Apple says working on fix for random iOS 7 crashing issue

Posted:
in iPhone edited April 2014
Apple on Wednesday confirmed it is working on a fix for an issue that causes devices running iOS 7 to randomly crash and reboot; a problem seen by many users since the mobile operating system debuted in September.

iOS 7


When Apple launched iOS 7 last September, it bet big on a completely redesigned and reimagined flagship product. Many of the changes and additions were greeted with praise, but bugs in iMessage, iCloud and other features plagued the mobile OS since release.

One of the more pervasive -- and concerning -- issues involves reports of continual crashing during normal use, which sees devices randomly conduct soft restarts for no apparent reason. After keeping mum on the subject, Apple has finally revealed it is indeed working on a fix that will be included in an upcoming software update, reports Mashable.

"We have a fix in an upcoming software update for a bug that can occasionally cause a home screen crash," said Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller.

In a reference to Windows' "blue screen of death" system failure, the iOS 7 problem has been dubbed by some as the "white/black screen of death" as the OS startup sequence shows either a white or black screen with corresponding Apple logo. As of iOS 7, iPhones with black faces show a black screen with white Apple logo, while those with white faces display the inverse.

Illustrating the extent of so-called "white/black screen of death" problems, the publication points to an Apple Support Communities forum thread filled with similar complaints. As of this writing, the "iPhone 5 with iOS 7 randomly shuts off" thread contains 249 replies and over 89,000 views.

In most cases, users affected by the crash see a sudden and seemingly random reboot sequence. The cause of the soft restart is unknown, though some forum members claim the issue presents itself more frequently when power levels are below 30 percent.

It is not clear when Apple plans to roll out the patch, but an optimal launch period may be on the horizon with the upcoming iOS 7.1 software update. On Monday, developers were provided with a fourth iOS 7.1 beta version for testing, though the seed notes made no mention of a rebooting bug fix.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 54
    oomuoomu Posts: 130member
    "though some forum members claim the issue presents itself more frequently when power levels are below 30 percent"

    yup !

    exactly, it's exactly that !
  • Reply 2 of 54
    Cool. Originally, I just thought I was holding the phone wrong, so I let it slide. :D

    But you know... It's happened to me a few times randomly. Not really a huge issue, as it doesn't happen enough to affect my day to day activities. Thanks for fixing it though, Apple.
  • Reply 3 of 54
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    I just got a 5S on Monday and no crashes so far. And fewer Safari crashes on my Air since I did a restore.
  • Reply 4 of 54
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by oomu View Post



    "though some forum members claim the issue presents itself more frequently when power levels are below 30 percent"



    yup !



    exactly, it's exactly that !

     

    So the problem is not accurately described as "random".  If it was truly "random" then there would be no discernible pattern.  Just because something is unexpected or unexplained does not make it "random".  In fact, it would be a rare software bug indeed that did anything at "random".  It would have to be carefully programmed indeed!

  • Reply 5 of 54
    sporlosporlo Posts: 143member
    Do the soft resets have anything to do with the incessant backboardd crashes, or is that a 5s issue only? Additionally, I'm logging quite a few SpringBoard and mediaserverd crashes.
  • Reply 6 of 54
    This has happened to me. It surprised me, since I've had the phone since October (5S), and nary a problem. Until, one day, there I was walking down the beach and ka-boom! (actually, there was no sound) there's the little apple logo. Glad they're going to fix it.
  • Reply 7 of 54
    iOS 6 stays until 7.2 at least.
  • Reply 8 of 54
    This has happened to me. It surprised me, since I've had the phone since October (5S), and nary a problem. Until, one day, there I was walking down the beach and ka-boom! (actually, there was no sound) there's the little apple logo. Glad they're going to fix it.

    I've had the iPad Air (iOS 7) since day 2 and its noticeably more crashy. More so than the iPad 3 it replaced. Annoying mostly. Kernel panics.
  • Reply 9 of 54
    Randomly enough, my phone crashed as I was reading the comment on non-randomness. That was very weird.

    I'm on the most recent iOS 7 with an iPhone 5. Crashes have been much more common over the last week or so. I've also had two or three on my iPad Air.
  • Reply 10 of 54
    I have had some of these random crashes, but the other day my iPad Air crashed and then restarted, crashed again and then restarted, for about six times. The only action that would stop this incessant restarting was to plug it into the MacBook Pro. The message given was that this device needed to be restored. This worked, and after 5 hours of loading everything was fine. It hasn't crashed since.
  • Reply 11 of 54

    Until recently, my 5s definitely crashed more often than our iPad 3 (which has stayed on iOS 6).  But, since the 7.0.4 update last month, my phone has only frozen once.  Maybe three other times, I've had an app randomly quit.  Not much difference compared to the iPad.

     

    Certainly a lot more reliable than when I first got the phone with iOS 7.0 installed, and had apps randomly quitting at least once a day, with the phone locking up once every few days to a week.  Safari seemed to be the culprit most of the time. Successive updates were a lot more stable, and I think it might help that with most of them, I installed the OS update via iTunes using the full installation file, not the smaller OTA delta file.

     

    If they've got a fix for the random crashing issue, hopefully the fix doesn't create its own instabilities.

  • Reply 12 of 54

    Huh... my 4th gen iPad hasn't crashed on me once since I installed 7, in the first week it came out. I'm not going to complain, obviously! Odd that it appears to be keyed to the power level.

  • Reply 13 of 54
    I have the Safari crash issue (iPad Air). Happens at least once a day (sometimes a few times per day). Random. No rhyme or reason. Hope that THIS coming update fixes THAT issue.
  • Reply 14 of 54
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    I've had my 4S crash after I upgraded but not recently. Yay?
  • Reply 15 of 54

    About damn time, I have had the phone "crash" about 10 times since the update (iPhone 5), more than it did during the beta stages lol. Still, the crash is very un-Apple-like.

  • Reply 16 of 54
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    I have an issue with my car where, whenever I use it, I've noticed fuel appears to be disappearing.

    I'm hoping the next update will address this.
  • Reply 17 of 54
    cm477cm477 Posts: 99member

    Ditto "It's about time."

     

    My iPhone 5S and iPad 3 and iPhone Air all crash randomly with iOS7, usually while in an Apple App (Mail, Message, Camera etc.). I restored both the iPhone 5S and iPad Air (I sold the iPad 3) last week in hopes that it would address the issue. Each has crashed at least once. It does not seem to be related to battery level. I was planning to schedule a visit to the Genius Bar, but now maybe I should just wait to see if the update fixes the problem. 

  • Reply 18 of 54
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    iOS 6 stays until 7.2 at least.

    I was holding out on iOS 6 for awhile, mostly because I didn't like the low contrast tiny text, but I now have all my devices on 7, including an iPhone 4. iOS 7 is ok but the transparency and small type is still somewhat annoying. Once you memorize where the tiny text buttons are you don't have to really read them anymore.  I don't recall having any crashes at all on any device. I have very few indie type apps, only major titles and I don't surf to any sketchy websites either. All good here. I'd be willing to bet that most crashes are caused by poorly coded apps or poorly coded Javascript in web pages. If Apple can improve the stability in spite of the third party crappy code issues, great.

  • Reply 19 of 54
    It's about time they admit the issues. I wish I still had my older phone with iOS 6.
  • Reply 20 of 54
    dnd0psdnd0ps Posts: 253member
    It seems to be an issue with the phone running out of RAM. I had that on my 5S everytime I try to load too many apps concurrently. Killing them manually seems to prevent the restarts
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