How do I Unfreeze my iPad – 5 Tips [2022]

How do I unfreeze my iPad you may ask? We have all been there before with electronic devices. You know what I am talking about – freezes and crashes.

Whether it be the dreaded blue screen on the PC, the Red Ring of Death with Xbox 360, or whatever other catastrophic events that can happen when using electronics, almost everybody has had at least one such experience in their lives.

The same can hold true for iPad users when engaging with the ever-entertaining apps it has to offer.

Let’s say one day you are enjoying your iPad as usual when your favorite app decides to crash. What should you do and How do I unfreeze my iPad?

You can yell at the top of your lungs in disgust and throw the tablet to the ground, but then you would have to buy a new one.

Or, you could be more sensible about it, read this article, and be prepared as to how to fix the problem. If you take the second option, not only will you be more proud of yourself for fixing the crash, but you will also save plenty of money in the process.

How to fix frozen iPad

In this article, we will list five different options on how to fix the frozen iPad when an app crashes.

The solutions are listed in order from the most simple to the most drastic measure, so if one fails to fix the problem, move onto the next one in the list until the error no longer exists.

Remember to keep in mind that you should perform these tests in order, as the first one we discussed, the soft restart, was the simplest and quickest, and the remaining four involve a little more work and time.

How do i unfreeze my iPad ?

iPad is frozen – Try to soft restart

While many might scoff at the fact that this simple soft restart could actually solve such a freezing problem, it can work in some instances and is the quickest fix available. Performing a soft restart is fast and easy.

All you have to do is locate the lock button at the top corner of the iPad and hold it down. Make sure you keep holding the lock button down until you see a prompt on the screen. The prompt will tell you to slide the lock button to power off the tablet. Follow this instruction and you will see the iPad power off.

Now that the machine is turned off, you will need to power it on once again. To power it on, simply hold the same lock button that you used to turn the device off. Keep holding the lock button until you see the famous Apple logo appear on the screen. Once you see the icon, you can now feel safe that the device is coming to life once again.

Once it is fully on, go back and try the app that you were using when the freeze occurred. If the app works without any problems, you are good to go. If it fails, however, you will have to move onto the second solution, which we will discuss in part 2 of this article.

iPad is frozen – try to hard restart

If simply trying a soft restart did not do the trick, try a hard restart instead. It actually is not as hard as it sounds. All you have to do is hold down the sleep/wake button in addition to the home button.

Do both at the same time, and continue holding them for around ten seconds or so until you see the Apple logo appear on the screen. This method will take a bit more patience, as the time needed for the device to fully reset could be a few minutes.

Take note that when the red slider appears on-screen, you will want to ignore the notification and keep holding down the sleep/wake and home buttons together until you see that Apple logo, or else you will not get the hard restart desired.

iPad is frozen – delete the offending app completely and start over

If the hard restart still does not resolve your problem, you will need to put in more work by deleting the particular problem-causing app and then re-installing it.

To do this, locate the app you were using that causes the freezing or crashes. Once there, tap the app’s icon and hold it until it begins to wobble. Once it wobbles, delete it by clicking on the X. Now the offending app is deleted.

Next, it is time to re-install the app, which is pretty simple within itself. To re-install it, log into iTunes, select the app to be installed, and sync it to the machine.

Once this is done, you will want to do one extra step that is recommended to ensure an error-free installation. Do a soft restart once again, as detailed in part one of this article series. Once the soft restart is complete and you are good to go, try using the app after its fresh installation. Hopefully it will work sans any problems now.

iPad is frozen – try installing the app directly from the iPad

If using iTunes to re-install the app failed, try installing directly from the tablet itself. You will want to access the App Store on your device, but make sure the bad app is deleted first. Look for the app within the store, and download it. You won’t be charged double if you downloaded it before, so don’t worry.

Once downloaded, do a soft restart as in step one, and it should work fine.

Restore the iPad

Restoring is a last-ditch effort, but it beats throwing the iPad in the garbage. You will need to backup all of your content and data first in iTunes by right-clicking on the device and selecting the Back-Up option. Once finished, select the Restore from the Back-Up option, with the latest backup available being the best to choose.

This process will take a long time, depending on how much content you had. Leave the device alone while it restores. Once finished, try the trouble-causing app again. Hopefully, it should work fine. If it does not, you likely are facing an app that has problems itself, so check the app’s developers for any issues or bugs.

Otherwise, enjoy your newly restored Apple machine!

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