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T-Mobile iPhones are crashing and blue screening, say users

Reports of crashes and reboots have popped up on various online forums, seemingly specific to T-Mobile iPhones. But so far there's no official word on the cause of the problem.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
2 min read

The iPhone is crashing for some T-Mobile users. But why? CNET

Some owners of T-Mobile's iPhone are complaining that their phones are crashing, restarting and experiencing the infamous "blue screen of death."

As of Wednesday, such reports have surfaced on Reddit, Apple's support forums and Twitter. The issue seems consistent across most affected users. Your iPhone screen turns blue and then reboots. And not just once but persistently in anywhere from 10 to 30 minute intervals. So far, the problem seems specific only to T-Mobile subscribers with an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or iPhone 5S.

Without any official comment from T-Mobile or Apple, it's hard to know how many people are affected or what may be causing the problem. Glitches like this can be hard to pin down since they often hit a relatively small percentage of users, and a solution or workaround that fixes the problem for some doesn't necessarily do the trick for others. Frustrated users typically have to wait for the vendor or carrier to investigate the problem and then develop and roll out a fix, all of which can take time.

One person on Reddit who contacted T-Mobile tech support said: "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."

Some people have said that disabling Wi-Fi calling resolves the bug, but that the problem returns as you turn the Wi-Fi calling back on. And disabling that feature would be a temporary solution at best. T-Mobile tech support apparently is advising some users to hard reboot their iPhone by holding down the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button until the startup screen pops up. And if that doesn't work, deleting your old text messages and restoring your iPhone to factory conditions may work, though restoring your iPhone is a lengthy process and usually a last ditch effort.

But for some, the problem persists.

"After having this happen for the 4th time, it seems that my phone is not able to stay on for more than maybe 5 minutes at a time," said one user on Reddit. "I did a factory restore and a backup restore. It did not help, unfortunately."

Neither Apple nor T-Mobile immediately responded to CNET's request for comment.

(Via MacRumors)