Phone App Freezes on iOS 12 iPhone SE

Responding to my own thread here … 12 days later I've tried every suggestion … updating to latest ios, going through the iTunes update mentioned on Oct 16, etc

Each fix worked for some period of time, but eventually my phone app will freeze again from time to time. In addition, there are other issues associated with my ios update such as network connectivity issues, patchy phone calls, etc

AND, just spoke to Apple who said they have no other options other than doing a full system wipe (which means downloading everything on your phone again one by one) … will pass on that for now

Just got a very nice cal from Rachel at iPhone support. Picked up very quickly 2 minutes tops. But useless. As expected, wipe your phone and reinstall. So I’ll wait for the next iOS update. If that doesn’t help, I’ll sacrifice an evening and reinstall.

Very disappointing.

Good luck to all.

It may be something to do with wifi calling in the phone app itself. Had it happen couple times already with wifi calling in the phone app in settings being turned on. Hard reboot was only thing to unfreeze phone app, 2nd time that didn't even work so turned off wifi calling in phone app in settings, hard reboot and have not had the problem occur since.

I did this full reinstall two nights ago, but now my Phone App is freezing again. Only other thing I can think of to try is to erase all personal data; reset the phone to factory defaults; and completely start over with a fresh reinstall, and do not try to restore from a backup. What a pain. Not sure what else we can do except wait for Apple to release a fix.

While not a proper solution for everyone, I'll share what appears to have resolved the issue for me. I took my SE into an AT&T store a couple nights ago to see if it would be compatible with their network as I am considering changing carriers (from VM/Sprint). To check compatibility, the AT&T staff removed my existing SIM card and inserted their AT&T test SIM card. After confirming that my SE would work with AT&T, they replaced my original SIM card. Phone app has worked flawlessly since then. Prior to this, the phone app under iOS 12 had not worked for more than an hour or two without requiring a full restart. I had tried removing and reinserting my VM SIM card multiple times prior to this with no resolution to the problem. My original iOS 12 install was via wifi.

I was having this problem with my phone app freezing and had to restart frequently to be able to use my phone. But I recently backed up and synched my phone to my iMac and since then my phone app has been working fine. Not sure if I did anything else that may have fixed it but since then, my phone has been fine.

My husband and I are having the exact same issue with our SEs. I've chatted with Apple 3 times, and now they are saying take it to the Apple Store. Of course, the phone is out of warranty, so any work will cost me money. I'm going to try a full system wipe and start over. I am pretty sure that I'm not receiving calls while the app is frozen, and this has been happening for one month already! I'm over it.

Is this, lets say BUG, only concerning iPhone SE? I used before an iPhone 7 with iOS 11.x. Two weeks ago i changed to iPhone SE US model and got this issue. From today i am using a SE but European model and i will report if the issue will occur.

I am using WLan calls. Is there any dependency?

Generally this thread should not be marked as SOLVED.

The bug also occurs on SE European variant. Yesterday i updated the phone via DFU mode (complete imange restore) and the bug occurs today morning without doing any calls today.

The good thing is, that incoming calls are working when the phone app freezes and screen is locked.

I disabled WLan calls and will wait if issue will occur again.

This is a very bad issue and a shame to Apple. Even closing phone app do not help, only phone restart.

Well said. I’ve had this only since the 12 update. Apple said reboot, then fresh install etc... didn’t work. You know we’d accept this big mistake if they’d come out and admit it. Say it’s a big deal but they don’t.

Same problem here on iPhone 5S. Problem started with iOS 12 and has remained through iOS 12.0.1 and now 12.1.

Force Reset fixes only temporarily. Agree- this thread should NOT be flagged as solved.

After update on my SE to 12.1 my iPhone app did not freeze till now. WLan calls are still activated. I performed update via iTunes and complete backup firmware:

http://updates-http.cdn-apple.com/2018FallFCS/fullrestores/091-91318/964164AA-D4 BE-11E8-B0E4-880CD9066485/iPhone_4.0_64b…

So for me the issue seems to be fixed.

Bruce’s 10 second fix has held up for me over the past month. Take out your SIM and insert a SIM from another provider. Ask a friend. Reboot. Shut down. Re-insert the original SIM. Restart. Voila, works perfectly for past month. Feel free to reset your phones- why not waste 4 hours? You have nothing else to do. Happy Holidays. Thanks, Bruce. Must be frustrating for you to hit upon this quick painless solution accidentally, share it and be ignored by practically everyone. Was that the meaning of casting pearls to swine?