Signal Search Loop in iOS 5.0.1

As bad luck would have it, my wife's 4S just started the signal search loop again. This is after the 2nd genius bar visit and a guess that the problem was a provisioning issue from AT&T. As stated above, the genius verified ICCID and IMEI numbers with AT&T and ask that the phone get re-provisioned. That visit was on 12/31 and today the signal search loop problem returned. My wife reset network settings on the phone and still the signal search loop remained. She then did a reset all settings and still the signal search loop remained. She'll restore the phone when she gets home which we know is only a temporary solution. We have a 3rd genius visit scheduled for Sunday.......3rd time's a charm right?

My wife had her 3rd appt with he Genius bar today for her ongoing signal search loop problem. For those keeping score at home, she has a 4s running 5.0.1. Look above and you'll see the timeline for our signal search problems. Today Genius Zach O. was her helper. Zach did a reset all settings on her phone even though it was working at the time (she had restored on 1/6 to correct her most recent looping problem). Zach also suggested that she stop using her Sony alarm clock charging station because it might not be compatible with the 4s. Zach said that she should power off/on her device at least once a day in case there was some memory leak causing this problem. She left the Genius Bar as she entered, with a working phone.

About an hour later while on her way home from the Genius bar, her phone went back into signal search loop. There is an AT&T store 2 miles from our house so she stopped in there to see if they could offer any assistance. Granted now she is so frustrated by all these problems that she can barely speak. The AT&T guy did a "erase all content and reset all settings" putting her phone back to out of box condition. They called apple and scheduled another genius bar appt for Tuesday 1/10. The AT&T guy asked her not to sync it with her computer. He put all her contacts back on it so she can use the phone as normal but asked that she not put back her apps or music. He believes there is something corrupt in her iTunes profile that's causing the problem.

As she was dealing with this problem on her phone, my phone (iPhone 4) also went back into signal search loop. Just to double check troubleshooting steps, I did a reset network settings followed by reset all settings. neither of these resulted in the problem going away. I'm currently going through another restore to get my phone working again.

Oh, I forgot to mention that on Saturday 1/7, my wife called AT&T because she was still having the signal search loop problem. She eventually got escalated to a "technical expert" who wasn't able to remedy the problem but he did acknowledge that he gets about 5 calls a day from iPhone users with this same problem. So there are others out there having the same problem, I hope it's enough to get Apple's attention so they provide a software correction.

Signal search loop returned today for me 1/19 and yesterday for my wife 1/18. I've given up seeking help from either AT&T or Apple and just go back to the restore process to get my phone up and running as quickly as possible. Major pain in the rear but what else can a person do. My wife on the other hand is well known by both Apple and AT&T. Last night she had a long call with AT&T and they decided to send us a femtocell box to improve the 3G signal strength in our house. They are suggesting that because of the weak signal in our area the phone is constantly bouncing between towers and this is causing the problem. Could be a valid theory since the 3G service at our house is very weak. I don't quite buy it because I'm not at home this week and have been in a strong service area this whole week. But I'm happy to have the femtocell in our house to improve our home service quality. There is nothing that gets my wife's blood boiling faster than seeing her phone go into the signal search loop. I don't know how much longer she will remain an iPhone user.

It's odd that both of our phones consistently experience this problem within a day or two of each other and this happens no matter where we are geographically located. Meaning we've both been in the same city when it's happened and we've been in separate cities and both experience the problem within a 24-48 hour period of the other. Equally as odd, neither of our kids phones has ever experienced the problem.

Breaking news, my wife's phone is back to signal search loop after being restored yesterday. She's on the phone with AT&T who now has provided her with an "enhanced iTunes" install. Not yet sure what that will do but will report back as I learn more.

Phone just went back to signal search loop. At the very moment it reentered the loop, I learned a friend of mine with a Droid was sending me an MMS message. I didn't recieve the MMS and the phone started signal search looping. He did the same thing to my wife's phone and her's also entered signal search loop.

Looks like we have some MMS problem between a Verizon Droid and AT&T iphone.

Last night I was at dinner with my "droid" friend, the same one that I believe was causing my phone to crash with MMS messages. I changed my settings so that MMS was turned off and asked him to send me a pic via text. Of course, the MMS text didn't come through but the most important thing is my phone didn't go into signal search loop.

Anyone repeatidly experiencing this problem, I recommend turning off MMS messaging. Small price to pay for phone stability until AT&T and/or Apple resolve the issue.

So far, I have had no issues with MMS turned off. I've even had my droid friend send me several messages to test and none have triggered signal search loop. My wife turned MMS back on today and our friend sent her a MMS and her phone immediately went back to signal searching loop. We even had AT&T on the phone with us while doing this verification test. AT&T has opened a case for this problem.

The thing about the message coming in that triggers the signal search loop is the iPhone recipient never has any indication the message is trying to be delivered. It never arrives to the phone and the sender doesn't know it failed to be delivered. Basically nobody knows a problem has occurred except for the iPhone user who's phone is now stuck in a signal search loop.

For those of you experiencing the problem where you believe it's triggered from a droid friend sending you an MMS message, ask your droid friend whether or not they are using the standard droid messenger or a messaging application called Chomp? My friend is able to send me MMS messages using the standard droid messaging app but when he uses Chomp either the message doesn't come through or it triggers the signal search loop.

I'm curious about the possibility of the Chomp messaging app being a contributor to the overall issue.