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

Since about 2 days ago my good old iPhone 12 Pro has started going nuts. Whenever I try to select any text on a webpage (or in any app) and often when I tap on anywhere that brings up a keyboard to start typing the app freezes and then after some time crashes.

I tried rebooting and it helps for about 1 min after which same stuff happens again. I

also tried resetting the dictionary, turning off check spelling, predictive typing, etc. in the keyboard setting which didn’t help.

Furthermore I tried unticking all the checkmarks in the selected dictionaries (though most of the time the settings app freezes when trying to open the dictionary section.

Finally I tried updating to 17.4.1 (from 17.4) which also didn’t help.

Interestingly I was unable to update from the phone itself, it was spinning on checking new version until finally throwing up “Unable to check for new version”. I had to update using the mac and on 17.4.1 it behaves the same.

I am afraid to try the wipe and restore from backup nuclear option as I will lose the eSim and I’m in a different country now from where I got the line from and it will be a challenge to restore it.

What else can I do?

iPhone X

Posted on Mar 28, 2024 12:38 PM

Top-ranking reply

ChiffaNe Author

Level 1

43 points

Posted on Mar 28, 2024 2:28 PM

Another update - after a couple more hours of poking and troubleshooting I tried to reinstall 17.4.1 via DFU mode and it partially helped - selecting text stopped crashing but I still could not enable any dictionaries or check for a software update.

Guessing this might have something to do with access to apple servers I tried to reset network setting AND IT WORKED!

After the reboot I was able to readd the dictionaries, access security, change voices, the whole 9 yards. It did throw me for a bit of a loop as it spent it’s fair share of thinking when I was turning on the dictionaries (I’d say it froze up for about 15-20 seconds) but then it unfroze and succeeded. I guess it was indexing or copying something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Long story short for anyone with the above symptoms:

Connect the phone to your mac or pc.
Put your phone in DFU mode

1. Quick-press the Volume Up button.

2. Quick-press the Volume Down button.

3. Long-press and hold the Side button. (After 10 seconds, the screen goes black.)

4. Once the screen goes black, while holding down the Side button, long-press the Volume Down button for 5 seconds.

5. After 5 seconds, release the Side button while continuing to hold down the Volume Down button for an additional 10 seconds.

3. Using Finder or iTunes update the phone to the latest version (be careful NOT to select “restore” as you will lose all data)

4. On the phone go to Settings - General - Transfer or reset iPhone - Reset and tap Reset Network Settings

5. Profit

Hope this helps someone else.

ChiffaNe wrote:

I did some more poking and found that the settings also freeze when I try to change the Siri voice (not language, that is fine) or enter the Sign-in & Security menu in iCloud. I’m starting to have a feeling this is in some way related to broken rights to access any kind of system downloaded data (different siri voices, dictionaries, etc)

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

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