Q: Mysterious random total shut downs following 3.1 update

Trevor,

Did you get a chance to see if it works without going into coma mode for few days? I m still on 3.0.1 (after rolling back from 3.1)

Thanks,

J

I had done that update after setting my phone up as 'New Phone', per Apple Store staff instructions. My phone continues to drop connection while displaying 'full bars'. It is very annoying because I am on-call. I will be heading to the store again this weekend to discuss mitigation options with them.

Trevor Bryant wrote:

I haven't had any issues in the last 24 hours since I did the restore following my instructions on page 118. Again...the issue is the software conversion while upgrading from 3.0 to 3.1, in the process a file gets corrupt. If you follow my instructions, it restores your phone from scratch using the 3.1 software. For all of the people who are exchanging their phones, they keep having the same issue because their new phones have 3.0 software on them and when the upgrade to 3.1 the file gets corrupt again. I'm in a small group of people who Apple support is testing this fix with. I'm supposed to contact a specific Apple support tech today. Since I haven't had any issues I think Apple will start notifying more users of the fix.

many many people including myself have done a very complete very clean 3.1 restore using DFU, and I've had the problem return within 20 seconds of a restore, LONG before even syncing much less restoring any user data or apps; only thing i did was activate the ph number.

After downgrading to 3.01, my phone is 'back to how it was' which btw, wasn't 'fantastic' which is why i did the 3.1 upgrade in the first place; some of the bugginess that is in 3.1 was already in 3.0 (won't slide to answer responsively was the main one)... but it will almost always answer.

I tried to file a bugreort at bugreport.apple.com but it's kinda impossible; you can only report ONE bug at a time, it's dozens. i don't know what bug to mention to get any headway.

-awr

Trevor Bryant wrote:

I haven't had any issues in the last 24 hours since I did the restore following my instructions on page 118. Again...the issue is the software conversion while upgrading from 3.0 to 3.1, in the process a file gets corrupt. If you follow my instructions, it restores your phone from scratch using the 3.1 software. For all of the people who are exchanging their phones, they keep having the same issue because their new phones have 3.0 software on them and when the upgrade to 3.1 the file gets corrupt again. I'm in a small group of people who Apple support is testing this fix with. I'm supposed to contact a specific Apple support tech today. Since I haven't had any issues I think Apple will start notifying more users of the fix.

didn't help me

andrewwynn wrote:

many many people including myself have done a very complete very clean 3.1 restore using DFU, and I've had the problem return within 20 seconds of a restore, LONG before even syncing much less restoring any user data or apps; only thing i did was activate the ph number.

After downgrading to 3.01, my phone is 'back to how it was' which btw, wasn't 'fantastic' which is why i did the 3.1 upgrade in the first place; some of the bugginess that is in 3.1 was already in 3.0 (won't slide to answer responsively was the main one)... but it will almost always answer.

I tried to file a bugreort at bugreport.apple.com but it's kinda impossible; you can only report ONE bug at a time, it's dozens. i don't know what bug to mention to get any headway.

-awr

would be nice to see detailed instructions somewhere in english on how to downgrade. I've tried various permutations of previous offerings with no success.

Same problems as everyone else, namely "coma mode" being activated several times per day, random battery draining resulting in iPhone getting very hot, slide to answer not working as expected, NO SERVICE appearing more often than before, etc.

So I called Apple and they sent me a new one (I have Applecare on EVERYTHING, because it means if anything breaks they'll send me a new one overnight). Stupidly, I hadn't read into the problems detailed on this thread, and upgraded the new phone (which was shipped with 3.0.1) before restoring it. Today (the next day), my iPhone has entered "coma mode" 5 times, three times in the last hour.

Please, please let them release 3.2 sooooon.

Does Apple even look at these forums? They are everywhere. This problem is an epidemic. I called Apple Tech support today and they said I have to restore my phone to original condition.

My other iPhone is 3.0 and has zero problems. The Tech doesn't understand that.

Mattverso:

3.2 may help the current problems with 3.1, but it while come with its own set of problems haha!

The only problem I have been experiencing is random shutdowns and reduced battery life. Other than that, everything is working perfectly.

Two hours ago I did the "(Settings > General > Network > Enable 3G > OFF)" bit and it seemed to work. But my hopes were dashed a few minutes ago, when my iPhone froze again.

I seem to be the only person in whose 3G, post update to 3.1 iPhone the freezing usually seems to be linked to a camera software malfunction: when i get it going again, I frequently hear a camera shutter sound as it wakes up, and my screen defaults to camera mode. Then, when I look at my photos, everything that was on my camera roll before the freezing is gone.

Frequently the freeze is associated with the display of a small black rectangle in bottom left-hand corner and a blank black screen in camera mode, which opens 'automatically' as explained above. In all cases of sudden freezes, the contents of my camera roll is erased...

Has Apple, anywhere, even hinted that it is aware of the problems?

How many Apps downloaded to 3G iPhones before the 3.1 upgrade (Sic!) show problems under 3.1? In my case, 'Wheels of the Bus' (my son's favorite) is not working correctly. It seems sad that Apple should be the cause of failure of a third party App....

Just got off the phone with a higher-echelon iPhone tech support guy who told me the following things:

*It's not a hardware problem.
*The engineers are aware of it.
*Higher-tier support people have been collecting logs, but engineering now has enough and they have stopped collecting logs.

I told him that I am testing out a new method to keep my phone alive: keep an audiobook running with the volume all the way down. Yesterday I had 12 shutdowns, today since noon (when I started playing the audiobook) I have had none. I should have had two at least. Crossing my fingers!

I have his direct contact info and have promised to keep him updated with my testing.

Francisco Robles wrote:
Hello,

I know this is not a fix but might help you at least for not having the iPhone comatose. In my case if I change Preferences->General->Network->and disable 3G, the iPhone stops falling in deep sleep. You will have a slow network, but better than a coma. Please, let me know how it goes for you.

Greetings

Never mind, today I also have a coma on my iPhone after disable 3G

terryd wrote:

would be nice to see detailed instructions somewhere in english on how to downgrade. I've tried various permutations of previous offerings with no success.

i agree; it's not for the faint-of-heart; although the one i've seen referenced is nearly spot-on, I was not able to run the final program.

My brother's phone may be a coma victim, but when i went to check it out, it was not behaving badly, also iTunes erased my 3.0 ipsw files. If i do have to re-work another iPhone from 3.1 to 3.01 i will right down step-by-step and post the directions somewhere. (i'm guessing it would be against forum rules to post them here).

-awr

If anyone needs older versions of the iPhone software, look here:

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=750

ALL of them.

Listen to me. All you have to do is turn off your WIFI that is the problem with me. I turned off wifi and 3g. I only had problems When I had 3g off and WIFI on(because I turned it on fastly to check something, the iphone lagged after that and I did the boot up thing again ) After 6 hours with no problems I turned on 3G and I havent had any problems for another 4 hrs. Do it and tell me how it goes. It has worked for me! BTW I havent tried trevor's solution of resetting and manually sincying everything. send me an answer to leoboy_310@hotmail.com

Nick Farwell wrote:
Just got off the phone with a higher-echelon iPhone tech support guy who told me the following things:

*It's not a hardware problem.
*The engineers are aware of it.
*Higher-tier support people have been collecting logs, but engineering now has enough and they have stopped collecting logs.

Thanks for that must be the first positive thing I have read on this subject and hopefully we will see 3.2 released soon. I wish that other Apple support people have got the same information as at the moment they appear to be in denial mode. I cannot believe the "your the first person to report that" or "apple are not aware of this problem" lines they come out with as I have seen them sitting in the apple store reading this and other forums.