iPhone 4 facetime not working

DJN my 4S has had the problem and I've heard others say theirs does as well

Catriaa,

I believe your experiencing the "relay" problem on your 4S. The problem I experience on my iPhone 4 never being is able to connect at all let alone make a poor performing connection.

I still believe there is a rogue app causing the problem on the iPhone 4/IOS 6.3.1

For your last question, they are both using the husband's Apple ID for FaceTime.

Settings > Facetime > Use Apple ID for Facetime

And as far as it being caused solely by iOS? I don't have a 'dedicated Facetime server', and I have no issues with either my 4 or 5. Both have the most up to date iOS. If it was caused solely by the iOS, then my phones would be affected as well.

The same symptom can have different root causes in different devices.

Think of it like this: You and I both have a headache, in the same place; right side above the ear

Mine is caused by an ear infection.

Yours is caused by dehydration.

Same symptom; different root cause; different treatment.

yes DJN you are correct....however, back in July and another earlier time, I had absolutely NO connection at all, for days. I have it now, but broken (and truly, don't know if I've lost it on days I haven't used it. this past month I have used it at least twice a day, rarely without having to reconnect due to faulty static on the connection)

when I did lose the ability to connect completely, once it was only to Greece, London worked well. The rest of the time it was to everywhere, even local (Southern California, for now)

TJBUSMC - sorry, I've lost the trail. Is there a possibility Apple IDs are involved? If I have the wrong end of the stick, no problem. It's a heavy comms day here and I may just have gotten lost on that issue.

thank you both

How do you do your manual Sync from iTunes?

Because I dont see how it can restore FaceTime working, uness you actually do a restore to a previous date..

what am I missing?

I was and still am planning on getting the next iPhone, be it 5S or whatever. When that happens, I'm giving my 4 to my 14 year old daughter, which will be reset to factory settings with a fresh version of iOS. So I'm not going to go through a factory reset right now for just a couple of months. However, this situation is extremely frustrating. How come no Apple dedicated sites have reported this? Anyone know someone at Mac Rumors? TUAW? Apple Insider? 9 to 5 Mac? CNET? Etcetera? It's quite mind boggling... Almost 26 000 views for this tread!

Apple IDs, because they can link to Facetime, could cause some issues. The best way to test would be to create two, temporary Apple IDs, and use those on two devices, one that has the issue, one that does not. If Facetime works all of a sudden, then that suggests there's an issue with Apple IDs.

Worth a shot IMHO.

Because it's not such a prevelant issue to demand that level of attention. It's a very minor issue, in terms of the number of devices it affects.

And the number of views isn't the same as the number of people that have viewed the thread. Each time you or I or anyone else look at this thread, that number increases.

ok TJBUSMC1973 forgive the slowness on my part today. It's worth creating a new Apple ID for our iPhone and testing connecting using that one? How do the ID's affect connectivity? I don't understand the technical connection there, but if it is worth a try.....

If an Apple ID was disabled for some reason, I can see how that could cause issues on the servers, but I'm not sure exactly how.

But a basic step in troubleshooting is deductive logic. Using a fresh Apple ID either confirms or removes Apple IDs as a root cause.

I have had the same problem since mid July on an iPhone 4 with vodafone in the UK. Literally, with no changes made that I can recall, facetime stopped working over night. Just keeps saying connection failed.

I have tried all the various resets, been to an apple store and spent hours on apple telephone support. None of which have worked.

I have tried other people's wifi which didn't work.

I tried scrubbing the phone to new and restoring from a backup via iTunes. All this did was reinstall the problem.

It can't be an issue with my apple ID as FaceTime works with it on my iPad.

I scrubbed the phone and without restoring from an iTunes backup or icloud I signed back in to icloud to merge my contacts and such like. After setting the phone up I tried facetime and it worked.

Next I tried syncing my apps and resyncing my photos. After this facetime stopped working again with the same connection failed message.

I then deleted my photos again and still facetime didn't work.

After all this I have come to the conclusion that the problem is App or App & iOS related. I have too many Apps for me to one by one reinstall and try facetime. I would be there for days doing this.

It's a really really frustrating problem.

You're going to have to reinstall them in batches, then. Pick 5 to reinstall, then test the issue. If Facetime works, those 5 are fine. Pick 5 more, and install. Repeat until you discover which app is causing the issue.

Yup, it's a pain in the keister, but that's the way it is.

Anyone here have any idea what rates as a serious enough problem for Apple to admit it? You may remember many issues cropping up in the past and there must have been literally millions of people who had the problem (Original iPhone reception problem with antennagate) before Apple recogizes it.

This Facetime thing must not be affecting that many people. Cupla hundred thousand?

I've been Using apple products since 1987. A real fan. Think of myself as a member of "the apple community." Sort of feels strangely weird and cozy here among fellow Apple users suffering together...

Knowing that the new phones and the new iOS are around the corner ready to save us. That we just have to hang tight together.

Yes I know I'm weird.

My guess? At least 1% of total users that could potentially have the problem. (i.e., they won't count 3G users for issues with iOS 6.)

Hi pdimee

From following this thread and from my own experience of the prolonged (not temporary) no connectivity issue, I think it's a hardware/app or app data/iOS interaction. Specifically on the hardware, I see a lot of comments from near launch iPhone4 owners.