iPhone 4 facetime not working

Unfortunately, it appears that there is no easy solution.

My wife's iPhone 4 was purchased in July, mine in September 2010. FaceTime works on hers, it doesn;t on mine.

My last successful FaceTime call was made on August 31, 2013. The very next time I tried to initiate a FT call it failed, and has done so ever since - I cannot make nor recevie a FT call.

I'm still using a PPC macintosh and iTunes 10, so I am reluctant to attempt a factory reset on my iPhone because I'm certain that when I attempt to set it up as a new device, iOS 7 will be installed, and I will loose the ability to connect to iTunes in the event of a problem (i.e., the need to put the device into recovery mode, etc.).

I am very interested in the outcome of your visit to the Apple store tomorrow.

I suppose that I could schedule a visit to the local Apple store (a 50 mile round trip) is that is the only recourse.

Please let me (us) know the results of your visit.

Thanks,

Bill

Hi, I have exactly the same symptoms as you and have tried everything. Please post your solution once you have visited the Apple store. Thanks

Hi,

For those interesed in my posts, sorry it's taken me a few days to post the outcome of my October 4th 3rd Genuis Bar visit, I have really been exhausted by the whole thing.

Btw, that appointment lasted 3 hours. I then got back to work to complete the restore but found that I couldn't so that then involved another 1 hour back at the bar later that night. (Some sort of glitch with photos cache)

So the appointment involved testing my sim on a new iphone 4S and a new 5S, this was to establish that it was not a sim issue or an apple id issue. Facetime worked. My phone was then wiped and again Facetime worked. This was to establish it was not a hardware issue. My phone was restored from the backup and Facetime did not work. So, that re-established everything that had been previously established. Ie, it is a software problem.

The outcome or rather solution options I was given are -

a) use my existing iphone 4 with 3 years of data and no longer have access to Facetime

b) use my existing iphone restore as new and thus wipe all data and have access to Facetime

c) get another device eg itouch to use Facetime from and keep my iphone as is

d) buy an iphone 5, start as new and carry my iphone 4 as a diary

(For those who have read my first post in this thread you will understand why I am so keen not to loose access to my txt messages).

In terms of the 5S and some posts in this thread saying they have gotten the new phone, restored from backup and both Facetime and data are there and working..... While the Genius Bar tested my sim in a 5S (as above) they wouldn't try the restore from backup as that would transfer my data over such as photos which they wouldn't do on a test phone they had. However, I was advised I could buy an iphone 5S as my new phone, try the restore from backup and of course if I found an issue with the phone I could return it (or of course keep it and start from new and carry my iphone 4 as my diary re point d) above)

So really interested in hearing from anyone else who has purchased the new iphone 5S and sucessfully restored from back up and has Facetime working.

My concern here is we still don't know the cause of this problem and thus who's to say it won't happen again when we've either started our existing device from new (thus could loose data again) or invested in a new device.

A work colleague has just suggested clearing all computers linked to the device as he feels (he's a bit of an IT geek as he says himself) it could be some sort of ghost setting stuck somewhere which didn't pull through in some of the ios updates. Just a thought, but I do have a number of computers linked to my device (one belonging to ex friends) so I'll be off home tonight to clear all the computers linked and reset - you know just to see if that makes a difference. Also willing to try any magic spells if anyone knows any!

Thanks,

Sounds to me Apple just doesn't want to fix the problem. They are more interested in the newer iphones. I would be interested in knowing if anyone that has backup up the iphone after updating to iOS 7 and then factory restore the phone. Does Facetime works? Then tried restoring backup from iTunes. I would think that iOS 7's backup shouldn't be corrupted as Apple stated the iOS 6.1.3 backup was.

Has anyone tried this?

I've done that (no joy). But... if the "bad-data" stems from time when FT was a part of Phone, it may be stored in (and doomed to be perpetually restored from) the Phone app's data.

I failed to check (after erase all data, setup new phone, yielding working FT) if settings/general/usage/showAllApps then did show a separate entry for FT!? Now after backup-restore (and again failing FT) I only see an entry for Phone (and Messages of course), nothing for FT.

Think they will fix it. But they have created the "Cupertino Cup" three-way race: Will they fix it before being embarrased by: jailbreakers fixing it first, or class-action lawsuit?

Thank you so much for such a detailed and elaborate post which is basically, if not almost, an excellent summary of all 28 pages on here. I was offered exactly the same options at my local Apple Store. I'm located in Canada and had FaceTime issue on iPhone 4 since late August 2013. When the problem occurred I was on 5.1.1, then updated to 6.1.4. hoping the issue will be "gone with the wind" but without luck. I use iPod Touch (4th gen running 4.1 never updated) to Facetime which works just fine. I hope Apple tackle and resolve this problem before upcoming devices get caught on.

Thank you all.

JGP

My troubles seemd to start when I installed Mountain Lion to my Mac. I didn´t use to have FaceTime on with the old OS for my Mac, but it got installed with Mountain Lion, and this connected my Facetime details from my phone to my Mac. I have always assumed that this was part of the trouble.

Have this issue been adressed in this tread? (Couldn´t be asked to read all the 28 pages, sorry)

J

Hey guys.

I am a iPhone 4 user from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, my FT doesnt work as well since last week and I have restored my iPhone. Its useless.

Sigh.

p.s. iOS 5.1.1

Hi and Yes.

Please read my first post on page 24.

Then read all my subsequent posts.

Thanks.

For those following thus far, I have decided to 'try' to buy a 5S as I'm ready to throw my 4 at the wall.

I say 'try' as I've been into my Sydney Apple store, Sat, Sun and now today Mon, but they have no stock of the 5S Black 64. Will try again tomorrow.

(I am now finding that my 4 has gradually become slower and slower since the IO7, txts are now taking a while to transmit and the keypad is doing it's own thing when typing ie errors).

Will let you know if I have success on the 5S with Facetime and all my data at the same time (re an earlier post in this thread). Otherwise, the 4 will become my brick of a diary for the last 3 years. Or perhaps be resuscitated whenever Apple or some clever tech can fix this mess.

Thanks.

Thanks and appreciate the support.

You may be interested in my post today.

I don't like the idea of having to buy a new product to recover features that we lost due to an obvious software glitch being introduced into the system. I especially don't like it if it is something Apple did. That would be like going to a car dealer for service, their people destroying the engine then saying, "oh well, you could always buy a new car from us".

I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory some have stated that Apple doesn't want to fix the issue. I'm not completely sure they know the reason it happened or how to fix it but it had to have happened in one of the software updates. Where Apple is in the wrong is treating this as a warranty issue. These phones are more than a year old so they are out of warranty but that should only be related to standard wear and tear issues. If they introduced a software glitch which caused the loss of functionality, they should still be liable for fixing the issue.

Something happened with iPhone 4's on some type of update that glitched a percentage of the phones. It has to be something in the IOS, the facetime app or a supporting piece of software because there are too many people with the same problem for it to be a third party app or the individuals' home computers. It has to be software (or firmware) because facetime works on the phones after a complete wipe then stops working again when the phone gets restored from iTunes or the cloud. I have confirmed this on my phone and also got the same options at the Apple store.

The biggest problem preventing us from figuring this out is the fact that restore from iTunes doesn't have a targeted restore option. When we restore, we get everything, good or bad. It if were possible to pull everything back except the IOS and pre-installed Apple apps, and put it on a "restore to factory settings" iPhone we might find we could move on from this. This to me would be the simplest solution for Apple to support.

So disappointed on Apple. I have the same problem for 2 weeks.

For those still following...

EXPLAIN THIS -

Further to my last post I am now the owner of a 5S 64.

Backed up my iphone 4 via Icloud and Itunes.

Opened 5S box, put in sim, started phone as new, tested Facetime - it worked (for outgoing and incoming calls)

Connected 5S to computer, restored backup (ie all the data from my Iphone 4), tested Facetime - IT WORKED (for outgoing and incoming calls).

I have not idea why it is working on the 5S, still not working on the 4.

WHY?...................................................

(Personally I think it's something to do with Lion. That's when my problems started and I only recently updated my Mac to Lion. There's got to be something missing from a code somewhere either recently missing [for those of us recently upgrading] or for the 4 users. Probably something a small as a . missing in the code - I dunno, that's my theory).

Just wanted to keep you all posted on my 5S outcome as there is only 1 prior 5S experiment outcome posted on here.

APPLE, PLEASE FIX THIS MESS AS BUYING NEW DEVICES IS NOT THE ANSWER.

Thanks for your posts.

I wanted to say that I don't think it's just a Lion OS issue as I was on Snow Leopard when I lost FT on my iPhone 4. I'm on Mountain Lion now and still no FT on iPhone 4 nor on my Macbook.

This FT issue has left a sour taste enough to make me baulk at buying another iPhone, possibly even another Apple product.

Things can go wrong, that's understandable but it's what happens to rectify the problem that matters after an issue and in this respect Apple has been woefully lacking, shame.

There is a solution. I've been watching this discussion since the start. The 4 is capable of ft. It's just not the best solution. I appreciate people have texts and notes they hold dear to them. Print them off. Keep them there. I didn't like ios7 on the 4. It kept stretching to fit a bigger screen. But. Seen as our phones were 3 years old and had out lasted all of my friends fancy non iPhones I was quite happy to get a 5s. I can confirm ft works with the back up from the 4. 44 has been reset and that now works fine too. Yes apple have let us down a little. But there is a solution. Just do it. ;-)