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Apple pauses iOS 9.3 update for older iPads and iPhones following reports of ‘bricked’ devices

Earlier this week we reported that the newly released iOS 9.3 update was bricking older iOS devices, including the iPad 2. Now, Apple has confirmed that there are issues with the iOS 9.3 update for older iOS devices and that it is pulling the update for select devices.

In a statement issued to iMore, Apple explained that updating older devices, including the iPhone 5s and earlier and the iPad Air and earlier, can require customers to enter the Apple ID and password used to originally set up the device. If the user doesn’t remember this information, they can be blocked from activating the device. Apple says that it has pulled the update for affected devices and will release a new build within the coming days that removes the process of entering the Apple ID and password used when the device was first set up:

Updating some iOS devices (iPhone 5s and earlier and iPad Air and earlier) to iOS 9.3 can require entering the Apple ID and password used to set up the device in order to complete the software update. In some cases, if customers do not recall their password, their device will remain in an inactivated state until they can recover or reset their password. For these older devices, we have temporarily pulled back the update and will release an updated version of iOS 9.3 in the next few days that does not require this step.”

While some speculated earlier this week that the issue simply centered around too many people hitting Apple’s activation servers at once, it’s now clear that wasn’t the case. If you’re affected by this bug, Apple has also published a new support document detailing some potential workarounds. Below is what Apple says you should try first:

  1. Sign in to iCloud.com from a computer. You can get help if you forgot your Apple ID or need to reset your Apple ID password.
  2. Open Settings and scroll to the My Devices section.
  3. Confirm that your device is listed in the My Devices section. If you don’t see it listed, check all your accounts.

Mac users have also reported issues centering around singing in to iMessage and FaceTime after updating to OS X 10.11.4. Apple has yet to formally acknowledge this issue. Let us know in the comments if you’ve been affected by either of these issues.

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Comments

  1. butskristof - 8 years ago

    I haven’t seen any iPhone 5s (yet), but got lots of iPad 2’s in today. The two biggest problems are 1) the iPad cannot activate, server isn’t reachable or it just hits an apparent infinite loop. This happens a lot on iPad 2 and connecting the device to ITunes just gets you ‘this device cannot be checked’.
    Now for 2). There’s just a LOT of people out there that don’t have any idea of ‘iCloud’ or ‘Apple ID’. You don’t want to know how many people I see that don’t even know their email address. Come on?

    Nevertheless good that Apple will recall the need to activate with your Apple ID after the update. Indeed, if you now reset e.g. an iPad 2 with iTunes it will reinstall iOS 9.2.1 . Another thing that happens to work from time to time is using RecBoot to first enter DFU mode and then again exiting it. So no restores, just entering and exiting.

    Finally, it’s worth noting that with such ‘bricked’ iPads, the data is still recoverable with Photos on Mac. Especially handy if you need to reinstall 9.2.1 .

    • Les Mikesell - 8 years ago

      Why should anyone who doesn’t use icloud or the itunes store know anything about those passwords. If you buy a device you should be able to use it without updates breaking it.

  2. The Gnome (@gnomehole) - 8 years ago

    Doesn’t Apple have an early adopter program so these issues are discovered early? Either they aren’t reporting issues, nobody with older devices is participating, or Apple wasn’t listening.

    This is Microsoft level incompetence.

    • Jonathan Smyth - 8 years ago

      I think that people in the beta program tend to be more advanced users, people who would certainly remember their Apple ID password. It’s easy for me to believe that none of the beta testers ran into this problem because they all remembered their passwords.

    • John Smith - 8 years ago

      I would say Apple wasn’t listening.. I before participated in Apple’s betas and submitted bugs that was not even fixed in final release. Since, I stopped reporting them as I was loosing my time. :(

      • mpias3785 - 8 years ago

        I’ve reported that the OS X/iOS spelling checker is faulty countless times since Mavericks, using Apple.com/feedback, Feedback Assistant (while beta testing Yosemite) and many, many times to Applecare techs, both verbally and by email and yet don’y, it’a, Is’n, I’b, can’g, he’a, won’h, it’9, don’v, I’4, I’gb, are all still fine when typed.

        No Apple doesn’t listen.

  3. This happened to my daughter’s iPhone 5, her iPhone is stuck in the activation screen with a Not Valid SIM message

    • Dawn Mason McMannama - 8 years ago

      Mine phone is stuck in that state, too. The Apple store has not been able to fix it and tried to tell me that the carrier for my phone was a company in Canada. I bought the phone that Apple store and my carrier is At&T.

  4. kingsleyzissou04 - 8 years ago

    To be clear, this isn’t so much of a problem if the user knows their Apple ID and password. It only becomes an issue when the user does not recall either their Apple ID nor their password and is locked out of their own device. For a software update to ask its user to enter it’s password is not unheard of. In 2016, not knowing this information is akin to not knowing your own phone number and is simply unacceptable.

    • Emmanuel K Shannon - 8 years ago

      See Kingsley that’s where you’re wrong, my Iphone 4s is store brought no one has ever used it other then me and I’ve only had one account linked to it this entire time. Now it’s telling me that I need a yahoo account that starts with r and I’m effectively locked out of my phone because I never used the icloud, we aren’t the problem apple software is.

    • Dick Martin - 8 years ago

      I have an ipad 2 and do know my id and password, but still can’t access it. Going into icloud, all it tells me is, yes, activation lock is on, but does not provide a way to turn it off so the upgrade can activate my ipad. Can’t do it from the ipad either since the upgrade is already installed I can’t access settings nor step back to last version, so it is hung in never never land. Am I missing something here?

    • Alan Bryan - 8 years ago

      what about the many people that have made a genuine purchase of iPhones second hand, and obviously do not know the password information of the original owner, which is what is now required to activate the phone after the update ??

  5. cdm283813 - 8 years ago

    I really have to be careful doing updates if I’m 1500 miles away from home in the Florida keys.

  6. Christopher Green - 8 years ago

    I had to sign into iMessage when I dowloaded the new OS X

  7. jazthedog1972 - 8 years ago

    I just tried to do the update on my 5S, I guess they pulled the update but my phone is still requesting that I update it but I keep getting a message that it can’t verify because I’m not connected to the internet…which I am. While the phone says I have an update due, when I plug into my MacBook, it says my phone is all up to date with the 9.2.1. Overall a very strange problem.

    • mxchan3 - 8 years ago

      I had this issue in the past, I restarted my modem to Resolve the issue

  8. daymondkay - 8 years ago

    Why does Apple let this kind of problem get into their official firmware. They could of test it multiple times before releasing it. These comments from http://appletoolbox.com/2016/03/ios-9-3-activation-error-update-fix/ are horrible. So many bugs and errors in one new firmware.

  9. mpias3785 - 8 years ago

    After 7 beta versions one would think the update was ready for prim time. Were any of these issues discovered in the betas?

    • florinnica - 8 years ago

      Yes, but they just didn’t bother to fix them. Damn those lazy engineers… right?

      • mpias3785 - 8 years ago

        My iCloud account has been I’m troubleshooting mode since September with no fix in sight. I have zero confidence in Apple’s engineering department.

  10. greenskeeper805 - 8 years ago

    You cannot brick an iOS device. Stephan Esser tried and tried to brick numerous iOS devices. Couldn’t do it. Plug it into iTunes and it will fix the problem every time.

    • Franklin Acosta - 8 years ago

      that is not correct my iphone is bricked after the update and he is still in the bootloop
      itunes dont see the phone not anymore so trying to fix it will not work

      • Jay E Pophal - 8 years ago

        My pad is in the same predicament. It says I need my gmail password from the original setup. That was years and numerous passwords ago. It started at the last OS upgrade.

  11. Anne-Aymone Ferreira - 8 years ago

    Thank you for forwarding Apple’s statement.
    The problem is that nothing works. My iPad 2 (wifi + cellular, 64gb) is still bricked.
    I posted a discussion on the Apple Community forum and they posted the same “info”.
    After that I said that it did not work and they censored my post.
    This guy is the one who censored my post:
    https://discussions.apple.com/people/ChrisJ4203/profile
    He said that he does not work for Apple.
    Which is hard to believe…
    I did some research and found out that he works in that college:
    http://www2.ivcc.edu/jauch/
    I called him and he did not respond.
    So are those methods from Apple loyal towards a full paying customer?

  12. It’s amazing to me that Apple controls 100% of the hardware and the operating system … yet these problems like this occur (not only on iOS devices but also with OSX systems). I also develop iOS apps — and every major update causes some of our apps not to work until we fix some issue caused by the release. At least Microsoft has the excuse that they have to support a “zillion” different hardware platforms/configuration that they don’t control.

  13. mccfr - 8 years ago

    • Mac users have also reported issues centering around singing in to iMessage and FaceTime after updating to OS X 10.11.4. •

    Maybe their singing is off-key :)

  14. Dennis Ralph - 8 years ago

    Wish Apple would get their act together just to much trouble I don’t have time for all this fix it stuff. Goin to dump Apple as soon.

  15. Tawny Kerr (@tawnykerr) - 8 years ago

    I updated my phone to 9.3 on Wednesday 03/23 and now my iMessage (and standard text messaging) are a total mess – first, all my old messages are completely cleared out. I try to send messages that sometimes go through to the recipient, but my phone tells me it’s still attempting to send. If someone responds and it does actually come through, I receive no notification and the conversation does not move to the top of my inbox. Then, when I restart my phone, whatever evidence there was of conversation histories is completely erased. I’ve tried resetting network settings, signing in and out with my Apple ID, restarting my phone, fiddling with all the settings… I can’t even send text messages with iMessage turned off, it’s a total nightmare. Haven’t tried FaceTime – I basically never use it – but when I did all my restarts etc I logged out of my Apple ID for Facetime too just in case. Text messages are kind of important to me though…

    • nlv2016 - 8 years ago

      If you backed-up your phone using iTunes or iCloud, you can do a “restore” (if your back-up is relatively recent). As you see above, apple will issue a new 9.3 in a few days.

  16. Tyler Salisbury - 8 years ago

    I have iOS 9.3 Public Beta 6 on my iPhone 4S nothing seems to be the problem with iOS 9.3……..

  17. Susan Dell'Immagine - 8 years ago

    my husband tried to update his iPhone 4S and it didn’t ask for Apple ID password just password for phone. Update states can not update because can’t access to the Internet which is ridiculous because he gets email and can search on Google, etc. frustrating.

    • nlv2016 - 8 years ago

      If you are still on software 9.2.1 and the phone works for voice calls, text messaging and safari connects to internet.. just wait for a few days and
      apple will send out a new 9.3. You are good to go; don’t need to worry. I am in the same situation and life is good.

  18. Hovhannes Ghantarchyan - 8 years ago

    My iphone 5s after upgrade to ios 9.3 wants to activate with some g…..gmail.com which I have no clue about. I know my apple id though…

  19. Frank Palazzo - 8 years ago

    Updated ipad 6 to 9.3 Now when I click on subject on internet nothing happens

  20. Dobra Mihai Alexandru - 8 years ago

    I update my iPad2 to the new IOS 9.3 and I cannot activate it because seems that was a problem with the server so I connect it to itunes and the only option I had was factory reset and update. I had no backup from all my data from ipad. After updating I activate it from itunes on my laptop. Everything was well but when I disconnect it from laptop I see that I need to activate from the tablet as well and that was a problem with activation.

    If any of you have an problem to activate ipad from another country in the country where you are in that moment you need to:

    Login into iCloud.com

    Go to Settings and change the timezone to the timezone from your place (country) and you should activate it with no problems. It work for me.

    Alexander
    UK

  21. jay r. (@jaaaaaaaayr) - 8 years ago

    This is all apart of the Apple plan. Time to advertise the hell out of new iPads & iPhones as your old iPads & iPhones stop responding to iOS updates. Genius

  22. thetechgeek127 - 8 years ago

    I updated to iOS 9.3 on my iPhone 5 I kept it for 2 days but I was very buggy and also I care for a jailbreak so I downgraded to iOS 9.2.1 and now even if I want to update my iPhone it says that iOS 9.2.1 is the latest firmware

    • John Smith - 8 years ago

      How did you downgrade I thought you couldn’t. I didn’t want the update my kid must have clicked on it when prompted by the device. I have the old iPad 2 and the update didn’t hurt anything it’s just that you see there’s this android app that I like ;) Jailbreak status doesn’t sound promising and I know that resetting it even the forced way with iTunes will only put back on the latest update. If you can really downgrade back to an old version please do share how! My personal email is lpsjordan06@yahoo.com.

  23. nlv2016 - 8 years ago

    We have two iPhone 5 sets. One is loaded with 9.3…. no problems because I know my password for the userid. Today I tried to load 9.3 on the second phone and got a message from apple that I could no load 9.3 because i was not connected to the internet…. that is BS as others have said because all my other web functions work. My iTunes tells me that 9.2.1 is current, even though the 9.3 is loaded and prompting me to install 9.3 In all of this where is the formal apple announcement, that they are trying to correct the sign-in problem. As a registered apple user, I expect at least a notice telling me where to read something about the glitch. Well… maybe they let every one stay at home to celebrate Good Friday and Easter… Let’s pray that Monday or Tuesday we will be told what is up with their faux pas.

  24. This is BS. Mine keeps saying you cannot update because you are no longer connected to the internet…… REALLY????

  25. Adam Miller - 8 years ago

    I have an older iPad with retina display and when it prompts me to install ios 9.3 I keep getting the error message cant connect to the internet which I’m clearly connected.

  26. Darren Shea - 8 years ago

    My wife “upgraded” to 9.3 on her 4s, and it did come up normally after the reboot, but it wouldn’t take a charge. We’re crossing our fingers that it will eventually completely run out of power (just getting the “low battery, plug it in” display now for 4 days), and future charging cycles will work.

  27. Raju Ch - 8 years ago

    I don’t understand why google not fixing these simple error’s while activating iOS 9.3 software update. I am also facing this Activation error in my iPhone 6s of iOS 9.3 based OS version. Somehow i fixed this software update failed through this solution http://windowspcguide.com/ios-9-3-activation-error-during-update-software-update-failed/ . If you all are facing these activation error fix it with these simple working steps.

  28. Kay Terry Carver - 8 years ago

    I have an iPhone 5c and iPad 2. Neither will update. It says no internet connection and that is not true. Any ideas ?

    • Lisa Kadlec - 8 years ago

      Same issue with my iPad Air. My iPhone 6S updated with no issues. My iPad Air downloaded 9.3 but would give me the can’t verify (not connected to internet) error (even though I was connected). I tried all of the (apparently standard) ‘fixes’ for the failure to validate/no internet problem: Shut down and restart “Settings,” restart iPad, reset Network Settings, and, finally, delete the update. None of those worked. Deleting the update initially appears to succeed, but the “1” on the settings icon is still there as if the update is and actually going into Software Update to re-download results in a message saying my software is up to date with 9.2.1. I have seen numerous posts in response to several articles reporting the same thing. I have yet to see any fix for this. On the plus side, my iPad is working since it didn’t get any farther into trying to install the update.

  29. SunbeamRapier - 8 years ago

    I have an ipad Air. I updated it to 9.3 without issue. However, it would not update to 9.3.1 wirelessly overnight while it was plugged in. It just said there was a problem and it could not update. I connected it to my Mac but had the same problem. After several attempts via iTunes, including three attempts to completely erase the device it finally erased the iOPad and updated to 9.31 – then restored from the local Mac backup. During this process the upgrade would fail and then the reinstall would fail.

    I wish I could say “It just worked” but as so often these days, it just f***ing didn’t.

  30. After upgrading to 9.3.5 my wife’s iPad Air won’t access FaceTime. She can’t call or receive Face Time. Help!

  31. Percival A Fernandez - 6 years ago

    has anyone find a solution..i recently updated my kids ipad 2 after i had the broken LCD fixed unaware of this problem…now its asking for activation and wasted the money on repair of the LCD fixed.Please help..

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Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

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