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Some of you who have been following me over the past week or so have seen me get a bit upset at my iPhone 3G. Well, more to the point, the 2.0 operating system is what I’m mad at. The upgrade seemed like a good thing. However, I’m running into tons of trouble. I’ve had to completely restore it four times already, and am about to have to do it again. I’m completely baffled as to why this keeps happening. I’m adding my Apps through iTunes like you’re supposed to. I’m not doing anything weird with my iPhone. I’m simply trying to use it as intended.

The only thing I can assume it would be is that iPhone 2.0 is just not mature yet, much like Microsoft Vista when it was first released. What 2.0 alleges that it brings to the table is support for third-party Apps. However, and I’ve experienced this three times already, it just isn’t happening. I’m not talking about a small little reboot. I’m talking I have to completely wipe it out and restore everything from scratch. It’s getting very annoying, to say the least. I have to re-add the Web icons (which aren’t saved), adding account usernames and passwords, etc.

Inevitably, something still keeps going wrong. Just when I think it’s a particular App that is causing the problem, I find out it is something else. I’ve tried and tried to narrow it down, to no avail. I have no trouble using Native Apps, by the way. I can go into Notes… although my notes weren’t saved. The moment I try to go into any third party App it will try to launch for a few seconds… and then crash. Every. Single. Third-Party. App. Crashes.

I get no error message. I get no joy. There’s no rhyme or reason to why this is happening. After a full restore, it will work for a little while, and then it starts happening again. So, I’m just resolved to not using any third-party Apps on the iPhone.

I don’t know if any of you know what’s going on, or if you know someone at Apple that can help you. Yes, I know this is an “early-adopter” thing. I can’t help it though. I’m addicted to gadgetry. What iPhone 2.0 COULD be is amazing. What it is now, is just not.

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98 Comments

The brief launch seems to be a DRM issue. Do you sync the phone with more than one computer?

I am having the same problems on my iPod Touch - very annoying!

Dude, the “you’ve got too many apps” explanation isn’t idiotic at all, in fact it’s probably the right one. You have a point about having a 500GB HDD and only being allowed 3 files but we’re not talking about just data here are we?

This is something Windows Users have had to deal with for years… you install app after app after app and eventually files get shared and overwritten and certain apps no longer recognise file versions that have been put there by other apps and then the machine grinds to a halt… Heard of DLL hell? Obviously the OS on the iPhone isn’t Windows but the same thing could be happening… All your apps are going away looking for their own updates and they’re totally unaware of other apps on the device.

It’ll be painstakeing but what you need to do is restore, install one or two third party apps and continue to use the phone… if it works okay, install a couple more apps.

Oddly enough, I’ve had zero, zip, nada, no problems with my iPhone. If I were you Chris, I’d try first running the phone with no additional applications for a day or 2. Then I’d add back the applications one at a time and monitor the stability of the phone. I’d bet money that the issue has to do with one or more or a combination of 3rd party apps. I’m currently using very few 3rd party apps. I have a couple of twitter clients, omni focus, and that’s about it really. I’ve experimented with a few others that turned out to be useless so I deleted them. I intend to install everNote this week, just haven’t gotten round to it. Other than the fact that like many people I get fewer bars when I turn on 3G, my iPhone has been completely solid under 2.0 and 2.0.1.

Then again, I’ve had little or no trouble with VISTA either. (I cheated. I bought a new computer before installing VISTA.)

Like VISTA I think that there are genuine problems with the iPhone but that there is more than a little bit of mass hysteria making it worse. This is clearly not the case with you, but I bet that you will methodically narrow the causes down.

Maybe reinstall itunes? I havent had any problems except a few applications gave me an error that they couldn’t open, but I just deleted them and reinstalled them.

Maybe try a disc repair permissions, after reinstalling itunes.. maybe you just got a bunk iphone? My old iphone with its old software is really much faster, but I havent had any major problems like I have been reading about.. except really long syncing..

You have this issue because you got a text message or phone call during the long syncing the iphone does. which stopped the sync and that’s why the 3rd party apps aren’t working because they aren’t there only the icons are.

Stop restoring just go back turn your phone to the airport setting then sync/back up your phone. you wont have anymore problems.

Oh, something I should have added…

You say you think it’s one app causing the problem so you remove it and the problem persists… Well that just goes to strengthen my point. Classic DLL Hell symptom.

It probably is just one app causing a problem. It’s probably replacing a crucial shared file or several shared files and by the time it’s done that, it’s too late, removing the app won’t make any difference because the damage has already been done to the shared files.

I’m having the same issues. I was so hoping that the iPhone OS 2.01 would solve this, but this morning, I tapped an invalid move in Othello and boom, bricked again! Now I’m doing a completely clean reinstall (not from backup) to see if this can fix it. I’m getting so fed up with this. Sometimes it bricks twice a day. I feel your pain. I love my iPhone 3G… when it works! I have 75 apps on mine and I think that could be the issue. Apple just wasn’t expecting people to have that many apps. Bad for their business model though if heavy users aren’t inclined to buy more apps…

Otherwise I’m doing everything clean, just like you. Sometimes I just want to throw my iBrick out the window! But I love it too much… when it works. :(

Also note that in Secrets (thanks to you I found this program) you can disable the iPhone backup in iTunes, and since I’m finding the “backups” to be useless I’m going to disable them again. Oh, one more thing, if your iPhone bricks and valuable photos are on it, hook it up to iPhoto and it’ll still import your photos from your bricked phone. I’ve already lost some nice photos before I found this trick.

I’m documenting my iPhone bricks and restores on Twitter: ChuckSmith if you want to follow. I really really hope iPhone 2.1 solves these instabilities.

Oh, one more thing… I found out that the “no app starting error” comes from entering a program and exiting it before it completely loads. If you always wait for the launch screen to disappear before you push the Home button, you should no longer have this issue.

Chris,

no help to you, I know but I have the iPhone 3g with a ton of apps installed. Installed and updated via both iTunes and directly on the phone. So far, not a single crash. All the apps are working fine.

Any chance you may have a dud phone?

Hi,

I also have the same problem with the first iPhone generation, at the moment 2.0 is a load of rubbish and Apple need to get their act together. It obviously went to market much too quickly, and we users are the fall guys.

Apple have a new firmware 2.0.1 for the iphone and You need update firmware to 2.0.1

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/04/iphone-2-0-1-now-available-through-itunes/

Hey Chris. You should enter DFU mode before you restore. There are a lot of videos on youtube on how to restore through DFU mode.

I haven’t had any problems at all with 2.0 or 2.01. I’ve got about 16 apps in there, but only use about 5 of them on a regular basis. I still think there are some rogue apps out there that Apple hasn’t tested properly and they are causing problems for people. I would run the phone with no apps at first for a few days and see how it goes, then add them in twos. When the phone starts geeking, you’ll know it’s an app issue. My other theory is that it has to do with the GPS module, as most of the people with problems are on a 3G and not a Gen1 phone. It would be interested if you could narrow this down–along with others–and see if there’s a constant in there somewhere.

2.0.1 fixed essentially all of my 2.0 problems - including random unexplained app crashes.

Have things improved for you with 2.0.1 ? Most of my problems seem to have been fixed thank God !

Hurray! I’ve had similar problems! That means the problems will get better with iPhone v2.0.1!

Ummm. Maybe you should have tried upgrading to 2.0.1 before publishing this article?!?!?

Hi Chris.
The resolution that I found was to “Apply” in iTunes, which can take a while. Then, before you get to antsy, “Sync” the iPhone through iTunes.

We might think that sounds like double duty but now, instead of the same problems you have, I have 103 working apps on my iPhone.

Best of luck,

Joe

Chris, try turning the phone off and on again. I’ve got the first gen iPhone but have encountered these instant crashes before and turning it off and on “fixes” it.

Chris,

Is this with the latest 2.0.1 update (Aug 4th)? It’s a LOT more stable than what Apple had originally released to the public. Unfortunately, I can’t say what previous versions were like (Damn NDA), or what the current dev releases are like.

All I can say is that I was surprised when I got my 3G and how unstable it was.

Hey Chris have you updated to 2.0.1 software code yet? maybe that might help?

Update to 2.0.1, and 90% of your problems are solved.

Odd!

I have an iPhone 3G as well and have never yet had a crash. I wonder if a visit to a Genius Bar might be in order, as well as a complete wipe and re-install.

Having restored YET AGAIN last night, I can concur…
2.0 and even 2.0.1 are NOT ready for prime time yet…
(Although 2.0.1 is way better)

Hmm… yeah, that’s really weird. But you have support or something like AppleCare on your iPhone 3G, right?

Just make an appointment with a Genius at a Genius Bar, and let them take a look at it. It’s not your problem to solve the problem, it’s theirs ;)

I’ll paste you a link down here for making an appointment with a Genius:

http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

Let us know how your iPhone is doing, and good luck…

Daan.

I have an iPhone with the 2.0 software. True it is not the 3G iPhone but the software is there.
Here is what I have noticed. If I stop using a particular app in the middle of doing something and then go back to it later to continue the iPhone will sometimes reboot. I noticed this particularly in Aurora Feint. I have also noticed that sometimes the phone gets stuck in a mode. Reading the battery is low even after charging it, or disconnecting my blue tooth when the headset is more the 2 ft away. If I turn the iPhone off and back on everything works again. This usually only happens when I have had it on for over a day.
I have not had to restore my phone at anypoint like you have. I have 35 apps on my iPhone not including the built in ones.

I was wondering if you tried doing a hard reset when your phone hangs or has problems before doing a restore? This helped me but your problems may differ.

Well, that has been my experience. I am not a mac fanboy and actually use XP and Linux most of the time. That said I still find the iPhone to be great. I don’t carry a PDA and a phone anymore and with splashID (highly recommended) I have all my information with me.

On another note, what actually has me the most upset with the iPhone is the lack of voice dialing and cut & paste. I sure hope that comes soon.

Dan

First, I am sad to see all your trubles with IPhone.

I can recomend looking at HTC and SE instead.
I have just rechived my SE G900, and after a cuple of days of use I can only like this phone. It’s a Symbian phone and have both 3G and WiFi. It has a normal phone keypad and touchscreen. Bla. bla. I could go on and on.

Second, a comment about car-adapters for mobiles. They are just as good as the ones for use at home.

Per Olsen

honestly I heard a lot about this but I nvr had a problem. And I launch 3rd party apps just fine, maybe u should try to upgrade to 2.0.1 I did today and it’s just fine al though I nvr had problems

Gordon Williams

August 6th, 2008
at 2:27pm

Hi Chris,

When this happens to me, I just reboot by holding the top button down for five seconds and then slide the red ‘power-off’ button. After rebooting, third-party applications run fine again for a day or so. The failure-to-launch problem usually happens whenever I try to demonstrate the iPhone to other people :^( So it’s actually a good thing that apps fail silently. MS style crash dialogs would be really embarrassing in a demo, and what help are they anyway.

If this isn’t your experience, then maybe there is something ‘evil’ that you’re putting back with the restore. Perhaps try starting from absolute scratch. If that doesn’t work then I would suspect hardware.

Some third-party apps are seriously buggy though. To be expected really. One app totally froze my iPhone when I tried to open a large JPEG file. I had to press the power and home buttons to extricate myself from that one!

But I have never had to restore the phone from a backup because of crashing 1.0 applications.

Cheers
Gordon

i think u should try Syncing ur apps 2 at a time instead of syncing them all at once. try that to see if ur problem is resolved.

upgrade to 2.0.1

apple relesed 2.0.1 and fixed all the bugs! but im still haveing problems pting contacts in with itunes :-(

have you updated to 2.0.1?

I KNOW CHRIS, THIS HAPPENED TO ME I HAVE WHAT LIKE, 60 APPLICATIONS ON THE PHONE THAT CRASH AFTER 4 OR 5 SECONDS AFTER I LAUNCH THEM. I HAD TO DO A CLEAN WIPE AND REPUT EVERYTHING IN THERE LUCKILY ALL OF MY PHONE NUMBERS WERE IN THERE. THIS IS MY SECOND TIME RUNNING INTO THIS, AND LET ME TELL OU INSTALLING 60 APPS….. NOT FUN

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the club… I also had lot of trouble lately with my iPhone, everytime I updated the Apps, iTunes or the iPhone OS!

I already did at least 10 Restore in 2 weeks lately… You can imagine I spent lot of time with that… and even didn’t use my phone…. to simply CALL!!

Of course, (and because I have something like 115+ Apps), I also had the famous “You have too many apps….” from Apple Tech Support… really stupid reaction!

The solution I found (which is not a 100% sure, but I’m still looking for… in despite of any error message or real way to identify the problem):

- Change your way you are updating your Apps and choose “manually”.

- Then, unselect the apps, sync, and then re-select the apps to “reinstall” them…

I noticed most of case there’s a problem when we try to update, launch or install too many apps in the same (or one after the other).

Probably a bad management of the memory… I guess. But again, it’s a pure guess and feedback from my bad last days experience.

I just update my Apps in iTunes, I’m really worry to plug my phone to sync them… without mention the 3 or 4 hours for each sync (due to the backup, etc…).

Good Luck!
Phil

have to agreemy touch wit 2.0 acts funny

Well, chris…

I’m not having this sort of problems on my own iPhone, but I think there are two things you could try:

1. download the 2.1 iPhone firmware beta from apple developer connection (developer.apple.com) and restore your iPhone from it;

2. restore from a custom 2.0 jailbroken firmware (yes, sometimes jailbroken firmwares, OR the software that comes or that can be installed include a few minor fixes);

To jailbreak the iPhone I would recommend using the Pwnage Tool as described here:
http://h4rdwired.byethost5.com/2008/08/jailbreaking-the-iphone-3g-part-1/
and here:
http://h4rdwired.byethost5.com/2008/08/jailbreaking-the-iphone-3g-part-2/

To restore from custom 2.0 or 2.1 beta, option-click (shift-click in windows, i think) the restore button in iTunes and then select the .ipsw bundle of choice

So, did Patch 2.0.1 fix your issues?

Thanks,
Nick

I have become frustrated with apps on my iphone as well. I have also given up. I’ve given the app store several hundred dollars of revenue and I’m tired of paying to be their beta tester. I have been dealing with almost constant problems. I have contacted apple to ask for a refund for one particular app that completely refuses to run on several occasions and they have yet to even reply to me (over a week at the time of this post).

No demos. No real beta testing.

When it works iphone apps are amazing. I love the games i love the cool new functionality (i used the app “A Level” the other day out of the blue and i just thought to myself…”when was the last time i actually had a level handy when i needed one?”)

I have a real problem with the support for the app store. Support from the app’s developers for the most part does not exist. I haven’t tried to install it since 2.0.1 and I don’t plan to as both restores this app has forced me to do have taken almost 4 hours. Apple won’t respond to my emails or refund me my measly $9.99 for a single app that I just don’t want to even try to deal with anymore.

I’m used to Apple being so much better… You know, the Apple that has the best hold music ever. The apple that either fixes it or replaces it before it really has time to really irritate you. Hopefully “that” apple will email me back soon. I’d like to se my iphone start doing some new things again but I just can’t bring myself to click the “buy app” button thinking that i’ll just be out of luck if it has problems.

true stuff but how do you sign up for the chance to win the free webcam?

Maybe too many 3rd party apps, try restore to 2.1, then try to put one app on.

Chris,

Have you tried updating to 2.0.1 software for your iphone? They claim that this fixes your 3rd party app. issue.

the update 2.0.1 fix all my problems with the iphone

Chris you certainly seem to be having a problem with your iPhone. Now I have two phones and neither has had any problem like yours. Rarely an app will crash in the middle but never like what is happening to you. So don’t think the source of your problem is the OS itself. There has to be another Gremlin there. Hardware or software but not just the OS. You need to get that phone replaced I think!!

Wow, that is very annoying how the 3rd party apps just crash like that. Everything seems to be running fine with firmware 2.0 installed on my first gen iPhone. Maybe it’s a good thing I haven’t yet bought the 3G iPhone?

Hello,

Are there any diagnostics you can run on the iPhone to see if it is faulty in some fashion?

Also, if you do not install any software at all on it, does the phone still have problems?

If so, then I would suspect a defective iPhone and recommend considering an RMA strategy for the device. Since you just bought it, you may be able to get a new replacement instead of a refurbished one.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

I just can’t see how the “early adopter” thing could be used as a justification for any major problem like the one you describe. Sure, it happens and will continue to do so in practical terms, but it just doesn’t matter. An early adopter is an adopter, above all things, and companies should be able to keep their promises from day zero.

Will this happen? Of course not. But then again a company can never say “Sorry, but you are an early adopter and [let's say] you still can’t claim the rights to a perfectly functional device”.

Have you tried updating to 2.0.1? That might solve the problem.

I have exactly the same problem, but also with my gps. After 1. time use will il only get location info from celltowers.
My solution is to power it off (holding doen the power button for some seconds, swipe the power off switch) and than reboot it. This solves the problem for me, but it is a pain in the neck.
I was hoping 2.0.0.1 was going to fix it, but sadly not.

I haven’t had any issues yet (knock on wood) and am running the latest firmware 2.01. I’ve downloaded apps directly from the phone and through iTunes. Using a Mac and no Windows machines have dirtied up my phone yet.

But, I don’t think I’ve downloaded as many apps as you have.

A good web site idea might be to simply report the bad APPleS

No problem here. I have installed lots (over 20) third party apps from both the phone and my mac and zero problems. I do only get free ones though, maybe that’s it? ;)

Chris PirilloiPhone ProblemsDo You Have a Problem with PayPal? Who Needs Photoshop?! Have You Ever Wanted to Animate Your own Cartoon? What Do You Use to Translate Words into Different Languages?

Same exact issue for me. I have an iPhone 3G Black 16GB. I have iTunes 7.7.1 and have applied the latest firmware 2.01. It was after these last two updates that I am now no longer able to launch any apps downloaded from the app store. I have done a complete restore of the phone and even the 2 hour long “erase all settings and data” from the phone itself. But, after initializing the phone as a new phone and syncing from scratch the apps still won’t load.

Apple has really screwed the pooch on this one.

I’m having the same exact problem. I’ve had to restore this phone for the sixth time yesterday. It’s been my 6th restore in lest than two weeks. I’m totally frustrated with this phone. I have yet to have problems with my old iphone.

The most frustrating thing for me was being in Houston, Tx expecting to make use of my GPS in order to travel around an unfamiliar city, only to get off the plane at Hobby International and my phone get stuck with the Apple logo. I was without a phone for two days.

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!

Yup Same issue . . .
all 3rd party apps crash WTF?!
Give me access to the processes! command line, anything that will make me feel less helpless!!
Come on Apple, if its gonna break at least give us the tools to fix it! Steve . . .

Chris, i think you should full restore it, then install each 3rd party app, one at a time, with a few day interval inbetween each app.

I have iPhone 3G 16gb and with the 2.0 my iPhone crash all the time like chris iPhone but when I update to 2.0.1 It fix all my problems
With the iPhone 3G

There are numerous threads regarding this issue over at Apple Support Discussion forums:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1644828&tstart=0

Your post was even mentioned in the thread. I’m also having this problem and most of us (and probably you as well) have lost access to all music/videos/podcasts that were originally on the phone.

This is most definitely software based but there’s no telling whether iPhone’s firmware is to blame of iTunes and its inability to correctly interface with the iPhone.

Fun stuff. I bought vista day one and at at least THAT got better. My iPhone has been working fine for weeks, now it’s a bundle of frustration.

Sucks to be in this situation - I’ve noticed Safari crashing on my iPhone 3G and am concerned that it’s some kind of progressive things, like the crashes get more frequent. I do agree the quality of this iPhone os 2.0 isn’t up to Apple’s usual standards. I hope software isn’t slipping quality wise - though now that I think about it, based on the Leopard bugginess this might be a trend.

Chris - It happens to me as well. You don’t need to restore - just ‘reboot’ it. I power mine down .. and back up, and then it will work again for a while.

Then it happens again, and I reboot again. Once a day or so does the trick (until they fix this).

I haven’t had any problems with the iPhone 2.0 or 2.0.1 software at all, on any of the 3 iPhones in this house. I’ve also just gotten my iPhone 3G, and have yet to have any problems.

It’s weird that you’re running in to them; I’d be tempted to think it’s the device, not the software.

Hey Chris, I hear that applying all updates to the iPhone individually rather than all of them at once helps the reduce the problem. Reason for it happening, which I don’t understand fully, is some sort of loop that the iPhone gets stuck in. I don’t know for sure, but what I have heard is keeping your iPhone from using the “Update All” feature. Maybe download your updates and apps all one at a time, separately?

Hope this helps you, Chris!
David

Hey Chris,
I hope I’m not posting this twice, my browser crashed when I hit the “Publish button” so I’ll try to briefly reiterate what I wrote before.
Anyways, you’re not the only one with this problem, alot of people have this problem. I guess what happens is the file system mounts and the iPhone freezes. Sadly the only way out of it freezing is to restore it.
I don’t know of any “cure” for this bug, but I have looked around and found that a good way to possibly help prevent it from happening is this:
Downloading all updates and apps one at a time with no other updates or apps running while downloading 1 update or 1 app, and to never use the “Update All” feature/option.

I don’t have an iPhone myself, but this is what I’ve looked up and I hope it helps! :)

David

[...] Snicker wo, 06/08/2008 - 11:17 Chris Pirillo: [...]

AGAIN! I spoke too fast when I thought it will be fine….

Yesterday night, I used the phone just before sleep (check some ebay auctions and play a little poker game)…

This morning, I woke up, the phone was out of battery (this happen often). I plugged the phone and turn on… try to re-open my current poker game to finish it… BAM!! All apps crashes AGAIN!

No way to have any of the 3rd Party Apps working… even after a Sync… I need to restore the phone… AGAIN and I will not be reachable for the next 4 or 5 hours…

God Damn! I didn’t change anything (no new version, no new apps, nothing!!)… Is it the Mobileme “over-the-air” updates which crash the system?

Mr. Apple… I was happy with my iPhone V1… and I’m REALLY disappointed with the version 2.x

I had to roll back to my Blackberry to receive my call… I can’t trust the iPhone anymore!

Phil

Chris it sounds like the apps’ permissions are being wrongly set during the installation.

There is only 1 way that I know of to fix that but it requires the device to be jailbroken. I know you didn’t want to jailbreak your old iphone and you probably still feel the same but I think that’s the only way to fix it. You could always jailbrake your iphone and then restore it if you ever needed support from apple.

I got a 3G model and am a seasoned Mac user.

I strongly suspect one of the apps you downloaded may have installed some “plugin” or file somewhere in the file hierarchy that is buggy to the peculiar weird subset of Mac OS 10.4 that is iPhone (and iPod Touch) OS 2.0.X.

Until that’s removed, you’re screwed (I’m guessing here). So what might be worthwhile is learning to see what is installed and where on the iPhone 3G “hard drive” and then knowing how to delete files at the command-line level. Is there such a tool to navigate the OS on the iPhone?

I dunno.

Fortunately for me I don’t have to worry about that: I’ve installed, via a Mac (did you install yours from a Windoze machine?), over 12 applications, several of which I later removed either because I didn’t like them or they seemed ‘crashy’. System stability seems to have improved and some aspects of the OS are “snappier” on 2.0.1.

What may really be needed is a way to remove some sort of file or some corrupted file that was created by some buggy iPhone app. If there was a way to truly “wipe” the OS and reinstall it, that should fix it, but apparently Apple is so overstretched, it cannot come up with a new tool to clean the OS up, like their “Disk Utility” in Mac OS X 10.X. That may be the real problem here.

I’m pretty sure that at least VirusBarrier can scan iPhone drives for known viruses et al.

Have you scanned it with any utility Chris?

Good luck, I’m off to the Cape. Will check back on arrival!

I’ve been contemplating getting an iPhone over the past few months. Even taking into consideration these issues, I still think that the iPhone is the right device for me. Sure, issues are going to happen, both in iPhone OS, and in the third-party apps. I still believe in the profound potential of the iPhone and can’t wait to see what Apple does to resolve these problems, as I know they will.

hey chris nice blog i love ur streams um yea i had recently got my iphone 3g and im loving this really helped

Like all portable technology this has bug’s…

hi chris recently got my 3G and this blog helped alot since the 3G was my first iphone and i love ur live streams thx

Dude that really sucks… Have you had better luck with the new version of the firmware?… it seems to have fixed some of the “glitchiness” for me. I never really had problems like you described though.

The iPhone’s firmware update hasn’t been the best, but I also think that it does so many good things. Apple just tried to do too much at one time and couldn’t. Trial and error I suppose…d

I hope all your issues can go away by 2.1…

Charles Strickland

August 9th, 2008
at 8:24am

Hi Chris,

I have been a fan for many years. FYI - I am having the same probem. I only hae a dozen apps loaded. Wish I had a fix, the latest update didn’t appear to make any difference.

I just wated to say thanks for the tip on how to restore the phone.. I had been wondering but hadn’t researched it yet and all of a sudden there it is in your newsletter.

Keep up the good work

Chuck

having the same problem here on 2.02. Come on apple get us 2.1 asap.

Hello Chris,

I encountered this problem about a week or two ago when I first got my iphone 3g. It was not jailbroken at the time. I installed app after app, and maybe accumulated about 30 apps or less. They seemed to work just fine. I downloaded all of my apps via the iphone itself, using the app store. Everything worked fine for a couple days, until I did a sync with all of my music, previously I had put no music on the phone - and then suddenly - Boom! - exactly the symptoms you described. I would launch any 3rd party app, it would load for about a second, and then crash. But at least my ipod had music in it….

Anyhow I resolved to pushing the restore button in itunes, and it proceded to download the firmware for my 3g phone, and then it proceded to install and wipe out my phone, finishing by putting my backup on there. When it was done, I synced everything again, apps plus my 4 gigs of music. When it was finished, things were almost fine. I noticed that a few apps were not working period. Luckily they were free apps so I was cool with deleting them. After I did, everything seemed to work fine. I reinstalled those apps through my ipone’s app store feature. They all worked.

Eventually I wanted to do another sync because I updated all of my apps in itunes, and figured I would push the updates to the phone from the computer. Well…. after that sync, I experienced a number of app start errors on my phone. Not the same crash problem, but refusals to start with about 3 or 4 of my programs. So I uninstalled them and reinstalled through the iphone. Since then I have resorted to installing apps one at a time, and updating one at a time through my phone. I have read various bits and bytes of info on the web relating to this problem, and this seems to be a good recommendation.

Recently I jailbroke my phone to v2.0.1 and had to load all my apps on there again. When I did so, I made sure to load them only 3 at a time through itunes, and I still encountered errors, however, this allowed me to deal with the errors much easier. After it failed to load an app to my phone. I simply synced only that problem app again- and it loaded just fine. This happened with 2 apps that had previously worked fine. Considering I was technically no longer running true apple firmware (but come on, its really the same!)

Personally, I believe this issue to be a sync issue with itunes. I only experienced the problem you described after syncing, and I only had related app problems after syncing.

Hope this helps,
Louie

two days ago, another upgrade to the firmware was made available. I downloaded and flashed my phone once more. The phone is now more responsive than before. But my problems with the Diamond isn’t unique, it appears. Early adopters of the iPhone 3G arereporting problemswith it too. One of these is Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome fame. The problem he reports almost exactly mirror the problems I had with my HTC Diamond. So I would recommend that Chris flash his iPhone 3G (if Apple has the improved firmware). All of which

luckily, I don’t own an iPhone, so I couldn’t know for sure. But a lot of geeks have been complaining bitching about it. On the national scale, Brice has a great post. On the international scale, naturally, I’m yet again going to have to mentionChris Pirillo. Now, even after having repeatedly torn his hair out, Pirillo still seems pretty biased to me. Any fanboy—dude, you so are—will pull the early-adopter card, and I say it’s ****. This problem is not a minor defect. It’s

2.0.1 does NOT fix this issue! I have had my iPhone 3G now for 1 week. The first thing I did when I got it home was to installed 2.0.1 on it. I also am running iTunes 7.7.1.11 on my Windows XP Pro box. I have had the issue where all my apps stop working and the phone also wouldn’t display any of my music or videos that were on the phone. There is lots of discussion going on about this in the Apple forums. It appears to be some DRM issue. I never went through the whole restore process but I did get things working again for a short time by doing this…

1. Go to itunes
2. Select your phone
3. Go to Apps tab
4. Deselect one of your apps
5. Hit sync (effectively uninstalling one app)
6. Everything should be ok again now and only takes the time to uninstall one app.
7. You can reinstall the app afterwards.

That worked for a while and I was able to run all my apps and all my music and videos are there.

But since then something happened and some of my apps stopped working again. Some say this might be an issue with the latest version of iTunes (7.7.1) and Apple has said it has something to do with “split accounts”. In any case I hope there is a fix soon.

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