Q: Mysterious random total shut downs following 3.1 update

I might as well add my name and number to the growing list. As a long long time windows mobile user, last september I got my hands on my first iphone and it's been a love affair ever since. I own an iPhone 3g that is one year old and have updated itunes and my phone OS everytime one was available. As an IT professional I use many technologies and applications and that includes the iphone with every possible configuration.

However, this time, this upgrade to 3.1 brought me my first problems ever with my iPhone. The same thing most are getting that never happened until this past upgrade. Comaville. My phone just dies seemingly for no reason, and I have to do a reset like everyone else.

Earlier in this long line of posts someone suggested turning off WiFi and knock on wood, I'm going on three days with no shutdowns. I only turn WiFi on when I am at home on my own network, then I turn it off when done. The rest of the time I use the 3g network. Not a very good thing, but so far it works until Apple acknowledges this problem and issues a patch which I hope is soon.

Again, wifi and bluetooth off......all is well. wifi on...it shuts down. Go figure.

I'm having the same issue, but it only started a few days ago...I got the update as soon as it was available. I love my iPhone, but let's not forget it's main function - as a PHONE! It needs to respond when someone needs to make a call - especially in case of emergency! I hope Apple acknowledges and addresses this problem soon.

same here i just wait a few minutes periodically hit the home button and it will come back with no bars and then it reconnects. thought it was the 5.0 carrier file so updated to 5.1 1 day no crash and then today froze up once

About this entire problem... just my observations. I would be curious to see if others have the same experiences.......

I have wi-fi turned off. Therefore, I do not know if the lockup is a wi-fi problem. However, with wi-fi off I get lockups if I do anything related to the headphones. For example, if I start listening to my podcasts and pause with the headphones, this can trigger it. Also, unplugging the headphones with the ipod app running (even though paused) can trigger it.

I don't appear to freeze up if I just avoid the headphones all day. However, like I said, I don't have wi-fi enabled.

I should have said "phone was very warm to the touch when I took it out of my pocket", instead of just saying "it was very warm" as if was talking about weather.
Sorry about the possible confusion.

I am having the same problem with these random "comas" I get atleast 3 a day since i updated i have tried everything recovering it, removing all of my apps (that i could) for 3 days, turning off everything that i could and except phone for a day, then i even left it in aireplain mode and still it shut down. apple needs to do something about this as others have said and i know many other ppl like me this is there only phone for anyone to get a hold of me and i work at a job were i am on call so i cant go to my boss and say that my phone is just locking up. I have read most of this topic and have yet to see or hear that apple has even admit that this is a problem or if they are in the process of fixing it. I really dont think me writing this is going to do much anything ether since there is now 45 pages of this and as i said erlier i havent heard fo apple doing anything but i felt the need to write something cuz they really didn't like the way i was on the phone

After experiencing what many in this discussion have shared, I called 1800-myiphone. THey set me up for a visit with the GB at the Apple Store near me. After telling the Genius what happened, he gave me a new phone. My warranty had 7 days left! Now, I have an extension of 90 days with the new phone (running 3.0). I'm thinking AppleCare should be in my future!

So, I give HIGH marks to Apple for solving my problem once I made it known to their tech people. I do think they need to communicate with their customers regarding this problem. I was lucky that my phone was under warranty. But I also must admit that things had improved/stabilized dramatically since doing a clean reinstall of 3.1 BEFORE visiting the Apple Store.

Good luck, everyone! And let Apple know by calling or completing the previously listed bug report form. I think they deserve a chance to "make it right."

Same problem. Random shut-downs 3-4 times per day since downloading 3.1. Hard reset required to start it back up again. Extremely frustrating.

Hey everyone I just thought I would share this with you all. I am tired of waiting for an update and this e-mail was sent to over 30 different news rooms across america. I have also decided to return the 2 useless I-phones I have and go back to verizon. Luckily I am still in the 30day period where i can return this junk for a full refund and get out of my contract. RIM blackberry has never let me down.


Dear Fox news room , I hope this letter is being sent to the correct department. I just want to make you aware of a very large problem with I-phone that apple seems to deny its existence . Apple recently released the new version 3.1 software update to fix some bugs from the 3.0 version and to thwart jail-breaking the I-phone leaving many I-Phones useless. All I can do is give you the information I have available and refer you to the official apple thread http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1274 This forum has over 46,000 views and over 600 replies of people who's I-Phone randomly crashes leaving it useless until a hard reset is completed. This can become a major problem should someone need to dial 911 in a life threatening emergency. The worst part is that apple wont even acknowledge that there is a problem. Everything was fine before this update and I hope someone from your news team can expose this problem for all of the I-Phone consumers in America and possibly get apple to comment on this problem.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Crhistopher Ayrer



I truly hope thie will get reported and expose apple for the fruity company they are. If i wanted windows mobile problems i would have bought an I-phone clone.

I, too, am having this problem with my iPhone 3G. Interestingly, my iPhone 2G hasn't been affected. The terrible thing is that I purchased my iPhone 3G on 9/12/08 and so it is currently out of warranty. Unfortunate. Since so many others are having the problem (this is the longest thread I think I've ever seen in the Apple Discussions), I'm fairly certain this is a software or firmware problem and not hardware. So I've decided to restore from a fresh version of the 3.1 software, set it up as a "new" phone, and see what happens. Here are the steps I took:

1. Delete the old 3.1 software. Do this by going to the following location in your home folder:

Library -> iTunes -> iPhone Software Updates

Once there, delete the file called "iPhone1,23.1_7C144Restore.ipsw."

2. Launch iTunes, plug in phone, and tell it to restore the phone. At this point it will download a fresh version of the 3.1 software and install it for you.

3. When it comes time to set up as new phone or restore from backup, tell iTunes to set it up as a new phone. It's not that painful and syncing contacts, calendars, etc. means that there is only a minimum of configuration that needs to be done.

So that's where I am at the moment. Hopefully, that will take care of things. I'll post back in a couple of days if I haven't seen the problem return. If it does return, I'll probably post back here sooner than that.

Cheers.

Add this sad boy to the list of now wounded iPhone 3G. Updated to 3.1 last night with two black screen shut downs today requiring a (home + power) reset. Need a 3.1.1 update please.....tick tock!

so far i haven't had anymore "comas" all day. One thing i did was removed amazon kindle when i reset my iPhone. I wasn't using it anyway so i took it out. i still don't know what i did that fixed my iPhone 3G with version 3.1. But mine stopped shutting down and went back to normal....

The problem I have had after the same upgrade is that 1) I can no longer delete emails, they simply reappear and 2) after about 15 sec. email shuts down and we revert to the main menu.

Hello All!

Add two more 3G phones to the count. My wife and I both have iPhone 3G 16GB phones and have each suffered from a total shutdown once each since the 3.1 update (mine was updated on 9/9 and hers was updated on 9/14). There were no unusual circumstances beforehand and we both just went to use the iPhone and nothing would turn it back on other than a full reset (sleep/wake + home buttons until the Apple logo appeared).

This is a real problem! Apple, FIX IT! At least your competitor in Redmond believes in wide-spread, massive pre-release public testing before issuing OS releases in most cases, e.g., Windows 7. I'm not trying to start a flame war, but having these kinds of issues with every single new update (v2 & v3) and now the v3.1 update is getting rediculous!

Thanks!
Jim

There is just no way I am going to risk something this horribly bad by upgrading my OS to 3.1. My upgrade to 3.0.1 last month wasted up 5 hours of my time by bricking my iPhone 3Gs as it was.

My iPhone is staying at 3.0.1 until further notice.