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September 16, 2008 12:00 AM PDT

Apple Application Crashes in iPhone OS 2.1

by Ben Wilson

While iPhone OS 2.1 has dramatically reduced the number of third-party application crashes for most users, some users have experienced an increase in crashes from Apple-supplied applications like Safari, Mail, Calendar and others.

One Apple Discussions poster writes:

"Since the 2.1 update I have experienced crashing in several areas where I have never experienced crashing before. My Calendar has crashed, Preferences has crashed several times, and Safari is almost unusable if you plan on browsing for more than 10 minutes or so. Rebooting the phone appears to solve the crashing for an hour or so, then boom everything starts crashing. Anyone else seeing stability problems, especially with Safari?"

Another poster adds:

"Mail is unusable. Crashes every time I open it. I cannot even go into mail settings. I did a restore twice. The problem goes away for 2-12 hours, but comes back. I even removed all mail accounts after my last restore and re-built them, one IMAP one Exchange, and nothing but crashes. Very frustrating for someone who works in "real time" and needs data on the fly."

The first step in troubleshooting these issues is generally to force quit this misbehaving application by launching it then holding the home button for several seconds until you are returned to the home screen. This can clear improper application settings that could be causing crashes.

We have also received reports indicating that reducing the number of installed third-party applications (as we've previously recommended) can resolve these issues.

Feedback? http://www.iphoneatlas.com/contact.

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by gadol87 September 16, 2008 1:02 PM PDT
I just purchased X-Plane last night and after it loads and let's you use it for 10 seconds it crashes. I've only had it with the OS 2.1 but it's not working and their support people don't know why.
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by hightechdad September 16, 2008 1:20 PM PDT
Regarding the crashing of Mail, I encountered this previously on a jailbroken phone. It turns out that there were some incorrect permissions applied during the jailbreaking and the result was exactly that of crashing email.

This is the first that I have heard about it on 2.1 (and I have not encountered it). I do know that on a previous install of the 2.0.x firmware using Pwnage, there were some incorrect permissions but they release a new version of the tool that corrected it.

If you have a jailbroken phone and have these symptoms, I would get a copy of BossTools. They have (buried in the utility) a script that fixes the permissions for you. Just launch BossTools, go to the MORE button and click on "Fix User Dir Permissions". In the popup screen that shows, it talks in more detail about the issue.

Give it a try, in the past it worked for me!

-HighTechDad
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by stationarymotion September 16, 2008 1:41 PM PDT
Every application I have downloaded no longer works after doing the 2.1 upgrade.

Using a legit 2g iPhone with a 8-10 downloaded apps from the app store and none of them work. They all immediately crash.

Very frustrating to say the least and it seems I'm one of the few suffering from this issue.
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by jfmsam September 16, 2008 3:02 PM PDT
A clean install of 2.1 without restoring backup data or settings will definitely clear all issues. To properly achieve this it is better to put the iPhone on "Restore" or "DFU" mode.
2.1 is very stable for me.
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by crsdoc September 16, 2008 3:40 PM PDT
I haven't had this problem and in fact 2.1 has been a great improvement in overall iphone performance. i have 24 installed apps, use Exchange and MobileMe. I connect at work thru WiFi to a 802.1x connection and at home to a secure "N" network. I have had no issues. No complaints
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by LoneLocust September 16, 2008 4:00 PM PDT
I'll second the comment on the clean install, with a caveat.

After doing the upgrade, I was completely unable to enter mail or mail settings. I went through the process of a clean install and things went OK; however, I have about 6 different e-mail accounts on the iPhone, and as I added them back in one by one, one of them (an IMAP/SSL account from a hosting provider) caused the phone to behave in the exact same fashion. After painful trial and error, I worked out that using gmail's outgoing SMTP server on that account avoided the problem.

I suppose there might be a problem with the hosting provider's configuration, but it shouldn't cause mail to crash and burn.
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by EarlyAdopter September 16, 2008 7:35 PM PDT
Too much accumulated junk (caches, etc.) can fill up available app memory. If the quantity of media on the device gets too close to full-up, this can also cause crashes. If a hold-the-home-button app quit doesn't do the trick, and the home+sleep button still isn't enough, try deleting a movie or a few audio tracks. I have had no problems if I leave at least 5% of the storage blank on an 8GB phone.
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by jerryfan September 17, 2008 12:38 AM PDT
A clean installation is not work for me, I've upgrade to 2.1 by setting my iPhone 3G as a new phone, then installed all the apps and then video/audio. But I do see those apple stuff crash, I've already have my Safari crashing every 5 to 10 mins use, also my CLOCK crashes right after I setup an alarm. Very disappointed. There was a long time that I didn't do Ctrl-Alt-DEL on my Windows but now very often repeating " Home + Sleep " .....
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by zahadum September 17, 2008 1:05 AM PDT
safari still crashing after the update to 2.1

FAIL.
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by digiprod--2008 September 17, 2008 9:15 AM PDT
Just new a clean install of 2.1 and set the iPhone up as a new phone. I have had more problems than most with over 41 total restores and with replacing my iPhone 3G 3 times.

The iTunes 8 and iPhone 2.1 has resolved ALL of my issues. No more crashes, white logos of death, or app issues. The iPhone no longer seems to get better reception, better battery life and no more dropped calls so far.

If a clean install does not work, check the machine you are syncing with. If not you have a bad iPhone, the software seem to be quite solid now.
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by revazone September 18, 2008 1:24 PM PDT
I successfully installed 2.1 and have not experienced any of the problems listed in the comments here.
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by AllanD138--2008 September 19, 2008 12:16 PM PDT
> If you have a jailbroken phone and have these symptoms, I would get a copy of BossTools. They have > (buried in the utility) a script that fixes the permissions for you. Just launch BossTools, go to the MORE > button and click on ?Fix User Dir Permissions?. In the popup screen that shows, it talks in more detail > about the issue.

Tried the above suggestion as I'm also getting lots of crashing issues. I've had good experiences with Boss Tools (using iPhone OS 1.14), but can't find a "More" button or a "Fix User Dir Permissions" button in the Boss Tools version I just downloaded using Cydia -- can you provide additional details on how to access these button?

Thanks


Allan
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by AllanD138--2008 September 19, 2008 12:34 PM PDT
Scratch that last question -- found the button in "Boss Prefs" and have tried it.

Thanks for the tip and let's hope it helps!

Allan
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by xtopher19741 September 23, 2008 6:05 AM PDT
Unfortunately a clean system restore does not work in all cases. I did this to my iPhone, restoring to a clean version 2.1 with no 3rd party apps. Even in this state, Safari crashes regularly -- far more frequently than it did prior to 2.1. I then started reinstalling 3rd party apps 2 at a time for a total of 12. App crashes are frequent, with the worst offenders being Safari and the New York Times iPhone app.
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by bib01 October 13, 2008 4:18 PM PDT
My iPhone started to crash all 3rd party apps today. Did some research in many different forums and found a solution that seems to work for me. Try installing a 3rd party app through the app store on the phone. Open it, close it, then try another 3rd party app. This worked for me.

Additionally I think the app that caused me the problem was iPedia (previously iWik). I had recently updated it and although the UI for the program it failed to acknowledge the update when searching. I deleted it prior to the fix mentioned it above and then reinstalled it afterwards. Seems to be working fine now. It would interesting to know if anyone else noticed the same with this app.
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