iPhone 6s 128 gb crashing and rebooting endlessly

mskfahim · Jul 10, 2016

Hello,

I bought this iphone in Dec 15. Since then, it has always randomly rebooted. After a few months use, it started randomly crashing with the screen freezing and saturation going high until it all turned black. The temperature would get high too. I updated my iOS but that never helped. It'd just randomly crash. Sometimes on it's own without me even using the phone. Today, it crashed and went on a loop of crash and restart. The only difference was that today after the apple logo, it didn't show anything but a white line on some random part of the screen. That happened for some 40 mins. Now somehow it is working again! I'm backing it the eff up!

I bought it from Singapore and I live in Bangladesh. I don't really know what is wrong with my phone. Has anyone else faced similar stuff with their phone? I didn't buy a 128 gb version for it to die so easily with my tonne of data in it. This is unacceptable from a premium brand. Lord knows why I didn't buy 20 chinese fakes for the same price if this is what the 128 gb Iphone 6s is like.

mskfahim · Jul 10, 2016

things just got a lot more interesting. Now the camera doesn't work. It shows black screen. Can't use it directly or through any apps. I even tried to turn the LED on using that torch feature and not even that works. It won't even let me turn it on. I can tap on it, but not even the button goes brighter.

J. A. · Jul 10, 2016

Welcome to iPhoneForums, mskfahim!

There are a few things you could try:
Force start it. To do this, press and hold Home and Power button simultaneously until you see the Apple logo. As soon as it is visible, let go of both buttons. Your iPhone will power up on it's own.

Use iTunes to restore your device. Make sure there's a most recent backup before restoring.

If one of these helps, great. Otherwise take it to the next Apple Retail Store or contact Apple, if there's no Apple Store in your country. Let them have a look at it. An almost new device shouldn't have problems like the ones you're describing.

mskfahim · Jul 10, 2016

J. A. said:
Welcome to iPhoneForums, mskfahim!

There are a few things you could try:
Force start it. To do this, press and hold Home and Power button simultaneously until you see the Apple logo. As soon as it is visible, let go of both buttons. Your iPhone will power up on it's own.

Use iTunes to restore your device. Make sure there's a most recent backup before restoring.

If one of these helps, great. Otherwise take it to the next Apple Retail Store or contact Apple, if there's no Apple Store in your country. Let them have a look at it. An almost new device shouldn't have problems like the ones you're describing.

Hi,

thanks for the response. I backed it up now. I already tried the holding down power and home together. Not even that actually worked. It started back up on it's own and shuts down on it's own at random now. Anyway, I made a backup now. You think restoring from this backup might help? will I lose my data?

J. A. · Jul 10, 2016

If you use the backup to restore from, you won't lose most of your data. Depending on the backup, there are a few things that are not included:
About backups for iOS devices - Apple Support

Maybe you'll have to restore as new, if that backup doesn't help.

If this behaviour is still there after restoring as new, a visit or call would be in order.

natthewife · Jul 10, 2016

Was it a brand new device or brought from someone who used it?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

mskfahim · Jul 11, 2016

natthewife said:
Was it a brand new device or brought from someone who used it?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

BRAND NEW!!!!

I bought it from Mustafa Shopping Center in Singapore. I backed it up just in case. The problem got worse now. It takes a lot of effort to get it online. I tried to restore from back up but after the restore was complete, the phone rebooted a few times and then a white screen appeared with the slide thing saying "upgrade". When I swiped for that, it showed a black apple with a black progress bar over a white background. As that was happening, the phone crashed again!

I spent a lot of money to get this phone. I have a lot of data in it. This is pissing me the f off. Would it work if I did a DFU restore? I have never done a DFU restore. Can I still upload my old back up onto my device after the DFU restore?

Didn't expect a "premium" phone to be this bad. I've used 3Gs and 5s without ANY trouble. In fact, I've never even experienced freezing on them. I made the mistake of investing into a freakin 128 gb iPhone 6s! Had I known that they aren't any more reliable than $30 chinese brandless smartphones, I'd have invested my money into something else. I can almost tell that apple will never help me out.

J. A. · Jul 11, 2016

If there's a hardware failure, a DFU restore won't make it work either. You can use a backup afterwards.

Your iPhone is about six or seven months old, and still under warranty. Take it to Apple or contact them. If it can't be repaired, you'll get a replacement.

mskfahim · Jul 12, 2016

J. A. said:
If there's a hardware failure, a DFU restore won't make it work either. You can use a backup afterwards.

Your iPhone is about six or seven months old, and still under warranty. Take it to Apple or contact them. If it can't be repaired, you'll get a replacement.

I checked on apple's website(support) and they asked for my serial number after which they asked me to go talk to my carrier. Basically, they aren't willing to take responsibility for selling me a defective phone.

I suspect that the problem is hardware based. The phone heats up when this rebooting-crashing happens. I tried to use the DFU mode to restore the phone but just as itunes was downloading an update, the phone crashed on it's own and rebooted, not letting itunes complete the process. Given everything I said, to me it seems like a hardware failure. Otherwise why can't the phone at least stay on when the OS isn't even running?

This business in Bangladesh claims to be Apple authorized re-seller and service center: Apple Store | Authorised Reseller and Service Provider in Bangladesh - iCenter

I am trying to contact them and see what they will say. As far as I know the bangladeshi representative of ANY western brand/business, they are more corrupt than the said company. They make you pay for these things even if it's under 3 year warranty and the phone came dead out of the box.

bear7962 · Jul 12, 2016

You bought it from an Apple Reseller, not from Apple. That is why Apple is sending you back to the reseller. Apple does not yet have an Apple Store in Singapore although I believe one is opening later this year. The link you show to the repair center probably means they are your best bet and I hope they operate under Apple guidelines. GL.

mskfahim · Jul 13, 2016

bear7962 said:
You bought it from an Apple Reseller, not from Apple. That is why Apple is sending you back to the reseller. Apple does not yet have an Apple Store in Singapore although I believe one is opening later this year. The link you show to the repair center probably means they are your best bet and I hope they operate under Apple guidelines. GL.

Talked to them and they said that I'd have to take it to Singapore. I'm MAD angry.

I put my phone on recovery mode and iTunes tried to erase all data and reset everything. The phone rebooted and apple logo with progress bar showed up. Halfway through, the phone turned off. After that it came back again to the progress bar screen. Then it crashed again with that randomly appearing white line on the screen. Now it's doing an endless cycle of this. Rebooting over and over again. Isn't this surefire way of knowing that probably it's a messed up hardware? These phone's aren't cheap. I don't know what to do at this point.

The itunes backup that we make, are they reliable? I made a back up as I posted earlier. I hope that back up can be loaded onto a new phone. I can't fly to Singapore now.

bear7962 · Jul 13, 2016

Unless your backup contains whatever is corrupting your iPhone process.

mskfahim · Jul 13, 2016

bear7962 said:
Unless your backup contains whatever is corrupting your iPhone process.

I managed to restore the phone. It was working fine until now and crashed. Behaving the same way again and rebooting 5 times and then giving me the chance to use it for a min or 10 seconds and crashing or just turning off. I am thinking about finding a way of backing up data (gallery, whatsapp logs, a few app data) and then completely freshly installing the thing instead of using the back up which just might have something corrupted.

Isn't there an option that lets you replace all the system/OS related files without affecting your data?

J. A. · Jul 13, 2016

No, there isn't. When you erase your iPhone, you set it back to factory settings. This means your Apple ID, every information you've had there before, has been removed.

It's possible to backup WhatsApp itself, in the app's settings, so that you can restore your chats when you reinstall the app.

If there are photos in the Photos app, save them somewhere else, so they can't get lost. Erasing would also remove them, without a chance to get them back.

mskfahim · Jul 13, 2016

J. A. said:
No, there isn't. When you erase your iPhone, you set it back to factory settings. This means your Apple ID, every information you've had there before, has been removed.

It's possible to backup WhatsApp itself, in the app's settings, so that you can restore your chats when you reinstall the app.

If there are photos in the Photos app, save them somewhere else, so they can't get lost. Erasing would also remove them, without a chance to get them back.

I was talking about erasing everything AFTER I back up my data. This is what I'm thinking about:

- Gallery: Connect phone to PC, go to My Computer and copy paste all the folders from the phone to a folder in my PC.
- Whatsapp: I can go to setting and give it my iCloud details for it to back up data there.
- StrongLifts: I can go to settings and ask it to back it up on GoogleDrive
- App for Private images: Well, I can just transfer the images from this app to my gallery first. Alternatively, I can also email all of them to myself as there are max 40 images there.
- Notes - THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT, second only to backing up gallery. But I really don't know how to back them up. Suggestions?

Once I have these data safe on my PC, I will use DFU/Recovery to make my phone as good as new. Then I'll use itunes to load the pics from my PC to phone (not sure if Holy Apple lets that happen). This way, we will know if the problem is hardware or software related.