iPhone 12 Pro freezing on iOS 17.4(.1) when selecting text (or sometimes when trying to type)

Just confirming, you completely erased/wiped your iPhone (on iPhone > Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings), restored from your iCloud backup, and the issue returned?

This is VERY frustrating - and the reason why I've practically begged the Apple support gentleman to have someone look at our error logs to maybe find a better solution. Maybe you could check iMazing or any other 3rd-party-backup app if they can help you physically back up the entire app (so it won't have to be downloaded again from AppStore, which will be problematic if the app has since been removed). If you can get your hands on another iPhone to test if this works, this could maybe be a good solution?

If not - keeping my thumbs crossed 18 will eventually solve the issue for you (I expect it'll be rolled out around end of September again?).

It sounds like you're experiencing quite a frustrating issue with your iPhone 12 Pro on iOS 17.4.1. Given that you've already tried several troubleshooting steps without success, here are a few additional methods you can try:

1. **Force Restart Your iPhone:**-If your iPhone won't turn on or is frozen - Apple Support

   - Quickly press and release the Volume Up button.

   - Quickly press and release the Volume Down button.

   - Press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears.

2. **Reset All Settings:**

   - Go to **Settings** > **General** > **Transfer or Reset iPhone** > **Reset**.

   - Select **Reset All Settings**. This will reset all system settings to default but won’t delete your data.

3. **Free Up Storage Space:**

   - Check if your iPhone has enough free storage. Go to **Settings** > **General** > **iPhone Storage** and make sure you have at least 1-2 GB of free space.

. **Try system repair:**

   - Since you’ve updated to iOS 17.4.1 without success, consider to repair. it can help fix many system issues without data loss.

5. **Contact Apple Support:**

   - If none of the above steps work, it might be a deeper issue with the iOS or hardware. Contact Apple Support for further assistance. They might provide specific solutions or recommend a service appointment.

Given your concern about losing the eSIM, I recommend trying all the above steps before considering a full wipe and restore. If a full restore becomes necessary, check if your carrier offers any solutions for reactivating your eSIM remotely. 

I hope one of these methods helps resolve the issue with your iPhone.

[Edited by Moderator]

Hi ervintwj,

Even quicker Q: Full Device Reset refers to the Restore button yeah?

Sorry for not having been clearer. If you open up your device on Finder, it's the "Restore iPhone" button (located right next to the updates button). So I guess - yeah 😅. My Finder's not in English, so I had to google some Finder images to find the actual text on the button.

Basically: Factory reset, completely wiping the device.

As to the backup question: Maybe iCloud backup works better for you? I'd have a full disk backup anyway, just in case. Squeezing 1TB into 256GB may be difficult, hence an external disk would make sense. I think my backup (roughly 300GB) took about an hour, I used my Macs internal SSD, the speed was around 100MB/s, so an older HDD hooked up via USB might work just as well. For my regular backups, I do use a Synology disk station, speed there is notoriously low - but good enough for TimeMachine as well as iDevice backups. Most of the times, I use iMazing (which used to be great BEFORE Apple changed the necessity of "trusting the computer" by entering your passcode on your device EACH time and not only once ...), since it's easy to use different internal as well as external disks for your backups. But if you google "Manually changing iOS backup folder on macOS", you'll find ways of doing it via Terminal without the need to pay for additional software. Before I used iMazing, I already had iTunes (before Finder took over the job) backup to an external device that way.

Great work! Very detailed steps and explanation!

Quick Q: Can I clarify if you backed up to the internal SSD of your Mac, or is it an external disk – and if so, can you outline the specifications of your external disk? (And asking this because my Mac has 256GB primary SSD, and my iPhone has 1TB storage, I want to eliminate all variables before jumping through these hoops)

Even quicker Q: Full Device Reset refers to the Restore button yeah?

My 11 freezing

Same here

SOLVED: It's been 24hrs without the bugs (stall when highlighting text, no access to Updates, Siri Voice, Dictionary, iCloud Security setting etc.)

I did the following steps:

• Update to 17.5.1 via my Mac (since no access is possible to Update on the device itself)
• Backup to disk via Finder on my Mac
• Full Device Reset via Finder
• Set up device from backup on my Mac

(Those of you who've been following the thread for a while may remember I wasn't able to do a full disk backup before, I had it hooked up for >24hrs and still it just wouldn't finish; yesterday, after lots of tinkering around, it DID work; if I had to take a guess it was the cable, which is weird since it allows for full data transmission with any other device, at least when testing it by hooking up SSDs ... anyway, weird, but eventually it did work).

A strange phenomenon that occured: When resetting the device via Finder, after starting up again, a message came up that a previous incomplete installation (or a similar message, I didn't memorize it verbatim) was found and if I wanted to do another reinstall? I sure did.

So - 24hrs and everything works as it's supposed to. Just a bit of a pain since all of my banking apps need reauthentification (by snail mail, unfortunately), I need to reauthorize all my IoT apps, reauthorize Apple Pay cards etc.

Seems like 17.4 left some sort of "relict" that wasn't removed by any further updates, nor by the first full reset to factory settings. But this time, the OS caught the issue and offered another reset.

Theoretically, it could also have been the 17.5.1 update, which I didn't even test since ChiffaNe stated it didn't resolve the issue.

If anyone else wants to have a go, maybe try 17.5.1 and see if it works, if not - go the route of backup -> factory reset -> maybe the second reset -> set up from backup as outlined above. Just keep in mind you may not be able to use your banking apps for a few days and will need at least half a day (if not more) to finish the process. Please also make sure you have Wifi access w/o any data restrictions since all apps will not be installed from the backup, but downloaded from the App store again (even with disk backup). Make sure all the apps you really need are still available there.

Please report back here since anyone else affected will certainly appreciate it!

Good luck to you! Do keep us posted.

For the rest of us, please fill a bug report at https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/. My report number is FB13806510, you can quote that in own submission. For reference, the title for my report is "Unable to select text, or access network services dependent on Apple ID, including System Update"

Update: So I finally opened a case with Apple support. As expected, they want me to do a full reset and then reinstall backup from my Mac before they will even look at the error logs. Alas, the very nice customer support guy didn't even know what I meant by error logs ...

Since I cannot do a full backup to my Mac (only iCloud), I'm looking at quite some hassle with reauthenticating all my banking apps which will take at least two weeks. Didn't care - I have to do it, otherwise they will not follow up on the issue.

Reminds me of when my iPhone used up dozens of GB for my notes in a month and they had me jump through so many hoops, doing backups, fully resetting the device etc. with no solution. I had to access the iCloud IMAP server via Thundermail to find various hidden folders that contained relict data -> manually deleted those and the problem was gone.

It would take a proper technician probably a few mere minutes to find the cause of the error by looking at the error logs, but seems to be hard to get in touch with those.

So: Goodbye to some of my data, I'm doing this now. Hopefully, there will be a better solution which I will post if I find it.

Not sure anymore. What I tried: Signing out of Apple ID, doing a restart. No problem! Then: Keep on using the iPhone without being signed it. Guess what happened after half an hour?

You guessed right: Problem reappeared, without any Apple ID in place on the device.

Also, set your device to flight mode, therefore effectively preventing the device trying to connect to any Apple servers. Doesn't change the problem, unfortunately ...

Seems SOMEHOW connected, but not as in "problem happens when device connects to the server"

Haha, I think you are me 😸 Did the same. Hard to make sense of the activity log, though - it's tons of data each minute, not due to the malfunction - same happens with my friends iPhone 15 (that doesn't trouble her).

What MAY be interesting: When an app stalls, when the "text highlight -> stall" issue happens, an actual error log is created. Those can be read as well (different ways to find them, easiest for me was to use iMazing to get them). Just not making any sense of them, too much info, too little knowledge to know what to look for.

IF eventually an Apple tech will look at the issue, they might easily find the culprit, though. Just kind of amazing to have such a weird issue with many different symptoms - but all the same - and just two dozen of us experiencing it. More likely to hit the jackpot at the big lottery 😅 ...