iPhone lights up by itself every few seconds

My original 8 GB iPhone was doing the exact same thing for several weeks. It started out of the blue with the "Accessory" message, and that would be very random, sometimes it would flash the message as soon as I hit the sleep/wake button then it would go back to sleep instantly, other times it would just flash the message, then it stopped flashing the message but began doing the turning itself on every minute and was draining my battery as well.

I tried cleaning the dock connector with a toothbrush and canned air, restoring the phone, even resorted to banging it on the counter top! I read all the posts on this site about what people have done to fix the issue and tried them all to no avail. I was very close to getting the new 3Gs but don't want to resort to that yet.

Then about a week ago I simply plugged and unplugged my original white Apple cable into the dock port about 20 to 30 times in succession. It must have cleaned out whatever was in there or re-aligned a pin because since then it has worked just as before.

Do you use a dock to charge instead of the cable? Do you have non-Apple speakers or anything that you normally would connect it to? I think it is some pin in the dock port that gets mis-aligned.

Give it a try. Hope it works for you.

Peter

I have EXACTLY the same problem.
I tried your trick of plugging it into the usb charger and amazingly that seems to work.
To be clear: my iphone for the last 2 days, will "wake up" from it's sleep state every 28 seconds and stay lit for aproximately 8 seconds, then go back to sleep.
Overnight this empties the battery.

This continues when
a) it is not plugged into anything
b) it is plugged into my iMac and is charging or synching or neither

but NOT when
c) it is plugged into the wall charger.

The same cable is being used for plugging it into the iMac or wall charger.

Did anyone get a solution for this?
I tried plugging/unplugging a bunch of times.

Also there's some other hardware problem where a slight flexing of the iphone will cause the ringer/silent to toggle as if I had hit the switch - perhaps related?

Details: it's 9mth old unlocked iphone 3G

Message was edited by: rhubarb1

I Also have exactly this problem.

Plugging/unplugging about 30 times didn't fix the problem. I've also tried a lot of other suggestions (e.g. restoring, cleaning).

Any other idea's/solutions?

Thx!

Greetings,

Manfred

Update: my problem seems to have vanished for the moment.
I didn't do any update, nor a restore.
I did try the plug/unplug a lot and that didn't seem to do anything
What I did do:
- charged it for a few days - on and off - in the USB-power adapter only - mainly because I wanted to fully charge it and this was the only way

- fully turned it off (hold button swipe slider) overnight for a couple of nights running - this again only to save the battery.

So I'm not sure if anything I did fixed it or if it's just something internal that will come back.

Note that the trigger-happy behaviour of the silent button - where it would switch to silent mode at the slightest tap or flex of the iphone - also seems to have vanished. They must be related.

I'm having the same problem.

My original iPhone started this same behavior about four weeks ago while I was traveling in Connecticut. It was functioning fine, except that it would wake from standby on its own every minute or two. I took it to the Apple store, they ran diagnostics on it, and the "Genius" there told me he thought it was a software problem. He wiped the phone and restored it to the original factory settings--and instructed me NOT to restore from Backup. (He figured that if there was a glitch in the settings somewhere, the restore from backup would reintroduce the problem.)

It happened once or twice again later that day, but then the problem didn't return.

However, it just started happening again (while home in Los Angeles)! Last night I forgot to charge my phone, and this morning it was showing the "low battery -- plug me in" graphic. I charged it, and now that I've removed it from the charger, it wakes itself from standby every minute, on the minute. I also get the GSM buzz through my computer speakers each time it wakes up--maybe it's communicating with AT&T and that's what's waking it?

Also this morning, I think I saw it flash that Accessory warning message for a moment. Clearly, this is related somehow.

Going into Airplane mode doesn't help. Nor does a hard reboot/reset.

Has anyone found a solution?

Thanks!

Try this... worked for me after I tried all the reinstalling, realigning the pins ⚠, blowing into the bottom of my phone...

1. Connect your iPhone to the Dock
2. Turn it off while plugged in the Dock
3. Leave it turned off while charging
4. After charging, turn it on while the iPhone is still plugged in the Dock
5. Disconnect your iPhone from the Dock

It's been 1 week... no more problem.

I hope it works for you too

Hi Chef Ryan,

Thanks for the advice. However, it's impossible for me to turn off the phone!

Immediately after I turn it off (using the slide to power off), it turns itself on again.

Other people seem to have this same issue (see the first post on this thread)... it must be related somehow?

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Add my wife to the list of people that this happens to. She has an original (2g) iPhone. This started to happen when she was jailbroken on OS 3.0. I then did a factory restore to remove the jailbreak, and then I upgraded her to 3.1.

She gets:
1. Pop-up message about the device not being compatible.
2. iPhone wakes up ever minute or so draining the battery.
3. Occasional volume resets or volume slider disabled as if connected to a dock.
4. Inability to fully shut-down. When you try to power down it comes back on automatically.

This has happened since upgrading to OS 3.0 and it happens with being jailbroken or not, so that has no effect on the issue. The factory restore did nothing, either did the OS upgrade.

I'll try the above tip tonight and let you know how it goes. Let me mention that restoring and upgrading took forever and I thought it was a brick. In this constant reboot state it is in it was very hard to do a factory restore without it failing. I had to do it about 20 times before I had any success.

Okay, this is weird. It seems to have fixed itself. Yesterday I left the house, and noticed that the phone stopped doing it. It's been about 30 hours (and I'm back home), and the problem still hasn't resurfaced.

I didn't do anything differently, I don't think. I had been charging the phone again... but I had charged it for awhile while troubleshooting, too... I'm stumped!

Hi All,

I send my iPhone to Apple to fix this under warranty. They send it back to me saying that they couldn't reproduce the problem, so they didn't fix anything. My iPhone did work fine when I got it back and didn't light up anymore.

Greetings,

Manfred

Wow...and now I've discovered that I can't shut it down at all. It turns back on.

If it's plugged in to a USB charger or into the dock, the display stays asleep. Once unplugged it goes into "wake every 30 seconds" mode.

If I plug in to a USB charger or the dock, then shut it down - it turns back on as soon as the shutdown wheel stops animating.

Hi... you know, you should try and hold the power and the home button and do a hard reset... then turn it on again?

This problem haunted me for 3 days before i did this turn off and on whilst plugged in thing and it still works for me... but from what I have read on other forums, this problem is everywhere and ******* everyone off!!!!

Hard reset doesn't work. I can't shut down and leave the iPhone off as it always turns itself back on instantly. I've tried all of the suggestions, none of them work. The issue is spotty too, which is weird. Some days the iPhone works perfectly fine, other days it comes on every 30 seconds. Still looking for a permanent solution...

I recently upgraded wy wife's iPhone to a custom 3.1.2 jailbroken firmware. Ever since the upgrade this wacky behavior has disappeared. It has only been a few days though, so I am still waiting for them to return.