iOS 10 Black Screen Spinning Wheel

Been using iOS 10.0.1 for about a week on an iPhone 6 and it's buggy. The issues below have only occurred since upgrading to iOS 10. Please fix in next release or provide solution.


1. Random black screen with spinning wheel. The upgrade went fine, so not that black screen. But at least daily my phone becomes unresponsive and shows a black screen with spinning wheel. After 5-10 seconds I'm prompted to enter my passcode as if the device has restarted. I'm not the only person experiencing this - and even managed to capture the image below.


2 - I've enabled the 'rest finger to open' option under home screen accessibility, but this doesn't always work. Again, about once a day, resting my finger to open results in me being prompted to press the home button to unlock. Each time this has happened I've checked and confirmed that the 'rest finger to open' option was enabled.

User uploaded file

Thanks

iPhone 6, iOS 10

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 12:16 PM

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Posted on Dec 2, 2017 9:03 AM

It's due to a date bug (Dec 2nd) causing local notifications to crash Springboard. For some people, Headspace is the only app they use with local notifications so deleting that was a work around. It won't work by itself if you have other apps with local notifications. Installing iOS 11.2 is the correct solution.


Link to official support page:


If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch unexpectedly restarts - Apple Support

213 replies

Sep 27, 2016 2:10 AM in response to snapli

So I called Apple support and as above was advised the solution is a factory reset, but then to use my iPhone for a day or two to see if the issue repeats itself BEFORE I restore from my backup. For those of you who tried the factory reset option, did any of you then restore from a backup? And if so, did the issue repeat before or after you restored from the backup? Or did the issue repeat without restoring from a backup?

Sep 29, 2016 6:36 PM in response to micmiller01

Same issue. I was downloading an app. It got stuck in an "installing" status on the home screen. I tried to open another app but the phone was unresponsive. Then I got the black screen with the spinning wheel. This is a new iPhone 7 fresh out the box. I tried the normal power/home button for 30 seconds combo, but still nothing. I opened a support chat with apple, sent her the link to this topic and said help. She had my hold the power button and down volume for 10 seconds. I let go and the phone rebooted. Man i hope this gets fixed soon.

Sep 30, 2016 1:35 PM in response to Galactic Greyhound

OK - the problem is fixed (at least for the moment!)🙂


I left my iPhone 5c with the black screen and the spinning wheel running until the battery went flat.


I then plugged it into a mains charger and left it alone.


After about 5 minutes I got a sound signal from the phone, pressed the Home button and the Home screen came up with my Apps.


Still to be tested out fully but it looks OK although my Sleep/Wake button still doesn't work.


I raised a case with Apple Support and have informed them of the situation and that I think it is an iOS 10.0.2 bug.


Support have recommended that I get the Sleep/Wake button fixed and that this is a hardware and not a software issue. They have advised a local repair shop where this can be done.

Oct 3, 2016 4:53 AM in response to regina_m

This isn't really a solution, it's just restarting the phone - although they did change the button combination which took a little while to figure out.


I got the spinning wheel again while trying to take a picture, like it had died. Restarted and it worked fine again.


Definitely a software issue that needs to be sorted out. I also have had an issue with the phone freezing up when trying to press the home button. Neither the home button or power button work and you just have to wait for it to respond (last time took about 2 minutes).

Oct 7, 2016 1:41 PM in response to micmiller01

I have this problem too, both with my iPhone 6 Plus and my iPhone 7. I've tried full DFU resets and setting them up as new devices as per the recommendation of "Apple Geniuses", all to no avail.


They also told me that they couldn't find anything in my devices' logs to see what the cause of the springboard crashing and black spinner screen is. I think they just don't know how to look at these logs, I'm sure the answer is in there somewhere.


Is there a problem app, perhaps that is causing this? I'm a heavy user of the Outlook app, so I suspect there might be a memory leak that is causing this?

Oct 9, 2016 10:25 AM in response to Ju0181

Just to update from our end. I updated my wife's iPhone 6 (reg) to 10.0.2 and she hasn't had the spinning wheel issue anymore. That being said, it's clear that's not the fix for everyone since so many of you still have it despite the upgrade (and maybe it'll still come back for us 😕??).


She does not and did not have Outlook installed on the phone, and has very few 3rd party apps except for maybe facebook and some fitness stuff, and a couple games when the kids get bored. So while that may be the issue for some, it's clearly not the only thing causing it. The trouble runs deeper...

Oct 12, 2016 7:00 PM in response to Sielbear

So I think it is possible that Outlook increases the likelihood/prevalence of these crashes and spinner problems, but the problem is definitely deeper in iOS since folks who have never installed Outlook are also seeing this. Also, the worst an app being unreliable should be able to do is crash itself, not the entire shell of the OS.


TL;DR: iOS has a nasty memory management / sandboxing problem that Outlook (& maybe other apps too) makes really obvious.

Oct 24, 2016 8:44 PM in response to micmiller01

I had this issue exactly 10 days after receiving my brand new iPhone 7. I contacted Apple Support several times. Many restores and complete factory resets were done where none of my old content was put back on. The issue persisted and I was told to go into store and get a new iPhone 7. So I did this and had a great experience. Thought it was the phone after that because nothing was happening and the phone has been great.. until a few hours ago. Boom, the black screen and spinning wheel returned for 3 seconds when I opened snapchat. I have had this phone for 12 days and then it happened. Seems weird to me. Upgraded to 10.1 after that, and will monitor if this happens again. This is a nightmare. Apple needs to fix this software glitch, its incredibly inconvenient. What I have taken from this is it really has nothing to do with the hardware, and restores and resets don't seem to do a thing. Just need to wait for a fix.

Nov 3, 2016 11:50 PM in response to micmiller01

Yeah, I have the Brand New iPhone 7 Jet Black, so should NOT be having these problems because it supposedly has the right hardware to handle the New OS. Unforauntely I have had a few bugs here and there, HOWEVER, I seemed to be able to fix the problem using a reply posted below:


Here's what I did:


1. Make sure your iPhone is unplugged from the socket or the computer.

2. Hold down the POWER button plus the VOLUME DOWN button SIMULTANEOUSLY. If it works, the screen should power off almost immediately.

3. Connect your iPhone to the computer. (when I connected to the computer, my iPhone automatically turned on and was ready to be used again).


This issue happened to me on the NEW IOS 10.1.1 which just came out, so Apple clearly has not "Fixed" the problem yet with a Public Update. I would like to see that soon considering the amount of $ invested

Dec 1, 2017 10:20 PM in response to ntantam

I wonder if you got hit by the same app bug that I did? Mine would have been caused by an app update that had a serious bug in it, because the phone was working totally fine until my phone updated a handful of apps (I know WhatsApp was one of them, but so was AirBnB and a few others). I plugged it into the charger, which, when the battery is low, allows the iPhone to install pending updates (assuming you're on a wifi network) - I remember seeing it instantly start updating apps as I put it on the nightstand.. then as I was falling asleep it was making the "charger just plugged in" chime noise randomly every few minutes. I thought it was maybe just my charging cable going bad (i.e. bad connection) but didn't realise till the morning that it was the darn phone rebooting. So I am 99.9999999% sure this particular (30th Nov - 2nd Dec) occurrence is tied to an app update. The first posters in this thread had the same symptoms but for them it was an iOS10 bug (I'm on 11.1.2).

Dec 14, 2017 5:25 PM in response to Raviss1

After you install 11.2, you need not worry about that spinning wheel again. You will need to worry about battery life though. My battery life exceeded 8 hours before but now I barely get 3 hours 45 minutes. A lot of friends who also have an iPhone 7 have reported the same, so I advise everyone I know to not install 11.2 unless their iPhone has been crippled by the spinning wheel bug. It really is a bad state of things right now regarding iOS on the iPhone.

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iOS 10 Black Screen Spinning Wheel

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