iPhone NERDS HELP! Stuck In Loop

[SumpChump]

Device: iPhone 5C 16GB (6.2GB available) iOS 9.2.1 U.S.. Cellular just out of warranty
Conditions: Adult owned, never dropped never wet, kept in indoors environments, has served me for two years maybe a bit more

Problem:
Last successfull phone call 4:40pm Thursday, no weirdness or glitches to provide warning of impending doom
Friday morning full charged, says "Searching...." Up in left corner where cell signal resides, unable to call or connect to cellular data
Friday night attempted correction measured (see list below). Phone now stuck in loop "Connect to iTunes... Unsuccessful restore... Connect to iTunes"

Corrective attempts:
When problem was limited to "Searching for signal" I attempted all the common tips .... Toggled airplane mode, toggled cellular data, toggled everything, reset network stuff three times, restarted 5 times over, did the various hold home and power button tips

No success... Phone jus was basically an iPod on home wifi

Called U.S. Cellular. Went through various levels of techs. Had me retry ALL of the toggling, resetting networks, restarts. Verified IEMI number from phone body, thumbs up good. HOWEVER, the phone in setting showed NO IEMI number at all... The literally did not beleive me. I screen shot it and proved it. Just totally missing.

No success.

Took phone in to store. Did all the toggling, resets, restarts all over AGAIN. NEW SIM card.

No Success.

Took home connected to iTunes to tune it up with an update. Failed four times, two different cables , two brand new computers running newest ITunes. Failed.

Tried a total restore 5 times. Got to three quarters final progress on iPhone screen. Then... poof! Loop of "unsuccessful restore.... Connect to iTunes.......Unsuccessful restore"

I have a very sad iPhone on my desk beside me that is useless and stuck just wanting to be plugged into iTunes and fail again.

 

[LeakySeals]

I'm on Virgin Mobile with a Samsung Galaxy S3 and the past three hours have not been able to send text checking the outage map it's big. And it looks like T-Mobile's having problems also there's something big going on with texting at least right now

 

[Nick1994]

Take it to the Apple Store and see if they can fix it/reset it.

 

[SumpChump]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Take it to the Apple Store and see if they can fix it/reset it.



Unfortunately I don't live near a city of 2millon.

 

[1000MPH]

Did you do a hard reset by turning off and holding down the home button while plugging in the lightning cable to PC?

 

[blupupher]

Did you update to iOS 9.3? There have been issues with it on older devices, there is a "new" iOS 9.3 out now. Make sure you have the newest iTunes and then hook the phone up, it should prompt you to update to newest iOS.

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: SumpChump
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Take it to the Apple Store and see if they can fix it/reset it.



Unfortunately I don't live near a city of 2millon.

Pretty sure akron ohio isnt 2 million.. but an apple store is there.

Sounds like they might need to reload the os with a cable or maybe its physically failed.

 

[PandaBear]

What you described seems to be a firmware corruption on the baseband. Did it happen right after or during OS update? If a DFU mode restore still doesn't work it is probably done for.

Try the "new iOS 9.3" and see if it is because of your "old iOS 9.3" that causes problem.

 

[Rand]

Where is upper midwest by the lake?


Michigan

Ann Arbor, Briarwood
Clinton Township, Partridge Creek
Grand Rapids, Woodland
Lansing, Eastwood Towne Center
Novi, Twelve Oaks
Troy, Somerset



Ohio

Akron, Summit Mall
Beavercreek, The Greene
Cincinnati, Kenwood Towne Centre
Columbus, Easton Town Center
Columbus, Polaris Fashion Place
Toledo, Franklin Park Mall
Westlake, Crocker Park
Woodmere, Eton



Pennsylvania

Ardmore, Suburban Square
King of Prussia, King of Prussia
Lancaster, Park City
Philadelphia, Walnut Street
Pittsburgh, Ross Park
Pittsburgh, Shadyside
Pittsburgh, South Hills Village
Whitehall, Lehigh Valley
Willow Grove, Willow Grove Park



Minnesota

Bloomington, Mall of America
Edina, Southdale
Minneapolis, Uptown
Minnetonka, Ridgedale
Roseville, Rosedale Center



Wisconsin

Glendale, Bayshore
Madison, West Towne
Wauwatosa, Mayfair


New York

Albany, Crossgates
Buffalo, Walden Galleria
Elmhurst, Queens Center
Garden City, Roosevelt Field
Huntington Station, Walt Whitman
Lake Grove, Smith Haven
Manhasset, Manhasset
Nanuet, Nanuet
New York, Fifth Avenue
New York, Grand Central
New York, SoHo
New York, Upper East Side
New York, Upper West Side
New York, West 14th Street
Staten Island, Staten Island
Syracuse, Syracuse
Victor, Eastview
White Plains, The Westchester
Yonkers, Ridge Hill



Indiana

Indianapolis, The Fashion Mall at Keystone
Mishawaka, University Park Mall

 

[Kawiguy454]

go into the settings, general, Reset, erase all Content and Settings. update to newest IOS

 

[MrHorspwer]

Funny... I know of an iPhone 5C that was exhibiting exactly the same symptoms as yours. It started by flaking out on the carrier (in my case, Verizon). Changing settings, deleting content, restoring as a new phone, reloading iOS did nothing. It then went into an infinite loop of trying to restore from a backup.

I know of this phone because it is sitting next to me in a desk drawer. Fortunately for me, I do have an Apple Store nearby. Like your phone, this phone was out of warranty, but the Appel Store ultimately installed a new battery on a whim (at no cost to me). That resulted in no change and they diagnosed it as a borked phone. They did offer a replacement 5C for a flat $200, but it was eligible for an upgrade and replaced with a 6S.

Sorry, you may have a borked phone.

 

[SumpChump]

Originally Posted By: 1000MPH
Did you do a hard reset by turning off and holding down the home button while plugging in the lightning cable to PC?


Yep. 5or more times now.

 

[SumpChump]

Originally Posted By: Kawiguy454
go into the settings, general, Reset, erase all Content and Settings. update to newest IOS


As in the original post, it doesn't even go that far now. It doesn't boot. Endless loop of "connect to iTunes to restore.....failure to restore....connect to iTunes to restore.....failure to restore...Connect to iTunes to restore"

 

[SumpChump]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
What you described seems to be a firmware corruption on the baseband. Did it happen right after or during OS update? If a DFU mode restore still doesn't work it is probably done for.

Try the "new iOS 9.3" and see if it is because of your "old iOS 9.3" that causes problem.


It has 9.2.1 on it and my trials to update/restore/do anything other than a black connect to iTunes screen ....have failed.

The last version of 9.3 which I tried to update to was 6 hours ago.

There is a version of 9.3 NEWER than 6 hours ago? ?????

They put out a corrupt 9.3 knowingly????? The don't even grab an employee's phone first and try it out?

 

[bdcardinal]

If you need a battery, the one from ifixit.com is pretty legit. I put one from them in my 4S and it has been chugging along fine with it for over a year now.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: SumpChump
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
What you described seems to be a firmware corruption on the baseband. Did it happen right after or during OS update? If a DFU mode restore still doesn't work it is probably done for.

Try the "new iOS 9.3" and see if it is because of your "old iOS 9.3" that causes problem.


It has 9.2.1 on it and my trials to update/restore/do anything other than a black connect to iTunes screen ....have failed.

The last version of 9.3 which I tried to update to was 6 hours ago.

There is a version of 9.3 NEWER than 6 hours ago? ?????

They put out a corrupt 9.3 knowingly????? The don't even grab an employee's phone first and try it out?


I ran into this with a failed update last year, the trick was to put itunes on another PC reboot the phone and restore it.
I don't know why or how it worked but it did. Mine wouldn't even get to the home screen.
For some reason itunes has the bad update info stored in it somewhere.
They pulled 9.3 and there is no new version for the iphone 5 yet. Current version is 9.2.1

Edit: When i got it back up and running icloud restored my stuff.

 

[SumpChump]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: SumpChump
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
What you described seems to be a firmware corruption on the baseband. Did it happen right after or during OS update? If a DFU mode restore still doesn't work it is probably done for.

Try the "new iOS 9.3" and see if it is because of your "old iOS 9.3" that causes problem.


It has 9.2.1 on it and my trials to update/restore/do anything other than a black connect to iTunes screen ....have failed.

The last version of 9.3 which I tried to update to was 6 hours ago.

There is a version of 9.3 NEWER than 6 hours ago? ?????

They put out a corrupt 9.3 knowingly????? The don't even grab an employee's phone first and try it out?


I ran into this with a failed update last year, the trick was to put itunes on another PC reboot the phone and restore it.
I don't know why or how it worked but it did. Mine wouldn't even get to the home screen.
For some reason itunes has the bad update info stored in it somewhere.
They pulled 9.3 and there is no new version for the iphone 5 yet. Current version is 9.2.1

Edit: When i got it back up and running icloud restored my stuff.


I have tried two computers in the last 24 hours, last being maybe 12 hours ago tops. Their freaking software bricked my (their own) phone! Insanity, and bad business. I'm driving the 2 1/2 hours tomorrow.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: SumpChump
They put out a corrupt 9.3 knowingly????? The don't even grab an employee's phone first and try it out?


No one in the industry ever knowing put out a bad software, and they have all been at least tested on some phones.

However, whenever you have a device that has any non volatile storage that stores "states", like flash memory, hard drive, EEPROM, etc, you will run into situation that your devices have been different from what the manufacturer has in their labs and they would not be able to see all the possible combination out there.

Example: you have a file system on your flash memory, but how is the file system laid out after you have used it for 1 year? Is there any bad blocks because of a lot of usage or cold weather increasing wear on the flash cell? Is there any heat related wear on the battery that trigger a different charge level or reading on the battery that causes the firmware update or booting to abort in the middle of the first boot? Did you shut down the phone in a bad state and instead of booting up with at least N erased blocks for upgrade, you boot up with 0, yet the upgrade program don't know how to clean it the mess before update? Did someone sell the manufacturer a bad design of flash memory that will get the phone stuck if you update some critical blocks, that will only get updated during an iOS upgrade?

I can come up with 20000 other theories, but you get the idea. You cannot test all possible combination of scenarios out there.

Or you may just have a bad flash memory block that weren't written to until an update, or just coincident, you know?

 

[OVERKILL]

Also make sure you are using an official Apple cable (in case you aren't) as aftermarket cables can be flaky with iTunes.

 

[SumpChump]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: SumpChump
They put out a corrupt 9.3 knowingly????? The don't even grab an employee's phone first and try it out?


No one in the industry ever knowing put out a bad software, and they have all been at least tested on some phones.

However, whenever you have a device that has any non volatile storage that stores "states", like flash memory, hard drive, EEPROM, etc, you will run into situation that your devices have been different from what the manufacturer has in their labs and they would not be able to see all the possible combination out there.

Example: you have a file system on your flash memory, but how is the file system laid out after you have used it for 1 year? Is there any bad blocks because of a lot of usage or cold weather increasing wear on the flash cell? Is there any heat related wear on the battery that trigger a different charge level or reading on the battery that causes the firmware update or booting to abort in the middle of the first boot? Did you shut down the phone in a bad state and instead of booting up with at least N erased blocks for upgrade, you boot up with 0, yet the upgrade program don't know how to clean it the mess before update? Did someone sell the manufacturer a bad design of flash memory that will get the phone stuck if you update some critical blocks, that will only get updated during an iOS upgrade?

I can come up with 20000 other theories, but you get the idea. You cannot test all possible combination of scenarios out there.

Or you may just have a bad flash memory block that weren't written to until an update, or just coincident, you know?


Boy I sure hope Apple doesn't get involved with any touch screen iFlight controls on aircraft!
My wife might not be impressed with the reason she is a widow being that the last pilot checked his email thus leaving a bad sector on the rudder controls on next boot up.

I do stand corrected that they don't put out actual bad-ware, they put out half-baked ware. I thought all those nap pods and ice cream machines for the twenty somethings would lead to somebody plugging in ten twenty maybe one hundred devices and testing the iOS.