iOS 17.1 probably won't stop your iPhone randomly turning off overnight and that's a problem

If you regularly come to your iPhone and find that it turned itself off overnight, usually before turning itself back on, you aren’t alone. But if you’d been hoping that iOS 17.1 would fix things you’re unfortunately going to be left disappointed.

Reports of iPhones randomly turning themselves off have been circulating for a week or two and there doesn’t appear to be any real pattern to it. They are all running iOS 17 or later, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue limited to just the latest iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models.

However, Apple is yet to confirm that the issue exists and it seems that the latest iOS 17.1 Release Candidate update hasn’t fixed things for those that are affected. That unfortunately means it might be some time before there is any respite for those whose iPhones just won’t stay powered on.

Powered up, but powered off

The problem seems to affect iPhones that are placed on charge overnight with people who come to use them the next day finding that they have to enter their passcode to gain access. Normally, the requirement to enter a passcode on iPhones with Face ID enabled only crops up after a restart or a number of failed sign-in attempts.

Those afflicted with this issue will also be able to spot a gap in their iPhone’s battery stats which shows that the iPhone was charging but powered off — with no data collected on the battery’s charge status at that time.

It was hoped that iOS 17.1 would fix things for those whose iPhones misbehave in this way, but MacRumors notes that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Multiple people on the outlet’s forum report that they are still having issues with their iPhone’s inability to stay powered on despite running the latest IOS 17.0.3 and upcoming IOS 17.1 updates.

What’s actually happening here?

While it’s clear that something is going awry with the charging cycle of some iPhones running iOS 17.1 or later, it isn’t clear exactly what that might be. There is no normal reason why an iPhone would turn itself off overnight beyond the possibility that it might be getting so warm it’s shutting off as a precaution.

Even more strange is the fact that these iPhones are powering themselves back on, often after a number of hours. Why an iPhone would sit dormant, powered off, for hours before turning itself back on, is anyone’s guess at this point.

If these iPhones were restarting more quickly, the automatic software update mechanism could be to blame — but Apple doesn’t release updates that regularly. And many of those who report this strange behavior say that they have automatic updates disabled anyway.

With so little information available as to what’s causing this issue it’s difficult to know what to suggest in terms of a fix. If it’s happening regularly you could reach out to Apple, but considering this doesn’t appear to be a hardware issue there probably isn’t much to be done beyond restoring your iPhone. And that’s nobody’s idea of a fun time.

I’d be more concerned if the iPhone was shutting down and not powering back on, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a potential safety risk here. If your iPhone really is turning itself off overnight, you’re uncontactable. And that could have dire consequences depending on your situation. What’s more, if you woke up during an emergency and found your phone was off, you could lose vital seconds waiting for it turn back on.

Here’s hoping Apple figures out what’s happening so that it can be fixed, and soon.