iPhone 3G white screen of death – solution!

I’ve had this 3G iPhone for a month now, and just pulled it out of my pocket to see a solid white screen. This is interesting at first because I have it locked and password protected, and know I have a half-full battery.

A quick press of the Sleep button shuts it down, but another quick press simply goes back to the white screen. WTF?

So I jump on Google and run a quick scan for “iPhone 3G white screen” and get some discouraging hits like “hope you made a backup since the fix is swapping the phone for a new one”. Well that’s crap.

A modified search yields people claiming every trick in the book being used, still to no avail…

So I decide to try myself. After a few random button combo attempts I found it!

- First, press and hold the HOME button.
- Second, press and hold the UP volume button as well.
- Third, with those still held, press and hold the SLEEP button.

After 5 or 6 seconds it displayed the black screen with the chrome Apple logo. About 15 to 20 seconds after that it booted into my password login. Once I entered the code, the phone operated normally.

This entry was sent from the iPhone immediately after the above steps were performed.

Good luck and I hope this solution works for you.

(edit 1/6/09 – fixed some typos, the tags, and some grammar)