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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I have this same issue (stuck at hello and cannot reset or turn off). Were you able to resolve it?
This did not work for me. Both phones were on the latest iOS 18 release and both fully charged and plugged in. I finally got the phones to transfer data but then had to wade through AT&Ts site to figure out how to re-do the eSIM activation (which you can do online with a wifi connection). TERRIBLE experience Apple. Worst in all the years since iPhone 3 that I've been upgrading and transferring data.
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. 👍👍👍👍😌
I vaguely remember the days when Apple products “just work[ed].” Those days are becoming harder and harder to remember.
Don’t know if the “replacement” iPhone 16 Pro Max will work. Still haven’t received it as of October 11, 2024. At this point, I don’t even know if I still want it.
Jumped through all the hoops to get the phone on release day. Apple’s product was defective (whether hardware or software). So sorry, customer — we’ll keep your money, but go to the back of the line!!
New iPhone 16 Pro Max is stuck on hello screen and flashes the login screen when trying to unlock - it is also very hot. My line was already transferred from my 13 Pro Max, so I have been without a phone all day. Can my carrier even help with this or is this just a total and complete failure on Apple? I would also like to be able to talk to support, but even if I was able to complete a call, Apple doesn't seen to offer phone support.
Hey,
The solution was to essentially hard reset the phone from my Macbook. However, when I tried it at home, it made the problem worse somehow by locking my phone into "troubleshoot" mode.
I ultimately ended up making a genius bar appointment and they did the same thing with their equipment but it worked.
Hope that helps
I have a brand new 16 plus, same issue as others here - stuck on hello screen, can't swipe up or do anything. It's charging but battery is going down and it's super hot. I just made an appointment for tomorrow at an Apple support location which is a very long drive so hopefully they can do something helpful like give a replacement.
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.
This worked for me as well.
I hope this isn’t a bad omen for this phone seems like not a good way to start
same problem did you find any solution !
Same thing happened on my iPhone 16 (not Pro); it was stuck on "Cellular Setup Complete". I rebooted it and it resumed the setup past that point.
The old iPhone then didn't prompt me to begin the setup process. I rebooted it, and that solved it. From other posts here, looks like I could have just turned Bluetooth off/on and locked/unlocked the old iPhone instead.
When the swirly dot pattern appeared on the screen, holding it within view of my old iPhone's camera didn't proceed with the setup; it kept waiting for the old iPhone to see the pattern. I tapped the manual button, it displayed a number on the new iPhone and asked me to type it in on the old iPhone. That worked (and was much easier than the pattern thing!).
Transferring data now!
Thanks, chipotlecaleb, for addressing this. I had no idea whether the phone was stuck or if it was downloading data in the background. After about 30 minutes, I searched for help and your feedback to restart the phone worked perfectly. Once I turned the phone back on, it restarted the process, so I restarted my old phone too. Now I'm in good shape! Thank you!
This is what saved me, i just wanted to return here and thank you for your comment i was stressing pretty hard thinking i was going to be driving over an hour to my closest apple store to fix this thing.
One thing I will add to your instructions for what I had to do is once the phone is in recovery mode and connected to the macbook, I used the Apple Configurator app which showed my iphone, I selected it then clicked update at the top which then said that the iphone is not booted so it gave me the option to erase and reinstall IOS which I proceeded with. It took a while to download IOS but when it was finished it said my macbook needed to be updated to latest IOS first which I did. After that i had to reconnect phone in recovery mode since macbook rebooted for update, luckily i got back into the phone and was able to proceed with the erase and reinstall of IOS.
After doing some reading from other peoples posts it seems the issue is when you setup the new iphone if you select direct transfer if your old iphone and new iphone are on different IOS's it seems to hose up the new one.
So my second time around doing the setup i selected icloud backup which worked flawlessly, i hope this can help some others out there, i was extremely disappointed never had this much trouble setting up a new iphone and was so worried i received a dud.
This is the one that worked if your iPhone is stuck on "hello" screen. Same instructions said different:
Same Here -- using Vol up for a sec / vol down for second then holding power button until powers off and then restarts all over / stuck on Hello Screen won't allow a scroll up - looped,. volume up / volume down power to logo, then restarts on hello screen won't allow a scroll up, just millisecond flash of the passcode screen and then back to hello.
WHAT CAN I DO?
How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Stuck on Setup?
