Q: Mysterious random total shut downs following 3.1 update

I called my local Apple store today and asked them if they knew or heard of any bug rapports from customers. Guess what? No, they haven't heard of anything and he told me it had to be hardware problems caused by me. I told him my "coma" issue started the same day I updated my phone with 3.1. He offered me a rollback to 3.0.1 for a massive fee and I told him it ain't going to happen. I wont pay for a mess Apple are responsible for.

Vevo wrote:
I called my local Apple store today and asked them if they knew or heard of any bug rapports from customers. Guess what? No, they haven't heard of anything

The guys at the Apple stores are unlikely to be well informed about known bugs that are being corrected. Ignore what they tell you. Apple IS working on this problem and I would be very surprised if it's not fixed in the next software update. If you want to downgrade to 3.0.1 you can do it yourself (all though I admit it's not straightforward).

That's ridiculous, of course there is reason to get angry!

They have a perfectly functioning firmware in version 3.0.1 which they replaced with one full of bugs. But the bugs are not the issue, the issue is they won't let users downgrade back to the firmware that works!

Apple in their infinite wisdom and arrogance seem to be saying, "we never make mistakes so there is not option for undoing any of the changes we make". Microsoft for all their faults don't take this position when they make updates for Windows and I can't think of any other company that does.

I have no problem with them taking their time to figure out what went wrong and fixing it but in the mean time let me use my phone!

"One of Many Daves said...


Apple in their infinite wisdom and arrogance seem to be saying, "we never make mistakes so there is not option for undoing any of the changes we make". Microsoft for all their faults don't take this position when they make updates for Windows and I can't think of any other company that does."

+1. Plus a huge freakin ONE.

All of you pompous Mac users that walk around like Mac can do no wrong are the ones that allow this type of behavior to continue. No one, and no company is perfect...but Apple sure has some of you sheep believing they are.

Well I noticed today there is now a jail-break for 3.1. I have resisted this so far but as my phone has problems, is out of warranty and Apple 'genus' say I can't get a replacement, I can't see what I have to loose.

There might be some grey app that at least let's me see what the problem is and maybe even find an app that will help fix the problem before apple gets round to it

It's perfectly possible to downgrade your firmware to a previous version, and Apple do allow it, otherwise they wouldn't have a feature in iTunes to do just that: Restore whilst holding down Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows).

3.1 is not "full of bugs" and is a significant improvement over 3.0.1 IMO. I am on 3.1 and I do get the "coma" issue about once a day but I can live with it until its fixed.

One of Many Daves wrote:
That's ridiculous, of course there is reason to get angry!

They have a perfectly functioning firmware in version 3.0.1 which they replaced with one full of bugs. But the bugs are not the issue, the issue is they won't let users downgrade back to the firmware that works!

Apple in their infinite wisdom and arrogance seem to be saying, "we never make mistakes so there is not option for undoing any of the changes we make". Microsoft for all their faults don't take this position when they make updates for Windows and I can't think of any other company that does.

I have no problem with them taking their time to figure out what went wrong and fixing it but in the mean time let me use my phone!

This type of defect highlights the obvious differences in culture between MS & Apple, MS are very open and transparent about their products, as a developer they openly share a vast amount of detail about current and future products via MSDN/Company blogs and MVP programs. On the opposite side are Apple who put a fence around such matters. The other side of this fence is partly open to registered OS X developers but not in the same way as MS. I am not saying one or the other is better, they both have their benefits, to apple it allows it to generate huge publicity when new products are announced or to Microsoft it allows developers and companies to enhance/expand the windows environment (more corporate usage than Apple)

I have less problem with the time being taken to resolve this, apart from frustration when my phone enters coma mode, as I understand the complex beast that is firmware. Apple are almost experiencing MS type issues with the iphone as it involves numerous partnerships with network operators around the world and the thousands of apps being used in the Mobile OS X platform, all of this impacts test cycle times, some of the Microsoft pain is caused by having to share its OS platform with hundreds of hardware/software companies, whereas Apple control the hardware for OS X. At least some people are now getting the right feedback, yes its a problem, we know about it, there will be a fix.

"One of Many Daves said...

Apple in their infinite wisdom and arrogance seem to be saying, "we never make mistakes so there is not option for undoing any of the changes we make". Microsoft for all their faults don't take this position when they make updates for Windows and I can't think of any other company that does."

+1. Plus a huge freakin ONE.

All of you pompous Mac users that walk around like Mac can do no wrong are the ones that allow this type of behavior to continue. No one, and no company is perfect...but Apple sure has some of you sheep believing they are."

Sorry, can't take you seriously after once again claiming Microsoft admits issues. Did you not read what I said earlier about my PC with Vista? A year and a half later, still no response or fix to a known issue, and not a small one either. May not be an issue with enough people FOR Microsoft to publicly admit it but a known issue none the less. You have had a good exerience with Microsoft. I have not, but i'm not bashing them on a forum. This forum also over exaggerates this issue. Do you know how many iphones are out there? Do you know how many of them actually have this issue? You'd be suprised at the numbers. You take this forum as example, a lot of posts, and a lot of people posting more than once. The unknown factor is how many are NOT having issues, i have 3 buddies with iphones who are not having it. Claiming Apple is the only company who don't run out and admit issues, especially right away is just pure nonsense. I work for a major manufacturer, there have been issues, both with my company and with EVERY one of my competitors. Neither the company i work for or the competitors run out and announce "we are aware of the issue". Especially not when the issue isn't rampant and very widespread, and even when it is, you'd be surprised at how long it takes for that to happen. Point is, what Apple is doing (or not doing) is "business as usual". I'm NOT defending Apple's policy, as I'd like a response...just I'm realistic in my expectations that I won't hear one. But like someone else stated, you can be sure they are aware of it, and are working to fix it. Apple is by no means perfect. Oh, and I agree, anger is natural. Perhaps many just use this forum to vent.

I am having a similar set of problems.

Random shutdowns/reboots.

Phone becomes basically unresponsive. (has happened with the unlock slider as well as when trying to receive a phone call or turn off an alarm or just randomly using the phone, checking email, etc.)

Battery life has gone down the drain. Battery depletes itself while the phone is just sitting on my desk. It used to go more than a day with normal usage and not need a charge. This phone is a 2 month old replacement 3g from apple. The battery life was fine until the 3.1 update.

Besides the many "comas" my phone goes into each day, I'm getting increasingly worried about how this battery drainage issue is going to affect the life of my battery. I'm amazed at how quickly the battery drains down each day after NO usage!

Also, I see posts from people here saying they are "certain" that Apple is working on this. How do you know this? Have you spoken to any developers directly? I've seen no one from Apple chime in here, nor have I seen anything "official" from them. So, are you speculating or do you have a direct source of contact at Apple giving you this info?

Message was edited by: kevkris

I rolled back to 3.0.1 around 5pm yesterday, and I have not had a problem since then. Here is a link to the instructions as to how to do this...I hope this helps...

http://www.benm.at/tutorials/howto-iphone-3g-firmware-3-1-downgrade-os-x/

Good Luck

I just rolled back to 3.0.1 after being feed up with 3.1. I really hope I wont see any coma issues from now on. I just realized I lost a few phone numbers in the process since I couldn't recover a recent backup because my firmware was to old. I had to use a backup from the day before I upgraded (or was it a upgrade?!) to 3.1
But I can without effort get the numbers back.

when i restored after downgrade, the only thing i had missing was application data (i.e. from my weight lost program; dude that ssssuuucked; logging every calorie for 3-4 mo. and it 'poof' is gone. I think i can restore from backup now that i'm 3.1 and i'll get it back, i may just do that.

for now, i'm at 3.1 and very happy with the performance but i know far better than expecting the phone to work on a moments notice, not to mention i'm about 140 programs short of what i'm used to, 3000 photos short (all my 18mo son's photos) and so i'm not quite sure this is 'better'.

3.01 is the only way to have a reliable phone, though it is quite poky in its own right. at thist moment my 3.1 8Gb 3G is quite sspeedy and i'm loving that.

i'm keeping it plugged into my laptop to keep the console log running for 24 hrs straight.

I wanted to mention that the specific reason i posted a bug-report on the developer hotline was to get them to reply to me 'engineering has determined this is a known issue with report # xxx' as mentioned above. As he mentioned, not at liberty to say much but it was what I personally was hopig to see before my report got booted because i mentioned 6 or 10 things wrong with 3.1.

That said... i've gotten that phrase on problems that have existed for years and still do.

Why can't we assign a ring tone to a group on an iPhone? Why can't we SET a group to a contact on the iPHone? Why can't we SEE our RELATIVES? (i.e. son/spouse) on an iPhone!? these are all things that i've reported years ago.

why can't we route in a map to a lat/long? why does 'map' ADD ON 'united states' to any address even when it 'breaks'/

Anyhow the bug report ID is not a WHOLE lot of comfort when I have a list of 30-40 bugs reports gathering dust i the open pile, and 20 or so in the 'closed' pile because somebody else reported first, but that most of those have been there for 12-18 months or more.

Anybody with an iota of common sense can undertand that the anger in this crowd is not any kind of expectation for the s/w to be perfect, nor the hardware.. the iPhone is the worst 'phone' i've ever owned bar none... but it's the best 'over all' device ever brought to market, sans competition and i've hands-on played with everything out there up recently; the G2 google phone looks lke it could be quite decent, that said; not too likely to have the near flawless to the cloud sync that actually works.

The anger is based on the just stunning to the point of bewilderment in the concept of no undo and NO WARNING. 3.1 is vista. it's exactly the issue many many 10s or 100s of 1000s possibly millions had upgrading to vista... but it's actually WORSE.. because... all those computers made useless by vista were quickly downgraded to the sprightly efficient XP.

if i do retrograde my phone again, and re-install 3.1 or 3.2 after, i will be taking a video to show exactly how non-chalant and care-free any notion of a possible 'warning' is regarding the leap of faith that the OS will actually operate; it's like jumping off a cliff, hoping to catch a parachute on the way down.

-awr

I'd been having the same coma problem as everybody else on my 3G, but after tweaking a few settings I have had ZERO trouble for 12 days now. And I haven't lost any necessary functionality for my phone. Can anybody confirm if these same tweaks works for them too?

1) I turned off the Safari Fraud Warning

2) I left "Notifications" on, but individually turned off the Sounds/Alerts/Badges for EVERY app except for these few:

- Ping!: Badges, Alerts, Sounds
- BeejiveIM: Badges, Alerts, Sounds
- HeyWAY: Alerts

Essentially, I just left on the ones where it DOES matter that I'm notified as soon as possible. I don't really consider any games to be necessary services.

3) Under Settings->General->Home->Search Results I unchecked EVERY option except for "Applications". This means that the Searchlight doesn't index anything other than the app titles.

I haven't disabled 3G or Wifi, I use both just fine. I don't get particularly many notifications on my phone, so if you're still getting comas after that, perhaps disabling even more of the badges/etc might be helpful.

Amazing that Apple doesn't even acknowledge the 3.1 coma problem in spite of so many postings in so many forums.

Good lesson for Microsoft bashers. Microsoft will at least accept that there is a problem.

Anyway, life is peaceful now after my downgrading to 3.0.1.