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User profile for user: Payton Garner
Payton Garner Author
User level: Level 2
371 points

iPhone 6 Plus Crashing (a lot)

Hi All,


I was hoping for some very detailed advice on getting my iPhone 6 Plus to stop crashing. It's happening many times per day and almost makes using the device futile.


When it arrived, I backed up my old iPhone 5S to iTunes (encrypted) and then restored that backup onto the iPhone 6 Plus. During the restoration everything went smooth, but after it rebooted and began syncing the apps back over, I would hear the phone ping (charge sound) and syncing would pause for a moment. Turns out it was having a mini crash and the Apple logo would appear for a few seconds, then it would start syncing again. No problems or errors were produced on the iPhone or iTunes.


Once restoration was complete (iOS 8.0.2), all of my stuff was there and iTunes still reported 0 errors. But as I used the phone, I would notice some weird stuff:


1) Swiping between app pages quickly would cause the same mini crash and the Apple logo would appear a few seconds before the phone came back up.

2) After launching an app a few times, the "preview" iOS shows when zooming into the app would become the app icon itself (rather than a preview of the app). This would happen for all apps when entering and exiting.

3) Some stock apps (like Calendar) would be missing their icon altogether.

4) The dark area representing a folder would disappear and the tiny icons just looked as if they were floating.

5) Lots more crashing (when using Siri, when just in my pocket, etc).


If you're still reading this, it's obvious I have a problem in my backup that is causing springboard issues (or something). The obvious solution is to restore the phone to factory settings and not reapply the backup, but I have valuable text messages dating back to 2007 that I'd really like to retain. Keeping that in mind, here's what I've tried:


- Restoring from the same iTunes backup again

- Turning off "Documents and Data" in iCloud

- Reset all Settings

- Reset Home Screen Layout

- Restore from slightly older iCloud backup

- Reduce the number of apps being synced over


When I setup as a new phone after restoration, the problem does appear to go away (in the brief amount of time I spent trying to crash it). I really just need some troubleshooting advice I haven't tried that would (at a minimum) allow me to retain the text message conversations and related media (picture and video messages).


Any thoughts that could accomplish this or information on what this problem actually is? I'm willing to supply logs, etc, if that would be useful.


Thanks very much!!

Payton

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 8, iOS 8.0.2, 128GB, Space Gray

Posted on Sep 27, 2014 10:35 AM

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160 replies
User profile for user: Payton Garner
Payton Garner Author
User level: Level 2
371 points

Sep 28, 2014 12:31 AM in response to tkwlee

No, none of what I tried above worked.


My latest update:


I've put the iPhone in DFU mode (holding both sleep/wake button and home button until Apple logo appears, then releasing sleep/wake button). This also erases the iPhone firmware when iOS is reinstalled, but restoring from the backup may still bring the problem back.


And it did.


So I've done the DFU restore again and stopped the sync before it put all of the apps back on the phone. I had 993 apps and at least one of them may be causing the crashing issues. So I've selected just a few hundred that I actually use and I'm going to see if that stabilizes things. Regardless of apps/settings, at least I have my text messages for now.


If this doesn't work, I'll be doing a full restore to factory settings then finding the best online utility for extracting the Messages database and restoring it (if there is such a thing). Currently I'm looking at iFunbox, iCopyBot, and iExplore.


If anybody has additional info, please chime in.


Thanks!

Payton

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User profile for user: Payton Garner
Payton Garner Author
User level: Level 2
371 points

Sep 28, 2014 12:43 AM in response to tkwlee

Not sure. I've seen problems like these happen to other people and the recommendation is always to restore and not put the backup back on the phone since it contains something corrupt.


I just really wish Apple would permanently store iMessages and associated media (pictures & video) on iCloud, just like Contacts and Calendars, etc. Not only would that solve my current problem since I could bring all messages back down outside of a backup... but it might actually allow my Mac/iPad/iPhone to keep everything in sync since all devices could ping the same centralized message database on the cloud. 😟


That's interesting you didn't restore from a backup and are still having the problem, though. If you can set the phone up as new and reproduce the problem, that would seem to indicate a hardware issue (logic board or something). And Apple would replace that.


Have you tried restoring by putting the iPhone in DFU mode and then setting up as new?

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User profile for user: bradenframe
bradenframe
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 28, 2014 6:05 PM in response to tkwlee

I am experiencing the same. I was at the Apple Store yesterday and they suggested that I restore and setup as new.


I hate that they have no actual reasoning for suggesting this course of action...other than a full crash log.


I doubt that any reinstall or setting up as new will solve this. It is, almost without a doubt, an iOS problem that will continue until the programmers actually fix it.


Apple seriously owes us better.

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User profile for user: bbarkley
bbarkley
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 29, 2014 10:28 AM in response to Payton Garner

I'm in the same boat as the original poster. I went to an Apple store yesterday with a 128GB 6+ that had been restored from a 64GB 5 backup. I was having symptoms 1 and 2 from the original post, and could get it to consistently crash/mini-reboot by using spotlight to search for a local business and pull up the inline result card (e.g. search for 'apple store' and click the maps result). Maps/Siri had also gone nuts at some point giving driving directions and for text-to-speech instructions it was reading back what sounded like code ("turn left onto two-n-i-user-dollar-sign-four-n-i-two-l-n-r").


The Apple genius ran some diagnostics and said that crashes seemed to be caused by springboard and/or backboard which indicated that it could be an issue with hardware, software, or both. He gave me a replacement phone and said that if the problems reoccurred after restoring from the 5's backup then it would indicate something was corrupt in the backup. After the restore I could reproduce the same spotlight crash/reboot on the replacement phone. So I resigned myself to losing all of my data history (back to the original iPhone) and set it up as a new phone. I've reinstalled a number of apps from scratch but am STILL having crashing/reboot problems pretty frequently. I can't consistently reproduce them, but it seems like switching between apps is the most common action that causes a problem.


Since this is now happening on a brand new phone set up from scratch with no backups I'm hoping this is something that can be solved at the OS level and that I can move back to the data from my 5's backup eventually.

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User profile for user: Payton Garner
Payton Garner Author
User level: Level 2
371 points

Sep 29, 2014 12:25 PM in response to bbarkley

It appears my issue is resolved, although I'm not sure if this will work for anybody else. If you're having problems after a DFU restore and not putting the backup on the iPhone, something else may be wrong.


Every time I would restore from the backup, things would look normal as it continued to sync over apps. At some point during the process of restoring the apps from iTunes, the phone would start mini crashing. As I mentioned in my original post, this didn't appear to hinder iTunes from putting the apps onto the device, it just waited until the iPhone was booted back up to resume the restoration.


So... I concluded that perhaps something was wrong with an app it was trying to restore (or a folder configuration). So I performed the DFU restore once more to clear out the firmware. Once again, I chose to restore from my 5S backup (which was actually a backup of my new iPhone 6 Plus at this point since I had received new texts I wanted to keep). Only this time, after the initial restore was complete, but before apps had been synced from iTunes, I killed the restore and unplugged the phone.


At this point, I had everything a really wanted on the phone besides the apps. I had restored so many times, I was content with losing my saved app data, etc. So going off some screenshots I took of my app folders, I began downloading the apps again manually from the App Store. To my surprise, many of them retained their configurations once I opened them, so obviously at least some app data came with the restore. But I am happy to report no crashes and everything appears to be working normal. At 993, I needed to trim down my apps anyway.


If anybody wants addition info or instructions, don't hesitate to ask. I'll keep responding to this thread to help others if I can.

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User profile for user: Payton Garner
Payton Garner Author
User level: Level 2
371 points

Sep 29, 2014 12:46 PM in response to Payton Garner

EDIT: Also, since I haven't tried syncing my phone with the computer again yet, I am a little afraid it might start trying to put apps back on once I plug it up. So I decided to manually move my backup outside of the Backup folder (just in case I ever need them again and so iTunes can't find it and try to resume the restore). You can find all of your device backups here:


Finder > "Go" menu > hold down option and click "Library" > Application Support > MobileSync > Backup > hexadecimal backup folder


Once I get brave enough, I'll plug in my iPhone, stop the initial sync iTunes tries to do and then perform a manual backup. That way I can freeze everything in working condition in case iTunes starts messing up my iPhone again when it actually syncs.

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User profile for user: urikxxx
urikxxx
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 30, 2014 8:05 AM in response to Payton Garner

The engineers of Apple,I bought the iPhone 6 plus,when you restore from a backup phone constantly restarts,i.e falls!After six days of constant torment,I found out that this happens just when I begin to return to their 1100 applications in the phone!Somewhere on 780 application,the phone starts to reboot!Fix this serious bug!I can't use the phone for a week!Make it possible to install in the phone a large number of applications more than 1200 pieces!I want to say that I waited a long time model to 128 GB,and why so much memory,if you can not put so many apps!I ask forgiveness for texta English,it is through the translator!

PutIOS8.1beta,put italong the waymakingupthisreserveiphone6plusafterlags and reboots!Lookwhat happens!

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iPhone 6 Plus Crashing (a lot)

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