Hi Doug,
I had an interesting session with this further. In the Mac client, I selected the view menu, and unselected View by Group, and all my contacts were back, selected view by group again, and they were still there. So I have all my contacts back, however, as per your note, I still cannot add more contacts and groups, and neither can I remove contacts.
Just for information, my situation occurred yesterday, when the contacts disappeared, but it has also been about two weeks since the problem started that I cannot add contacts.
Thanks...