Why did my Reminders app freeze and all lists and items were lost?

[iMore Question]

One day, I was fiddling with the Settings on my iPhone 4. I did something with the Reminders about having them show on the home screen as well as changed settings for some other apps while in the Settings area. The next time I went to use Reminders, they all were lost along with all the lists. There's a new alarm box in the upper-right (unless I didn't see it before).

When I click the + next to New List, nothing happens. The search box at the top returns no results. It's frozen. I got a lot of mileage out of it, and had some lists that'd be great to have back. Short of that, I just want to use it again, and ideally prevent the loophole that led to this.

Thanks for any assistance

 

[Just_Me_D]

Hopefully, you have been creating backups of your device, either via iCloud or iTunes. If so, restore one of the backups you made prior to you "fiddling with the settings". Alternatively, if the reminders are associated with iCloud, go to Settings - iCloud and make sure the toggle button is enabled next to "Reminders".