iPhone Woes

[marguerite]

My suggestion is "First, do no harm." Orren is right: sometimes the best solution is to wipe everything and start again. But I have also sometimes wiped everything and started again when I didn't have to.

 

So, stop. Take a breath. Consider what you may know that you haven't figured out yet.

1. As Orren notes, it has to be a software problem. It's implausible that you, and you alone, would get three (four?) device lemons of different types.

2. When you wiped iTunes, it solved your problem for a while.

3. ITunes itself is most likely not the problem. It's not affecting everyone the same way. Could be a preference setting or an extension that is not right for your computer. More likely, something else on your computer doesn't play well with iTunes.

 

I have no clue what that might be. But there are probably ways to track it down. When did your iPad stop working properly? Is there any relationship between when the iPad kicked out and when the iPhones did? Could you have an older, incompatible version of one of these downloaded programs?

 

It may be a completely unexpected mismatch, as when I ran a routine software upgrade of 10.4 and StuffIt's Magic Menu started crashing Finder windows every time I tried to rename a file. In fact, if you have StuffIt installed, start there. It is a great program but its tight integration with the OS make it a champion mucker-upper when things change. Also consider kernel extensions to iTunes, which have crashed my system more than once (don't delete the kernel extensions; just consider them). And keep searching the Web. I bet someone else somewhere has encountered this problem.

 

Keep the faith! You will find an answer!

Best,

M

[Joolissa]

Thanks for your input M!

 

1. Yes, I have come to the conclusion that it is lurking on my computer somewhere and isn't the devices themselves. I think I figured that out after getting the second iPhone, but now that it's on the iPad as well, I'm convinced.

 

2. The problem disappeared for exactly 10 days when I both uninstalled and deleted itunes & it's preferences/plists/what ever I could find except for the library AND restored my phone as a new phone. It could have been either or both things that made the problem cease and desist for 10 days.

 

3. I agree. Though the theory is that there is some bit of corrupted file that itunes is trying to reference and failing, therefore causing problems.

 

The iPad started acting up on the 7th, which was the last time it was synced before today. The advantage of having these "aggregated crash logs" is that they tell me the exact date of the issues starting even if I have brushed off the symtoms as an accidental click. I got the iPad on the 1st, so the issues started 7 days after I first got it and first synced it.

 

It is still possible it is still a problem with an App I downloaded, but it's beyond me what it could be and why I can't find anyone with the same problems if they downloaded the same apps. I also can't imagine that if it is an app, why it takes 7+ days for the issues to start after the app is loaded, unless it's because I hadn't opened it in that amount of time, which is possible.

 

One thing I have noticed is that in most of the iPhone aggregated crash logs it mentions an app that I downloaded forever ago and quickly deleted because I didn't like it. Or atleast that's what I think it is. I no longer have the app or the file, hence the theory about the corrupted bit of file.

 

As for something on the computer not playing well with iTunes, I would question why I'm not seeing any symptoms on the actual computer? I do have Stuffit, but as far as I can find it's the latest version. I'm not sure what else might be mucking with things....

 

My console is filled with Google Chrome errors constantly and continually... something about divx encoder no suitable image. I've tried to look into it, but I can't find a solution. I'll try again. I can't imagine Chrome is causing the issue with itunes though. I had previously rooted out some 1Password leftovers that were looping in my console as well and fixed those.

 

Orren, Thanks again! That makes perfect sense. I will look into that disk image thing as that would be the best solution for both of us if we can work it out.

 

I fear copying the whole Apps folder because of the theory that there's some random bit of file in there causing issue.

 

I suppose that I could test the "it's an app" theory again by wiping my iphone of all but the default apps (last time I added just a few and didn't do it systematically) and not add any and see what happens. The problem is only one of convenience... what good is an iphone without apps! Another problem is that the issue goes away for varying lengths of time. Now that I know about the crash logs it's easier to know if it's happening, but it's still a pain. How long do I wait before I decide that it isn't coming back? If I then start adding apps back, how long do I wait between apps?

 

I'll keep the faith. I'm also grateful that the issues are fairly minor and are more of an annoyance than anything. My devices are still useable, they aren't continually bricking, or anything so drastic. That's the bright side. The down side is I continually am losing my game scores and progress and Card Star doesn't have a back up feature. At least with the games, my skills improve with the repeating.

 

- Jools

[Joolissa]

M! Thanks for suggesting research again

 

I have FINALLY found two other people experiencing at least one symptom:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=784156

 

They both get lock screens on shut down, but offer no solutions, just saying that it is the OS. They don't mention anything about random apps opening or any of the other issues, though I have noticed much less of the random apps opening. A lot of crashes on my iPad though...

 

 

I wonder if I should wait for iOS 4 to come out and see if the issues continue? With as much as I'd lose and the time it would take to restore everything again I'm tempted to wait, since it's less than a month away.

- Jools

[marguerite]

M! Thanks for suggesting research again

 

I have FINALLY found two other people experiencing at least one symptom:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=784156

 

They both get lock screens on shut down, but offer no solutions, just saying that it is the OS. They don't mention anything about random apps opening or any of the other issues, though I have noticed much less of the random apps opening. A lot of crashes on my iPad though...

 

 

I wonder if I should wait for iOS 4 to come out and see if the issues continue? With as much as I'd lose and the time it would take to restore everything again I'm tempted to wait, since it's less than a month away.

- Jools

Yes, but if they don't know, they don't know that it's the OS. They're guessing. Here are some additional thoughts that I had, more or less in the order in which I would implement them, if it were me. The basic idea is to minimize irritating yourself by doing more than you have to, with all the back-tracking and extra work that entails. In the meantime, there would be no harm in following Orren's suggestion to collect everything you might need if you did have to completely overhaul your system. But to be honest, that sounds to me like overkill. If your Mac had anything so basic wrong with it that you needed to reformat the hard drive and do a clean reinstall of everything, I think you would see problems on your computer, not only on your mobile devices.

 

1. On the assumption that the culprit is an app that, despite having been approved by Apple, may not interact well with one of your other apps (or may have problems of its own), I would restore the iPad to its factory settings through iTunes and try using it for a week with only Apple apps. I realize this rather obliterates the iPad as a useful tool, but it's not useful when it's randomly crashing either, and doing this will eliminate a lot of potential suspects.

 

If the iPad is still fine after a week to ten days, then you know for sure the problem is not iTunes or your computer but a non-Apple app. You can reload apps one at a time based on how important they are to you and test them. This will take a while, but at least you will eventually identify the culprit app or app combination.

 

If the iPad starts crashing again before you start adding apps, then the most likely culprit is iTunes. Move to step 2.

 

2. Reinstall iTunes, and make sure you have the latest version. Then restore the iPad to factory settings, add a minimum collection of apps, and see what happens. Since you've already done this several times, it's not likely to be successful long-term, but it's worth another try. If that doesn't work, move to step 3.

 

3. Buy a copy of Aldus DiskWarrior, if you don't have one already. Make sure it fits your version of the Mac OS (Snow Leopard?). Run both the hardware and software tests on your computer and rebuild the directory. DiskWarrior has rescued my system at least three times after Apple released versions of iTunes that crashed my G5. It is the best investment I have ever made (and typing this I realize I probably have to buy an upgrade for my new iMac, which runs Snow Leopard). And it is nondestructive, so it will not wipe out any of your preferences, etc.

 

BTW, in every case, the problem was the kernel extension that governed mobile devices in iTunes. But if that were the issue, I would expect it to show up on MacFixIt and similar sites.

 

4. Set up a Troubleshooting account on your Mac, log into it, and sync your iPad to iTunes through that. That will tell you whether the problem is on your system or in your home folder (or neither). If it makes no difference, you can go back to juliagrace (or whatever) and resync the iPad from there. You may even want to try this step first, as it causes the least trouble for you. If it makes no difference, then move to step 5.

 

5. Before you reformat the drive and reinstall everything, do a clean reinstall of the system software without reformatting the drive, because that will at least retain your applications and preferences, as well as an "Old System Folder" storing bits of application support that you may need. Once you're positive you don't need any of that, you can delete "Old System Folder" to save space, but keep it around for a while.

 

6. If that fails, and no one can find the problem (including the geniuses, but I would definitely go back to them, supplying all the new information you will have acquired during steps 1-5, before initiating step 6), then you may have no choice but to start from scratch. But you need to be aware that starting from scratch is not going to solve the problem if the problem is a combination of apps that you then reinstall. So this is very definitely a last-ditch effort.

 

In any case, the good news is that if you can track this down using the iPad, you will know what to fix for your iPhone, which is probably a much bigger hassle to have in an unusable state.

 

And just so you know how crazy these problems can be, I no longer start up Kindle for Mac through my main user account because it trashes my custom toolbar settings in MS Word. How does it do this? I have no idea. All I know is that it happened several times, and the solution turned out to be dragging a clean copy of the Word preferences file (which I always keep after years of dealing with Word) on top of the corrupted one. So if it turns out that Epicurious doesn't like NPR Reader (or whatever), I for one will not be surprised. That would also explain why so few people have reported the problem, since the number of potential app combinations must be almost infinite.

Best,

M

 

P.S. The one hardware issue I can imagine has to do with the USB port on your Mac. Probably not the cable, as the iPad and iPhone have separate cables. But is it possible that the devices aren't charging properly or are being corrupted through random electrical shorts or some such thing? If you reset the iPad, then recharge it only through a wall outlet for a while, you can see if that makes a difference.

[Joolissa]

Well I think I have come to the conclusion that I am going to uninstall iTunes again, clean out my apps, and restore my phone as a new phone when I get the iPhone 4 that I pre-ordered set up on my line. The 3GS will be synced to another computer when that happens, so well see how it goes from there. I will probably add a selection of my core apps and if the problem reoccurs on iOS 4 on a new phone with all that I'll get into the diagnostics of figure out if it's an app or my computer. I will probably leave the iPad alone until i get it figured out, cause I use it a lot more than I use my phone.

 

Thanks for all your help! It's nice to have some people to bounce ideas off of that don't require a trip to the crowded apple store and overly busy genius.

-Jools

[Steve E]

On behalf of your sounding board, we all wish you the very best of luck.

- Thoth et al.

[Joolissa]

I'll post an update when all that happens. Hopefully it'll be a happy update.

[Joolissa]

Well.. it seems iOS 4 has at least cured the issue of the phone not shutting down properly and possibly the random apps opening issue, but I'm still getting tons of crashes in the logs and in the aggregated logs it still mentions that app that I don't have. I think I've pretty much given up. As long as the phone continues to shut down properly and not open random apps, then it can register as many crashes as it pleases. I assume the same thing will happen on my iPad whenever it gets iOS 4. It doesn't seem to have the random app issue, just the shutting down issue.

 

I'll just have to have a curious little pet gremlin. As long as he's quiet and doesn't chew on things I suppose I'll put up with him.

- Jools

[Steve E]

Well.. it seems iOS 4 has at least cured the issue of the phone not shutting down properly and possibly the random apps opening issue, ...

 

but I'm still getting tons of crashes in the logs and in the aggregated logs it still mentions that app that I don't have.

 

I think I've pretty much given up.

 

As long as the phone continues to shut down properly and not open random apps, then it can register as many crashes as it pleases. I assume the same thing will happen on my iPad whenever it gets iOS 4. It doesn't seem to have the random app issue, just the shutting down issue.

 

I'll just have to have a curious little pet gremlin. As long as he's quiet and doesn't chew on things I suppose I'll put up with him.

They have a habit of breeding. Better keep an eye on him.

-Thoth

[Joolissa]

With any luck I've got a hermit gremlin or at least a neuter.

- J

[orrenm]

I just saw this utility is available: http://www.cultofmac.com/apple-releases-ip...ility-3-0/50912

 

Do you think it might help you find what errant app you can't delete? Might be worth a try.

 

Orren

[Joolissa]

I don't know if it will, but I downloaded it and I'll give it a shot. We'll see if it changes anything. I'm not entirely sure it is the errant app though, since I don't think that app comes up in the iPad crash logs. Who knows! Maybe I just have really crashy apps or something. Either way I don't notice issues on iOS 4, so I assume I won't even be bothered by it once it's on the iPad. I think most of the iPad crashes have to do with low memory rather than anything else.

- Jools

[Steve E]

Anyone see the Chase Bank commercial for the app that lets you deposit a check by taking a picture of it (front and back) with your phone?

 

One step closer to turning your phone into an electronic wallet.

- Thoth

[orrenm]

Anyone see the Chase Bank commercial for the app that lets you deposit a check by taking a picture of it (front and back) with your phone?

 

I have never seen the commercial.

 

However, I have the app (I'm a Chase customer by corporate takeover) and I've used the feature. It works like advertised—I took a photo of the check, uploaded it, and that was it. No problems, no muss, no fuss. Very cool!

 

There are limits, however: Max $3000 in checks per week, no single check over $1000. For more than that, they want you to rent a check scanner from them. But in my case, it's a fantastic feature. I only get the occasional check every couple of months, always under $1000, so it's great.

 

Orren

[Joolissa]

Interesting.... what do you do with the checks then???

- J

[orrenm]

Interesting.... what do you do with the checks then???

 

Keep them as your bank receipt.

 

Orren

[Joolissa]

Hmm... I would have thought that'd pose some sort of security risk or something...

[Steve E]

Hmm... I would have thought that'd pose some sort of security risk or something...

The check routing number (the numbers along the bottom of the check, including the actual check number) uniquely identifies the individual check. Consequently, you can't then redeposit the original. (You can try. Maybe go to a third-party check casher. But ultimately you'd get caught. So much for your life of crime, Jools.) Anyway, more and more folks are accepting facsimiles. Today I can even FAX my Rx to a pharmacy and pick up my meds later, rather than wait on line. And then there are online purchases (from, for example, Amazon) which can be paid for using only your credit card or debit card number (no physical card necessary, no signature). I can see a future smart phone loaded up with all your numbers and serving as your main source of funds.

 

Waiting to be able to activate a jukebox by phone.

- Thoth