How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Freezing issues?

I just got my new phone today and I'm trying to transfer everything over from my old phone via the iCloud setup. I got through all of the initial setup screens but now that I'm on the home screen, the phone keeps freezing if I try to open any application. It either doesn't open the app at all, or the app opens and then becomes non-responsive, and then after a few minutes the screen goes black and shows a small loading icon and eventually goes back to the lock screen.


In addition, power + volume button reset method doesn't work, so there's no way to force a restart to see if that fixes the problem


[Re-Titled By Moderator]

iPhone 16 Pro Max

Posted on Sep 20, 2024 12:48 PM

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Posted on Sep 21, 2024 6:55 PM

So the folks talking about doing a restore again phone-to-phone were spot on.


My iPhone 16 Pro Max would lock up, freeze, etc after I restored from iCloud. For a long time I couldn’t even get to the SETTINGS on the phone to try to erase. I learned over time that if I just left the phone alone for long enough (overnight, or maybe 4+ hours) and didn’t reboot it, I was eventually able to get to the SETTINGS without it freezing.


Once I was able to get into the settings, I did an “erase all content and settings”, but saved the eSIM. Once done, I started anew and restored phone-to-phone. Everything worked perfectly for there on. The eSIM was there, and no freezing issues at all now. WHEW.. Thanks much to the folks who mentioned this.

115 replies

Sep 25, 2024 1:55 PM in response to technabob

Like everyone else, I am having the same issue. However, as some others have said, the issue does not seem to be entirely with restoring from iCloud backup. When I initially did set-up, I used the phone-to-phone method. I let it run, and run, and run, and...


After over two hours (with "19 hours remaining"* and little or no progress on the progress bar), I spoke with Apple via chat. The agent had me cancel (which, of course, wipes the phone) and restart but using the iCloud backup method instead. And now have this issue where the screen becomes non-responsive and then going to the black screen with the spinning status icon (looking like the phone is doing a soft restart)... it will then become (briefly) responsive.


I'm on my 3rd or 4th try and it currently says 200Mb to go... so seem to be making more progress this time. But time will tell.


*Obviously, internal network and, for the download from iCloud, internet speed can impact. I have a fibre internet connection and a speed test of my home wi-fi from another device shows download speeds of approx 450mbps and uploads a bit lower... around 300mbps from memory. At any rate, my understanding is the phone to phone option takes place locally so internet performance shouldn't be a factor for the phone to phone transfer... in theory.


** Both old and new phones are 512 GB storage (and the old one was about 50% full so 256 GB of data). Two hours seems reasonable for the entire transfer. Two hours and little or no progress does not. :-D

Sep 27, 2024 8:56 PM in response to technabob

Had the same problem with iPhone 16pro. Spent 48 hours trying to download and reboot over and over. Tried everything else but finally used the restore from Mac and transfer from old phone. Still having lots of issues though. This has been a total nightmare of a transfer from iPhone 14pro to 16 pro. Apple should be ashamed of what a horrible user experience this has been for so many especially when they are charging such a ridiculous price for the new iPhone pro. Far from a pro experience. Really have gone downhill and not even acknowledging the issue and training their staff on how to support the fix. What happened to this once proud company. This would never have happened under Job’s watch.

Sep 20, 2024 4:37 PM in response to technabob

I’m having the same issue. Apple support has been useless so far. The guy couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand him. He asked me if it had been stuck all week. I then asked him if he even knew what he was talking about because they just came out today. If anyone gets anywhere please let me know. I can’t even make phone calls right now.

Sep 21, 2024 2:27 AM in response to technabob

The sales rep at Apple Store did not let us wait and update, they suggested cloud. Which is okay as my friend got iPhone 16 pro Max and it works fine with cloud restore whereas my iPhone 16 pro is giving me issues. I have traded in my phone already so I don't have the phone to phone transfer. Should I get a replacement? I doubt that would work either because it will have to restore using cloud no matter what. Just wondering if this is an issue with some of our phones because my friend used iCloud as well and has no issues.



Sep 21, 2024 4:04 AM in response to technabob

What a painfully horrible user experience. I've never had such problems upgrading my iPhone as I am going from my old 13 Pro Max 256 GB to my new 16 Pro Max 256 GB. I backed up my old phone and started the restore from iCloud last night at 5:24 PM with 52.9 GB remaining (which is weird, because I backed up my old 13 Pro Max and Apple said it was only 37 GB in size...whatever). By 11:06 PM last night I still had 32 GB to restore. I went to bed, woke up at 6:22 AM and there's still 24.1 GB left to restore!!! That's insane.

Sep 21, 2024 5:21 AM in response to ATCDrew

The same thing is happening to me. It’s very frustrating. I left the phone alone all night, thinking that there were some thing in the background that was still being in indexed or something. But the same thing this morning. I just made an appointment with the genius bar. I hope they can look at some of the error logs and tell me if it’s hardware or if there’s a conflict with one of my apps. I made your iOS 18 and all my apps that had updates were updated. I don’t really feel like taking all my apps off and reacting them one by one that would take hours to do.

Sep 21, 2024 7:15 AM in response to technabob

Yesterday, I experienced the same issue with my iPhone 16 Pro. After setting it up using an iCloud backup, the phone repeatedly froze, even in the Settings menu, and frequently restarted.


This morning, while adjusting Home Screen customizations, the phone froze again and reset itself. After each reset, the phone remains unresponsive for a few seconds before it becomes functional again.


And I’ve already traded in my old phone…

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How to fix iPhone 16 Pro Max Freezing issues?

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