Screen going black - Phone must be hard restarted

[kwjohns]

I haven't seen anyone having this issue out of the numerous ones I've seen on this site. My iPhone 4's screen was sometimes going black. Hitting the home or power button wouldn't turn it back on. I'd have to hold down the home and power buttons to do a hard reboot to get it back up.

I returned my phone yesterday to get replaced because I was also having the No SIM Card Installed error. My new iPhone 4 is having the same black screen issue occasionally, though.

 

[Dogpilot]

I had this issue with my 3Gs. It turned out to be my case! It seems some of the cases cover a portion of the proximity sensors causing the phone to become confused, enough to cause a panic in the processor, at one point bad enough to force me to do a force reload to factory settings. Going to a different style case may help, it cured it for me. One of the Apple reps pointed this out to me at the Apple store when I mentioned it. Some of the 'Geniuses' are more deserving of Mensa membership than others. I went for the iFrogz case for the 4 as it covers none of the screen, unlike my iSkin I had on the 3Gs.

 

[phantomsd]

This happened to my 4. Got confused but hard resetted and it was working fine. I'm using a bumper. It happened to my little bros 4 the other day as well. Weird glitch.

 

[maflynn]

Did this occur after making a phone call?

If so, its the proximity sensor, search this site, or read the long running thread over at apple discussions. There appears to be a serious bug with the proximity sensor.

What I found what works for my wife's iPhone is holding the sleep button like you're going to reboot it, then don't. That's just enough to get the screen back - at least for her phone.

 

[apple.pseudofan]

Wierd, this just happened to mine for the first time. About ten minutes ago.

And thinking about it, a hard reset is one of the only things you have to know how to do on this phone. And fixes almost all problems.

 

[kwjohns]

No, it didn't happen at anytime with a call. Usually happens when I've put the phone to sleep and then go to take it out of my pocket later to check it and it's in the "dead" state.

 

[kwjohns]

Doesn't seem that the screen is just going black as the phone won't vibrate or anything if a text/email/call is received.

 

[yankintx]

I haven't seen anyone having this issue out of the numerous ones I've seen on this site. My iPhone 4's screen was sometimes going black. Hitting the home or power button wouldn't turn it back on. I'd have to hold down the home and power buttons to do a hard reboot to get it back up.

I returned my phone yesterday to get replaced because I was also having the No SIM Card Installed error. My new iPhone 4 is having the same black screen issue occasionally, though.

I had the exact same issue and returned my phone. I came home, set up the new one, and had the exact same issue. I know what it was now. I installed some wallpapers which I got from the app store and for whatever reason, they were causing my screen to shut down. I could still hear keyboard clicks, but screen shut off, and a hard restart was needed. I deleted the app and have not had same problem since. The genius bar person told me that the new retina display apparently has some conflicts with wallpaper apps that were out prior to iPhone 4.

Try deleting some of your apps, and add them one at a time while using your phone. I'll bet you find out which one it was.

 

[bluer101]

Just had this problem on my ip4. No sounds, clicks, or anything. So I held the power and home button and it did a hard reset. Now it's fine, so dunno what's up?

 

[jtharris]

Had this problem since day 1. I returned it last friday and they replaced it right away at the "genius" bar.

here's my thread with video link: https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=10527678

 

[jooak]

Same thing to me!

I was freaking out, then I hard rebooted it and tah-dah it worked. Only to do it again a couple days later.

 

[bluenoise]

My wife's iP4 did this yesterday. Mine hasn't had it happen, yet.

 

[nwcs]

I just got my week 28 iPhone on Monday night and it did it that night. Caused me to panic just a bit! After the reboot it's not done it since. And I don't have any proximity sensor problems thankfully. I'm also using a bumper but I did notice that the bumper wasn't totally fitting perfectly on Tuesday (my fault, I needed to seat it better) so maybe that affected things?

 

[Lostsol]

This has happened to me 3 or 4 times this week. Now that I read this, I think it has been when I have my belkin clear vue case on. I only put the case on when I go out (carpet all over house). When I look at the case lip, it comes right to the edge of the sensor. That could very well be the problem. Now that I know this, I'll see if it happens again with the case on or off.

 

[kwjohns]

This isn't an issue with cases. I don't use a case.

This also isn't an issue with the proximity sensor. Because that only reacts when you're on a call. Plus, when you are on a call, you still feel your phone vibrate or make noise when receiving texts or emails (something that doesn't happen with this problem).

 

[kwjohns]

Just a theory but I think I've noticed on more than one occasion, this problem happened while texting people?

 

[kwjohns]

This is so aggravating. Seems to happen when sending picture texts but it's so random, I at times go quite a while before noticing my phone has kicked off.

I've submitted a bug report to Apple over it. Sure hope it's resolved soon.

 

[bgro]

Happened to me also yesterday. I was freaking out but I just kept clicking the home button and it eventually came back. Happened only that one time and hasn't happened since.

 

[Peanut207]

Same thing happened to me to my camera roll. Today when I updated to 4.0.1 and go into my camera roll, all I see is a black screen and doesn't allow me to view any of my pics. I tried hard resetting but that didn't work. Anyone have any ideas?