My Samsung Galaxy S4 has been flawless... all my contacts are saved to my Microsoft Exchange Active Sync account - the white empty square - (Hotmail) as this (is supposed to) be a failsafe for me in case my phone is lost AND I can share contacts between devices....

Today, for no apparent reason all my MEAS contacts dropped out of my phone. They still exist on my Hotmail account but the phone isn't picking them up...

1. Why did this happen? (can I prevent it in future?)

2. What can I do to bring them back to my phone?

All my emails are still sync'd.. everything else works fine... I've done a restart and switch on/off etc. Just stopped being able to access them!

Just checked my Galaxy Tab 2 and it has some of the MEAS contacts but not all.... is this a Samsung issue?

please help!