iPhone 4 slide to unlock freezes

This is nearly the same thing that just began happening on my phone today.

The difference is, the slide to unlock action freezes the phone "permanently", meaning the slider sticks on the right side...left phone for 15 min. like this.

The only solution is a hard reboot.

This occurs all the time now.

Sorry, had to end my message quickly because I was flying.

Anyhow, to recap:

- same iOS and iphone as you

- the problem began yesterday (never occurred before yesterday)

- it now locks up *everytime* I slide to unlock *with* pass code (my timeout is 1 min).

When it locks, the slider sticks on the right side for several minutes, than displays that spinning activity fan. Only it's not spinning and I waited up to 25 minutes before finally hard resetting the phone.

One potentially important fact:

Prior to the start of this problem, my phone notified me that I was low on resources (only about 80 MB free from a 16 GB phone). This struck me as odd b/c I always had about 1.6 GB free. How did I suddenly loss that much memory and so quickly? Still don't know but it did manage to free up 800 MB.

I just started having this problem today. When I slide to unlock my screen, it freezes with the slide on the right and the passcode keyboard never appears. It occurred shortly after I emailed some docs to myself to access on my iPad but I also have the email account on my phone. I have deleted the emails with the large files but it hasn't helped. I have 968 MB free on my iPhone. I also noticed that if I try to access the passcode settings to change what my passcode is, the screen in Settings freezes as well. Ugh! I'm out of town and I really could use help in getting this fixed.

I started experiencing this a few days ago ( IPhone 4s/16gb ) Here is my estimated guess ( idea ), the only thing that has changed in the last few days is my calendars, i have a good number of entries which update from various sources ( configured on my mac ) and then updates via icloud, does the calendar update from sources via the iphone too like the mac?

Anyways, what i do is hit the lock/unlock button at the top and i can now slide to unlock, it was the second or third time, i stared checking my calendar and new updates and appointmentss have been set, expired etc, so is this an issue with ICloud/Calendars?

The other thing that seems wise to mention is it only happens over 3G, i have not had the slide to unlock freeze while on wireless. Seems to me it is ICloud or Calendar updates, or maybe data ( cached ) gets delayed while switching from wireless to 3G.

Hi, I basically just started having the exact same issue. My iphone 4, 32GB running iOS 5.0.1 was running totally smooth until yesterday 😟. The one that changed was that i downloaded grand theft auto and my free space went down to 732 mb.

The freezing happens almost every time now, and it results with the phone trying to reboot itself (black screen with spinning wheel), but the spinning wheel freezes as well.

I have free up more space in an attempt to isolate the problem. By deleting grand theft auto, my available space went up to 1.4 GB. This however did not fix the problem, so the issue cannot be related to available space.

I'm going to continue troubleshooting and I will post any good news here. If anyone has a fix, i'd be greatly appreciated. I'm leaving resetting as the last alternative.

HI,

I have done more troubleshooting, and the results are positive so far - no more freezing!

@SimplyPostive reported something unique: that the problem only happened while in the 3G network and not when in a wifi network. I tested this and I had similar results. The freezing only occured while I was on the 3G network and not when I was on a wifi network.

This caused me to think that something might be causing the phone to freeze while connecting to the 3g network.... or maybe there is a data packet lingering around that is causing the issue. Whatever it is, I decided that I'd reset "network settings" only.

I reset network settings and the problem has gone away. Now, regardless whether I'm on 3G or wifi, the phone no longer freezes during swipe to unlock as reported in this thread.

I'm going to re-install my grand theft auto game and bring down my availabe space to 730 mb again. Hopefully it all works as expected. If it doesn't, I'll report it, else it's all good to go.

good luck.

c.

Similar issue, iPhone 4 freezes up on unlock. Tried the network reset, and phone ran better, but still locked up. Finally went to the Apple store, and they did a DFU resort and restore from iCloud (NOT iTunes). Works great again. Good luck folks.

If you don't have passcode .. Try to set up one

Go to settings .. General .. And set up a. Passcode ... I know it is selly but it worked for me lol :)

exact same setup as cmartinex (iPhone 4 32gb iOS 5.0.1) and it happened exactly the same way, after the phone said I had too little space available. It was weird cause I was using Waze (a step by step directions app) when it said this. I had little over 900 mb available so I deleted a game (infinity blade, big one) so I had a little over 1,4 gb available.

It still happens, a lot actually. It has happened like 5 times in the las hour.

I disabled the passcode (wich was set up to be required everytime) to unlock and it is working.

Sadly, where I am right now I can't do a factory restore due to my inability to download a full copy of the iOS.

So I'll keep looking but it seems I need to restore.

PS: I don't know if it's related, but I've been using the iphone as a hotspot for the last month and a half heavily and the day this whole thing started, It gave me lots of problems connecting to my macbook (which I blamed the macbook for).

This problem occurd today for me. My iPhone4 32, iOS 5.1 was frezing on unlock with button on right. Only way ws then hard reset. I had turned on 4digit pass lock for one minute. After one minute it always froze (even off or on line so i guess its nothing with connection) And as i turn off pass lock it dont freez anymore. But have to trst it more.

Thanks SimplyPositive for giving me the first clue. Thanks cmartinex for validating the same. It's not only about 3g or WiFi. I think if you are switching between 3g, and various WiFi's some data packets get caught up and the iPhone freezes when you slide to unlock. As reported by ocfromat, even the settings of navigating to you passcode in the settings does not work (on my iPhone there were a couple of other things which did not work as well). Here is what I did to make it work:

1. Shut your 3g and Cellular data

2. Get out in the open where you are not receiving any WiFi signals

3. Hard boot (start and home button pressed for few sec) and let the iPhone bootup

4. Reset your Network Settings (you will unfortunately have to add all the WiFi all over again, but that's better than a factory reset)

5. Enjoy !!

Same thing has happened to me even after restore but keeping bluetooth on solves my problem and i dont feel any hang after slide to unlock....

Hope it also solves your problem

yes i have the same prop got fone fixed yesterday in apple belfast and had to go back today and get fone replaced and i cannot believe it this new iphone 5 is doin the same thing wont slide omg im disgusted

I have the same issue but i find the way for solve the lock screen freeze issue , follow the steps :

1.After lock screen freezed call your freezed iphone from any other number & attend the call for 2 to 10 sec and cut the call .

2.After u cut the call your iphone works normal ,

3.This is works fine for me in iphone 4 16 gb .