[solstace]

I'm writing this for two reasons - firstly to provide reference to an issue i've fixed so others in a similar situation can see what worked for me. Secondly, to see if anyone knows what might have got the poor device's undergarments in such a twist for me to have needed to go to all this trouble!

So on with the description:

I have a four-month-old iPhone 3G on O2, running bog standard latest firmware and with no unusual apps. It's shutdown around once a week, and has never had more than 4 of its 8Gb filled. I noticed (and have fixed, for now) the following:

Symptoms:

• Over the last week or so, progressive slowing down of all apps using the Internet from either WiFi or mobile connections, regardless of the quality of the connection or original Internet connection speed/status. This includes Mail too...
• Slowing of SMS responsiveness for reading or sending messages.
• On two occasions (about 10 days ago) the GF called and I was unable to answer. The first time, the phone rang, the screen showed me who was calling me and showed me the usual answer/decline options, but the phone was unresponsive to touchscreen input. It continued to ring and show that screen for some minutes before the screen eventually went dark - I left the phone on the bed for a few more minutes in that state (still ringing and buzzing) and eventually it went back to normal. The second time it rang as normal but the screen was dark and the phone wouldn't respond. Buttons didn't work either. It rang off for the normal "divert to voicemail when unanswered" mode and a couple of seconds later the screen returned and I was able to reset the phone in the usual manner.
• Today, I received an SMS but the screen was dark and I couldn't get the phone to respond to touchscreen or button pushes. It woke up and went back to normal on receipt of a further SMS.
• Later today the phone had locked when I attempted to wake it up to check the calendar.

Fix method found:

• Thinking I might need a hasty Apple Store visit, I thought to try docking the phone to my MacBook in its unresponsive state to see what happened.
• I was presented with iTunes and iPhoto for sync as normal.
• Along with a bunch of pics I'd taken with the camera in the last week or so, there was also a screenshot of what I guessed SHOULD have been displayed on the phone when it went dark that last time - the wallpaper, unlock handle, and a preview of the penultimate received SMS.
• I downloaded the photo's present with no problems.
• Switching to iTunes, I tried the "restore" button. Usual warnings resulted and I clicked through to restore the original firmware. After a couple of reboots the phone came up as a brand new unit, and I was then presented with the option to either set the phone up as a new device, or to restore it to the previous backed up state. I chose the latter and some minutes (and another phone reboot) later I had a restored unit...
• ...BUT, no installed apps. Checking the sync settings again, the Applications were not set to sync. I clicked the "sync all applications" box, and re-sync'ed.
• Some apps were still missing. Using the phone's App Store option, I downloaded the missing apps one by one - each time I was told I could download them again for nothing. Cool - but would have been nice to know that BEFORE tentatively hitting "Install" having decided to save the hassle-factor of restoring any other way and resigning myself to the extra cost.

The phone is now back to its pre-lockup state and between iTunes and MobileMe syncing I now seem to have no missing data.

The thing is - I was lucky today that the MacBook and docking cable were nearby, so my mission-critical needs were met in other ways (I have an old Nokia phone for work) AND I was able to restore the phone at the same time purely by being more adventurous than usual - at that point I had nothing to lose, right?

I'm concerned that the fault might occur again, but next time I might not be so near the laptop and docking cable, left with a brick of a phone and unable to carry out some tasks. Anyone have any thoughts on what happened and how I might prevent it happening again?

[torifile]

What apps did you have installed? I get the sneaking suspicion that there are some apps that don't play nice on the iPhone. I've also heard that downloading apps diedtly to the phone can cause problems though I've never experienced any myself and that's the only way I purchase apps.