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Microsoft plans to fix rebooting Windows Phones next month

Software giant says it has identified the cause of the issue and plans to release an over-the-air fix in December.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Microsoft said today it has determined what is causing some Windows Phone 8 devices to spontaneously reboot and said it plans to issue a fix next month.

"We're continuing to investigate some reports of phones rebooting and have identified a cause with our partners," Microsoft said in a statement. "We are working to get an over-the-air update out in December."

However, the company declined to identify the cause of the reboots.

The issue materialized earlier this month when some users of Windows 8 devices complained of spontaneous reboots and e-mail sync issues. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley described an unexpected reboot of her loaner HTC 8X Windows Phone 8 on AT&T, as well how her e-mail accounts and Microsoft Account were stuck in an endless loop continually trying to sync. However, her Windows Phone 7 handset was not experiencing these issues.

Some users on forums claimed that uninstalling the Skype for Windows Phone 8 preview app, which Microsoft released a week earlier, may fix the rebooting issue. However, some users were complaining of reboot/sync problems before the Skype preview for Windows Phone 8 app was available publicly.

Watch this: Windows Phone 8 grows up