Steve Jobs vows iPhone app crash fix for September
iPhone owners suddenly locked out of their third-party apps by a crash bug on startup will have a solution next month, Apple chief Steve Jobs has revealed.
An AppleInsider reader has received one of Steve Jobs' characteristically brief and rare personal responses, assuring them that his company is aware of the problem and has a solution.
"This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September," reads the one-line message from the Apple co-founder.
The email provides an end date to problems that have become increasingly apparent in Apple's support forums and elsewhere. Many report the iPhone 2.0 firmware suddenly failing to load non-default apps regardless of their nature, briefly loading them before abruptly jumping back to the home screen.
The bug occurs both with freshly downloaded software and with updates, but is reported as never having a definite fix; although some report successfully deleting and re-downloading apps to regain access, others find the solution either having no effect or gradually decaying over time to where the apps again fail to run. Restoring the iPhone also seldom works.
Apple's recently released 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 updates are similarly incapable of resolving the problem. In some circumstances, iPhone owners have found the patches breaking what ran properly before.
And while Apple until Jobs' message has never publicly said when a solution would arrive, an increasing amount of speculation and clues suggests that the problem may stem from improperly set permissions to run the apps. One member of Apple's forums has been told by a support agent that his iTunes account was apparently "split into two separate accounts," confusing the iPhone when it attempts to load an app. Some users note experiencing the problem chiefly with on-iPhone downloads rather than through iTunes.
Even if the root cause has been identified, however, the weeks-long wait has been cold comfort for those affected by the crashes, many of whom had updated their original iPhones just to add support for third-party programs. The same reader who prompted Jobs' response told the executive that the crashing bug had at least temporarily soured an otherwise positive experience.
"[The flaw] has been so completely out of line with what I have experienced and expect from Apple that I am compelled to share this information with you," the reader says.
An AppleInsider reader has received one of Steve Jobs' characteristically brief and rare personal responses, assuring them that his company is aware of the problem and has a solution.
"This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September," reads the one-line message from the Apple co-founder.
The email provides an end date to problems that have become increasingly apparent in Apple's support forums and elsewhere. Many report the iPhone 2.0 firmware suddenly failing to load non-default apps regardless of their nature, briefly loading them before abruptly jumping back to the home screen.
The bug occurs both with freshly downloaded software and with updates, but is reported as never having a definite fix; although some report successfully deleting and re-downloading apps to regain access, others find the solution either having no effect or gradually decaying over time to where the apps again fail to run. Restoring the iPhone also seldom works.
Apple's recently released 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 updates are similarly incapable of resolving the problem. In some circumstances, iPhone owners have found the patches breaking what ran properly before.
And while Apple until Jobs' message has never publicly said when a solution would arrive, an increasing amount of speculation and clues suggests that the problem may stem from improperly set permissions to run the apps. One member of Apple's forums has been told by a support agent that his iTunes account was apparently "split into two separate accounts," confusing the iPhone when it attempts to load an app. Some users note experiencing the problem chiefly with on-iPhone downloads rather than through iTunes.
Even if the root cause has been identified, however, the weeks-long wait has been cold comfort for those affected by the crashes, many of whom had updated their original iPhones just to add support for third-party programs. The same reader who prompted Jobs' response told the executive that the crashing bug had at least temporarily soured an otherwise positive experience.
"[The flaw] has been so completely out of line with what I have experienced and expect from Apple that I am compelled to share this information with you," the reader says.
Comments
2.0.2 fixed all of my crashing apps...
Keep your eye on it, and don't download anything on your phone. If you do download an update for example, make sure you remove the original version of the app from your phone first and download the new one in iTunes on your computer. Then delete the app from iTunes without deleting the file itself, rename the file removing any numbers appended to it, and delete the original earlier version if it still exists just before doing this.
I guess I'm really sharing this with everyone because the bug bit me and I think I finally bit back. After having this problem every day I used this method to completely eliminate the problem and haven't looked back since, but I don't believe we're out of the woods just yet.
Everything I need and use my iPhone works fine
Skip
I'd really hate to be around Steve these days. His disposition must be more virulent than usual with all of these embarrassments at Apple. Hang in there, Cupertino. Just a bump in the road. We've all been there, done that, and have the purple hearts to show for it.
He's probably not eating, and that's not good either.
Still waiting for iCall to appear on the apps store!
I then did a full restore and jailbreak. Things seemed to work well, but after switching account back and forth, apps would crash again. I went into the iPhone via SSH and used the CHMOD command to change permissions on all of my apps.
No more problems.
Personally, I'd just like to be able to sync to my .Mac account using my 10.4.11 machine. Ever since the Mobile Mess fiasco, one of my 10.4.11 Macs has been locked out with a "There was a problem with the sync operation. .Mac login failed." message. My 10.5.4 Macs work fine. To use SJ's colorful language when he is pissed, "Steve, I don't give a flying f**k about 3 months free .Me service. It is f**king useless if my sync and idisk don't work on my 10.4.11 Mac."
I think your anger issues should take precedence over your .Mac syncing issues.
The app problem started after I starting updates for some apps via wifi. The updates didn't complete. I think that was the root of my app launching problems. I eventually tried downloading just some other random app via wifi. After this completed successfully, I was able to launch all my other 3r party apps.
Personally, I'd just like to be able to sync to my .Mac account using my 10.4.11 machine. Ever since the Mobile Mess fiasco, one of my 10.4.11 Macs has been locked out with a "There was a problem with the sync operation. .Mac login failed." message. My 10.5.4 Macs work fine. To use SJ's colorful language when he is pissed, "Steve, I don't give a flying f**k about 3 months free .Me service. It is f**king useless if my sync and idisk don't work on my 10.4.11 Mac."
Try resetting warnings in iSync Preferences. If that didn't work then maybe you should just upgrade your 10.4.11 Mac to Leopard!
I think your anger issues should take precedence over your .Mac syncing issues.
I find it kinda funny/disappointing that my hacked iphone running v. 1.x.x ran fine with tons of unregulated apps and now apples app store and (supposedly) tested apps on v. 2.0.x are having so many problems. I had to restore my iphone three times just to get mail to launch. Maybe apple should start hiring some people from the iphone hackers dev team...
From my experience, the issues lay with the immaturity of the v2.x firmware. I don't see how having a bunch of 3rd-party apps installed and not running would affect the device's performance and stability unless there are processes for those apps still running after you switch apps, which would be the fault of the system, not the 3rd party. Hopefully v2.1's arrival next month will bring an end to some of these more severe growing pains.
PS: Should we expect a v2.0.3 in the interim?
"One more thing...
We are pulling all 3rd Party Apps from the iPhone and iPod Touch. We told you so!
OOPS
Personally, I'd just like to be able to sync to my .Mac account using my 10.4.11 machine. Ever since the Mobile Mess fiasco, one of my 10.4.11 Macs has been locked out with a "There was a problem with the sync operation. .Mac login failed." message. My 10.5.4 Macs work fine. To use SJ's colorful language when he is pissed, "Steve, I don't give a flying f**k about 3 months free .Me service. It is f**king useless if my sync and idisk don't work on my 10.4.11 Mac."
Open iSync, go to Preferences, select "Reset Sync History".
This happened to me and it turned out to be because SyncServices was using cached credentials even though the user/pw I put in the .Mac control panel was new/different.
There's a knowledge base article about it somewhere on support.apple.com.
I had this problem last week. Lost access to all my media and couldn't launch any 3rd party apps. I resynced and still had issues with media. After cycling power, I got the music to work. Still couldn't launch 3rd party apps.
The app problem started after I starting updates for some apps via wifi. The updates didn't complete. I think that was the root of my app launching problems. I eventually tried downloading just some other random app via wifi. After this completed successfully, I was able to launch all my other 3r party apps.
I had almost the exact same problem last night. Suddenly, but some time after I experienced an aborted app update on the phone, none of my 3rd party apps would start. Some people said the solution was to downgrade to iTunes 7.7.0, or not to upgrade to 2.0.2.
I was able to resolve the problem (thus far!) using iTunes 7.7.1 and the 2.0.2 firmware:
1) in the iPhone tab in iTunes, disable syncing apps and sync - that will uninstall all apps
2) manually remove the remaining 3rd party apps that step (1) didn't wipe
3) undock and reboot the iPhone
4) reauthorize your computer in iTunes (Store -> Authorize Computer)
5) redock and re-enable syncing off apps, and sync
The process lasted several hours, but today my 3rd party apps have been behaving.
My guess is that some DRM file or certificate got corrupted by the aborted iphone app update, and that in my case, the computer re-auth somehow restored the certificate, followed by the app re-install, which probably re-signed all the apps with the new cert.
Henceforth I will not be updating apps via the iPhone app store.