Loud crackling noise then iPhone 12 shut off

I was scrolling through tiktok at a low volume when my phone randomly made a loud cracking sound and then shut off. It almost sounded like an electrical short. Phone rebooted on its own and seems fine. Very strange for a brand new Apple iPhone 12....

iPhone 12, iOS 14

Posted on Nov 28, 2020 9:25 PM

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Posted on Aug 22, 2021 4:24 PM

So what I've determined is we've all had exactly the same issue, no one knows what it is, and Apple hasn't replied here but I went ahead and did a support chat and here's what I got:


  • Okay, please be assured that your iPhone is secured and the iOS that you have on your iPhone has the best security in the market.
  • Let me explain a device restart can be caused by the App that you are using at that time or any system issue.
  • All the discussion and the feedback are checked by the Apple engineers on a regular basis. Also any issue that is occurring or needs to be checked is also escalated to the team so they are aware of any system issue and work on it to resolve it.


That's as far as I got.

215 replies

May 5, 2022 6:29 AM in response to M_Stoff

literally just happened to me in class, i was on tiktok and i heard a loud crackle then my whole screen turned black, so beyond unexpected my phone wasn’t hot or anything i didn’t smell burning just very strange my phone seems to be working just fine but wish there were answers on why this happened

May 12, 2022 12:11 PM in response to M_Stoff

Same thing just happened on my iPhone 12 Pro Max. Was typing something into Google on Chrome. Not plugged in, 90% battery. Crackled, looked like confetti (which made me stop for a second and wondered if Culver's knew my birthday is coming up) and then the phone restarted. Have a case so there was no shock. Running iOS 15.4.1 Not hot, either. So far it's running fine again.

May 17, 2022 9:52 PM in response to M_Stoff

This just happened to me as well! Exactly like you described, however I was scrolling on twitter. It rebooted by itself after that but it does not seem to be a full reboot, since all the apps were still open as if I just locked the phone. I have an iphone 12 pro max and I bought it less than a year ago. I am really surprised that apple did not look into this yet. It is an expensive iphone for sure, we should not be having such issues 🙂

Jun 1, 2022 2:49 PM in response to IAMTHELAB

If you have a Twitter account send Apple Support a tweet and report your problem. I did this in February and they responded immediately. Not very helpful but at least they responded 🤷‍♀️ I told them to read their community forums because it wasn’t just me. I’ve gotten no further response. Maybe if we all posted on their Twitter account 🧐

Jun 1, 2022 4:04 PM in response to Indy7778

I started looking into this some more and honestly I’m more confused that before. I found dis on Reddit I quote “It’s probably a kernel panic. It can happen sometimes. Maybe once or twice a year. You should see something starting with “panic-full” under settings- privacy- analytics and improvements- analytics data. You should only be concerned if this happens multiple times per day.” I then tried finding it under this category but nothing out of the ordinary. This is just weird if not just straight up creepy but it seem to happen only with iPhone 12 and mostly if someone uses a social media app.

Jun 18, 2022 4:38 AM in response to M_Stoff

I’ve had my iPhone 12 mini since June 28th, 2021 and it finally did a crackle. I’ve had many issues with it over the year and have always wanted this phone to be great like it said it was going to be. Phone is having issues scrolling after its self initiated reboot, and Apple owes a lot of explaining as to why the 12’s are undeniably a faulty product that got the go ahead to be produced. Was it deadline?? So it was ok to sell an unstable product that’s obviously not a system error because …… of ……. What’s the excuse Apple?? There’s no way you can “bug fix” an issue when each and every phone in the 12th generation has an internal hardware issue. It’s not the programming, it’s the wiring, and they know that! Hence not responding accordingly to this issue when it was first brought to their attention. So what happened after Crackle2021? Did the phones go full on Maximum Overdrive or nah?

Jul 11, 2022 6:46 PM in response to M_Stoff

Good news everyone, still happens in 2022 🤓


just had the bajeesus scared out of me when it crackled and then the bottom half of my screen was discolored, and I couldn’t do anything for a few seconds and then it reboot with the apple logo and everything and now it seems ok


nice to see no changes have been done to stop it from happening on the 12 max pro after 2 years haha

Loud crackling noise then iPhone 12 shut off

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