My iPhone 4s won't shut off, it just restarts itself after a second

I had the same issues with my iphone 4s turing itself back on, only being able to turn it off while conected to my computer, sound issues and the diminished battery life. I tried hard resetting, wiping the phone, cleaning with brush, compressed air, etc.

Finally, I took my phone into the genius bar today. First I was told it had water damage becuase the indicators were red. However, after opening, they confirmed there was no water damage. Evidently this is a design flaw and there is a class action suit regarding it. He then told me the power up issue was a "board" issue. When I questioned him regarding numerous sites identifying bad dock connectors exhibiting these same issues he told me that it was untrue and that they did not replace dock connectors. I was told to either purchase a new phone for $200 (starting my contract with AT&T over again, no thanks!) or deal with it. I explained that for my work, I need to be able to power the phone completely off becuase it interferes with the signals at my work. (Him telling me I was wrong and having to explain to him that I've been doing my job for 30 years and knew what I was talking about, was a whole other issue!)

I next took my 4s to a cell phone repair shop. I told them what the "genius" said and what my research had shown. They told me it was either a battery issue or the dock connector issue, as I suspected. After taking it apart, it was confirmed to be the dock connector. I had the connector replaced and my iPhone 4s was good as new 30 minutes and $50 later.

If you are out of warrenty, have done your research and have tried all the simple fixes listed, please check out a reputable repair shop before purchasing a new iPhone or "dealing" with it.

My iPhone was doing the same - just switching back on. I took it to the apple shop and they reset my phone but that didn't work either.

What did work was turning it off when it was connected to a charger, leaving it for a couple of hours with the charger connected but still switched off then taking the charger out and then switching it back on. It now switches off and does not switch itself back on! Yippee hope it works for it too.

Here's something odd & something that worked for me. I had the problem for a couple weeks plus battery drain. I was trying to think of what I had added to the phone recently. I have a webcam app (Foscam Pro) to view cameras at my house remotely. I have had one camera on there for a while. No issues. I just added a second camera (different model from first), and all seemed to worked fine. But that's when it all started. I just deleted that second camera & now my phone turns off again. I'll try adding it back in the future, but finally got the phone to turn off for the first time in weeks.

I tried everything from a reset to cleaning the charging contact. I also tried to pare own my motivations to the bare minimum, but nothing, NOTHING worked. I then decided to examine the notifications again by going to Settings>General>Notifications and decided to look further. I saw something at the bottom of the page that I never seen before ...a set of two notifications labeled "Government Alerts." One was for an Amber Alert and the other was for some kind of emergency. I figured what he heck and turned off both of these unnoticed notifications, and my phone started tuning off normally again. Hope his works for you too.

This is somewhat completely unrelated, but is there anyway to clean my speakers? I have an iPhone 4s and i had a chocolate peanut butter candy in my bag and it opened and the peanut butter got everywhere in my speakers.I Think it is just the surface, but i don't know how to clean it.. On full volume it sounds like it is on the first or second level. This is very annoying and could you help at all?? I would really appreciate ANY advice.

~Brittany

That had happened to my phone too! I never even accepted putting that in notification center. The Amber alert is when there is a missing child, and government center is something with all the other alerts (thanks Internet) just figured i would tell you!

I have same symptoms. I thoroughly leaned the dock connector and its much better but still won't shut down.

Apple store said it was a hardware problem and wanted $199 to replace.

The problem seems to be the iPhone thinks its in a dock, like an audio unit, when it isn't. As a result all sounds except ring are silenced in the phone and the volume control disappears. It also doesn't go to sleep properly, hence short battery life. You can confirm its misjudgment by going to Music and pressing the airplay button. It will show the phone playing through the dock and no choice to select the phone.

I got it to correct itself by plugging it into a dock and then removing it. On AirPlay the dock choice disappeared and iPhone came back. Still wont shut down but audio and batt life problems gone.

I cleaned the dock using a lighted magnifier with a toothpick, tissue on end with alcohol, and air. I removed lint, some insect bodies, and 2 pine needles. Phone has never been wet and apple store agreed. Of course I live in Oregon, so everything is kinda wet

I had the same issues - major battery drain, usage time being just about equal to standby time, and the phone automatically turning back on when I tried to shut it off.

First, I did the toothbrush and compressed air clean, and it didn't do anything. Apple told me the battery was fine,and they didn't know why it was doing what it was doing, but I was out of warrantee, so there was nothing they could do.

Based on the above thread, I decided to try to get the connecter dock replaced. Did it last night at the mall for $40, charged my phone completely, and left it unplugged all night. Woke up with 96%, and a nice large gap between my usage and standby time!

Thanks all for the help!

definitivamente es el conector 😀 , luego de probar todos los metodos de limpieza y mover de un lado a otro la ficha conectada , ahora apaga y tambien aparece la raya de volumen !! no se den por vencidos !! saludos y gracias !!!

This worked for me. I did have to really clean it and I tried three times before it worked. I really had to scrub harder than I wanted to. Thanks for the help.🙂

I had this problem and the battery was draining very quickly.

The solution? I replaced the dock connector/charging port. Less than 4 UK Pounds - as long as you don't mind taking your phone apart.

This worked!

I found the pure answer to all of this! Go to Settings>General>Backround App Refresh, and turn it completely off. You will then be able to turn the phone off, and it saves battery.

So I had the same problems.

Phone wouldn't turn off

When it turned on sound was screwy and didn't work correctly

Battery drained really fast

I tried cleaning the docking connector

Turning off all notifications

Deleting all new apps

This happened out of no where with ios 7 being on there for a while so I was pretty sure the update wasn't the problem

After reading all the comments here I took my phone to a local repair shop and replaced the charging dock for $40

Instantly the phone will turn off with no issues and the sound worked

After I charged the phone it holds a charge and is back to new.

So if Apple wants $200 def look up local repair shops to change it and ur phone should be back to normal :)

Good luck!

Cleaning the port of the device also worked for me. Very strange fix but luckly easy to do.

I was also having this problem with my iPhone 4S. Usage and standby times were exactly the same, battery was draining rapidly, and the phone would instantly reboot whenever I tried switching it off. For me though, the problem began after I dropped my phone in water - it was only in there for literally a second and I dried it out using the rice trick immediately. The phone never switched off or had any speaker problems etc and everything still worked fine apart from the issues above.

After reading similar problems on forums etc it sounded as though my issues were caused by a dock connector problem and the fact that the pins may be 'shorting'. I tried cleaning the port with a dry toothbrush but this didn't solve anything and I was still having the same problems.

However, I decided to try cleaning the port again last night as a last-ditch attempt. I used a big fat paintbrush with hard bristles and really went to town on the pins on the connector. I scrubbed way harder than I really wanted to and did this for about 5 minutes straight.

Voila - my phone is now working properly again! Usage and standby times are different and I can now switch off the phone without it rebooting.

Hope this works for a few others - remember, scrub HARD!