samsung maximum number of contacts (0) reached

Hi crew,

i have a galaxy S7 here, where i am trying to get the contacts over to an iphone, until recently ive been simply sending them to a sim card, and importing from SIM on the iPhone. unfortunately, on this S7, i get “maximum number of contacts (0) reached.” when i try to slect contacts for export. the error message pops up when i select ANY contact.

i obviously cant hard factory reset without causing an issue in retrieving the data. any suggestions on it?