iPhone crashing on Dec. 2? Here's the fix!

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

iPhone Bedtime
iPhone Bedtime (Image credit: iMore)

If you have an App Store app installed that sends local notifications, once you hit December 2, 2017, local time, your iPhone could begin to crash. iOS 11.2 is now live with a fix for this issue. Apple Support (opens in new tab) Recommends disabling notifications for each app and then installing the update.

  1. Tap Settings > Notifications.
  2. Tap an app, then turn off Allow Notifications. Repeat this step for each app.
  3. Update your device to iOS 11.2.

After updating, tap Settings > Notifications and turn Allow Notifications on again for each app. If you're unable to update or still have issues after the update, contact Apple Support.

See more

Since iOS 11.2 was pushed out a few days early, the actual person-to-person Apple Pay system it advertises isn't available yet and won't be until Monday or Tuesday in the U.S.

Also, if you changed the data on your iPhone to get around the crashes, and have any trouble with Face ID after updating, a reboot should fix it. (And change your time/back to automatic ASAP).

Something in the iOS time system is causing local notifications to consume so much memory they crash springboard, the iPhone and iPad windowing manager.

See more

What's a local notification?

Local notifications are part of the notification options available to App Store apps. They differ from remote notifications in that they don't come from internet services.

With local notifications, your app configures the notification details locally and passes those details to the system, which then handles the delivery of the notification when your app is not in the foreground.

They're most commonly used to alert you to things an App Store app wants you to do, like mediate, feed your in-game creatures, or handle a to-do.

This only applies to App Store apps, not built-in apps like Clock?

That's what it looks like. All reports so far have to do with apps downloaded from the App Store using Apple's local notification API.

Will Do Not Disturb help?

No. Turning on DND won't help with this particular bug.

How do you turn off notifications for an app?

This is potentially the most time consuming but least problematic solution:

  1. Launch Settings.
  2. Tap on Notifications.
  3. Tap on the app you want to disable.
  4. Toggle off Allow Notifications.
  5. Repeat for all the apps you want to disable.

Why do date/time bugs keep happening?

Seriously. You'd figure Apple would have torn any all time-based code apart by now and stamped all of this out. Once is a bug. Twice is a bad bug. More than that, it's a problem beyond the code.

iOS

HomeKit

○ iOS 14 Review
○ What's new in iOS 14
○ Updating your iPhone ultimate guide
○ iOS Help Guide
○ iOS Discussion

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

8 Comments
  • Would changing the 'Show Notifications' setting to 'Never' work? If it does, that's a lot less drastic, has fewer bad consequences, and is easily reversible.
  • Tried that, didn’t help here.
  • if (time == date) {crash()} if (username == 'root') {authenticated = true}
  • Apple's QC is somewhat lacking as of late
  • Am I the only one that had no clue that a 12/2 bug even existed until I woke up on Saturday the 2d to read that 11.2 was out??
  • I only saw the news on the 2nd, but I was on the public beta so I didn't suffer from the issue.
  • I woke up to this on Dec 2 while on vacation. The fix I have been limping along with has been to keep my date rolled back manually pre Dec. 2, 2017. For convenience I set off by a Month so I could at least have the same date and not have to remember each night to reset the date again each night. This was a brilliant idea (in theory) except that any time I needed to go online w/ Safari it would say it could not do so because the connection was not secure. Likewise, other apps were dead-dog slow. I'm assuming it was for similar reasons that the IOS security Cookie-Monster-like brain was thinking: "Hmmm, some-ting not right here!" So, we see this posting today as a solution. I'm seriously supposed to do a procedure for every application on my phone? I think that is a bit ridiculous. Apple, just fix this dang thing NOW! Make one roll out that fixes it all instantly and blast the world a big fat "Sorry we are idiots, here you go!" Anything less than that is unacceptable.
  • best phone, worst ios