iOS 5.0.1 Crashing iPhone 3GS

Great to hear that a new battery fixed your problem. In my case however, the 3GS was a brand new warranty replacement with (hopefully!) a new battery. Mohammed from Abu Dhabi's fix seems to have permanently fixed the crashing; fingers crossed.

Clearly more than one showstopper bug in the IOS5.0.1 release...

Hi Karly Rose,

I had similar problems after installing 5.01. I didn't notice missing texts or calls, but the phone would sometimes "crash" with a full charge almost immediately.

Right after I installed iOS5, I began experiencing weird problems. I noticed battery life was drastically reduced: whereas I used to go all day on a charge with iOS4, after the upgrade the phone would "crash" at about 1/2 full. If I could restart, the battery would generally show that it was on fumes. Or it would show a half-charge and crash immediatly again. I never would get a "warning," low battery" message. So things were bad. But after the iOS5.01 upgrade, all **** broke loose. I didn't really suspect the battery at first, because no one on the forums was implicating batteries, and the battery indicator always showed "full" when the phone would shut down. Over time though, I observed that ALL OF MY PROBLEMS WENT AWAY WHEN THE PHONE WAS PLUGGED IN. They only happened when operating on battery power. So try that. If it works fine when plugged in, it's definately your battery.

In hindsite, I don't believe the phone was "crashing." I think it was shutting down like it does when the battery is totally drained.

After iOS5.01, the phone would "crash" randomly. Usually when I was using an app. Sometimes while I was talking. Again, it would happen with what appeard to be a "full charge," so I still didn't suspect the battery.

I tried many of the tips on this forum, for example, the tip from Mohammed from Abu Dhabi. And I restored three times. Truthfully, after doing all that, I felt like the phone returned to "pre 5.01" behaviour. That is, iOS5 behavior, which was bad, but not as horrible as 5.01 behaviour. The shut down's would generally occur when the battery meter showed about 50%. So there was an improvement. I DO think the restores and the Mohammad trick helped with whatever 5.01 was doing. But the BIG problem was the battery.

Now that I've replaced the battery, done the Mohammad trick and restored 3 times, I'm problem-free. I considered the downgrade option, and would have done it if the new battery hadn't helped. But when I went to the mac store, the "genius" was emphatic that iOS5 IS supported on the 3gs. And I have a lot of friends who are using iOS5 just fine on their 3gs's. So the problem seemed to be MY 3gs, not ALL 3gs's. And all this pointed to the battery.

UPDATE

Since I applied my soluation for crashing IOS 5.0.1 several weeks ago.....all problems are gone...except if u turn your iphone off or turn on Airplane mode on...........in this case you have again to activiate your 3g for 5 minutes and turn it off after that.........no crashing or restart will happen.

wish all the best..............till we hear anything from Apple to slove it out?

Mohammad - Abu dhabi

Hi all,

So my 3GS is still working great after the fix from Mohammed. (thanks again).....but like he said, I have not turned the phone of at all or used the camera... (too scared)

The reason for my post today is more to give a great big thank you, long distance hug and kiss to Apple for all the great support they gave us all on our problems! As always it was fast, ingenious and solved the issue. NOT!!!

Next thing you will know, you will give us the Bill Gates solution......oh just reboot.......

It is possible that no one from Apple is even monitoring this forum? Or are they just letting us dangle on purpos? Either way, it would have been a great help to us, Apple, if you would occassionally weigh-in on our discussions with your deeper knowledge and experience base.

Just like to say a big up thank you to mr Mohamed for the solution to this ever so frustrating issue. In my case I was flying to France from the UK and had switched my 3GS to Airplane mode during the flight. When landed I switched off airplane mode and disabled Cellular Data and disabled 3G network. My phone then would not connect to a carrier and started resetting every 3 to 4 minutes. I read about the software restores but was dreading to do this. So once again mr Mohamed. You are the man!

I am so happy that my soluation had helpped a lot of you guys in here..............after all ....this is the reason why we are all in here........helping each other...............and belive me nothing give me such a sense of joy as the word ( thank you).

Regards all

Just wanted to add my Thanks to Mohammed. My daughter's 3GS was crashing every two minutes today and when I got home I read this post, tried Mohammed's suggestion and now everything is OK.

Thanks again Mohammed.

Hello everybody....i want you all to know that in Romania, the Iphones 3gs with OS 5.0.1 does the same crashing and rebooting and...al the stuff...

How i fixed it? I didn't, actually...it happened twice till now...and every time i did this...from the Configurationsmenu, i choose the General and the last on the list...Reset. And from there, i choose Reset all the configurations....and the phone come back to its very beginning...and not crashing at all...for a period...i think that it is possible to happen again if i let the battery on a low level...because when i had only 20% from battery it was still working and after a while it started crashing...

Anyway, i will let the time to speak...what else can we do?

But Apple...if you really care about us, the ones which give you money, very hard worked money, and if you still want to be in this business with mobile phones, you really need to do something...Samsung Galaxy's are less expensive and better....I already take care not to advice anybody to buy a Iphone and i surely am not the onl one....please, make me change the way i see you, dear Apple....

Bless you all, merry Christmas or Chag Chanukha Sameach !

I HAVE A IPOD TOUCH 4G BUT IT DOES THE SAME THING BUT ITS NOT LIKE EVERY 2 MINUTES BUT WHEN ITS LOCKED IT WILL JUST SHUT OFF AND NOT EVEN TRY TO TURN BACK ON ILL TAKE IT OUT OF MY POCKET AND ITS JUST OFF AND I HAVE TO TURN IT ON MYSELF AND THE BATT IS FULL THEN NOT MUCH LONGER AFTER IT WILL DO THE SAME THING JUST SHUT OFF I HAVE RESTORED IT A FEW TIMES BUT I STILL END UP WIHT THE SAME PROBLEM ANY HELP

Yep, same problem here with my wife's 3GS after upgrading to 5.0.1. Unfortunately, non of the solutions here have helped. The only thing different I have noticed is that this only happens to my wife's phone when the batter gets low or when I reset it. If she never lets it get below 20% battery life and never has to "restart" we never have the problem. If the batter does die or phone gets reset, it goes into the restart loop until it has charged above 60%, then it magically stops restarting. Hopefully the next update will fix this because my wife always forgets to charge her phone 😟

Yeah, we're all kind of shooting in the dark here. It's frustrating that Apple won't chime in. All I can tell you is that I did all those things on your list except downgrade (I don't use icloud). When I did all that, the phone behaved fine as long as it was plugged in. After I did all that, it did not crash while charging. But would crash within minutes of being unplugged. I learned not to trust the battery meter. It would frequently give bad reads. I think I had 2 problems: 5.01 bug + bad battery. But now I'm good.

This is all so frustrating! I just can't believe Apple is leaving us all hanging here.

Anyway, goofbear: here's a little update haha

I've continued trying all the solutions listed here, and have found temporary success from several. The "sim card out and settings reset" worked twice, but after 1-3 days of proper functioning it relapsed. Same with the restore, which only worked once...

Anyway, my phone just crashed AGAIN for like the 4th time this week. So I logged into eBay and ordered a stinking battery replacement kit! Hoping to recieve that in the next few days, and saying prayers in the meantime that it's gonna fix my problem.

So thanks again for the battery suggestion, and I'll keep you posted with my (hopeful) success!

I have the same issue. 3GS has iOS 5.0.1 and reboots ever 2-3 minutes. With the inititial upgrade to 5.0.0 the battery all of a suddend laster over 2 days, then the there was another update and the battery lasted less than a day and the re-booting started.

Initially re-booting seemed to accurr when there was low signal strength.

I had the SIM replaced as whenever I weat to any Vodofone apps clicking on a mene item did nothing....then after a long period the iphone rebooted.

Im going ino the George St (SYD) shop to get it sorted, I would like to revert to ios 3

I have not had to resort to Apple support before, i see this as an Apple software issue the amount of time spent without any resolution is pathetic. Apple is defintly going to loose market support.

Now with the lack of flash on my ipad2 and this unresolved or explained issue i think it is time to look to android for my next hardeware purchase

I've given up on Apple products. I once thought they were the greatest thing on earth, but now it's like the crappiest thing on earth. iOS 5 was the worst thing to happen. They RIM is bad for not releasing OS 2 for their playbook, at least they stuck to something that works! I had a 3GS, now I swear by my 9860 Torch!

Here is a list of problems that I've had since iOS5

- apps from iOS4 days stopped working (purchased app no less)

- my GPS gets stuck in on mode every other day

- my bluetooth will not sync with my car on a daily basis unless i restart the bluetooth on the phone

- SUPER lag / delays when i text, (i can finish typing a whole sentence before it even appears on screen)

The 4 things I listed are things that I can remember, and impacts me everyday. I don't even know why I'm wasting my time to see if I can make this better.