Filed under: Hardware, iTS, OS, Software, Troubleshooting, iPhone
iPhone Troubleshooting: How to Restart, quit frozen apps and Reset iPhone
I'm starting to think there is some sort of bad luck attached to my iTunes Store account, as tonight I experienced the third iTunes Store song that completely locked up an iPod - only this time it was my iPhone. While listening to 'Again with the Subtleties' from the Yppah album You Are Beautiful At All Times (US iTunes link) in my iPhone's iPod app, the phone completely locked up at the end of the track with an almost-faded out display. What was worse, the iPhone became completely unresponsive - the display wouldn't accept any of my taps, and even the external buttons were ignored. Momentarily wishing I could simply yank the battery to cut the power and reset the phone, I realized Apple must have some sort of a contingency in place for lock-ups like these.Fortunately, I was right: The iPhone troubleshooting section of Apple's main iPhone support site contains a walkthrough for situations like this, complete with instructions on how to restart the phone, force quit a frozen app or reset the phone in cases like mine where it has completely locked up. Here are these steps in a nutshell:
- Restart your iPhone: Most people probably already know how to do this, but just in case, you can simply hold the sleep/wake button on the top for a few seconds to bring up a red slider at the top of the display which allows you to power off the phone.
- Quit a frozen iPhone app: I know it's a crazy thought, but it is entirely possible that Apple's wondrous iPhone apps can lock up from time to time. In this case, simply hold the Home button when in the app for about 6 seconds to kill the app. You should be able to jump back into the app without restarting the phone itself.
- Reset your iPhone: Note that this is not Restoring your iPhone; that's the button in iTunes that wipes the iPhone and all your information on it. Resetting an iPhone is nothing more than a hard reset or a forced reboot - you're simply cutting the power and making it reboot. To do this, hold the sleep/wake button and Home buttons simultaneously for a few seconds; the display will quickly wipe itself and you should see the black background and white Apple logo, signifying a reset well done.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fred said 9:14AM on 7-18-2007
Oh man, this is like SOP for me. I reboot my iPhone every other day whether it's acting up or not. The iPod locks up at weird times for no apparent reason. I love the thing, but it could sure use an update to improve stability. My current reboot "schedule" works pretty well so far.
One question, does it happen every time you play that song?
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Fernando said 9:18AM on 7-18-2007
Not to be downing my Iphone because I love it. I have to do the reset with the home button and the sleep/wake button at least once a day now. I do notice that most of the time that this occurs is during the Ipod app. I just hope that a fix will be coming soon for these issues. But I still love it besides that. Go Apple.
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SSteve said 10:17AM on 7-18-2007
That kinda blows some holes in Steve Jobs' "we don't want to allow third-party developers because then the iPhone might crash" argument.
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bxstrb said 10:28AM on 7-18-2007
I haven't seen this problem and I've downloaded 2 songs the last two weeks. Mine seems pretty stable. I've reset it twice in two weeks and never turn it off at night.
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David Chartier said 10:47AM on 7-18-2007
#1: Fred, there's the weird thing: when this has happened to my iPods, the same song would indeed reliably cause the same crash every time. I just tried playing this song again on my iPhone and it didn't happen. Maybe it was just a fluke - my iPhone iPod and Safari have been crashing fairly often on me, especially when used in conjunction, so I guess I'll just keep waiting anxiously for that software update.
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Jeff said 11:30AM on 7-18-2007
I've had only one restart in my first 8 days of iPhone use. You guys aren't playing around with iPhone hacks, are you? ;)
My main complaints include loss of Podcast info and fine-tuned rewinding (how do you skip back 10 or 20 seconds - the slider controller skips back 1 minute at a time!), and the microphone/clicker think on the right headphone wire keeps getting caught on my button-down shirt collar!
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Dave said 11:52AM on 7-18-2007
@7 Remember, the iPhone mic was designed to work with turtle-neck sweaters. As with all Apple products, there is a dress of jeans and the proper shirt and or sweater. Thank you for your comment though.
And why would we hack the iPhone? Oh yea the fat custom ring tones that were promised to us.
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t said 12:22PM on 7-18-2007
I am so sick of the iPhone.
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grimfandango said 5:43PM on 7-18-2007
my iphone's music player crashes intermittently, i'm hoping a restart will help it.
in any case, i love it...
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matt said 7:02PM on 7-18-2007
I wonder if mine's busted. When attempting a reset, I just get the power off slider, just as if I had only held down the sleep/wake button. And if I continue holding the two buttons after the power off slider appears, then the iphone just powers off, no reboot. Weird. I feel so left out. Luckily I haven't had the need to reset.
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procrastinatr said 9:55PM on 7-18-2007
Wow David. Amazing that you would delete a comment that reads "it's not bad luck, it's bad karma."
For somebody who posts so many "ha ha - gotcha!" entries on TUAW, you sure have a poor sense of humor.
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Shellie said 11:49AM on 7-25-2007
After just one week, and not using itunes, out of the blue, my phone froze for the first time. Frustrated and on my way to see Wicked, there was nothing I could do. So this morning, did a quick google search, found this blog and did a hard reset.
Back to loving my iphone again. Thanks. And keep posting! SAB
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Mapper99 said 11:05AM on 7-28-2007
Nothing like a good reboot to fix things up!
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Abhi said 5:06PM on 7-31-2007
Thanks a lot David!
My phone froze in the middle of a song, when I was trying to turn down the volume and pause, in quick succession.
Your post really helped.
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Melanie said 10:17PM on 8-17-2007
i've had my phone almost a month with no problems until tonight when the screen froze up and it won't respond to anything. not even after a reset and all that. what do you recommend? i've gotten so attached...and now i feel so alone.
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Mickydee said 1:00PM on 8-30-2007
Let's see... I bought my phone 3 days after it was released. I've only had one mild freeze in all that time. I'm getting ready to try the hack described on the MacWorld site... (uh oh) ;p
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superchan said 2:09AM on 11-24-2007
my iPod touch is frozen on the apple logo, I tried resetting but that didn't work, every time I turn it off and on again it just freezes on the apple logo.
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superchan said 2:09AM on 11-24-2007
my iPod touch is frozen on the apple logo, I tried resetting but that didn't work, every time I turn it off and on again it just freezes on the apple logo.
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Chris said 9:25PM on 11-25-2007
3 weeks ago i bought my iphone and it was awesome. I liked all the app, today a couple hours ago my iphone suddenly started to show letters and code like when you restart your computer, i tried to restarted in all ways but still doing it and i can't turn it off.
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