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This happened to me just a couple days ago. And for the guys who say to hold down the power button and Home buttons together, that does not work. None of the buttons respond, no matter how long you hold them down. Now this is for the continuous vibrating which is what I had, it may be different if its intermittently vibrating.

The way I fixed it was to take off the back cover and then disconnect the battery and reattached it. I did not take the battery out, I just undid the connector. I then wiped off all fingerprints and put it back together and the phone turned on fine. You need a VERY small screwdriver for this.
i would avoid doing this, since this may void warranty
 
This worked for me

Hold home and power button for 10 sec

My iP4 did this yesterday for the first time, when receiving a call. I panicked for a minute, tried pressing buttons and plugging it in, then tried the above solution, which worked for me. Still not entirely sure what's going on, but I will be keeping an eye out for more posts on this issue (if it really is an issue).
 
This is happening right now to my phone...is there anything that can be done besides letting the battery run out?
 
This is happening right now to my phone...is there anything that can be done besides letting the battery run out?

If you've already tried a hard reset and that didn't work, short of removing the battery and voiding the warranty, there's nothing you can do except let it die.
 
Samsies

this happened to my dad we held down the home and lock button for well over 10 seconds closer to a minute and finally it worked. I would recommend being patient and hold down the buttons for a little while longer instead of letting the battery die.
 
I just had this happen on my 2 week old iphone. I noticed it at 8pm, and after trying a hard reset (no response), plugging it in to iTunes (no response), and checking here, it was only 8:20 so I took it down to the apple store. There were still a lot of people there (about 8:45), but the guys at the genius bar asked me if I had an appointment, and I didn't, so they told me to make one for the next day since they wanted to shut down. I asked if they had seen this before, and he said yes, and that they would have to replace it. They refused to do it now, because they would have to run diagnostics on it. Thanks genius bar guys. So it's dead for the night, and I can get a new phone tomorrow afternoon.
 
Same thing just happened to me. Plugging it into a charger/itunes would not do anything. Like everyone has been saying, hold the lock and home button for approximately 10 sec and it should stop and reset the phone. No clue what caused it but it worked fine until I sent a text message and then locked the phone.
 
Same here: today as i set my phone down it started Vibrating on and off with a blank screen. I tried to hook it up to itunes and all that... the only thing that worked was a hard reset. I just held both home and power buttons down till it gave me the apple logo. Not sure how long. It did stay on the logo for a bit longer than usual, but booted right up. I have had the phone for about 6 or 7 weeks. Once it booted up I had voicemail. I am pretty sure my wife called me right when all this happened. bc i had just tried to call her. I think the call triggered the issue. Bc it was like the phone was ringing. But I could do nothing.
 
advil's remedy worked (10 seconds home and power button)

Hold home and power button for 10 sec

My phone -- out of nowhere -- did the exact same thing. Vibrated for a solid four minutes while I tried everything. Looked up this site, saw advil's advice and it worked. I don't even need to call in the morning.... Still, this is obviously an issue they need to know about!
 
same same

my phone is currently doing the same thing :( hopefully when it runs out of battery it will work again
 
Happened to me today, actually the battery just went down as i writing this msg. for my self i just quit Messenger and press on lock button. 5 min after my iphone vibrate so i thaught i receive something. I could use the phone for 3 sec just after seeing appear the blue scare volum down in the midle of the screen, then it was lagging badly and then was vibrating. I even received a call, answer it, i could talk and clearly listen in the 3 sec that it was OK but then i couldn't hear or talk. i'm realy wondering whats happening... !

I'v tryed to hard reset it, which was working but didnt solves my problem, i could connect it to itune and got it to recognize but didnt want to restore since i was not home. so i saw this thread and decide to wait for it to die.

Now i got it charge back a little and it still do the same damn problem *&?%$/ !! so i guess i'll need to restore it now. i'll let u know after my restore !
 
Same issue

I had the same issue. Holding the home & shut-off buttons got it back.
Hope Apple is looking into this bug.
 
I had a similar issue, screen went black and it vibrated, battery was around 25%, lasted over an hour on vibrate, plugged it in after it finally died, and it was fine, haven't had the issue since. Any google answer I found pointed to it being a one time occurrence for most people and they never got it again. I wasn't about to take my otherwise perfectly working phone back for something that probably would never happen again (Especially with all the faulty ones people seem to end up with after doing so)
 
iphone 4 problem

had the exact same problem. all of sudden it turned off and vibrated.
i held down the home button and the lock button together for bout 20 seconds, like someone suggested on here. then eventually it turned on. thanks
 
had the exact same problem. all of sudden it turned off and vibrated.
i held down the home button and the lock button together for bout 20 seconds, like someone suggested on here. then eventually it turned on. thanks

Yes, I find that 10 seconds is a MINIMUM time to hold the buttons. Sometimes, it takes considerably longer.
 
my iPhone 4 is just one day shy of a week old. I got it the day before thanksgiving (today is tuesday Nov 30) and literally just 15 minutes ago while I was using my computer minding my own business my iphone started vibrating on my wood desk sounding much like a mini woodshop going on!

it was plugged in to the USB port, idle (screen off), fully charged... i tried everything to try and get it to stop! unplugging it, plugging it back in, hard reset (hold power and home for 10 sec, 20 sec, and 2 minutes straight!!!), I even tried removing the sim card... None of the buttons respond (home, volume, silent, power, etc) it is basically a dead vibrating paper weight..

So i did a google search and found a link to this posting..

Right now it is still vibrating and it's annoying the **** out of me.. no matter what surface I put it on it is annoying.. i even tried burying it under a ton of blankets and pillows, and still can hear it vibrate away..

I am very disappointed to learn that this isn't an isolated issue but appears many of you also have the same problem and even had to go as far as to have to have the phone replaced!

I hope that I don't have to replace it.. because I literally over the weekend (a couple days ago) went to one of those invisible shield kiosk in the mall and paid to have a full body shield professionally installed! On top of that, I've spent countless hours customizing it beyond what iTunes can restore (jailbreak), also on top of that I got my playstation and super nes emulators on it and been on a Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania: Symphony of The Night Binge and have a collection of saves going on from hours of gameplay! I will be pissed to lose those and the money I paid to get the shield put on!

I am hoping that the battery will die soon and hopefully that will cure it... but with a 100% fully charged brand new battery.. i can imagine it will take all night!

Even if the problem is resolved with a battery drain, the fact that it will be vibrating for hours and will most likely get extremely hot inside! it's actually it is already pretty warm from being plugged in before the vibrating began!

I can imagine that constant vibrating and heat generated will cause considerable wear to the internal parts! even if I don't notice a difference!

******!

I am just glad I am at home.. I can only imagine how embarrassing it would be if I was out somewhere in public and the phone began vibrating relentlessly... especially in a quiet environment (school, movie theater)... **** the vibrating is so crazy and as such an annoying tone/pitch that it would even grab attention in a noisy environment (restaurant/bar)...

i think I am going to have to leave it in the opposite side of my house when I go to bed in a while... I cannot have it in or anywhere near my room! it's seriously annoying!
 
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let me add, not even ****ing music isn't enough to drown it out! i still hear it in the background of my music.. and I am listening to DEATH METAL!!! whats worse is when the song goes into a quiet moment, a guitar solo, or between songs.. it seems louder than ever! it's literally starting to hurt my ears.

What's worse is I can't put it in another part of my house yet.. 4 other people live under my roof and it's only 9:45 pm and of course everyone is up and about! so I can't ditch it in the living room or den or anywhere without someone probably hearing and homing in on the sound!
 
Another update, it's been 2 hours since the phone started vibrating and it's still going... It's HOT! not scorching that it will burn your fingers.. but it's really hot, the hottest I've ever felt with any iPhone, even hotter than times when I've used it to play graphic intensive games hours straight with the brightness at max and plugged in at the same time!

I wonder just how long this will go on... I wish my battery wasn't at 100% :(
 
Final Reply, it's now 1:20am and my phone's battery officially died at 1:15!

I plugged it in and it booted up good. NO VIBRATIONS!

I am glad that is over with.. now I just hope that it doesn't happen anymore...

Four damn hours of endless vibration and unusable phone is insane! what if there was an emergency? or what If I was one of those idiots who live their lives every waking hour on their phone talking, texting, updating social networking status all the time, etc...

Apple really should look into this problem.. especially over the fact of what if I had to call for help and I couldn't because my phone wouldn't stop vibrating until the battery died!

Sounds like a potential Lawsuit if it ever happened during an emergency situation!

I wouldn't be surprised if it were a hardware issue/defect... I mean, if it were a software issue, then I am sure the hard reset should have caused it to restart, or respond when you pull the sim card out or when you unplug it or plug it in... any of those fix it all other times it freezes (no matter how strong the freeze)..
 
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Iphone 4 iphone4 I4 vibrate bug

I got rid of it by pressing all 4 buttons of the I4 for a few seconds. I toggled the on/off switch once when holding the four keys, don't know if that helped.
My phone rebooted and started back to normal.
No fun activity had happened to it for the last 72h : no hit or damage, no new app or connection to PC - a few phonecalls and SMS only. The OS was v.4.0. It was close to a wifi router but not connected to it.
...This is strange oO
 
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