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Level 1

0 points

iPhone applications no longer work

I have had my iPhone for over a year and never had the troubles I am having now. I have installed dozens of apps and have the same update problem as all of you in this discussion. Now, most of my apps will not work at all! The past week, I have had apps crash and the iPhone would go back to the home screen. A reboot, by holding down the power button until asked to turn off the iPhone would usually solve this, but now, after several reboots, none of the apps are working now. On top of this, yesterday, I was stuck in the Phone app. I could select a contact and view a map of the address, but I could never get back to the home screen or select any other app. What was even worse was the fact that I could not reboot no matter how long I held down the power button. I had to hold both the power and home buttons which did reboot, but I lost all my music and videos. I am not looking forward to going through the entire process of installing everything again! Web apps still work fine as well as all of the Apple apps, but none of the free or purchased apps from the App Store work now. I think I'll try deleting all apps off the phone and from my Mobile Applications folder except for the $20 worth of paid apps that I have and start from scratch. If that does not work, I'll try a complete Restore which is a last resort since that involves hours of resetting preferences, app locations, etc.. By the way, what is with the hour long iPhone backup when synching through iTunes. Is this a bug in the new version of iTunes? I do not recall long backups before the iTunes update. I hope we get iTunes 7.7.2 and iPhone 2.0.1 soon. I hate to say this, but I miss the old reliable and bug-free iPhone version 1.1.4!!! Any insight from those of you reading this would be much appreciated.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Original 8 Gig iPhone, iTunes 7.7.1

Posted on Aug 2, 2008 11:40 AM

718 replies

Aug 4, 2008 10:58 PM in response to drakee

I tried this, but no joy.

Also upgraded to 2.0.1, but this didn't solve the problem.

Still waiting to be able to run my paid-for apps again ...

Foofur

Level 1

50 points

Aug 5, 2008 6:02 AM in response to pmonahan

My Apps won't lauch either. I've totally wiped the phone clean three times now and the Apps (unless the original ones when I first got the phone at the store) will not work. They start to run and then stop and the screen goes back to the home screen. It would be nice to utilize the functionality of the phone, but so far, nothing.

Aug 5, 2008 8:42 AM in response to Foofur

Same here!

iPhone about 1 year old and have been using for weeks with 2.0 without a problem... this week my programs intermittently started to not work...reboot would help and get them back up and running.

Now, no App store apps work! Not a one. Yesterday I reinstalled one off the app store on the phone and it worked, today no go.

Tried all the suggestions (re-auth, remove, restore, etc...) no good... Apple has a pandemic starting and better get on the ball before this news gets out like the Blackberry server outages!

Aug 5, 2008 9:51 AM in response to pmonahan

Just upgraded to 2.0.1 and my apps stopped working. I reset the iPhone and it did not help. Deleted the apps and re-downloaded/installed them from the iPhone and again they did not work. Deleted them again and downloaded them to iTunes 7.7.1 on my computer, then synced them to the iPhone and for whatever reason they are now working again.

So I thought I'd pass this along.

ARW777

Level 1

0 points

Aug 5, 2008 10:06 AM in response to pmonahan

Sounds like I'm having the same apps problem, only they started crashing after I did the 2.0.1 update. (I never had apps problems before).

Nothing about the updated went wierd, just none of the appstore apps now work. I tried uninstalling one and reinstalling it, just to see if it would work. Same behavior.

There is definitely a problem here, Apple, and 2.0.1 isn't the fix, it provoked the problem.

ewiley28

Level 1

0 points

Aug 5, 2008 10:11 AM in response to ARW777

I already can't load my apps. Any thoughts on whether 2.0.1 would be an improvement or a problem?

Aug 5, 2008 11:19 AM in response to theedge103

Now I have been pulling my hair out and think I found a fix that worked for me..

@ Remove all apps from iTunes (optional - not sure if needed to do this)
@ Remove all apps from iPhone (optional - not sure if needed to do this)
@ Reauthorize iTunes
@ Login to iTunes Store
@ Click on your user name on the upper right
@ Click 'Sign out' on pop-up window
@ Close iTunes
@ Open iTunes
@ Log in to iTunes Store
@ Buy a few free apps
@ Synch these apps to the iPhone
@ Should be working!

Aug 5, 2008 7:55 PM in response to ewiley28

From reading a few threads on this, I can say that other users were having this problem before the updates of iTunes as well as the iPhone 2.0.1 update.

It seems to be more related one of the apps after syncing. The offending app may be Currency or Facebook. Deleting these seems to work for some.

Restoring does not seem to help but I am waiting now for a Restore to wind its way thru.
Here's hoping the above theory will work for me too.

pmonahan Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 5, 2008 8:24 PM in response to theedge103

Thanks theedge103 for the steps to a potential fix. I had my apps and iPod data working again for a few hours by downloading a free app on my iPhone and rebooting. This worked for three hours until I upgraded to iPhone 2.0.1. All non-Apple apps, videos and music stopped working again. Multiple attempts at downloading a free app and rebooting did not work again. Instead of doing a clean wipe, I decided to try the steps listed in the post above except for removal of all apps from iTunes. I did turn off Push and will now sync everything directly with the computer. Every app is working now and I'm not sure if the fix was deleting all apps from the iPhone or logging out from the iTunes store that fixed things, but things are back the way they should be. I'm suspicious of apps that have preferences in the bottom section of the Apple App, "Settings". Before this fix, I went to "Settings" a few times and I got a blank screen, no preferences for anything appeared, then a flash of light, then the iPhone shut down completely. I can only guess that there was some sort of bug in one of the seven downloaded apps that had preferences in the "Settings". This thinking may be completely off base and I'm still waiting for a fix from Apple, perhaps in the form of iTunes 7.7.2. Until then, I will not sync anything over the air and will only download and update new apps from iTunes on my computer. If anyone else having this problem decides to give this a try or have found another solution, please post your methods and results.

GFD613

Level 1

0 points

Aug 5, 2008 10:11 PM in response to pmonahan

I suspect the problem is apps we've previously downloaded have been pulled from the store, or upgraded from free to paid. Apparently, just because you downloaded the app legally once doesn't mean you can keep it, unless you never want to sync your phone again.

waj3

Level 1

4 points

Aug 6, 2008 12:37 AM in response to ewiley28

I had the problem before 2.0.1, and I still have it after. My girlfriend did not have the problem on her phone until after updating to 2.0.1. I am methodically trying all the fixes suggested in these threads, but have not yet found one that works for me. She decided to just restore her phone to its original state, and it is resyncing now. We'll see whose phone ends up working first. 🙂

Aug 6, 2008 4:41 AM in response to DVideography

Thanks for the advice. I reauthorized my computer in iTunes and all apps are working great again.

pmonahan Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 6, 2008 1:22 PM in response to techforministry

Thanks to all that are posting your experiences. I look forward to hearing the results from waj3 with two iPhones with this problem and any other reader experiencing the same problems, please post your methods and results in your attempts to resolve your issues. I wonder what percent of users are experiencing these problems, I have not seen any figures anywhere. Is it .001%, 1% or more? It seems that many of the posts in this and other threads work for some and not for others. I know that for my iPhone, downloading a free app and rebooting, a fix for many with the same problem widely stated in this thread, worked once for me, but not again after the problem returned. I eventually got all apps working again and videos+music visible again by following the steps outlined by theedge103:

@ Remove all apps from iPhone
@ Reauthorize iTunes
@ Login to iTunes Store
@ Click on your user name on the upper right
@ Click 'Sign out' on pop-up window
@ Close iTunes
@ Open iTunes
@ Log in to iTunes Store
@ Buy a few free apps
@ Synch these apps to the iPhone
@ Should be working!

techforministry states that reauthorizing iTunes worked, although this did not work for me after a few attempts. I would really like to hear from others on what is working and what is not working so that we can have a definitive fix for all.

I can rule out reauthorizing or downloading a free app and rebooting as a fix for all. Others have tried the time intensive, clean wipe of their iPhone only to find the problem return. I would love to see a few posts from anyone with the same problem to take the steps outlined above and state if your problem either continues or gets resolved so that we can move in the direction of having this question answered once and for all.

I look forward to your postings...

ewiley28

Level 1

0 points

Aug 6, 2008 3:03 PM in response to GFD613

Wait -- you're saying that if you download a free app and they later change it to paid, you have to pay for it to access it? They don't give a refund if an app you bought later has a lower price!

kbacon

Level 1

43 points

Aug 6, 2008 3:36 PM in response to pmonahan

I am having the same problem. All of my App Store apps have stopped working. They will go to the splash screen and then quit. This all started after upgrading to 2.01. Not immediately but some time after. I have had problems with individual apps not running but a reset or restart generally fixed that. This time even a complete restore to factory settings did not fix the issue.

I am one of the biggest Apple fans out there and have purchased macs personally and for my office for decades. I am afraid that Apple is really slipping by pushing alpha/beta hardware and software out the door way before it is ready then letting us early adopters pay the price and test it for them!

iPhone applications no longer work