iPhone X periodic SERIOUS bugs w/ search and App Store

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Level 3

557 points

iPhone X periodic SERIOUS bugs w/ search and App Store

I have an iPhone X running 11.2.1. I'm not sure whether or not my issue has been happening since this version or the previous.

Here is what I'm experiencing: after a restart, the iPhone works normally. Then, after a certain amount of time (from one day to several days), I will notice that the spotlight search no longer works—i.e. when I swipe down from the home screen and type the name of an app, nothing happens. I see icons for the last 4 apps that I've opened underneath the search bar, but no matter what I type, no results appear. I've also noticed that it *seems* that whenever this happens, the App store is simultaneously no longer able to download or update anything. It just hangs as if it were about to start the download, but it never happens.

During a recent car trip, I also experienced repeated disconnections from the bluetooth speakers in the car, which has never happened with previous iPhones/iOS versions in the 5 years I've had the car. At first, the iPhone X connects and works, but as soon as I pause or change to another app and then try to play something, the sound starts coming from the iPhone speaker, despite Settings still showing that the BT connection is active.

The only remedy to any of these problems is to restart the phone, at which point everything works normally for one days to several days... then it's Groundhog Day all over again.

I've been an iPhone user since the first generation and have never experienced this kind of funky weirdness. I would chalk it up to the OS having a bug, but I've search the interwebs and haven't found any evidence that this is a common problem. So does this mean I have a hardware issue? The phone is about 1 month old and was restored from a backup of my previous iPhone which never had any issues.

TIA for any light you can shed. (BTW, I'm aware that I can contact Apple support, but I know more about troubleshooting an iPhone than the majority of their reps, and it's painful to have to go through their whole "have you tried?" checklist before you can finally be escalated to a rep who might be able to actually help.

Posted on Dec 28, 2017 6:33 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 28, 2017 6:47 PM in response to disconnekt

disconnekt wrote:

TIA for any light you can shed. (BTW, I'm aware that I can contact Apple support, but I know more about troubleshooting an iPhone than the majority of their reps, and it's painful to have to go through their whole "have you tried?" checklist before you can finally be escalated to a rep who might be able to actually help.

If you don't want people here to start asking, "have you tried...", it would be a good idea to tell us what troubleshooting steps you've already taken.

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Answer 2

disconnekt Author

Level 3

557 points

Dec 29, 2017 11:51 AM in response to IdrisSeabright

I have tried erasing and restoring the phone. Not sure what else I should try, except for a complete reset without a restore, which would mean losing all my messages and other data so I’m not in a hurry to do that.

P.S. Since I wrote the original post, I’ve also had a bunch of random freezes in apps like Safari and Settings. Only fix is to quit the app and relaunch.

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Answer 3

disconnekt Author

Level 3

557 points

Dec 30, 2017 8:21 AM in response to disconnekt

UPDATE: I did "reset all settings" and this *seems* to have fixed the problem. According to the Apple Genius who recommended this, when you upgrade to the iPhone X and restore from a previous generation of phone, especially if you had previously restored from an older generation, you can end up with conflicts and little glitches in the phone and network settings.

If anyone else is encountering the kinds of behavior described in my first post, definitely try going to Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings. You will lose your Apple Pay cards, wallpaper, etc. But otherwise, no data will be deleted.

I'll update here if the issues return, otherwise consider this issue fixed.

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Answer 4

disconnekt Author

Level 3

557 points

Jan 2, 2018 10:00 PM in response to disconnekt

New update: the issues have returned. All of them. The only thing I've managed to figure out is a workaround for the Bluetooth car speaker problem: when I start playing after a pause or changing apps and the sound starts coming from the iPhone rather than the car speakers, if I switch to another app, the sound switches back to the speakers again. This is consistent across several music and podcast apps that I've tested.

Otherwise I'm back to square one.

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