Q: My iphone 5 suddenly died.

I have tried everything in here with no luck.

Here's what's going on:

iphone 5 running iOs9, most recent updates.

A few weeks ago, started giving me a pop-up error saying "this accessory not supported" when it wasn't even plugged in.  Cleaned out the lightning port with both a pin and a bit of alcohol.  Completely free of lint or anything.

A few days ago, it started shutting down randomly.  When I would plug it in, it would act as if it had no charge, giving me the red battery icon.  Once plugged in it would immediately say anywhere from 80% to 100% charged, but when I unplugged would instantly shut down.  Now it won't even start up when it's plugged in.  Occasionally, if it hasn't been plugged in for a while, when I plug it in I get 1) the red battery 2) the apple logo 3) complete shut-down after about five seconds.   Have tried multiple charges, eve a brand new one.

Can't start in recovery mode, holding both buttons doesn't work, even tried the semi-legit toggling of the mute button and volume buttons.  Nothing.   Completely bricked.

Any thoughts?

OK, so when you hold both the Home and Power buttons down, are you holding them down for up to 30 seconds?

If not, then hold them down until the Apple appears, which can take up to 30 seconds.

If so, then follow the steps in this article. which essentially start with the same steps as above, but if you are able to get the Apple logo with it hooked up to iTunes, then continue to follow the steps to recover and restore it.

If none of those work, then your best bet is to visit the nearest Apple Store to see if they can determine the issue. Going forward, if you are cleaning out any ports on your device, I would strongly recommend that you do not use alcohol or any other liquid form of cleaning. Just compressed air, a soft clean toothbrush, or a toothpick.

Best of luck,

GB

Works for me. But I am just kinda confused. Recently my home button stopped working so I really didn't expect this would work (home + sleep wake button trick). So my question is... does this mean my home button is still working? Because now that my Iphone 5 is functional again, my home button is really not working. Sorry for my bad English.

Did not help me. I've had an issue with my 5S shutting off for no reason for over a week now but I was able to restart it each time (before last week it had never happened). Now it's dead as a doornail. No charge icon on screen, nothing.

Toggling the "mute" button a couple of times helped, along with pressing the "sleep" and "home" buttons (simultaneously). Really strange--so far this only happened when I had the phone on "silent" mode.

Well I panicked, saw this and it worked.

Why on earth would this happen?

Do we know?

Thank you soo much.

Does your phone have Find My iPhone turned on, and do you have a recent iCloud backup? If you do, then you can try erasing your device remotely via Find My iPhone on iCloud.com. If you can get it erased, then you could first try charging it to see if it will charge. Then set it up as New and work with it for a few hours to see if the problem returns. If it returns, then it is very possible that your software was corrupted and you will have to "re-build" your device by re-downloading apps and music, syncing Contacts, Calendars, etc. with iCloud.

If the problem continues, then that would indicate a hardware problem, and you will need to take it to Apple to have it evaluated. It is easiest to make a Genius appointment and take it in, but you can also send it in for evaluation. If you are not able to erase it remotely, then I would suggest you do the same thing.

Best of luck,

GB