Earlier this week, I had quite a scare with my iPhone 4. One minute it was working fine, and then all of a sudden it stopped. I pulled it out of my pocket, hit the “home” button to wake it up, and the screen flashed and then went black.
That was it. It had a full charge, but I couldn’t wake it up. I hit the home button. Nothing. I hit the power button. Nothing. I tried holding each of them down. Nothing. I plugged it into the wall. Nothing. I plugged it into my computer. Nothing.
Jailbreak = void warranty
It’s still well within the warranty period, so it wouldn’t be a huge deal, except… My iPhone is jailbroken, which technically voids the warranty. While it’s a simple thing to reset your iPhone to its factory settings, you can’t do that if you can’t get your phone to turn on.
I’ve actually been having some minor issues with a dark spot on my iPhone screen, so I didn’t mind making the 45 minute trip to the nearest Apple store to get it swapped out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t walk in with a jailbroken iPhone and expect them to help me.
How to get your iPhone to turn on
The good news is that I figured out how to get my iPhone to turn back on. After a bit of Googling, I tried holding down the home and power buttons simultaneously to reset my iPhone. I held them about 12 seconds before anything happened, but then the silver Apple icon appeared on the screen and it proceeded to boot up.
Once it booted up, I ran a quick sync to get everything backed up before putting it in recovery mode and resetting it to the factory settings. From there, it was just a matter of driving to the Apple Store to swap it out for a new handset with a fully functional display.
For what it’s worth, when I mentioned the difficulties getting my iPhone to turn on, the guy at the Genius Bar said that it was almost certainly a software issue. His advice was to reset my phone to the factory setting and then restore my data from the latest backup.
FYI: If the problem persists after restoring your phone, then it might be a corrupted file in your backup. In this case, you’ll need to sync you data instead of restoring from backup, and then manually re-set all of your preferences.
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Thank you very much. I had a similiar issue with my iphone 3. I saw some resetting stuff on utube, but I couldn’t get anything to come up. YOur trick of simulataneously holding the two buttons worked like a charm. I knew my phone was fully charged, but it was so weird that it just crashed. I love simple fixes like you recommended. Thank you again for your posting.
This was really helpful, thank you. My iphone went blank and wouldn’t charge but your advice about holding the 2 buttons has done the trick. Cheers!
GAH! Thank you so much. I went to check the time on it and it wouldn’t turn on or anything and it wouldn’t work when I plugged it into anything either but this worked…I’m so relieved I thought it was done for.
Had the random “I dont WANT to turn back on” issue today, and your solution was the only one that worked. You’re a life saver.
Thank you so much.. the two buttons at the same time was a lifesaver!!
this is exactly what happened to my iphone4 just now and i can not get it to work! it’s not jailbroken, but i had a lot of numbers not in contacts and just in my text message folder and would rather have access to them. plus, it’s 3am and the apple store isn’t open. the two button reset is common on apple products but won’t work. the apple logo when i turned awhile ago popped on then froze on there. super!
Exact same thing just happened to me… a mere one day after jailbreaking my iphone 4. Thanks for the tip. Crisis averted. I’m in the process of unjailbreaking as we speak.
Thank you! My husband’s iphone 4 just had this same issue.
Thanks I was at church taking pictures when I pulled it out of my pocket and it wouldn’t turn on or anything and it had 62% charge, but it’s back working now thanks!
It worked!!! Thank you!!!
I nearly had a heart attack when my phone quit. Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to post this!!! 🙂
I had to hold the two about 20 secs, but thankfully it worked. Woo-hoo!!
Thank you!!! I nearly died this morning when the same thing happened to mine! I was on the train – it was working fine. I locked it, got off the train to check the bus schedule and it wouldn’t do a thing – nada. Got to work and put it on the docking station to charge – nada. Thankfully found your solution here and it worked! Phew!!
Thank you!! My husband is in Afghanistan right now so when my iPhone 4 suddenly went blank I about flipped out….this phone is my only link of communication to him! I tried everything and then googled the issue, finding your advice….worked like a charm!
Thanks for the advice, it worked for me as well. My phone was fully charged and then just went blank. Thanks again your advice restored my phone
Thanks so much!!!
Thank you! Never would have thought of that! Saved me a trip to the apple store!!
w00t! thanks a lot, this saved me $200 🙂
Thank you!!!! Lifesaver!!!
thank you I thought my phone was broken!
Thanks for the great information, saved me a long trip to the Apple store!
I really appreciate this!!! Thank you! I’ve had no problems with my phone until now, and with your tip, it came right back on! Phew!
Thanks – this was very helpful!
Thank you so much for posting your tip. It worked like a charm and I did have to reload anything! You are a lifesaver!
Am having the same problem, yes the 2 click cutton simultaneously solve the problem. but, recently, it went black again, and after 2click button, the apple logo appear and it froze. when click 2button again, it requesting me to link into ITunes. major problem, my iphone is jailbreak and i never back up it. could someone advise, tq….
Omg I nearly had a heart attack. I seriously thought “I’m screwed. This sucks”. Why does that happen? Beats me. But I’m sooo glad I came across this! Thanks so much.
so i jailbroke my iphone 4 through jailbreakme.com and it was fine for a month then it died and wont turn back on!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the advise to hold down home key with restart button – it worked on my old phone…. apple wanted $30 for a one time phone support – bogus – you saved the day!
thanks a lot!!!! it made me nervous a bit. it worked.
Thank you so much! you saved me a trip to the verizon store!!!
It worked for me too. When I went to bed it worked and when I woke up it wouldn’t turn back on, even though it was charged. Holding down the 2 buttons for around 12 seconds worked great. Now it seems to be just fine. Thanks!
Thanks for reminding me of this Apple trick! This worked like a charm for me, and I didn’t do a sync or restore. It’s been fine since.
Thanks for the tip! Your trick worked. Held the 2 buttons and got it turned on and the battery was half charged.
Thanks a million. Real life saver.
I appreciate you posting the restart method. Thanks a bunch!
thank you very much!!!! u just saved my life!!!!!
My wife got depressed seeing the iP 4 not responding to anything staying with blank screen, it is not jail-broken .. I hit the googling and in 10 second + the 10 sec using ur solution things back to normal! nice one to post and the trick in your post is the words u used so it can hit search engine quickly and right to the point 🙂
Thanks for the post. Mine also had a full charge and just randomly went unresponsive. Holding the two buttons for about 16 seconds worked great. Thanks again…
Same problem! Thanks. It seems to be working
Thanks a lot for the post. Its lifesaver.
This did the trick for me too! Thanks! 🙂
This trick worked for me too. Saved me a trip to the store – thank you. Now the question is…why is this happening to so many people?!
Ditto with the gratitude! Holding the two buttons until the apple appeared worked. Now I’ll make sure I sync my files more often and periodically turn the phone off as someone told me that was also important.
Very helpful! Thank you very much!!
WOO! i usually just hold it for a few seconds and it works!! this time i had to hold it for amost a min…. never even thought to hold it that long! glad its working again though!!
WOW! Thank you Thank you Thank you!! This has happened to me several times over the past few months and I had to take it in but they would not tell me how the fixed it! Thanks again 🙂 This has made my day since my phone has been out since yesterday!
I set my iphone to charge at 60 percent before going to bed. When i woke up it was off. When i press the buttons or do the reset sequence I get no response.-nothing. When i connect it to my computer or outlet there is absolutely nothing happening. Ive tried holding the home/sleep buttons for full minutes at a time. Does anyone have ANY suggestions? Ive searched everywhere and this simple fix seems to work for a lot of people but not for me. ANYone???? Thanks!
thanks worked for me!
Thanks I did it to my sisters phone and it helped a lot
THANK YOU. Mine totally died and would not come back on even though I held down both buttons at the same time. The trick was holding them both down for 15 seconds. BLESS YOU. Now I don’t have to go to the bloody Genius Bar