Well, it happened... iOS 10.3 has bricked my 7 Plus

[JohnApples]

Waited till the evening to update, thinking it would go smoother. Started without a hitch, and got to the point where the phone reboots and the loading bar goes up. Once it finished, my phone restarted again... and again... and again. My phone was stuck in a boot loop. Does not go past the Apple logo, just keeps rebooting every few seconds.

Tried hard-reset and iTunes restore/DFU thing, but no dice. Apple Support says it needs to be serviced. Out of the dozens of Apple devices I've owned through the years and countless updates, I've never had a problem. But it had to strike eventually right? I know every update there are a small number of people who have these issues, so I'm not "surprised", but I just wanted to post a reminder to *always back up before an update*. Even if you've had flawless updates for the past 8 years, don't think it can't happen to you!

Now I gotta go plan a road trip to the Apple Store.

 

[mpavilion]

Good reminder, thanks (sorry it happened to you). I updated during the day at work; would not have been happy if this had happened.

 

[Jetro]

I updated during the day and let it run while I did some things and when I came back it was still finishing. This update is probably the longest to complete because of the new file system Apple is switching to.

 

[Susurs]

My 7+ restarted and started to update, restarted again within a minute, and then turned on as if nothing has ever happened (still on 10.2.1). A bit scary...

For the second time the update proceeded as expected and completed normally...

 

[Cristim74]

I have updated during the evening 2 iPhones and 2 iPads without any issues.
It took longer than usual on all of them, but that's probably because od the APFS.

 

[JohnApples]

I've seen pretty much everyone say that this update took longer than usual, so I didn't think anything was wrong at first. But after I saw it still rebooting after 3 hours, I knew something was up. It's a shame because I was really looking forward to experiencing the improvements that supposedly come with APFS. Instead, this is my first impression.

 

[cswifx]

If your device has ever been modified in any way that compromises the software or hardware, that may be the reason.

 

[AlliFlowers]

The last few updates I've waited a day or two to make sure there are no reports of issues - and have been glad I did. Yesterday, however, I was sitting doing nothing when I read that the update was out, so I went ahead and did the update. No problem. Got home, did the watch update (now THAT took forever!), and then started my iPad last night and finished it this morning. No issues anywhere.

 

[JohnApples]

If your device has ever been modified in any way that compromises the software or hardware, that may be the reason.

It hasn't.

The last few updates I've waited a day or two to make sure there are no reports of issues - and have been glad I did. Yesterday, however, I was sitting doing nothing when I read that the update was out, so I went ahead and did the update. No problem. Got home, did the watch update (now THAT took forever!), and then started my iPad last night and finished it this morning. No issues anywhere.

I think what irks me the most is that, despite the slow installation, this seems to be one of the smoothest updates judging by the forums. Figures that it would happen to me this time!

 

[Kg4zlb]

I updated my iPhone and it stopped unexpectedly and indicated that I needed to connect to iTunes to restore and complete the update. Of course at this time I was also updating both my Mac's so it all took a lot longer than I would have wished. Once the Mac was done, the rest of the iPhone update proceeded without a hitch. I must say though that in all the years I have had Apple devices, I have never experienced a single glitch while performing any updates.

 

[millydog]

Sorry to hear that it bricked your 7 Plus. I would like to contribute something though, just in case it helps. If my 7 Plus has a complete battery drain then it will continuously reboot and turn off with the original charger plugged into the wall, like it doesn't get enough charge when it boots so it turns off again and keeps doing this.....until I use a 10w iPad charger instead of the iPhone charger, then it gets enough power to boot and stay booted. So just a thought in case that helps.

 

[liteshow]

My update went fine but not without some hiccups:

I plugged my 6s into itunes and did a Restore iPhone. The download of the 2.2 GB source file went well but itunes actually froze on the "Extracting Software" part. I waited at least 15 minutes to be sure it was hung (no disk activity, nothing changing on the iphone screen) before unplugging the phone and rebooting the PC. Repeated the whole process and this time the upgrade went smoothly.

 

[Shark5150]

This is the first instance of the update "bricking" a phone that I read/heard. Of the millions of updated phones....
But sucks for the OP

 

[fmalloy]

I just hope this "needs to be serviced" BS doesn't incur you any cost. If it did, I would scream very loudly.

 

[JohnApples]

Sorry to hear that it bricked your 7 Plus. I would like to contribute something though, just in case it helps. If my 7 Plus has a complete battery drain then it will continuously reboot and turn off with the original charger plugged into the wall, like it doesn't get enough charge when it boots so it turns off again and keeps doing this.....until I use a 10w iPad charger instead of the iPhone charger, then it gets enough power to boot and stay booted. So just a thought in case that helps.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this and let it sit charging for a while with my iPad charger but no dice there either. I ended up taking it in.

I just hope this "needs to be serviced" BS doesn't incur you any cost. If it did, I would scream very loudly.

Good news- I took it in and they did *something* with it in the back that revived my phone. Not sure what it was, but it's my same exact 7 Plus that's now working.

What kinda concerned me though was that they said "you're still under warranty so there's no charge." This implies that if this happened after September, I would have to pay up to fix something that was their fault.

 

[fmalloy]

What kinda concerned me though was that they said "you're still under warranty so there's no charge." This implies that if this happened after September, I would have to pay up to fix something that was their fault.

Yeah, that concerns me too. All it takes is for some install glitch to happen, then Apple makes money, claiming you dropped your phone, got liquid in it, whatever.

Ever since they got so successful all I feel is that everything is a money grab for Apple. It's disgusting.

 

[SkidMD]

Waited till the evening to update, thinking it would go smoother. Started without a hitch, and got to the point where the phone reboots and the loading bar goes up. Once it finished, my phone restarted again... and again... and again. My phone was stuck in a boot loop. Does not go past the Apple logo, just keeps rebooting every few seconds.

Tried hard-reset and iTunes restore/DFU thing, but no dice. Apple Support says it needs to be serviced. Out of the dozens of Apple devices I've owned through the years and countless updates, I've never had a problem. But it had to strike eventually right? I know every update there are a small number of people who have these issues, so I'm not "surprised", but I just wanted to post a reminder to *always back up before an update*. Even if you've had flawless updates for the past 8 years, don't think it can't happen to you!

Now I gotta go plan a road trip to the Apple Store.

[doublepost=1490728495][/doublepost]Mine, too. Did an iTunes reset and it is back to life.....bummer there, dudes.

 

[scorpio1973]

So sorry to hear this! I had an issue with mine as well. Did the OTA update this morning and right at the end I got the "connect to iTunes" message on my phone. Had to finish via my computer and select the "update" option. It took a couple of tries to get iTunes to recognize my phone and finish the update, but I ultimately got things working again without any loss of data. Hope it all works out for you.

 

[Evelyn Harthbrooke]

Yeah, that concerns me too. All it takes is for some install glitch to happen, then Apple makes money, claiming you dropped your phone, got liquid in it, whatever.

Ever since they got so successful all I feel is that everything is a money grab for Apple. It's disgusting.

Definitely untrue. Not everything is a money grab for Apple. And I don't consider Apple to be a money grabber either. Though like all companies, they need to make money to survive otherwise they go rip. That's exactly what happened to Apple before during the 80s after Microsoft stole almost all of their market share or something along those lines due to MS' putting Windows on low-cost computers or something and Apple went into crumbles for a short period of time. At least, that's what I've heard anyway.

 

[Paralegal4444]

This is the first instance of the update "bricking" a phone that I read/heard. Of the millions of updated phones....
But sucks for the OP

Lol no it isn't

 

[Evelyn Harthbrooke]

Lol no it isn't

Dude...he was talking about himself. That was the first time for him that he has seen an instance of an iOS device bricking during an update process.

 

[XboxMySocks]

If your device has ever been modified in any way that compromises the software or hardware, that may be the reason.

Doubt this. Updated from jailbroken iOS 10.1.1 without an issue.

 

[scirica]

My 7+ restarted and started to update, restarted again within a minute, and then turned on as if nothing has ever happened (still on 10.2.1). A bit scary...

For the second time the update proceeded as expected and completed normally...

Same here...very frustrating. I'll give the servers a couple of days to relax.

 

[eclipse01]

I had this happen a long time ago to a 4S, Apple insisted it was hardware related rather than anything to do with the update.

Strange since it worked fine before the update.

 

[zorinlynx]

I had this happen a long time ago to a 4S, Apple insisted it was hardware related rather than anything to do with the update.

Strange since it worked fine before the update.

It's possible for hardware to fail in a way that an update will brick it.

An update involves a lot of heavy writes to the filesystem. If the flash memory in the device is marginal, updating may be the "straw that broke the camel's back" so to speak, causing the flash to fail and bricking the device.

It's uncommon, but it happens. You and OP were just very unlucky.