Spontaneous Restart

12 Mar 2016 18:53:57

Trevor Hewson

Just after 6pm this evening there was a familiar chime from the next room and our iMac restarted. The machine had not been touched for over half an hour. Since I don't believe in poltergeists, has anyone got a rational explanation - or even a plausible theory?

I'm sure it's coincidental but earlier today I found my iPhone with a blank screen and unresponsive to the home button. A prolonged press on the power button brought up the Apple screen and a rather rapid reboot. I've no idea what that was about either. I did do a quick search to see if Apple might have been pushing out any emergency updates but didn't turn up anything helpful.

Re: Spontaneous Restart

12 Mar 2016 23:45:33

Lionel Ogden

Were you aware, or perhaps not, of a very brief interruption in the mains supply? Where we live power failures whether brief or more prolonged are not unusual. A recent one was caused by a swan bringing down a power line. One of the options in the energy saver preferences is to start up after a power failure. This doesn't offer a solution to the iPhone however.

Re: Spontaneous Restart

13 Mar 2016 09:00:56

Trevor Hewson

Thanks Lionel, that did cross my mind too but we had lights on at the time and were not aware of any dip. Having now logged into the iMac this morning, I found a box saying that the iMac 'was re-started because of a problem'. I clicked on 'Report' and apparently 'Sleep Wake Failure experienced a problem' so it appears that the sleeping Mac tried to wake up and failed, triggering a restart. I've never seen this before so have sent the report to Apple.

The iPhone had been in an inner pocket in my multiple layers of clothing at the flying field so I'm putting that down to some accidental button pressure, but, since one has to swipe the screen to turn the phone off, I'm still not sure just how it could have happened.

Re: Spontaneous Restart

21 Mar 2016 20:39:55

Lionel Ogden

Funny things happen with mobile phones. Some time ago we were woken in the middle of the night by a phone call, which when we listened to it sounded like an extract from the Bill. On checking later it happened because my son who is a policeman had his mobile (not smartphone at that time)in his inner jacket pocket and the struggle when he was arresting a felon had accidentally pressed his speed dial button for our number.