iPhone Storage crash

[Surf Monkey]

Got a weird bug happening on the iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 17.0.2:

If I go to settings > general > iPhone storage the page briefly displays the graph and reports that the phone has NEGATIVE 8gig (or so, changes each time) available and in a second or two crashes the settings app.

Anyone else seeing this? I really don’t want to have to restore my whole phone…

 

[Morac]

Storage works for me on my 15 Pro Max in 17.0.2.

You can try syncing it with a Mac/PC and see if that helps.

 

[Surf Monkey]

I ended up doing a wipe and restore. So far it seems to be working right now. It’s still synching iPhoto, so I’ll hang tight and report back if it’s fixed fixed or not.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Well, no joy. It’s back to the same crash.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Check this out. The system thinks it has more storage than it actually has.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Apple support is having a senior specialist call me. This may be a phone specific thing. I’m thinking it’s a RAM issue.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Looks like it’s related to the infamous “other data” bug. They haven’t seen it behave like this before, so senior support is working on it and are getting back to me on Tuesday. Luckily the phone seems to operate fine otherwise, except when trying to mount it on a desktop. There it freezes up the finder as it tries to figure out how much data is on the phone. A problem since I can’t send them the system metadata without mounting the phone on a desktop.

Basically, if they can’t fix it on Tuesday I’ll have them exchange it for a fresh one.

 

[winxmac]

Looks like it’s related to the infamous “other data” bug. They haven’t seen it behave like this before, so senior support is working on it and are getting back to me on Tuesday. Luckily the phone seems to operate fine otherwise, except when trying to mount it on a desktop. There it freezes up the finder as it tries to figure out how much data is on the phone. A problem since I can’t send them the system metadata without mounting the phone on a desktop.

Basically, if they can’t fix it on Tuesday I’ll have them exchange it for a fresh one.

You said it is already running iOS 17.0.2

I'm still running iOS 16.2 but in your situation, it most likely is a software bug and not a hardware issue...

 

[Pixels7]

My settings app crashes too when I’m in storage settings on 17.0.1 on an iPhone 11. It’s also taking 10+ minutes to load something on the storage settings page and then it crashes or hangs first and then crashes.I don’t have the other problems you mention. Only the slow loading and crashing of the settings app when I want to see the storage.

 

[Surf Monkey]

My settings app crashes too when I’m in storage settings on 17.0.1 on an iPhone 11. It’s also taking 10+ minutes to load something on the storage settings page and then it crashes or hangs first and then crashes.I don’t have the other problems you mention. Only the slow loading and crashing of the settings app when I want to see the storage.

Sounds like the same issue.

 

[Surf Monkey]

I’m still locked in Apple’s support loop trying to get this resolved. It appears that it may be related to the excessive “other data” bug that people are seeing. In my case the “other data” takes up more space than my phone has in actual capacity.

If you have this issue or a related “other data” issue please take the time to use the Apple support app to chat with them and report the bug. They need additional examples to track it down.

 

[Morac]

iOS has a weird particularity in that if you enable the option to unload apps, it treats all infrequently used apps as free space. That could explain why the phone thinks it has more space than it actually does.

I’m not sure how you could toggle that off (assuming it’s on) if you can’t get into the storage settings. You could try resetting settings, though I doubt that would help.

I hope it goes better for you, but I’ve found Apple support less than helpful. I’m still living with bugs from years ago that they never fixed, including ones that migrated via iCloud to new devices. In your case, I’m surprised they didn’t suggest setting the phone up as new.

 

[Surf Monkey]

iOS has a weird particularity in that if you enable the option to unload apps, it treats all infrequently used apps as free space. That could explain why the phone thinks it has more space than it actually does.

I’m not sure how you could toggle that off (assuming it’s on) if you can’t get into the storage settings. You could try resetting settings, though I doubt that would help.

I hope it goes better for you, but I’ve found Apple support less than helpful. I’m still living with bugs from years ago that they never fixed, including ones that migrated via iCloud to new devices. In your case, I’m surprised they didn’t suggest setting the phone up as new.

Probably because I already did that once before calling them.

So on your advice I went ahead and wiped/restored the phone again and this time I turned off “offload unused apps.”

Fingers crossed. It’s restoring now…

 

[Morac]

Probably because I already did that once before calling them.

So on your advice I went ahead and wiped/restored the phone again and this time I turned off “offload unused apps.”

Fingers crossed. It’s restoring now…

Are you restoring from a Mac/PC or from iCloud?

Mac/PC backups contain more stuff that iCloud backups so something in there might be bad. iCloud backups have less stuff, but enough that you won’t lose app data and the like.

I find it odd that you can get into storage settings after the initial restore, but not after photos are restored. It’s obviously a bug, but I can’t figure out why photos would trigger it.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Are you restoring from a Mac/PC or from iCloud?

Mac/PC backups contain more stuff that iCloud backups so something in there might be bad. iCloud backups have less stuff, but enough that you won’t lose app data and the like.

I find it odd that you can get into storage settings after the initial restore, but not after photos are restored. It’s obviously a bug, but I can’t figure out why photos would trigger it.

Same thought. I’m resorting from iCloud. We’ll see. So far so good but Photos is still loading…

 

[Surf Monkey]

So far so good. Photos is doing its thing and all the apps are downloaded. The phone shows the correct amount of used storage and total capacity at the moment.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Well, not too surprisingly I guess, the issue came back. Now it’s showing -20 gig used and a capacity of 277 gig. Apple support has been supremely unhelpful in resolving it so I’m on the phone now attempting to get them to exchange it for a new one.