the cloud. Only archive was after the update was installed, which is the list with missing contacts.

after much investigation with the phone, text threads existed, but no contact info; numbers only. However, when I try to create a new text message, enter a letter from the alphabet, it will show contacts with the numbers, looks like all of them. This is the ONLY place I can see them. I have to add each one by creating a new contact and entering the name/company info then save the number.

what the heck?!? I had 100+ contacts deleted. Cannot restore them from any backup. Not happy…