I am new here and I have the Problem too. On a French forum I saw a strange thing but for several people it worked.

With the hand, give a tap on the backside of your iPhone 4. I'm Not sure if it works as mine is covered and I will bring it back...

It is me again. It worked! It's incredable. I hit with my Hand against the backside of my iPhone and it vibrates now. I Never beliefed it, that you have to Hit a device valued over 600€... LOL

In other words... You have to hit if you want something. I

LOVL

Everyone,

Before you try the extreme measures listed such as taking the phone apart or going to an apple store, please try the following.

I read it at a few sites and thought it was crazy but, sure enough, it worked.

People said to knock on the back of the phone at the back bottom right of the phone (I guess that's where the vibrator is). Sure enough, I knocked it with my knuckle a few times and it now works. To test, I downloaded the Ibrate app and had it on (wasn't vibrating though iphone supposed to). After a couple of good thumps with my knuckle, the phone was suddenly vibrating.

Hard to believe? Absolutely. Worth a shot? Definitely.

You should download a vibrating app like iBrate, and turn it on for a few minutes while tapping the top left corner. It should start whizzing in a few minutes. It worked for me, hope it helps!

YAAY I FIXED IT!

You can remove the cover of the iphone, by removing the 2 small screws in the bottom and sliding the cover.

After you open it, in the upper right corner, you can find the "vibrator" :0

It's in a small socket, inconveniently located next to some kind of tape. Sometimes, like in my case, this piece of tape is not well pasted and it just won't let the vibrator spin.

So go figure, if you paste it properly you can always fix it ;)

Actually, I have been using the "tap the back" technique for about a month to get my iP4 to vibrate at all. The dang thing seizes up again after some unknown amount of time and I'm back missing calls and texts.

If you understand how the vibration unit works, it's no surprise how the "tap the back" method helps. The unit consists of an unbalanced weight attached to a tiny motor. The motor spins the unbalanced weight and physics does the rest. Tapping the back, or the front for that matter, causes the weight to swing through some part of it's rotation. After it has been recently moved, it usually will work for a while.

If you don't recognize the "tap the back" method as being the original technical support, you are just too young. Older folks like me call it "percussive maintenance." I'll never forget being instructed to employ the technique by a Silicon Graphics engineer to get a $12,000 hard drive working in a $70,000 computer. It seems that the bearing in the middle of the platters had leaked lubricating oil which the rapidly spinning drive then spread into a thin layer across the whole disk. When the heads landed because the drive was powered down, the heads would stick to the oil and the drive motor wasn't strong enough to get the drive spinning again. Whacking the drive on it's side broke the heads loose for long enough to get the drive working again. It's nice to see that there isn't a new bottom line in technical support.

I would suggest buying ibrate, keep it running for a while and tap your phone in each corner one after the other, everyones will work in a different way. If your lucky enough to get your phone vibrating again with this method leave the app running for about 5 minutes. I did this about a month ago and havent had a problem since :)

howdy all

ive done a bit of poking around in my iPhone4 after having to replace the screen twice. My vibrate also stopped working as well. things i did notice when i addressed the problem. there is a ribbon cable adhered to the side of the 3.5mm jack which also is inside of the space the vibrator operates in. during a screen repair or due to moisture/skin oil being introduced into the phone the ribbon had come loose frome the side of the 3.5mm jack and was directly impeading the vibrators unbalanced shaft from spinning. a program like ivibe will force the vibrator to spin and create room for the unbalanced portion of the shaft by esentially rubbing a groove. if your technical you can open the phone up and visually observe if this is the case for you. additionally info. the vibrator recieves its signal/power from two copper preasure contacts on the bottom, these can be bent slightly and extremely carefully to create more preasure when the vibrator is seated. the two screws in the upper right corner are all that needs to be removed for replacement if the vibrator needs to be replaced.

Iphones are really a bunch of really small systems. theres nothing magical about them. anyone with access to youtube and a steady had can fix and replace any part contained inside. unless you have a warrenty, then you should let Apple fix it

Hi I followed this procedure with my iphone 4s:

a) install ibrate

b) running ibrate in vibration mode and making tip tap with my fingers near the apple logo on the back of the iphone

c) It starts vibrate for a while ( but not so strong ).

It's not the solution... now i try with other ways..

Is there any other way to get the vibrate working?

The ibrate only works for awhile :/

Crazy. I knocked on the back of the phone with my knuckle 3 times and volla!

It's either dirty and/or misaligned.

Take your back cover off and remove the 2 screws (1short, 1 long) at the top right holding the vibrate motor. clean it with compressed air (very lightly) and isopropyl alcohol on a q-tip, don't forget the contacts on the iphone too. Extend the contacts on the motor a little to ensure proper seating for power. When putting it back make sure it's aligned properly and it doesn't touch anything on the sides.

Those motors just don't die considering they are extremely low power motors.

Knocking the back of the phone to fix it means it's loose and not aligned until you knock it loose again.

Hey guy I found a solution for you.

I had the same problem with my iPhone 4 and I tried right below solution, check it out.

First of all, I tried all the solutions for the iPhone written other websites but It didn't work properly. Weak vibration. I even changed the vibrator with new one, but it didn't work. I tried my old vibrator with the other iPhone of my wife, it works in there perfectly. I think something wrong with the connection area of the vibrator. Problem is the phone.

Then I decided to solve it by myself. I open back cover of iPhone and first removed battery then the vibrator. And check if there is anything stucking the vibrator head then try to remove the ringer button from inside, clean around, and put everything back like vibrator and the battery. Finally you good to go. Vibration working like new one.

All of this try worked for me. I hope it works for you too. Give it a try and feedback. Thanks, good luck.

The tapping technique worked for only a few seconds, a minute at best until it stopped again. I bought a new vibrate motor and upon opening the phone I found a small piece of tape or ribbon cable next to the eccentric motor weight that had come unstuck and was in the way of the spinning weight, stopping its free rotation. I used a tiny flat head screwdriver to stick it back to the wall and the vibrate function works as good as new now. I just wonder how long before the sticky fails again and can the tape be removed completely?

Thanks for all the advice, I can now receive calls on set which is very good thing.

Scrumpyalex

The connectors for the vibrating motor are just the foldover metal contacts.

I've had two customers i 4's with problems with non or intermittent working vibrating motors. fix was to remove it and gently pry out the bent connectors.

Update

To add to the above. it's an easy 5 minute repair. Only need to drop off the back, remove the battery and then the two screws in the top right hand corner holding in the motor. (Different on the 4S version)

knocking on the back lightly a few times helps i just tried it

I used the method above, taking the back off, taking the motor out, and just resticking the tape that had loosened over the last couple of years that is to the left of where the motor spins. IT WORKS! Better than it has in well over a year!

Super easy fix. I am not tech oriented when it comes to opening things up to try to fix them - but this was so easy, with the right tool anyone can do it. And I just used a philips head screwdriver from a precision set I bought at the dollar store. Total no brainer.