If your iPhone keeps restarting after iOS 17 update, it might be a dodgy app, a software bug, or something else entirely. Here’s how to troubleshoot it.
Rarely, your iPhone might experience a software or hardware issue that requires it to restart. If your iPhone keeps restarting after iOS 17 update, don’t panic — read through the troubleshooting steps below to fix the problem.
QUICK FIX
If your iPhone keeps crashing and restarting after iOS17 update, start with basic troubleshooting steps like a manual restart, updating iOS and your apps, or possibly resetting various settings. One of those should solve your problems, but if not, try a factory reset. If that’s still not working, you probably have a hardware issue requiring help from Apple or an authorized repair shop.
Why does my iPhone keep restarting after iOS 17 update?
If your iPhone is restarting randomly after iOS 17 update, the issue can probably be narrowed down to one of five possibilities.
Outdated apps
If some of your apps are outdated, they may have a bug that’s triggering crashes. This is unlikely — bugs that serious tend to be caught in testing — but does happen. Even Apple can’t test for every possible hardware and software combination, and all it takes is something like a buffer overflow.
Software glitches.
If your iPhone keeps restarting after iOS17 update, it’s likely a critical bug or some other incompatibility in your current version of iOS is causing a problem.
Phone settings are conflicting with one another
The more you tweak and customize your phone, the higher the chance there is that settings might conflict with one another. This is even more unlikely than a crash bug, but can’t be ruled out completely.
You’re running iOS 17 beta software
If you’re running iOS 17 beta on your iPhone, you are bound to experience Issues such as random restarts. The main purpose of beta program is to hammer out glitches and design gaps. Crashes aren’t inevitable in a beta, but they should be a known risk when you take part.
Your iPhone has a hardware defect
Flaws or damage could also cause your iPhone to keep restarting. Do you see any sign of damage on your iPhone? This could come in the form of scratches from an accidental drop, broken screen, water marks from liquid damage, or broken pins inside the charging port. It’s best to rule out every other possibility first, since the only way of solving hardware trouble is bringing your iPhone in for repair or replacement — and at your own cost if it’s out of warranty.
How to fix an iPhone that keep restarting after iOS 17 update
Now that you know the reasons why your iPhone keeps restarting after iOS 17 update, let’s go through the troubleshooting steps to fix the issue.
Manually restart your iPhone
I know this sounds like a cliché fix, but you’d be surprised how restarting your iPhone will troubleshoot the problem. There’s nothing to lose by trying, so go ahead and give it a shot. How to restart your iPhone depends on which model you have, but on iPhone XR or newer, it involves holding down the side button and one of the volume buttons. If you have iPhone SE (second generation) or newer, just hold down the side button.
Whichever model you have, drag the power-off slider that appears, then wait for your iPhone to shut down. When it’s off, hold down the side button again to reboot.
If your iPhone won’t let you use a conventional restart, use these steps to perform a force-restart:
- Tap and quickly release the volume up button, immediately followed by the volume down button.
- Press and hold the side button. Don’t let go yet.
- Wait until you see the Apple logo, then let go.
Make sure the latest iOS 17 update is installed
The next thing you should do whenever troubleshooting a serious problem with your iPhone is to check for iOS updates. It’s possible that a critical bug or some other incompatibility in your current version of iOS 17 is causing your iPhone to keep restarting. To check, start the Settings app and then tap General. Tap Software Update. If there’s an update available, you’ll be able to install it from here.
Update your apps
Likewise, the problem might be the result of a single app that’s causing a serious error to occur. Of course, if the restart problem very clearly occurs when using a certain app, then the problem is likely caused by it. As such, you might be running an old version of the app that is incompatible with iOS 17. It’s possible the app developer has already released a fix for the crashing.
To update apps, open the App Store app and tap on your profile icon in the top-right corner. Under Available Updates, tap Update All, or just Update for individual listed apps. If you don’t see anything that needs updating, try refreshing the page by swiping down.
Check iPhone error logs
As mentioned, a dodgy app could cause your iPhone to restart unexpectedly. Thankfully, you can check a log that your iPhone generates to see if there’s an easy-to-spot problem. Head over to Settings > Privacy and Security > Analytics and Improvements > Analytics Data.
Here you can read error logs, but if you’re not technically inclined, all you need to look for is familiar app names in log titles. If a particular app is recurring, there’s a good chance it’s the cause of your frustrations, whether or not its developer has updated recently. Go ahead and uninstall that app now and see if that solves the problem. You may also want to contact the app developer to inform them about the problem.
Free Up More Storage
Even if you have a 64GB iPhone, you shouldn’t cram it with 64GB worth of content. Instead, it’s much better to keep at least 10 percent of your storage empty.
Your iPhone uses this free space to copy files, move data around, and work more efficiently while processing tasks. If your storage is completely full, your iPhone can’t work as well, which might explain why it keeps restarting.
Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage to take a look at your storage usage. If less than 10% of your storage is free, you should clear your phone’s storage. There are a number of ways to create free space on your iPhone. For example, you can delete unnecessary apps, photos, videos, and more.
Remove Your SIM card
Sometimes, your SIM card can cause your iPhone to restart. This usually happens if your SIM card can’t connect to the carrier for some reason. It can even lead your iPhone to get stuck in a boot loop that’s hard to escape from.
To troubleshoot this, try removing and reinserting your SIM card. Use a SIM pin or a straightened paperclip and pop the SIM tray out of your iPhone.
If this works, but then your iPhone keeps restarting again when you reinsert the SIM card, keep following the next steps to reset various settings on your iPhone before putting the SIM card back in.
If your iPhone still keeps restarting after this step, ask your carrier for a replacement SIM card.
Reset various settings
If you’ve gone through everything above and your iPhone continues to restart, the next thing to try is resetting your phone’s settings. That should solve any conflicts, though you’ll have to spend a while returning things the way you like them.
Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone and select Reset. Start with Reset Network Settings, and if that doesn’t do the trick, use Reset All Settings. This will NOT erase your phone, but nevertheless, you should do an extra phone backup as insurance.
Perform a factory reset
If your iPhone still keeps restarting at this point, then it’s time to go nuclear and erase your entire iPhone. Before proceeding with this troubleshooting step, ensure that you have a reliable backup of all your apps and data. If your iPhone is continuously restarting so frequently that it’s not usable at all, this might not be a practical step. But if you can, back up your iPhone to iCloud or your computer.
When you’re ready to Reset the iPhone to its factory conditions, head over to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings and follow onscreen instructions.
One thing to be wary of that the trigger for your restarts is somewhere in your data. So, you should not restore your apps and data during the setup. Start with a "factory fresh" iPhone and see if the restarting problem is fixed. If it is, you might try to restore your data. If the problem returns, you’ll need to factory reset your iPhone and then manually reinstall apps from scratch
Contact Apple Support
If you’ve tried all these solutions and your iPhone still keeps restarting, there’s a good chance the problem is not software related, but you have a hardware problem. That’s not something you can solve on your own, so the best course of action would be to contact Apple’s customer support and see if the phone needs to be serviced or replaced. If your iPhone is under warranty, it’s possible the repair won’t cost anything at all, unless you’re clearly at fault. That includes liquid damage.
Successfully fixed iPhone keeps restarting after iOS 17 update issue
If you’ve followed all these steps, your iPhone should no longer restart unexpectedly. You can get back to enjoying your phone without fear it’ll randomly turn itself off.
