Q: Mysterious random total shut downs following 3.1 update

Yeah, mine goes to voicemail when it's comatose, too-- the only problem being that at least in my city (and, as I understand it, some others, as well), AT&T isn't so good about letting you know that you have voicemails...

I turned off the "fraud warning" in the safari options and, for a whole day, my iphone didn't go into coma mode. Worth trying.

Its a swine when you don;t know you have voice mail!

Downgrade to 3.0 - its the only reliable solution.

get the genius bar to do it if you are in warranty, or seek youtube if you bought a 3g in the first 3 months.

Genius bar sorted me right out with a new phone, and i was able to restore the phone to sep 9 setting, losing less than 20 days of tweaks.

This is good customer service in my book.

DO NOT UPGRADE TO 3.1 - THIS WILL BE FOREVER KNOWN AS THE 'VISTA' UPGRADE

Same problems for me after the update, (a failed update and needing restore), but the phone has now been good for over 4 days standby and 3 hours usage.

I turned off everything except basic phone functions, I turned off 3G, wifi, Bluetooth, Location services and I disabled my email accounts. Since then as a basic phone no comas or lock ups. I am still showing around 40% battery.

I think in my case my phone may have been stuck in some type of cycle of checking mail or something similar, I put this down to the hot temperature of the phone even when not being used. I also did the two button restart and charged fully before use, After I completely flatten the battery I will start turning things on one at a time to see if the problem returns.

This is too simple a solution to work for everyone, but perhaps it will work for some others, as it is extremely frustrating. Hopefully Apple identify the problem soon.

Same issue here. Even when I do a hard reboot, it gets frozen with the apple logo. Happens at least once or twice a week.

Drove to the nearest Genius bar. Big waste of time.

the guy said nothing he could do. He looked in the ports with an optical device of some sort, told me the warranty was void since the spot inside was red, I told him the warranty was up last month anyway and It's never been in water. I have no idea how water got inside considering it's never been in water. Worst is, maybe a rain drop happened to hit it right or something.
Anyway, diagnostic said nothing was wrong. He logged the symptoms and was bumping it up. If something comes up, then I could get a phone call that there's a fix. I'm turning blue holding my breath on that one.

I was telling him I noticed quite a few people on the forum with the same exact symptoms and don't see how it could be hardware.
After talking, he did offer me a repair return for $199. I told him I couldn't justify paying that much money for a software problem. Somewhere in there, he said if they did do a swap, I'd probably have 3.1 on the new phone. I told him I wasn't in it for the phone, I just wanted Apple to realize there's a problem.

I asked about a 3.0 downgrade, he said you can't go back. I asked about the methods I've read online, he pretty much gave the stock answer that Apple doesn't support it. Yeah right. Looks like they don't support 3.1 either.

UPDATE: Since my iPhone is just 1 month out of warranty, I recognize that I am on my own to repair my phone. I have 'self downgraded' to 3.0.1 and 'self updated' to AT&T 5.2 ipcc. I now have working MMS and internet tethering, after 24 hours comas started again, think it's due to the fact that the modem firmware which was updated in 3.1 won't downgrade after 3.0.1 is successfully installed. Tried the recommendation of turning off 3G, which I recognize is ridiculous, and no crashes for over 48 hours.

@ATC825: That's weird that you're having problems after downgrading. Even though the modem firmware (baseband) doesn't get downgraded, I've not heard of a single person who still experienced issues after downgrading aside from you. I downgraded to 3.0.1 8 days ago and the phone has been perfect ever since.

Just so you know, the baseband CAN be downgraded according to this post, but I haven't tried it as I haven't needed to: http://www.ihackintosh.com/2009/07/downgrade-iphone-3g-baseband-50801os-31-b-to- 42608/

Jkozlow3; so are you on 3.0.1 with modem firmware 05.11.07? What carrier file are you using? I would consider downgrading the baseband but don't know if that would affect MMS and Internet tethering. It's all about Internet research and trial and error

Yes, 3.0.1 with 5.11.07 (due to the previous 3.1 upgrade). I manually updated the carrier file to the official AT&T 5.5 version on 9/25 when it was released. I used these instructions:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=792908

I also have lock up on the 3.1 with a 3G iphone. Also having Wifi issues with hidden network staying in memory with password info.

Not sure what to do and have not heard of a for sure fix dates..thanks

Jkozlow3; Does the AT&T 5.5 have any other features? I originally tried 5.1 and had MMS only, before the official release date. 5.2 showed working MMS and tethering, you're using those too? Time to do more research...

2 3G phones both with random locks ups also. How many posts on this site before Apple
makes a comment. My son is about to swap out for a BB. Our phones are used for work I get ******
every time I say a Mac commercial making fun of Gates. My Windows box hasn't locked up in years
my iPhone several times per day!

@ATC825: No. It's the official AT&T 5.5 carrier file so no extra features. The link I posted also contains a 6.0 carrier file which enables tethering I believe. There's a lot of info about how to get tethering working on the MacRumors iPhone forum but I have never tried to tether personally.

Thanks for the tip and info. jkozlow3, it's too bad the consumer has to figure all this out on their own without support from Apple.