iOS 6 woes: too many apps the culprit?

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iOS 6 woes: too many apps the culprit?

Ever since I upgraded to iOS 6, I've been having nothing but problems with my iPod Touch 4 gen: App Store and other apps crash a little bit here and there and as time goes on (like a day or two), everything starts crashing. Once this happens, my iPod will spontaneously reboot and go into a boot loop. Also, if I turn off or reboot my iPod Touch, it will also go into a boot loop. I've let the battery drain to see if that gets it out of the boot loop but it does not. My only option is to restore in iTunes. It restores, works for a day or two but then the app crashes occur again and it reboots on its own. Rinse and repeat. I have restored my device 7 times now and I'm really getting frustrated! Most of the info I could find on boot loops involve jailbroken devices but my device is not jailbroken and never has been jailbroken so that's not the issue. It also worked just fine prior to iOS 6.

Now, I have a lot of apps and I do mean A LOT. As in 1,250 apps installed all in folders (yeah, I'm a free app hoarder and a sucker for games) so a restore takes about 6 hours. This makes it tedious to experiment with different settings if a boot is required (like resetting network settings and the like). I read that the beta version of iOS 6 had a virtual limit on the number of apps it supported but was fixed before the final release. My friend has roughly the same amount of apps on his iPad and his device is working just fine so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree (or it's a problem unique to iPods). Still, I'm thinking the number of apps could be the issue because the device reboots a couple times as part of the restore process and does not get stuck in a boot loop then; it's only after everything is restored that things go kaplooey!

I have been trying to go through my apps to clear off ones I do not want to keep, but I've got about 1 GB of space free on the device so I'm thinking, why shouldn't I be able to have as many installed as I want if there is enough space to store them? After all, iOS 5 was able to handle that many (as well as the version before that). If I restore the device as new, then I'll have to spend a mega amount of time selecting all the apps to restore, store in folders, etc.

Has anyone else with a large amount of apps gotten their iPod Touch to work properly under iOS 6? I'd like to rule out other things before having to start from scratch as that would not be fun! Any other advice aside from setting my iPod Touch up as a new device?

iPod touch, iOS 6

Posted on Oct 1, 2012 7:47 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 2, 2012 7:15 AM in response to MrsKryten

Your only option is to reset to factory settings, set the device up as a new device and DO NOT SYNCH ANYTHING.

Make sure the device works with a clean slate first, and then go back to iTunes and start putting apps on ONE AT A TIME. I know this is going to be a pain, but you have to break your old habits, and I'd wager an adult beverege you have apps that you never use.

Its time to clean house....

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Answer 2

MrsKryten Author

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Oct 3, 2012 1:02 AM in response to cliftonfromrichmond

I hear ya, but I'm not ready to throw the towel in just yet. 🙂 I am actually making some progress. I started testing out my huge stash of games tonight and deleted some along the way. While I was testing one game, my iPod froze and rebooted and started to do the boot loop thing again. Argh! But then it made it to the passcode screen for a few seconds before it rebooted (it hasn't done that before).

Encouraged by this new development, I kept hard resetting my iPod until it finally booted properly to where I could enter my passcode. I deleted some more apps and backed up. I then went to reset network settings because I've been having issues with Wi-Fi at work and wanted to see if that would fix things (assuming I could get my device to boot properly). It went through the boot loop process again but after several hard resets, I was able to enter my passcode and was back in business.

I've deleted about 35 apps tonight leaving me with 1,219 and 1.2 GB free. Yeah, that's still a crazy amount of apps, but at least I'm able to get into my iPod after a reboot (or two or three or four...) without having to restore. I'm curious to see if things stabilize further as I delete more apps. I'm not sure why iOS 6 has issues with the number of apps if iOS 4 and 5 did not, but at least I didn't have to spend another six hours restoring my iPod today. Baby steps...

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Answer 3

avatrx

Level 1

8 points

Nov 18, 2012 12:24 PM in response to cliftonfromrichmond

I have a similar issue. every time I update the software - my device(s) go into a recovery loop. The only fix is to run my IREB software which recovers it.

This happened all the time on my Ipod Touch 3rd gen and I just bought the Ipod Touch 5th generation and it's doing the same thing.

There MUST be a way to overcome this. Do I need to uninstall and reinstall ITUNES? It has to be something within my system that is causing this. At one point I did the jailbreak on my old Touch but restored it since it was just an experiment and there wasn't really any advantage for me to continue using the jailbreak system.

Woud that have caused the problem and if so, what is the cure?

Every time it asks me if I want to update the software - I hesitate since I know I'll have to run the IREB software. That does restore everything, apps and all - but it's such a pain. I have both free and paid apps on here. I don't know how paid apps get handled if you have to restore to factory and install as a new device (which I thought I did when I bought the new one).

I gave my 3rd generation to my daughter for her son for Christmas. I'll be curious to see if he has the same issues, but until then - any suggestions? This is such a pain..........

thanks,

-susie

ssarge@owc.net

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