My wife's iPhone 4 kept freezing up ever since she downloaded iOS6 and included a few instances of the screen going black. This morning it froze again after a reboot, it when to an iOS6 screen and said to connect to iTunes; it have been completely unresponsive ever since. Anyone seen this kind of catastrophic problem?
iPhone 4, iOS 6
This is not a catastrophic problem. A catastrophic problem is civillians dying in a war.
Restore your phone as a NEW device, NOT from backup.
Geopolitical modern warfare aside;
Unfortuantely, the phone is comletely dead except for responding to DFU mode with iTunes. The only option provided is recovery mode and restore, which is hlated with the following message, "iPhone counld not be restored unknown error (1601)", the phone makes no sounds, the display never responds, and we are not running any security software. I never get to the option of restoring from backup.
Really gdgmaguy? This is your idea of providing help with your vast array of knowledge? Post a sarcastic comment and then retreat into the ether not to be heard from again?
That was pretty bizarre, wasn't it. I think any rational person would understand I was talking about a catastrophic failure, not a human tragedy. Maybe he was having a bad day; mine was the day of the post.
Anyway, here is how it ended Apple Support helped me as far as the previous post; the Apple Store mad me wait an hour and a half without an appointment, then could only try the exact same thing. With the phone 80 days out of warranty; they couldn’t help, except to offer a replacement for $149. The Apple Tech admitted mine wasn’t the first he had seen, there have been quite a few and was not about to upgrade his 3GS, because he could afford to replace it.
Since I have warned everyone I know with an iPhone to beware of iOS6 and most report freezing problems with iOS6. I have contacted a few prominent tech bloggers to see what they have heard about it.
Apple needs to step up and take some responsibility; I am definitely losing faith.
Hi, so cool of you to post the rest of your story. Awesome. Thank you, I've rarely seen that except for the few who actually got results from one of the suggested remedies. I'll share some of mine with you. But first, I must say after clicking send and thinking about it, I hoped my post didn't irritate you as I didn't include a word regarding your question. I'm sorry that you're one of the majority and hope you become part of the lucky minority that managed to get back the full use of their phone and recovered the lost data. It's only been 21 days and I am not giving up yet. :)
Anyway, my story, I warn you, this could go on for a spell. I have spent everyday since the release of iOS 6 online or on the phone (not mine) and twice at each of the two Apple Stores looking for a solution to bring my phone back to life and retrieve all my lost data now that my phone has been brutally assaulted by this upgrade. Geniuses tried and failed and tried to sell me a new one. Since then Ive been trying to find any other Apple consumers that discovered some sort of fix to the many and remarkably varied issues that arose, if not right at the moment the upgrade completed then it was going haywire within a day of it. I keep running into a weird wall of denial from many of these self proclaimed apple user experts. After fifteen days of solid research I reached my limit yesterday and finally posted in a thread here (see link below if you're interested) and called them out on it. My dismay at the astonishing lack of empathy these experts show for the multitudes of consumers I've been reading about. The condescension and accusatory comments like "user error" and the fanatically faithful practically shouting in complete defense of the upgrade and Apple as a whole. I've come across it over and over. And once a comment that even if there were a hundred thousand phones bricked as a result of the upgrade, it would be considered insignificant when compared to the 250 million iPhone users (not including the 5), and certainly not worth any time or attention from Apple. If the users can't find a fix on their own they should just get new phones.
Well, after my post, and their responses to it I was angry enough to deviate from my quest for knowledge to find more threads where these guys were posting similar replies to other unsuspecting answer seekers, which led me here, and now here we are. I should get some sleep and continue the search tomorrow. Good luck to you!
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4386717?start=0&tstart=0
Here is the latest. After sitting on the shelf for a few days and the battery draining completely, I was suprized to be able to enter and complete restore mode. The display came back to life, but the phone failed to boot the OS. The screen was stuck on the Apple logo. Went through restore once more and the phone finally booted to where settings and apps were working, but still very buggy. The phone shuts itself off, then doesnt power up. On a full charge, it seems to be unresponsive and DFU is only possible when starting from a dead battery. Today, it did a restore, but never finished the verifying firmware to where the phone would boot.
I honestly doubt this issue is related to iOS 6 itself. Go to Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage > Diagnostic & Usage Data. Any crashes? Those processes might be the culprit.
Well, after restoring the device a few more times; it seems that the phone is normal except for that after it is turned off or it turns itself off, it doesn't turn back on again. If I ever get it to boot again, I will check it if it doesnt go dead after is turns off.
Going from bad to worse: I thought perfroming the restore over and over eventually something might take. Encountered two episodes where the phone shut down only to find it a couple minutes later with the vibration going wide open, first time with a dim lit screen, second time with a dim red screen. Now the phone has a red halo that appears whenever the display is lit. Couldn't do anything to turn it off when this happened, only complete battery drain could stop it. APPLE'S REP IS GOIN DOWN FAST.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY CRAZY! AS DIFFICULT AS THIS HAS BEEN WITH THE PHONE BEING COMPLETELY UNSTABLE WHEN IT DID BOOT AND MOST OF THE TIME NEVER BOOTING NORMALLY OR BEING ABLE TO TURN BACK ON AFTER TURNING OFF.
I HAVE RESTORED THIS PHONE A DOZEN TIMES ALL ENDING BADLY. UNTIL I DID THE FOLLOWING:
IF YOU CAN GET THE PHONE TO BOOT, IMMEDIATELY GO TO <SETTINGS>, <GENERAL>, <RESET>, THEN RESET ALL SETTINGS. I WAS ABLE TO TURN THE PHONE OFF AND ON, POWER DOWN RESTART. UNFORTUNATELY, AS SOON AS I STARTED WRITING THIS POST, THE LOCK SCREEN APPEARS AND DOESN'T RESPOND, BUT THIS IS A **** OF A LOT BETTER THAN WHAT IT WAS DOING.
I AM CONVINCED THIS IS NOT A HADWARE ISSUE, THIS IS A THOROUGHLY F@#*ED UP SOFTWARE RELEASE!
I AM GOING TO TRY A DOWNGRADE; I WILL LET YOU KNOW.
It appears that the problem IS RELATED TO IOS6! I am flabbergasted by the advice that I have seen from some of these high level rated users, who despite their rating don't really know what they are talking about. This isn't necessarily direct at you jobsfan. I looked at a number of 'helpful' comments gdgmacguy provided for others and he really needs to get a life.
I HAVE SOLVED THE PROBLEM FOR MY FORMERLY DEAD IPHONE and you people were zero help.
Understand that this iPhone 4's problems began with the upgrade of iOS6. The idea that hardware failure occurring during an upgrade as merely a coincidence is the most ignorant and uninformed statement I have ever heard. Hardware CAN fail as a result of malware and BAD CODE, but to make such a statement with so little information is irresponsible. Two weeks after the download, this phone became a brick, except for DFU mode. Over the past week, I have run the restore 35-40 times, with mixed results, but always ending with the phone not booting or failing to power up after booting, then being turned off. The madness included a couple episodes of the phone acting possessed. Vibrating with a lit screen and no way to shut it off until the battery died.
I tried something suggested on the boards that was related to a less severe issue.
Once I got the phone to boot again, I went to <Settings> <Reset> And <Reset All Settings>. The phone rebooted and worked for several hours before crapping out again. It took another dozen restore attempts before the phone would actually boot again. This included downloading iOS6 fresh from
http://ipswdownload.com/. It did not solve the problem either. After getting the phone to boot again, I went back to <Settings> <Reset> And <Reset All Settings>, then I also did the <Erase All Content and Settings>. The phone has been fully functional for over 24 hours. The Diagnostics & Usage Log has about 5 dozen entries of crashes, but the phone powers off and powers on like normal and is no longer a brick.
So, what conclusions can be made? iOS 6 on my wife's new 4S worked fine for a couple days before dying, then some update she did that I do not have the details to straightened it out. The problem may not be totally the fault of the OS, but somewhere in the upgrade code routine. The firmware and software updates are failing to completely clear registers, buffers or memory. You would think Apple Tech Support or Engineering would have figured this out by now. It only took me 1 week of experimentation. If you are having problems with iOS 6, I suggest patenience, persistance and <Reset All Settings> <Erase All Content and Settings>.
Hey MiJoLewis! Good for you, this is my first time logging in to this forum in 11 days. Boy you sure don't give up! And wasn't stevejobsfan a helpful apple user Samaritan! I gave my phone to a friend 10 days ago and am still waiting to hear how he's coming along with it. I've copied your post and will email it to him and everyone else I know that is having issues. There are several threads in here, one of which had almost a thousand views and over a hundred posts, regarding upgrade woes of various sorts, would you mind if I posted your suggestions over there?
Sorry for the delayed response; I was out of the country last week and this forum would not let me log in on my mobile. Feel free to disseminate my findings as much as possible. I went back to the local Apple store and explained it to the tech's there, so they could help others. They seemed pretty stymied by these type of failures and were glad to have some suggestions. I meant to call back the Apple Support line but been too busy.
Thanks for replying and no biggy on the delay. I've been hanging out on a couple other threads with a similar topic and just today I read some posts where users actually got an acknowledgement from an Apple employee that they are aware of this issue and some even got replacement phones. So...progress. Yay.
Was having an issue with my 3gs after the IOS 6 upgrade. Wouldnt see or connect to any wireless network. Raised support calls with Apple but got the feeling that with my phone being 600+ days beyond warranty, (Was reminded of this SEVERAL times during the call), that they wasnt really interested despite that it was working fine on 5.1.
Anyway, after reading several pages of people experiencing the same issues, I bit the bullet and invested a small fortune in replacing the Wireless antenna, (£2.15 from ebay), and this has solved the problem.
The conspiracy side of my brain is now asking is this a tactical ploy by apple to force us that like our older phones the purcahse newer ones???
iphone 4 killed by iOS6
