iPhone 4 facetime not working

We have three iPhone 4's and one iPad 2 in our household. We never had much reason to use FaceTime on our devices since we all resided in the same house, but we tested this new feature when it first became available during one of the past iOS updates.

At that time, FaceTime worked as expected. Since that time, one of our family members has moved to a different location and we thought now would be a good time to use this feature.

We soon discovered that we could not make a FT connection between any of our devices in any combination. As previously reported, each of the devices could make contact with any other device, but FT would stall at the "Connecting" prompt until it finally timed out and failed a few minutes later. This would happen whether the devices were on the same wireless network at either house or if the devices were at different houses.

So after much research, including this thread, I decided to begin the repair process by restoring my iPhone as "new" and not restoring any back ups.

Since I use Google Sync for my email as well as iCloud and my iTunes on my PC for backups, I did not have to worry about my emails, calendars, notes and such. I used whatever means that any apps that I was using that created data to back up or export that data so that the data could be restored to those apps after the repair process was completed.

There was nothing of any importance in any of my text threads, so that was not an issue for me. I was not concerned about losing any call records and I keep my voicemail box clear of old messages.

I started by making note of the apps that I intended to reinstall and then I deleted every single app, song and video from my iPhone, leaving nothing but the bare iOS system installed. I then took note of the amount of space being used when everything was gone.

Once I was sure I had everything exported and notes were taken on all of the settings I would have to restore, such as e-mail accounts, wi-fi info and such, I attached my iPhone to my iTunes and performed a restore as new.

During this time, we discovered that the iPad was able to connect to a non-family member in another state via FT. This was good news since I would not have to perform the restore procedure on that device after all and that would also give me a device to test my iPhone against.

It now appeared that our problems were only with our iPhones and we determined that this was because the three iPhones had their iOS updated though the same iTunes account on my PC while the iPad was updated to that same iOS update as a stand-alone device over the wi-fi in our house. The three iPhones therefore got a bad iOS update that they shared, but the iPad got it's own iOS update, which was good. This probably explains why not everyone out there is suffering from this problem. Some of us updated our devices from a bad iOS update, while others downloaded a good one and did not corrupt their FT on their device.

As soon as I finished restoring my iPhone, I set up my wi-fi connection and configured FaceTime, Messages and iCloud. I then placed a successful FT connection to our iPad. Once that was done, I reattached to iTunes and reinstalled only the apps I intended to use going forward, along with my song and video collections. I also imported (not through and iTunes or iCloud back ups) any data in any of my apps that needed it. I then set up my Google Sync and other e-mail accounts and allowed everything to download to the iPhone. At no point was any restore from back up (iTunes or iCloud) allowed.

After all was said and done, all of my apps and settings were back like I needed them to be and further tests with FT showed it to be working as expected. I finished the process by performing a forced back up of my iPhone in both iTunes and iCloud to overwrite any bad backup that existed.

The only thing I had lost was my text threads, which was not of any concern to me.

As a side benefit, when I performed the restore I had gained 5GB of usable space on my phone. I am not sure where all of that space was being used before, but I am happy to have it back,

I now have successfully applied the iOS 7.02 update to my iPhone and I can report that FT still works as expected.

I now plan to perform this procedure on the remaining two iPhones and finally put this problem behind us.

To all co-suffering friends on this thread (especially grandparents unable to Facetime with grandchildren!)

2 questions

#1 Are we all sure that there are no apps to back up the voicemail and SMS data that we would lose from restoring our iPhones to regain Facetime? Seems like there would be countless other situations where such functionality would be useful and that it shouldn't be so difficult to develop an app that would do this. Then again, who am I to really know what's tricky to do or easy to do?

#2 I'd sure like to hear more from folks who've bought new 5c's or 5s's and have restored everything to them from their prior Facetime-deprived iPhones and are now no longer having any trouble with Facetime. Or if they, G-d forbid, ARE still unable to use Facetime on their new 5c's or 5s's that received a full backup from their prior phone, I guess we need to hear that, as well.

Steve

nevets2,

I just got the 5S yesterday and restored it from my iPhone 4 backup. Facetime works, BUT I had previously restored the 4 to factory settings to have Facetime working again, so I'm not sure I'm a good example for your question #2.

Understood.

But thanks for the reply.

Hopefully it will motivate others who bought a 5c or 5s and did a rastore from an iPhone that had not been able to connect to Facetime to tell us how it went.

I guess what frustrates me the most is that the bigger Apple has become the worse they have gotten at communicating with and truly helping their users. They know a restore works because it replaces and fixes "X". They could release an update that fixes "X" yet because it is a few years old they just aren't going to bother. My iPad2 does not have this issue. My iPad mini does not have this issue. My friend's slightly newer iPhone 4 does not have this issue. None of my family's various iPhone 4/4s/5 models, iPads/MacBooks/iMacs/Etc have this issue. My daughter's iPod touch does not have this issue.

My time is valuable. It is not Voodoo it is science and they can pretty easily figure it out and fix it. They choose not to and their solution is to make me and others spend hours restoring what was a perfectly working iPhone to a usable state and then literally weeks tweaking it back to how it best works. I will likely buy an iPhone 5s in the not too distant future but unfortunately for Apple these things make me consider looking at a Samsung device and consequently really question my commmitment to buying in to the iExperience and buying movies etc I couldn't take with me if I did give up on the iPhone.

Seriously, it is VERY hard for me to accept that even the iOS7 upgrade did not fix this. What a perfect opportunity for Apple to help their customers effected by a bug that Apple created...and they blew it.

I don't have time to do a non-emergency restore so I'll be frustratedly FaceTime incapable until I decide to upgrade the hardware.

I've installed iExplorer and as an independent alternative to iTunes syncing, it works really well. You can access and copy your iPhone data as though the iPhone is simply another hard drive on your computer, so it lets you go into your iPhone Contacts, SMS, Notes, Photos Etc. etc.

You obviously need to see if it's good for your particular needs but it was really useful for me.

I've got a launch day iPhone 4 BTW, it seems FT problems disproportionately affect early iPhone 4's...

I've been reading up on most of the posts here. I too have same problem. FaceTime worked fine until some time ago. Now I can send and receive calls but neither me nor recipient are can to connect. My iPhone 4 was bought on release date in Sweden but never the less one of the first batches released globally which seems to be a common denominator.

Just thought I'd share this...

Friends

I just discovered this app on my computer today. iBackupBot.

Take a look here at the documentation. Says "iBackupBot is especially handy when you purchase a new iPhone (or iPad, or iPod touch) and want to transfer your previous settings to it. The backed-up information includes text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound and widget settings and more!"

See for yourselves: http://www.icopybot.com/itunes-backup-manager.htm

Does this seem to cover those items that a regular iTunes backup and recover loses and that many of us afflicted with the Facetime disease wish to hold on to even after a full system restore?

Those who know more than I can please let us know?

Steve

Hi All,

Following my post a couple of pages back (24), I've been contacted by my local Apple store today as a result of my online survey response to my 2nd Genius Bar visit. That is, my scathing comments about my Facetime problem still not being fixed.

My local Apple store requested I come back in (appointment set for 4 Oct) to see how they can resolve my Facetime problem on my Iphone 4 (and also it still not working on my Mac Book Pro).

In my survey and while on the phone just now I have highlighted this forum thread to them and suggested they take a look at the 27 pages of posts from people around the world. The response was while this form is hosted on Apple.com they can only deal with the problems as presented by individuals. I advised I'll be bringing my post along to my appointment then.

I'm keen to know more about iBackBot http://www.icopybot.com/itunes-backup-manager.htm as posted by Nevets2 from anyone who can simplify it for me as I'm far from an IT guru. I'd be keen to try this prior to my next Genius round on 4 Oct.

Thanks All

Apple sort your @$$ out!! This has been affecting me for over 6+ months!!!

It happened on my iOS 5 iP4 and I decided to skip iOS 6 and jump to 7 and problem still persists!!!!!

My earlier iPhone 4 is having the same issue since about July and even with IOS 7. It's not my wifi since we have a later iPhone 4 that works over the same wifi.

@BlazeSandy I'm curious how your appointment goes - please let us know!

I had the facetime issue for a few months. I think i corrupted it when i messed with the time. As i noticed it caused my facetime to turn of a couple of times when i played about with the time. I turned automatic time back on. But facetime still hasn't worked.

I was hoping the new IOS would sort it, but no.

I have a 4 from 2010. I've ordered a 5s. I'm hoping i can restore my back up from the 4 to the 5s and face time will work.

I would like to give my 4 to my neice and sister so i can keep in touch via facetime. I hope restoring to factory setting will fix it.

But i'm pretty sure messing with the time is what messed my facetime up.

Really annoying since facetime is the only feature i see as a bonus to the galaxy. I'm still tempted to cancel my order. THis thread has had 68k+ views, yet no solution apart from going back to factory settings.

I have 3 year worth of data on here which i don't want to wipe. There has to be a solution. They can't just be able to come up with these new phones and softwares and not be able to solve an issue with a major feature,

Add me to the list of iP4 owners who just found FT not working (thanks Google), and read this whole thread hoping for a solution. Like many, I think I lost FT with the last iOS6 update, but had one thought; there's probably nothing wrong with the update itself. It's just that the update process requires that you restore from backup. So if the iTunes or iCloud backup is corrupted, that's the root of it, whether you've done an iOS update or a complete New iPhone Reset beforehand.

Probably that's why the only success found so far is to rebuild the iP4 manually; or, anyone know how to debug a corrupted backup?

One more thought; over about the same period as this FT failure, I've been noticing another error in the badges on my App Store icon. I have 3 apps I choose not to update, yet the badge will almost always show 5 to 10 updates pending. When I go to do those updates, however, the badge eventually reverts to the true number. Anyone else noticing this; could it be related?

so did anyone actually figure out the solution? i almost read 20+ pages and tried some of the tips posted by other people but still i cannot resolve the issue. i have an appointment with apple store tomorrow, will see how that goes.