Contacts not syncing from iCloud to iPhone after restore

HI

This is a long story.

On Nov 3, I started to update my ios from 26.0.1 to 26.1. It got to the point where I see a progress bar and it was progressing until almost the last dot where it seems to have stopped for like half an hour with nothing going on. I assume that something got screwy and decided to do a hard reset. (My bad I should have just let it be i know I know). Because of this action, it rebooted and then went into the forzen apple logo boot loop.

I have tried updating the ios by connecting the phone to the computer and doing a DFU which allows me to have two options, update or restore. I chose update since it will retain the data while refreshing the ios. After the update, it still stayed on the apple logo boot loop.

I then made an appointment to the apple store to see if they know how to fix the problem short of doing a restore (erasing all the data in the process) and they also could not solve the problem. They did the same thing I did. Hard Reset. Update of the ios. same problem. I was forced to rdo a restore. Fortunately all my data is stored in the icloud and I do have a backup though ios 18.7 so I could load all my apps again into the phone. So did a restore.

When I did the restore, my icloud data including my contacts was downloaded to the phone. Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Files were all restored from the cloud fine. Then I proceeded to do a restore of my backup so that I don't have to redownload the apps I have on my phone.

Lo and Behold, after the restore from the backup. All is ok except my contacts were not showing up at all. It wasnt even downloading and when I checked icloud.com, it is all there.

I tried to toggle the Contacts app on and off for syncing on the icloud section. I also tried toggling in the COntacts App itself in the settings toggling it on and off. waiting for 10 minutes before toggling back on. No go. I have also toggled off the contacts syncing in each source. I basically have the gmail and tyhe icloud turned on only for contacts so I toggled them off and on also. AGain no go.

I spoke also with a senior advisor and they are also stumped and have taken snapshots to show the engineering team. I dont know what else to do.

Maybe somebody has encountered a similar problem and have a solution. Have tried looking thru this forum andnobody seems to have encountered the problem I encountered. I am afraid of having to do another restore because while I can certainly sync the phone with my icloud data. I certianly dont want to have to redownload all my apps one by one and do all the credentials all over again.

Thanks for your patience and maybe some people have ideas.

now on ios 26.1 with Iphone 15 pro max

ansj64

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: My contacts list is on my icloud.com website but it does not load to my iphone