This loading or spinning wheel icon would appear on iPhone’s status bar whenever network activity is there. This icon is located next to Wi-Fi and Cellular icon in the status bar and would tend to disappear when there are not internet or network activities.
There are times when you experienced this spinning wheel icon appears for quite some time and feels like never disappear at all which gets your concern even there are no major network activities. It is quite rare to say that an apps or connectivity issues are causing this icon to stuck at your iPhone’s status bar indefinitely.
If your iPhone displays a constant spinning wheel icon on the menu bar, the list of troubleshooting tips and fixes below should help you sort things out.
Here is the list of solutions to help your remove and fix away the constant spinning wheel icon on your status bar.
1. Turn Airplane Mode ON/OFF
Airplane mode essentially will disable all the network connections (such as Wi-Fi, Cellular signal, Bluetooth & etc). Therefore by turning Airplane Mode ON for 10 seconds and then turn it OFF would disable the network connections for 10 seconds and would restart back the networks back to normal which could be able to resolve the issues with your internet connection, including the constant spinning wheel icon issue.
You can find Airplane mode in the Control Center by swipe up from the bottom screen, which the icon of Airplane Mode looks like an Airplane icon.
If the spinning wheel icon issue still persists, you can continue with following best tips to fix it.
2. Check for Connectivity Issues
Weak internet connectivity can results in a spinning wheel icon appeared in iPhone’s status bar. Here are few internet connectivity advices you can troubleshoot to fix the spinning wheel icon.
Switch from Wi-Fi to Cellular Data or vice versa for testing a better internet connection.
Disable your Bluetooth feature and only enabled when not its cause.
Identify your mobile plan’s bandwidth limit and quota whether is sufficient or not.
Restart your wireless router that you are connecting to.
Change to different Wi-Fi connection if the problem fixed.
3. Force-Close Opened Apps in Background
Apps that you have opened may still stay opened in the background, this could cause the spinning wheel icon appeared indefinitely due to network request stuck.
Therefore, you can force-close all opened apps on iPhone to help fix and remove the spinning wheel icon on the status bar. Just hold the home button and drag up to release and you will see the apps switcher, then just drag each opened app card to the screen top edge to force close. If you are using older iPhone, you need to double click on the iPhone’s Home button to access the apps switcher.
4. Turn Off “Background App Refresh”
When this Background App Refresh feature is enabled, apps will refresh itself in the background and will cause spinning wheel icon constants appear in the status bar.
You can disable Background App Refresh feature on your iPhone by going to the following Settings > Privacy > Background App Refresh > Background App Refresh > Off.
If this solution works by making the spinning wheel issue disappeared, then you can use renable this “Background Apps Refresh > WiFi & Cellular Data” and then use elimination technique to check which apps that cause the spinning wheel icon to appear often and remove that apps from “Background App Refresh” list would fix it accordingly.
5. Get Your iPhone Apps Updated
Besides updating your iOS system, you should also keep any installed apps on your iPhone staying updated to the latest one. Otherwise, network related because issue may leads to spinning wheel icon infinitely.
You can easily updated your installed Apps by Long pressing your iPhone App Store icon > press Updates > Swipe-down to scan new app updates > “Update All” to apply app that are pending for updates.
6. Get iOS System in iPhone Updated.
Your iPhone’s iOS system would get supportive updates frequently which at most case would solve various system-related bugs even including the spinning wheel icon appeared.
You can easy find updates on your iPhone in Settings > General > Software Update > Download and Install or Install Now to get updates on your iOS now.
7. Restarting Your iPhone
You should try to restart your iPhone as this will clear the unused system memory and fix most of the unexpected issues in an iPhone iOS system.
Just hold down the Side button, then slide Power icon to right to power off your iPhone. While your iPhone is turned off, wait for 30 seconds and hold the Side button to power up your iPhone.
8. Call and Cancel Siri
Siri might cause spinning wheel icon if there are raised from certain updates or buggy setting. You can call or trigger Siri and cancel Siri after that which is a method to fix the constant spinning wheel icon.
You can use this method by saying “Hey Siri” to trigger Siri, then press home/side button to cancel Siri. This method could fix the spinning wheel icon and disappear after trying this method for a few times.
9. Turn Off ‘Siri Search’
Siri is a huge voice assistance, which can sometime be buggy in iPhone and you may not know that. If activating and cancelling ‘Siri’ in previous method was not working, then you can Turn Off ‘Siri’ entirely by going to iPhone’s Settings > Siri & Search > toggle left to Turn Off Siri on “Listen for Hey Siri” and “Press Side Button for Siri”.
10. Turn OFF iPhone’s Dictation
You iPhone may have enabled this Dictation feature which processes some voice inputs by relaying them to Apple servers which can leads to glitches and may cause spinning wheel icon appeared constantly that we hate.
Therefore, you can find fixes by disabling the Dictation feature at Settings > General > Keyboard > toggle left to Disable Dictation.
11. Turn OFF Analytics & Improvements in iPhone
For Apple to improve their services including Siri and Dictation, you can allow the analytics on your iPhone usage statistics. This analytics & improvement feature could also leads to spinning wheel icon remain appeared on iPhone’s status bar.
You should try to disable this by going to Settings > Privacy > Analytics & Improvements > toggle left to turn off all the following switches in Analytics & Improvements.
12. Disable Tracking App Permissions
There are apps you have allowed to track you across the internet and other apps. This can leads to constant iPhone tracking causing spinning wheel icons to appear on status bar constantly. You should disable tracking permission and check if that works like a charm.
Easily disable tracking permission by going to Settings > Privacy > Tracking > Tracking > toggle left to disable apps that enabled with tracking on your iPhone.
13. Network Reset Settings
If the spinning wheel icon still persists, the cause from corrupted settings can be the case. You are required to reset the network settings to fix this issue. You can go to Settings > General > Reset > select network reset settings as the guide will lead you through reset network settings into their default settings. Take note that this is not the Factory data reset which is to be avoided or at last resort only.
You should not reset all settings as it could be quite difficult for you to set it back as well as erasing all content on your iPhone is to be avoided too because this lengthy process can be difficult for you.
14. Get Help From Apple Support
You can contact apple for repairs or replacement if the spinning wheel icon still persist on your iPhone’s status bar especially if this iPhone is newly bought. There could be a new iPhone which comes with minor defect in the hardware which you should raise to Apple to avoid the warranty expired, so you should contact to Apple at their webpage here.
Summary
We appreciate that you have come long way to get this annoying spinning circle or wheel icon fixed. However for those who still get this icon persisting, you should comment below so that we can help you out immediately. More iPhone unknown or weird icons in notification bar can be found here easily without hesitation.
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