Apologies up front if I've missed something and this has an obvious solution and/or has been posted about before, this is my first post in any forum I believe

I started up the game (on PS3) this morning and I could log in, but my character is gone. I have the option to create a new one and nothing more. I know I logged out properly when last I played (about two nights ago). Oddly when creating this forum profile it had my character available for my forum avatar, does that mean my character is still around and it is just a temporary glitch?