How to fix an iPhone SE that got stuck on black screen after installing iOS 11.4 update [Troubleshooting Guide]

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Seldom will you hear about an iPhone that’s often freezing except for older variants with insufficient memory issues and those with hardware damage. Nonetheless, there are some factors that can trigger even the new and robust iPhone to freeze and get stuck unexpectedly. Among the common triggers are faulty updates. Surely you’ve heard about a number of people complaining about their iPhones that are stuck on Apple logo or black screen after installing an iOS update. These among other minor errors have been a dilemma since the prior iOS rollouts and continue to emerge among the prevalent post-update issues to-date.

To give you some inputs on how to deal with this problem, I have compiled some solutions for you to refer to. Read on to find out what to do if your iPhone SE got stuck on black screen after updating to iOS 11.4.

Now, before anything else, if you have other issues with your phone, make sure you drop by our troubleshooting page for we have already provided solutions to hundreds of problems reported by our readers. Odds are that we may have already provided a solution to the problem you currently have so try to find issues that are similar with yours on that page and feel free to use the solutions we suggested. If they don’t work or if you need further assistance, fill up our iPhone issues questionnaire and hit submit to contact us.

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First solution: Force restart your iPhone SE.

A lot of devices have ended up crashing after installing a new firmware and the iPhone SE is no exception. In most cases, it’ll occur as minor issue and can therefore be easily remedied by a system reboot. Since the screen is not responding to touches, performing the usual reboot wouldn’t be applicable. As alternative solution, you can do a force restart instead. It’s a similar process as the usual restart or soft reset but carried out through the hardware keys. Here’s how:

  1. Press and hold the Power button and Home button simultaneously for about 20 to 30 seconds.
  2. Release both buttons when the Apple logo appears.

This process works the same as soft reset does without affecting any data stored on the internal memory of your device. If that works as intended, your device should be back up and running smoothly again unless you’re dealing with a more intricate system error or worst, hardware damage.

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Second solution: Charge then force restart.

Rapid battery draining is among the common issues that occurred following an update installation. This is usually due to certain apps that have gone rogue, revving the processor up to the maximum level and then caused massive power draining. As a result, the battery is totally drained and so the phone is dead. You might think that the device got stuck on black screen but what really happens is that it ran out of power. Should that be the case, the only way to get your phone back up and running again is to have it recharged. With that said, plug your iPhone SE into the charger then let it charge for at least an hour. Also make sure that your iPhone is able to charge. If it doesn’t charge, then you’ll need to deal with charging issues first.

While it’s charging, force it to restart by pressing and holding both the Power and Home buttons for a few seconds (at least 10 seconds) and then release both buttons when the Apple logo appears. Doing so will help clear any errant background apps and corrupted cache that might have caused the phone system to go rogue.

Third solution: Restore iPhone on a computer through iTunes.

Get your computer and iPhone ready. You can use either a Windows PC or Mac computer for as long as it’s running on a later, if not the latest operating system compatible with your iPhone system. Then follow these steps to get started:

  1. Close all programs/applications on your computer.
  2. Connect your iPhone SE to your computer using the Lightning cable or USB connector that came with it.
  3. Open iTunes on your computer.
  4. Wait until your iPhone is recognized and while it’s connected, force your iPhone SE to restart but don’t release the buttons when you see the Apple logo since you need to enter recovery mode. So here’s what you should do:
  5. Press and hold the Power and Home buttons simultaneously then release both buttons until you see the Connect to iTunes screen (recovery mode screen).
  6. If prompted with the option to Restore or Update, select Restore.
  7. Wait for iTunes to download and reinstall the software for your device.
  8. Your iPhone may exit the Connect to iTunes style=”font-weight: 400;”> screen if the download takes more than 15 minutes. Should this happens, allow the download to finish then go back to the previous steps to enter recovery mode again.
  9. When the iOS Restore completes, set up your device.

If performing a recovery mode restore doesn’t work, then you can try a DFU mode restore instead. A DFU or Device Firmware Update mode restore is regarded as the most in-depth type of system restore you can do on an iPhone. Apple technicians would usually perform this method when dealing with more complex software problems on an iPhone. While in DFU mode, your device would still be able to communicate with iTunes on the computer without activating the bootloader or iOS. Once your iPhone has entered DFU mode, you can update, restore, reinstall, or even jailbreak the operating system. Apple however does not recommend jailbreaking. To get started, follow these steps to put your iPhone SE in DFU mode:

  1. Connect your iPhone to your computer. Again you can use a Windows PC or Mac computer that supports your iPhone system.
  2. Then open iTunes on your computer. If necessary, close any other program on your computer except iTunes. Doing so will prevent any of them from halting the restore process.
  3. On your iPhone SE, press and hold the Power button and Home button simultaneously for 8 seconds.
  4. After 8 seconds, release the Power button but keep holding down the Home button until you see the “iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode” message prompt.
  5. Release the Home button when you see the above prompt.
  6. If your iPhone’s display is completely black, it means you have successfully entered DFU mode. If it’s not, then you’ll need to try again from the start.

While in DFU mode, restore your iPhone SE using iTunes. Just follow the onscreen instructions and command prompts on iTunes to complete the restore process.

Important note: Performing a DFU mode restore is not recommended if your device is having some sort of physical or liquid damage. There’s a higher chance that the restore process couldn’t be completed if your phone has liquid damage. Should that happens, you will likely to end up having a bricked or totally dysfunctional iPhone.

Seek more help

If none of the aforementioned solutions is able to fix the problem and your iPhone SE remains stuck on black screen, take it to the nearest Apple Genius bar in your place and have it examined thoroughly by an Apple technician. Bumping into such trouble after an iOS update doesn’t always denote that a software update is at fault. Note that a device that got stuck on black screen is also among the symptoms of hardware damage. Therefore it’s possible that the symptom has instigated coincidentally after updating your iPhone software. And you would need a technician’s aid to figure this out.

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