Video freezes after iOS4 Update

It is clear that iOS 4 performance on older 3G units has been less than optimal. Many 3G users are experiencing problems. All I can suggest is doing a full restore and then a final restore to your last backup. That might help in the event the initial installation wasn't perfect.

However, YMMV on this. Clearly iOS 4 on the 3G was never planned to be the best experience since it is 2 generations old. Good luck.

My new iPhone 4 exhibits the same behavior: MP4/H.264 videos which played fine on my original iPhone now freeze video even as audio continues to play. MP4/MP4 videos still work fine. This must be either (1) a bug in iOS4 or (2) a faulty iPhone.

Anyone have any insight?

I was having the very same problem. Received a suggestion to convert using the MPEG-4 Codec, rather than the H.264 codec, and movies no longer freeze - at least not yet.

I have the same issue and have talked to Apple, but they have no idea what the problem is. Only that ios 4 is new and not every codec is supported! I have three iPhone 4's that movies with H264 do not play on. They play fine on my 3gs that has not been updated, but will not play on any iphone with ios4. Why is this? This is a big flaw in the software! All my movies are compressed to the correct specs, even the apple support guy said "well, it should be working."
Anyone having any luck with this?

Hi,

Almost same problem here. I have a iPhone 3GS and a iPod touch. Same behaviour as everyone here already described. Except sometimes the video freezes, sometimes not. However, every time the controls freeze. After about 20 - 30 seconds it will go back to the playlist view. Sometimes the video that was playing will be greyed out and after a bit more time there will be a message saying this file cannot be played. I work with the Deaf and I rely on the ability of these devices to play video. Thanks to the "update" I can no longer do my job. Has anyone else noticed that the on screen controls lock up when this happens? Or any of the other behaviour I have described?

Update I can make it happen if I scrub the video or jump around chapters.

My video also stops and starts on the new iPhone 4. The same files still play fine on my old 3G so I find myself using that as an iPod touch.

Complete restore did not help. Apple support is trying to blame my use of "3rd Party" material. It is true that files bought from the Apple Store seem to work perfectly while those I made myself do not. Will try a different codec, but am wondering what to do with all of the old H264 files.

Definitely a major bug, especially for me as I use my phone much more for video playback than I do as a phone and one of the major selling points of this phone is the new display.

I have 2 friends. Each of them with Ipod touch 64gb. Having the exact same issue withe those. After ios4 update now displaying exact same symptoms. It worked perfectly with the latest 3.x software. They download video from respectable websites, encoded with h.264 into the m4v format.

One particular friend sent their ipod touch back to apple because of this. They checked it out and restored it to factory settings still ios4, unfortunately. Same video problem. So she sent it back and they replaced it completely...you guessed it...same problem... Its not the hardware folks.

Re encoding is not an option as they will lose the chapter markers. The more ipod touch owners I talk to the more common the problem appears. I warned my other friends that this is a major issue, that apple needs to fix. And NOT TO UPGRADE to IOS4 until they do. It seems they did a shoddy job getting this update out the door. Whats the point of owning such a device if an "upgrade" renders it non functional in the area that most people need it the most. THIS NEEDS FIXED, APPLE. Otherwise say good bye to your loyal supporters, as the leave for other media player options. Why pay $400 bucks for something that doesn't work right.

I really hope apple follows these discussions and cares enough for their customers to fix it.

No word from Apple on this yet? Have they admitted that they screwed up? Are they fixing it? When is my iPhone going to work again?

I have had the same exact problems ever since I upgraded my 3GS to iOS 4. I also work with the Deaf and have over 4,000 videos on my phone and have tried everything I can think of to get them back to working like they did before. I have done a full restore to 4.0.1 with no success as well. I also use a 64GB iPod Touch that now has the same issue after iOS 4 and my wife's 3GS has the same problem since iOS 4. Since I have so many videos re-converting them all is not a real option here. Also I would lose the chapter markers. There are very real issues with iOS 4 and it's video playback.

Also, I have my videos broken up into TV shows which has created a new issue in iOS 4 as well. Before iOS 4 scrolling through the list of the 80+ TV shows I have was perfectly smooth and fluid. Since updating the phone struggles to scroll down through the list shuttering and pausing the whole way. It now takes forever to get to the bottom of the list. Besides restoring to factory settings, I have added all the videos again. I did notice that scrolling is smooth until I have over 25 or so TV shows.

If anyone has had any success fixing this problem or has heard that Apple is really working to fix this it would be great to know.

It seems some action may be taken. Here is a respectable hardware site commenting on this. I'm sure the hardware in the iphone 3g and older is similiar if not the same on the ipod touch.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-3g-ios4-firmware-update,news-7612.html

Same problem for me. m4v files freeze when browsing chapters after iOS4 update on iPod Touch 3G. Bought the new 4G assuming the new hardware would handle iOS4 better, but same problem! Retuned it to the store and bought a new 3G with OS3.1.3, chapter browsing perfectly now. I lost much time and mony selling my 2 months old 3G and buy the exact same model, because Apple did not allow to go back to OS3.

It seems all devices running iOS 4, regardless if old or new are having this issue. I have the iPhone 4, and my older 3GS, 3G and 2G as well as the latest two iPod touch models. I have several friends at various SLC's who also have experienced this issue. It happens when I/we go to TV Shows and select a chapter. It freezes, then exits out of app. I have not experienced this issue with the iPad, though the iPad does not support selecting chapters from a menu like other iDevices. Before iOS 4, we did not have this problem. I have downgraded my older devices and it works fine. I do not have a way of downgrading my iPhone/iPod Touch 4's. I have not found a fix the works consistently. But using the jump button instead of manually selecting the chapter has minimized the times it freezes up. Just takes longer to get the the paragraph or verse on the ASL videos.