iPhone 4 facetime not working

Update. I did a factory restore and did not restore from backup. Enabled all iCloud settings. Facetime now works. I am now adding all my apps and music etc. back to my phone. I took screen shoots of everything that was on there (over 200 apps) I will be weeding some of them out. I will post another update after all is back on the phone.

Thanks will try this as spent 4 weeks pulling out my hair as could not speak to my folkes back in SanFran!

Update:

After talking with an Apple representative on the phone they had me run through a rather scripted procedure:

1. reset network settings
2. turn on and off FaceTime
3. Link FaceTime with our Apple ID
4. test with another iPhone user
5. Go set up a second Apple ID and test that one.

Nothing worked. We set up a follow up call a few hours later while I test a second Apple ID

Eventually, I resorted to a factory restore. I turned iCloud back on and turned FaceTime on.

It WORKS!!! (It works with and without an Apple ID.)

We did not test the Restore From Backup. We are too exhausted to go there. We need FaceTime to work. We use it a lot to keep our kids in contact with family.

Aaarrrrrggg. Not a subtle fix.

Add me to the chorus of iPhone 4 users who can't use FaceTime. I'm in Alberta on Telus 15.0 carrier settings and iOS7.

I checked my FaceTime logs today, and my last successful FaceTime chat was July 9, 2013.

I didn't make/receive any FT calls since then until today, and got the same "Connecting..." or "FaceTime Call Failed" error messages that have been mentioned in the thread.

I'm not going to restore the factory settings because my iPhone 4 is off contract and I'm upgrading to the 5S soon.

Here's my question: if I restore my iPhone 4 backup to my 5S, will I lose FaceTime on that?

I experienced this exact same thing. FaceTime on my iPhone 4 stopped working in July etc.

Like previous folks, I did a "Restore iPhone" from iTunes, and FaceTime worked fine once again.

I wanted to add, that I then when a step further, and I hit "Restore Backup." Sadly, FaceTime stopped working. Beware of the Backup; it seems that's where the problem lies.

iPhone 4 is back up and running after full restore and manually putting everything I want back on it, without doing a restore from backup. FACETIME WORKS!!!! WOOHOO!!! Hope the rest of you have the same luck.

Just got an iphone 5s yesterday and I can confirm FaceTime works, even after restoring from backup.

I had been looking forward to iOS 7 hoping that either there would be a bug fix for this issue or it would have the effect of doing a full restore had for other people. I tested Facetime today and it still doesn't work. And to top it off, now my Bluetooth link to my car is broken like a lot of other people I've found. I didn't even get a one step forward to get two steps back on this.

That's really interesting that restoring your backup onto your new 5S doesn't break facetime. That indicates that the problem is with the 4 and that there isn't anything inherently wrong or corrupted with the backup file. That lends more support to the theory that this is only affecting devices in the lawsuit.

Andrew......trouble is, I have a 4S and it had months of FaceTime headaches, also.....the lawsuit is in the American courts, correct? International phones are having the connection problem as well. As someone else mentioned the 5 series will most likely get caught up in the lawsuit as well. Do we assume the 5 series is still using the original portal for FaceTime and not switched to Relays?

What I would like is to just have an answer from Apple about THEIR product. I wonder, any of you who have done the full restore etc that they demand, and still do not have FaceTime, have you followed up with them for what the next potential problem is in their opinion?

somehow this needs national attention to a defective product. that is the only way to get Apple's attention

Is there some way of registering a complaint with Apple from the UK without it costing me money...it seems you have to pay for any customer service contact!

This is so ridiculous I can't believe they have not sorted it out yet and I am reluctant to factory restore my phone given that this does not seem to solve the problem 100% of the time!

Thank god I've finally found what this issue is. This happened to my iPhone 4 recently. I cannot pinpoint exactly when it stopped working but it was around the time I did a restore from backup to try and solve a battery issue I had. Facetime has not worked since. Tried everything like turning on/off, soft reset, changes DNS settings and nothing. I thought upgrading to ios7 would fix it but hasn't.

When I restored my phone I had to install the latest software (the 1 before ios7) as I'd never got around to downloading before! So it could have been that or the restore that affected facetime. My laptop has just died (yesterday) so until I get that fixed I can't back up through iTunes or do a restore of my iPhone so I'm stuck! Add that all to the fact my O2 broadband has been down since Friday morning and may not be fixed for a week due to a major fire in my area all of my technology is f***d!! So frustrating apple.

Same problem here... My wife and I each have an iPhone 4. Mine is about 2 years old, hers was purchased this year. Both are running iOS 6.1.3, both under AT&T.

My last successful FT call was made on August 31st, her last successful FT call was made last evening, September 22nd to a family member living in Illinois.

I could NOT call this family member over FT (...call disconnected), and when I tried to answer their FT call to me (...call disconnected). However, my wife could both initiate and receive FT calls to them with no problems.

I tried several times to FT my remote family member or my wife, but each time I was disconnected -- I could hear the audio for a moment and then the connection was lost. The same if either my wife or family member attempted to FT me.

All settings in my iPhone and my Wife's are the same... we both use the same AppleID, and have been doing so for sometime with no problem... until after my last successful FT call.

We have been using FT to remain in touch with family across several states, and it is a feature that we WANT to keep using.

My next move will be to attempt to restore my iPhone to factory settings, however, I have a question to ask of those of you who have done this -- will this restore update my iPhone to iOS 7?. My current Apple desktop is incapable of running the current iTunes v11.1 which means that I will not be able to sync my iPhone through iTunes.

Day 6 of the Facetime problem for me.

2 nights full of online apple support chat and 2 lengthy apple store visits later and still no fix.

Same symptoms as above.

Ie, when I dial it tries to connect then says it's failed. My receiver gets a message that I ended it. When someone tries to call me I get nothing.

I have a 4 model.

It's 3 years old (last week).

I'm in Australia.

Problem occured last week, coincidently (or at least I'd like to think it was a coincidence) post my install of Lion to my MacBook Pro.

I then had 2 apple online support sessions and an apple store genius bar visit and no fix. (The genius bar visit told me it was just because of the worldwide download of IOS7 and apple was busy and to try Facetime again in a few days. This reasoning was that the genius tech tried to Facetime a colleague while I was there in the store as a test and he could not connect also. I wasn't aware of this thread then otherwise I would have pointed out it's because they were both using the 4 model. LOL! Grrrrr)

Exasperated, I then updated my phone to IOS7 a few days later (as by then it had been released and the worldwide rush should have quietened down a little) hoping in doing so it would clear whatever bug it was but no, still not working.

I have work colleagues on 4S and 5 who can facetime just fine with each other but neither can connect with me nor can I connect with them and we're all using the same wi-fi.

After my 2nd 3 hour apple store genuis bar visit tonight (3 hours I kid you not, they need to start serving drinks since it's a 'bar' and all), the phone was cleared by the genius technician, and Facetime then worked. He could call me. I could call him. Hooray.

But wait, the phone was then installed with the backup and Facetime then did not work again.

The genius bar tech then told me I have only 2 options.

I can either have my phone with all my data back on it and not use Facetime.

Or

I have my phone clear of all my data (ie my life for the last 3 years) and then be able to use Facetime.

They told me I could not have both. ***!

So I was told there is something corrupt in my backup data and that's where the problem lies.

(There is some data on my phone, ie txts and imessages I would like to keep. Now hold on, having read previous posts, of "get over it, detele your messages and move on" etc etc please don't abuse me yet, I want to keep some of the messages as sadly some are from people who have since died)

***I'm very, very, very interested in the Arto65 post above.

Can anyone else confirm or elaborate on purchasing a 5S, installing the data backup and Facetime coming back to life ie working??

If that works, I would go ahead and purchase a 5S just to have my data and Facetime both back and functioning at once. (After all, the intent of Apple with every new phone relesae is to push users up the model food chain by not having the 'older' ones available to purchase. Eg in Australia tonight I can only puchase a 4S (only 8gb) or the new 5c or 5s, nothing else exists to buy, ie it is not sold out it just doesn't exist) This could be a way of them hurrying us up to migrate - just a conspiracy theory of mine. Lol. Seriously, just trying to muster up a smile at this point.

HELP!! Like so many of us, I have a big hole in my wall from hitting my head!

THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR TRYING TO HELP EACH OTHER ON HERE.

For those that have come to the realization that the iPhone 4 will either have working FT without the benefit of the backup restored (i.e. missing notes, voice memos, SMS/texts) or forget about FT and keep the latter, welcome to the new reality. It seems to be (at least for the moment) either/or.

The only good news is the single post that notes reloading the backup on a new iPhone 5S permits FT to continue working.

Lastly, and this is a big note for those who are using an older Apple OS on their Mac (my MacBook Pro runs just fine for me on 10.5.8), the new iTunes version necessary for working with OS7 requires updating the OS on the Mac. For me that appears to mean first ordering a ROM set to get to upgrade to Snow Leopard and then update again to Lion or the latest version of Snow Leopard (all so confusing, wish they would just stick to numeric references). So while my phone works just fine (other than FaceTime .... obvsioulsy), I currently cannot sync it to iTunes to create a new backup for what will most likely be an iPhone 5S purchase (once I have a few more conformations that the iPhone 5S works with BOTH FaceTime and an older restore.