PSA: iOS 17.3 beta 2 is bricking some people’s iPhones, here’s a fix

Apple just released iOS 17.3 beta 2 to developers, but you should probably hold off on installing it. The update appears to bricking a lot of people’s iPhones during the installation process, but there’s a fix that you can try without losing your data.

Update: The crash appears to be affecting people who have Back Tap enabled on their iPhone.

At least one of us here at 9to5Mac is facing this problem. When we attempted to install iOS 17.3 beta 2, the iPhone 15 Pro Max entered an infinite reboot loop with the Apple logo and SpringBoard spinner.

Federico Viticci at MacStories also reports that his iPhone is effectively bricked after attempting to install the new iOS 17.3 beta. There are a handful of other reports popping up on social media and Reddit.

On Mastodon, our friend Guilherme Rambo outlines a fix for the problem that doesn’t cost you any data:

1. Download the iOS 17.3 beta 1 IPSW on your Mac
2. Plug iPhone into Mac
3. Press volume up, then volume down, then press and hold the side button until the recovery mode screen shows up
4. Use Finder or iMazing (preferred) to restore the IPSW (in Finder, hold down Option when clicking the restore button to select the IPSW)

Note: Your best bet here is to use iMazing as it will let you do the restore without erasing your device first. Using Finder will automatically erase your iPhone’s data.

There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason as to which iPhone models are affected by this problem. We’ve seen reports from iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users alike. On the other hand, some people have been able to update with no problem.

You heard it here: don’t update to iOS 17.3 beta 2. I expect Apple will pull the update here shortly and re-release a new version. Such is life when you’re on the never-ending beta train.

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