Warning - iOS5 Update Restore Error - Wait to upgrade
I patiently waited for the actual release of iOS5 - since I can't get myself an iPhone 4S for a little while without paying a premium. When I saw that iOS5 was available, I decided to update my 32GB iPhone 4 to the latest and greatest.
First off, Apple wanted me to upgrade OS X to 10.7.2 and iTunes to 10.5. That took the better part of an hour in itself, between downloading a pretty hefty collection of bits, installing them and then running a subsequent back up, I was a full hour in before I could even begin to upgrade my iPhone.
Once that was out of the way I tried updating the iPhone 4. Here's where the fun began.
First, an error
After sitting there for a very long time—I didn't pay close attention—iTunes reported this little error. Not good. When I clicked OK (it's not really OK but that's the one to push), I pulled my iPhone off the USB connector and the phone itself seemed fine. Still running iOS 4.3, and all of my content was sitting there fine.
I Googled up the issue and there was a huge thread on the Apple discussion forums on this. Since several people reported that they were able to upgrade by just continuing to try, I decided to give that a go. Three attempts in, I got something different. It looked like my iPhone was being updated!
Then suddenly I got the error again. Oh well. The problem was my iPhone was now in a restore state and not being recognized by iTunes - it had the little "plug me in to iTunes" graphic on the screen of the iPhone.
This was not good. I tried to do a restore and it would spin and spin, however I now got a different error message:
Looks like the Apple servers were completely overwhelmed. This was not good. Especially now that my iPhone was essentially in brick mode. I kept retrying and the restore would get to varying degrees of success, then eventually fail out. Sometimes with the above error, other times with one of these:
After this error, I would then get the old "Hey, this iPhone is in recovery mode..." error:
I tried everything. Rebooted my Mac several times, tried unplugging all the USB devices, etc. and still no luck. I was panicking - while I was sure I could get my apps back somehow, I had a lot of video and photos on my iPhone that hadn't been pulled off. I thought about the videos I had taken of my mom over the last year, right before she passed away. If those were gone, I was not going to be happy. I knew iTunes was making backups for me, and that my Mac was in turn backed up, but the way this was going, my confidence was not very high.
Eventually the iPhone appeared to restore and started up again. Then it flipped into "restoring" mode for my apps and then music and videos:
This process took the better part of an hour. All in, the upgrade took me about 3 hours from start to finish, and I still have an iPad 1 to update.
I think I'm going to wait a week or so to upgrade the iPad. If you are considering upgrading your iPhone now to iOS5, be very patient; you may be without your phone for a number of hours and the way the Apple servers are performing right now under load, perhaps a very long time.
UPDATE: My iPhone was successfully updated to iOS5 - total upgrade time was a little over 3 hours and took about a dozen retries at various stages. All of my information (contacts, calendar, photos, etc.) were intact.
I decided late this evening (Oct 12, 2011) to try updating my iPad, just to see if it would actually go through. This time the upgrade went much more smoothly - not a single error. It did require about 1.5 hours to complete however.
First off, Apple wanted me to upgrade OS X to 10.7.2 and iTunes to 10.5. That took the better part of an hour in itself, between downloading a pretty hefty collection of bits, installing them and then running a subsequent back up, I was a full hour in before I could even begin to upgrade my iPhone.
Once that was out of the way I tried updating the iPhone 4. Here's where the fun began.
First, an error
I Googled up the issue and there was a huge thread on the Apple discussion forums on this. Since several people reported that they were able to upgrade by just continuing to try, I decided to give that a go. Three attempts in, I got something different. It looked like my iPhone was being updated!
Then suddenly I got the error again. Oh well. The problem was my iPhone was now in a restore state and not being recognized by iTunes - it had the little "plug me in to iTunes" graphic on the screen of the iPhone.
This was not good. I tried to do a restore and it would spin and spin, however I now got a different error message:
Looks like the Apple servers were completely overwhelmed. This was not good. Especially now that my iPhone was essentially in brick mode. I kept retrying and the restore would get to varying degrees of success, then eventually fail out. Sometimes with the above error, other times with one of these:
Eventually the iPhone appeared to restore and started up again. Then it flipped into "restoring" mode for my apps and then music and videos:
This process took the better part of an hour. All in, the upgrade took me about 3 hours from start to finish, and I still have an iPad 1 to update.
I think I'm going to wait a week or so to upgrade the iPad. If you are considering upgrading your iPhone now to iOS5, be very patient; you may be without your phone for a number of hours and the way the Apple servers are performing right now under load, perhaps a very long time.
UPDATE: My iPhone was successfully updated to iOS5 - total upgrade time was a little over 3 hours and took about a dozen retries at various stages. All of my information (contacts, calendar, photos, etc.) were intact.
I decided late this evening (Oct 12, 2011) to try updating my iPad, just to see if it would actually go through. This time the upgrade went much more smoothly - not a single error. It did require about 1.5 hours to complete however.
Comments
I guess there is some solace in not being alone at having issues, but it makes me wonder how long it will be before these are resolved.
BTW - nice Blogger profile pic. I did a cyclocross race last year - hardest race I've ever done. Makes me want to stick to pavement.
I upgraded my iPhone 3GS within the first 5 minutes of when iOS 5 became available for download, this afternoon. The download and installation went well, except at the end, when I got an error message saying my contacts could not be backed up. However, when I checked my iCloud account a minute later, my contacts were all there, intact and neatly tucked away for safekeeping.
I am going to get a 4S on Friday, but ironically, I think iOS 5 actually made my iPhone 3GS run faster. It's either that or the complete software re-install that did it. It almost made me think twice about getting the new phone, though.
Glad to hear it went smoothly. Against my better judgement I'm trying to upgrade my iPad to iOS5 right now. It's late enough that I'm hoping most of the traffic problems will have died down.
It actually has gotten a LOT further along on the first try than my iPhone 4 did - just finished the final restart and is now restoring from backup.
Looks like Apple addressed their server issues.
They should have given us Mac OS X 10/72 and the iCloud for Windows YESTERDAY, along with iPhoto, etc. JUST do the iOS today...
My issue is that the upgrade process requires several touches to the Apple servers, each leaving the device to be upgraded in a different and possibly vulnerable state. These touches should have been architected better; at no time when I lose connectivity to the Apple servers should my device be rendered useless. This is basic transaction management and given the tenuous nature of network connectivity, should never happen.
That's the part I really hope Apple addresses. I'm perfectly fine with the servers being too busy to allow me to upgrade, but letting me get halfway through the process and THEN leaving me with a device that cannot be used is unacceptable.
And yes, I agree - they really should have staged these rollouts a little better.
Macs just work, ha, made the mistake of trying to upgrade to IOS 5 before going to bed, eyelids now held open with matchsticks waiting for the phone to restore and hopefully become useable!!!
Long time, no posts. Hope you're okay.
Best wishes from the UK
Josh