T-Mobile iPhone Users Seeing Frequent Random Restarts and Blue Screens

[MacRumors]

A growing number of T-Mobile iPhone users are complaining about seeing frequent restarts and "blue screens of death" on their devices, a problem that seems to have begun very recently. MacRumors has received several complaints from readers, and there are also numerous reports of problems on Twitter, Facebook, and reddit.

Affected users are experiencing a split second blue screen that's followed by their devices restarting, and it appears most people who are seeing issues are T-Mobile customers that began having problems last night or this morning.

Known devices with problems include the iPhone 6 Plus, the iPhone 6, and the iPhone 5s, with restarts happening at 10 to 30 minute intervals. Multiple versions of iOS 8 appear to be affected, including iOS 8.1 and iOS 8.3.

Hey guys. So this morning my iPhone 6 (4 months old) started just randomly restarting itself every 20-30 minutes or so. I wasn't even using it most of the time, it was in my pocket at work (could tell because of lock screen that indicated I needed to enter my pin after a restart as opposed to finger ID). At one point I was texting my SO about it, the screen turned blue for maybe 2 seconds and it restarted.

It is not clear if T-Mobile recently pushed a carrier update that's causing the problem, but a reddit user who spoke with T-Mobile's support staff said that he got the impression that T-Mobile believes a memory problem might be the cause of the restarts. "The sense I got from the technician is that a) they suspect memory problems, and b) they're getting a lot of calls about it," he wrote.

Some users have had success putting a stop to the restarts with a hard reset, and that's the solution that T-Mobile is recommending to customers who call in. If that doesn't work, T-Mobile is instructing customers to clear out their old text messages and do a factory restore via iTunes.

Update: Many users are reporting that disabling Wi-Fi Calling fixes the issue.

Article Link: T-Mobile iPhone Users Seeing Frequent Random Restarts and Blue Screens

 

[Crosscreek]

Haven't seen any on mine.

 

[theelysium]

It is obviously not memory problems if its happening to only Tmobile users. You cannot believe an incompetent cell phone company rep. They know nothing.

 

[RobertD63]

Sure.. Memory problem.. Related to something T-Mobile did...

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

BSOD for Apple?

 

[lucanaut]

Been dealing with this ALL day. Never have I thought I'd see the blue screen of death on an iPhone. It has been practically unusable. My wife's iPhone is not doing this. I didn't think about T-Mobile being the culprit so I have been on multiple chats with Apple and they said they could see a "glitch" in the software but the guy would not get more specific even though I told him I can understand computer speak more than just a "glitch". First he told me my 64GB is too full with "only" 3GB available. I told him that's BS as it has been with that available amount for months and I never had an issue. So, next he of course told me to do a master reset and erase everything and restore in iTunes and set it up as a new phone, which is a little drastic and not something I can do in the middle of the week when I need my phone and its contents for work. I did, on a whim, do a hard reset a couple of hours ago and so far, so good.

 

[spencers]

Recent solar flares and geomagnetic storms?

 

[MentalFloss]

If a carrier update is causing this, then some bug in the modem is responsible for it. If so, then there is a very unhappy task force at Qualcomm working on the issue right now.

 

[the-oz-man]

I saw people complaining about this at the Apple Store last night. The Genius were sending them to the T-Mobile store.

 

[whynot83706]

Recent solar flares and geomagnetic storms?

I am having sam issue with iPhone 6 and blue screen

 

[Andres Cantu]

Recent solar flares and geomagnetic storms?

Lol, as good an explanation as any!

 

[lucanaut]

I saw people complaining about this at the Apple Store last night. The Genius were sending them to the T-Mobile store.

As if the T-Mobile people are going to know what that is or what to do about it...one pointing to the other. Pathetic.

 

[Arrr]

3 T-Mobile iPhone 6es here with no issues. I wonder if this is relegated to a specific area of the U.S.?

 

[Tork]

I've been so worried all day since my phone's been running like a champ, then this started happening today.... Five blue screens and resets. 64GB T-Mo. Hopefully a better fix comes out since I'm sure the phone support people are just naming off generic fixes. Love T-Mo, but their support has always been historically bad.

 

[perkedel]

T-Mobile user here. Haven't seen my ip6+ blue screen. I bought mine from the apple store unlocked.

 

[ad_2001]

T-Mobile user here and I've been seeing random reboot for the last couple of weeks ... at first I thought it was because I was almost out of storage ... but the reboot still happens after I deleted 20Gb of music from my phone ...

Then, I thought it was Apple Watch related ... I thought somehow when the iPhone tries to update apps on my Apple Watch, it might crash the phone ... but with this report, maybe it's the T-Mobile ...

I did so many hard rest and the reboot always comes back ... my iPhone 6 Plus restarted at least 4 times since this morning ... but I've never seen a blue screen though

 

[hyperpiper45]

I have had two BSOD's with my iPhone 5s, however it is on Koodo and not T-Mobile. Also it only started happening after iOS beta 1 was installed. No issues since beta 2.

 

[darwen]

I thought this was just affecting me. What a weird set of requirements for this issue to begin occurring.

I just reinstalled my phone, and the issue occurred again during the restore, so erasing the phone clearly does not fix the issue.

 

[OrangeJacketGuy]

classless T-mobile shifting the blame. they haven't changed much in 10 years by the sounds of it

 

[sualpine]

This is either an incorrectly written carrier plist update, or some sort of tower update that isn't interfacing with the modem properly. Both issues would be on T-Mobile's end.

 

[Arrr]

classless T-mobile shifting the blame. they haven't changed much in 10 years by the sounds of it

Keep in mind this "quote" in which the blame was shifted came from a likely Tier 1 phone support rep. I would't read much into it until T-Mobile themselves put out a statement.

 

[graywolf323]

I've had some SMS issues (texts failing to send, no problems receiving) but I attributed that to being on iOS 9 beta 2, however it could be related to this instead

 

[pmeisman]

I am in the middle of closing a huge deal at work, and my phone has been doing this all day... Not exactly good timing.

 

[Hsolo]

Been dealing with this ALL day. Never have I thought I'd see the blue screen of death on an iPhone. It has been practically unusable. My wife's iPhone is not doing this. I didn't think about T-Mobile being the culprit so I have been on multiple chats with Apple and they said they could see a "glitch" in the software but the guy would not get more specific even though I told him I can understand computer speak more than just a "glitch". First he told me my 64GB is too full with "only" 3GB available. I told him that's BS as it has been with that available amount for months and I never had an issue. So, next he of course told me to do a master reset and erase everything and restore in iTunes and set it up as a new phone, which is a little drastic and not something I can do in the middle of the week when I need my phone and its contents for work. I did, on a whim, do a hard reset a couple of hours ago and so far, so good.

Yeah, it's not memory cause I have 40gb available and suffered 5 BSOD crashes today as well. Unless they mean RAM...looks like T-mobile is version 19.1 and probable sum disgruntled employee that planned on leaving decided to paint his "Developer's Mona Lisa" by letting a timed kernel panic causing memory freeze give T-Mobile customers crash issues preceded by the signature Windows BSOD. I also witnessed that blue flash...Anyway, just fix it T-Mobile ! 19.2 !

 

[dwsolberg]

This is obviously related to T-Mobile doing something. For the people having a problem: Did you recently click "okay" to accept a carrier update? Also, what is your carrier information listed under Settings->General->About? (Mine says T-Mobile 19.1, but I''m not having any problems).