Setting up new iPhone and transferred number from old phone. New phone appears stuck on "Cellular Setup Complete" with only the greyed out bar at the bottom of the screen and a spinning "thinking" icon. Next step??
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you just described my day today. I got it resolved by Apple support by calling them. I’ve copied and pasted how they fixed it for me.
Apple support fixed it for me! They first had me tap the volume up then down then hold power button for 15 seconds to force the iPhone to power down. It did but automatically restarted and the problem was the same.
The solution:
now I’m trying to transfer my old data to my new phone which is another mountain to climb.
the problem was Apple is sending out these phones without the new update and it’s causing all these problems
good luck everyone! Calling Apple support was such a pleasant experience, hope you get the same.
Ok. I had this same issue. Re-booting a million times did absolutely nothing. The phone was getting soo hot too. I went to the cellular store and they could not help either. I finally managed to get it to work by connecting the phone to my PC using itunes. Basically you connect your troubled iphone to the PC with itunes running.
Then you press volume up, then volume down, then press and hold the power button. Now when the phone reboots, it recognizes that it is connected to itunes and you can then begin a update and restore via itunes.
Just check the apple forums of how to reset an Iphone from Itunes and it should work for you.
(P.S. it takes a long time for itunes to update the iphone with the correct IOS 18 software. Think mine was nearly an hour or so....so be patient)
I was able to fix this by following this Reddit post. If you have a Mac, then follow these steps:
Hope this helps others and thanks to the folks who helped me.
I tried turning off the new phone and restarting. It brings you the beginning of the setup process but, this time, all went through perfectly.
Push up volume, down volume, then hold the power button to do a rapid restore. It has always worked for me anyway. Now if it's stuck with an Apple logo in the center of the screen or a small laptop in white it's most likely stuck in recovery mode, in that case hold down on the power button until it restarts itself.
It happened to me with the 16 PRO MAX. Got stuck in the “hello” page. Can’t use the code, can’t close/restart the phone. Solution:
For Mac users:
A very similar process should be done on Windows, but you probably need to install iTunes or something like that. Can’t really tell much cause I used my Mac.
Hopefully this helps.
Very bad experience tho from Apple for a $1500 phone.
Recently got iPhone 16 pro max. Did the usual turn on and went through the little questions and continue. Then it allowed me to activate and deactivate service from old phone (iPhone 13pro). Then the software update popped up so I agreed to it. It went through the process of downloading new software and then switched to “updating”. It went on for 3 hours and I have 5G 400mbs - but it felt stuck. So I turned it off. (Vol up/ down/ hold power) and from there it got stuck to hello/ and swipe up would flash. So I tried to connect to PC to be recognized by iTunes / iCloud. No luck even though I was able to get it into recovery mode. I tried a couple of attempts until it showed image to get both phones next to each other like it did on initial set up. Then the phone went into several reboot until it got to white background/ black apple screen with “attempting recovery” it went on for about 10minites and several messages from old iPhone- the new phone came to life and asked to transfer from old iPhone or load from back up. I chose the upload back up because when I chose the transfer fro iPhone - I think is when it got stuck or taking longer. Iphone16 pro max is now working.
I had the same problem with my iPhone 16 Pro. The suggested method—holding down the power and volume up buttons to restart the phone—worked for me. Just to add, my wife’s phone (also an iPhone 16 Pro) didn’t have this issue at all, so it seems to vary from device to device.
I received my new 16 Pro Tuesday afternoon. I followed directions for transfer from my 14. Things seemed to be OK. By the time I went to bed at about 10PM it still had the little windmills happily turning. I figured it had to be finished when I got up at 6:00. Nope, windmills still spinning. So I started looking to see if anyone else had the same problem.
ThankYou to the folks that posted here about shut it down. restart and it will get going with the copying of ALL DATA to my new 16Pro in less than a half hour. 👍👍👍👍😌
Yes, I managed to fix this! If your phone is stuck on the passcode showing very briefly and then locking on you, this is how I fixed it: download Apple configurator on your computer and update your phone through that specific app. You will have to put your iPhone in recovery mode, which is done by pressing volume up volume down and holding the power button while you have a USB connected to your computer. Once it’s in recovery mode and you have the Apple configurator app, you will be able to restore your phone from there. It worked for me.
Had the same issue. I turned off the phone and started over without a problem.
I had the same problem, and turning off (volume+power holding) and starting over solved it for me.
Just experienced this issue. I fully turned off the new phone by holding the power and volume up bottom and turning it back on. That did the trick for me, hope it helps
just restart the phone and start over. worked fine after that
I let my 16 Pro Max sit for 1.5 hours thinking it was transferring data. I turned it off and back on and then it started working.
I had the same issue and shut it down and back on again. It took a beat, but it did fix the problem!
How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Stuck on Setup?
