iPhone calendar freezes in IOS 11

I had this exact same problem. I have an iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 11.0.2. (I tried everything - worked with Apple Support, Senior Advisors, Genius Bar and nothing worked).

I think I discovered how to fix the issue on my own. At least it worked for me. I noticed that whether I typed a letter or a number as the first character in the location field, it took a long time to populate the choices below (addresses, places, etc.). I thought maybe it had something to do with the Contacts data on my iPhone and that maybe there was an indexing issue. Here are the steps I took which resolved the problem for me:

I suggest being on WiFi for this process:

1. Go to Settings / Accounts & Passwords.

2. Under Accounts, select each Account to see which ones have Contacts turned on.

3. If you use Work (Exchange), this likely the issue. Turn off Contacts. When you see the message “Are you sure you want to continue? All exchange contacts will be removed from your iPhone.” Select “Delete from my iPhone”.

4. You will see a message “Turning off Contacts.” Once that is completed, turn Contacts back on. You will see a message “What would you like to do with existing local contacts on your iPhone?” Select “Keep on my iPhone”.

5. You will see another message “If you keep your current contacts on your iPhone, you may see duplicate entries. Are you sure you want to continue?” Select “Keep on my iPhone”. The reason you want to do this is that you may have created other contacts on your iPhone locally that are not in Exchange, so you don’t want to lose them.

6. Let the iPhone sync your contacts from Exchange. If you have a lot (I have almost 4,000), it will take some time (which is why I suggested being on WiFi). I suggest turning off your Auto-Lock (Settings/Display & Brightness/Auto-Lock/Never, then open the Contacts app (you’ll see the contacts populating) until all contacts are synced.

7. Then try creating a new Calendar item and type a location.

8. If you still see the problem, repeat the process with any other Accounts that have Contacts turned on (see Steps 1&2).

Let us know if this works for you.

Fix for IOS 11.x Calendar Location Field Freeze

1. Settings > Accounts & Passwords

2. Under Accounts turn Off All Mail Accounts Contacts switch. Every Account! Answeee YES to remove contacts from this device

3. Do a Hard Reboot of device -YOU MUST DO THIS STEP OR THE PROBLEM WILL NOT BE FIXED!!!!

4. After reboot open Conatacts. List should be empty exude you own name

5 Open Calendar.

6. Tap + to create a new calendar event

7. Tap on Location field. This may take 2-3 taps as another Bug assumes you have tapped in Title field regardless. Once you have cursor in Location field the keyboard appears. Start typing an address manually. Typing speed recognition of your keyboard Taps works as fast as you can type!

8 Settings > Accounts & Passwords

9. Under the Account you want to sync your Contacts with turn the switch back on. Wait 5-10 minutes for the majority of your Gmail or other Contacts to repopulate your Apple Contacts app. Open your Apple Contacts app and you should see your Contacts have returned

10.

Open Calendar.

11. Tap + to create a new calendar event

12. Tap on Location field. This may take 2-3 taps as another Bug assumes you have tapped in Title field regardless. Once you have cursor in Location field the keyboard appears. Start typing an address manually. Typing speed recognition of your keyboard Taps works as fast as you can type!

Let me know if this works for you!

Kenneth Young

I have just had a very lengthy telephone discussion and screen sharing session with Apple, during which I was able to demonstrate the Location Input 'freeze' issue on my iPhone X, and my temporary (I hope!) workaround.

It involves switching OFF, Contacts Sync within the iCloud settings on the IOS device, BEING SURE TO KEEP CONTACTS ON THE DEVICE when prompted.

Once done, the responses to keys pressed when entering in the 'Location' field in Calendar are pretty much immediate and matches from the locally held (device) Contacts database are rapidly returned.

However, if one then switched Contacts Sync ON again within the iCloud settings on the device, BEING SURE TO MERGE CONTACTS, once the merge is complete, the problem returns.

So we can reliably conclude that with iCloud Contacts Sync ON, on the device, the issue arises but goes away when iCloud Contacts Sync is set to OFF on the device. In my case both my iPhone and iPad are equally afflicyted with this issue so I do not believe it can be hardware related.

I appreciate this process is an inconvenience and will result in Contacts in Cloud and Contacts in the IOS device drifting apart for the duration the sync is off, but one could maybe switch the Contacts Sync off at the start of the day and back on at the end of the day, to allow iCloud to be updated to match the IOS device?

This is clearly no long term solution and somewhat destroys the concept of near real-time iCloud sync and if it's not for you, then of course, don't do it.

As an experiment, I thought if I temporarily deprived IOS Calendar of Internet Access, by switching off both wifi and mobile data on my iPhone, I would prevent it from searching on iCloud (and beyond); something I think it's doing; hence the freeze and weird locations returned when the freeze ends when entering into 'Location'.

Not so, there is still a 15-20 second lag after the first key press in 'Location' before the keyboard buffer flushes out some or all of keys subsequently pressed into the field.

So as far as I can see, the ONLY way to avoid the freeze issue when entering a Location is to switch off Contacts Sync in the device and only switch it back on to refresh iCloud.

On a more positive note, I was left with the impression by the Apple techie that there was a recognition of the issue and that the more people raised it, including in forums such as this, the higher priority it will become for a fix.

So to all those just reading and not contributing to this thread, PLEASE consider spending a few minutes sharing your thoughts and grievances.

Who knows, the next IOS update may include:

'A problem entering key presses into the 'Location' field in Calendar has been resolved'

Now wouldn't that be a Great Christmas Present from Apple?

I found a way of entering the location – if you type in ZZ, (There is a a few secods delay after the first Z but then it accepts the second Z), and allows you to keep typing. You have to go back and backspace out the ZZ’s, but it unlocks the location to be usable. We really need a solution from Apple on this.

I also feel that it is too onerous to remove all my contacts and add them back in. Also, I have an iPad Air that this does not occur on, while it is occurring on both my iPhone 6S and my iPad Pro. All have exactly the same contacts and email accounts. The iPad Air is used less though. This makes me feel that the IMAP account issue is not really the trigger.

Still not working on IPhone 6s, just updated to IOS 11.2, rebooted phone, and problem remains. My contacts are not synced to any other device nor program (not google, not microsoft), so the notion of deleting all contacts is not only idiotic, but it doesn't apply to the problem. The work around of entering a leading Z in the location line did work, and I was able to enter needed address, and then back space over the Z. Still, this is something that Apple needs to address promptly- both this specific matter, and generally the glitches of this type that are becoming more common - or I will go to Android at next phone replacement, which is coming up soon.

As someone who had this issue, but no longer does, the only difference for me before and after is that Apple replaced my iPhone 7 Plus. I don’t know why technically I don’t have the issue anymore, but I can say I have over 3500 contacts and it has no issues quickly finding locations for anything I type. Before they replaced the hardware, they had run a remote diagnostic test and found there was a Bluetooth sensor issue. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but it does seem strange that I no longer have the issue even after updating my iOS several times since (now at 11.2).

I suggest that you call Apple Support, get a Senior Advisor on the phone, make them look at this discussions board, and have them run a remote diagnostics test on your device. BE WARNED, before they replace your hardware,, they will try to get you to do all of the steps others have mentioned, including restarts, hard resets, restore as new, etc. etc. etc. if you get the runaround, KEEP CALLING back until you get a Senior Advisor who REALLY knows what they are doing. If you have AppleCare, they CAN replace your hardware!

Typing in ZZ is a good work around although not perfect. The device must be searching through all information to find whatever you are typing and that's why the app freezes. When you type in ZZ then it automatically starts at the end of the search and finishes quickly.

ZZ at least lets me complete the location line when putting the event in my calendar on my iphone X

Same exact issue on iPad Pro 12 inch. I resolved it by not entering the location when I am creating the calendar entry. If I go back and open the entry from the calendar separately, I can add a location without issue. Obviously this is some sort of glitch that needs to be addressed.

Bug still there on production 11.1

Reinstall operating system did not work for me

Trick of saving Calendar Event without location then reopening and adding location one character at a time is much faster but not normal spied as long as you don’t hit the back space jet. If you do it returns to the same 15+ second delay in recognizing any screen taps after the first character

Suspect Bug is tied to having Gmail accounts setup via Exchange which is standard method of setting up IMAP Gmail accounts. Apple seems to break this in every major release. I can promise you everyone using Exchange has this problem not a few hundred people as an earlier poster was told. I’m just tired of reporting bugs to Apple and being told it’s a duplicate yet never gets fixed and they can’t be bothered to treat a duplicate reporter with the same respect as the first reporter of a Bug. This is a serious attitude adjustment that Tim Cook could fix in 1 second that would go a long way to treating All Bug reports equally. Are you listening Mr Cook?

Out of curiosity, I switched off Contacts in iCloud and chose to have them deleted from my iPhone. Then when adding to my calendar there was NO delay or difficulty inputting a Location. I then switched the Contacts on iCloud back on again and allowed time for them to sync back down to my iPhone and the issue returned. Some of my contacts have maybe 40 or so ‘lines’ of embedded Notes, accumulated over the years. I wonder if these are bloating the Contacts database and upsetting the indexing/search?

Thank you! That is the most powerful work-around to this problem because it identifies the root cause. The original problem when I first started having it set me on a wild goose chase trying to fix it. That was eight months ago. The result was that Apple asked me to wipe my phone and rebuild my apps. And the problem persisted. So obviously I restored my original backup and “tolerated” the problem for six months. Then I couldn’t take it any more so I went back into Apple and they replaced my iPhone 7 even though it was out of warranty (because I had demonstrated the issue when it was within warranty). Obviously that didn’t fix the problem either. The reason I explain all this is because of the “user abuse” it represents. Apple is using users to solve their problems (we are a giant test bed) and they are not paying us for this. For serious users, who are curious and interested, the wild goose chase could cost them days or weeks of work. And “taking out” someone’s personal communication database is like putting them out of business for a time period. No lie- I have at least 100 hours of test engineering time I have personally invested in the solving of this problem. That is why users like me are upset. We feel betrayed by Apple on it. 100 hours spread across eight months is a ton. Apple should admit the problem and come out with a release. Thank you for identifying this // “turn contacts off” in iCloud, keep contacts on device, later turn back on (merge) // work around. This is the best work around yet. I am investigating iCloud contact behavior now and considering using only google for contact sync. Hooray and sanity.

iOS 11.2 says:

Improves stability in Calendar

Addressed an issue where the keyboard could respond slowly

Curious if this resolves the calendar issue for anyone who has upgraded to 11.2.

The act of turning off contacts sync in iCloud and back on seems to have solved.

This worked for me also -- I just turned off the iCloud use by Contacts. Now there is no freezing when I type in an address or location for a calendar item. Thanks!!

Well, I did find a way to fix it. It’s been about a week now so I am hoping it is permanent. A new problem developed that required me to restore. The AppleCare rep told me that I needed to restore as New – I balked for obvious reasons. I wanted to restore from an iCloud back up so that I would retain as much as possible. They told me that it was very likely that I would also retain the problem. Not only did resolve the bigger problem that developed but it also fixed the calendar issue. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that iCloud back up now keeps pretty much everything, even Webpages say it to my home screen. I am using keychain, so I didn’t have any problems with having to log back into apps. I would’ve done it sooner if I had realized that it wasn’t painful. The problems that developed after the calendar issue was much more significant. Suddenly my iPad Pro was showing over 129 GB of storage was taken up by the mysterious gray Other. Leaving les than 10 GB free, Resulting in all sorts of wonky behavior and warnings.

i still have the calendar issue on my iPhone 6S. I will probably take the time to restore from backup on that as well. In the meantime, I have been using one z followed by a space. this works to unlock the location field and is much easier to go back and remove. The AppleCare rep did say that they are aware of the problem and they took some screenshots of my email accounts so There maybe Italian with settings as one of the other posters noted