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iTunes iPad activation servers having trouble?

By , Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 4:42 pm
14

Last night one of our readers, Kirk, let us know his company was having problems in iTunes activating a large quantity of original iPads. Didn't matter which version of iOS or how often they wiped or restored, iTunes wouldn't activate their iPads. A couple other readers let us know they were having similar problems.

I managed to wipe and restore both my original iPad and an iPod touch 4, but today Kirk and a lot of other folks were still having trouble.

Are you one of them? If you're iOS device won't activate, let us know which device, which version of iOS, and how long you've been having trouble.

And yes, feel free to mock Apple's dependence on iTunes tether to activate all you want.

[Thanks Kirk]

Rene Ritchie

Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.

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  1. Justin says:

    Ouch for Apple, this has happened to me, just a little differently I suppose, not fun!

  2. Antic says:

    Dunno if it's related or not, but I'm also having problems purchasing and updating apps, both from my PC and from my phone. Have tried with two different accounts now, and all I get is the helpful "Error 5002".

    Same set of servers maybe ?

  3. Vox says:

    I just got a 3GS for my wife and restored to factory settings her old 3G for giving away and it got authorized without a problem...updating the 3GS to 4.3.3 has been a PITA, tho, but not because of authorization, just downloading the damn update, 3 attempts so far and none finish...I don't know if I should blame my ISP or apple or what.

  4. Silverwolf says:

    I've activated a new original ipad without problems (4.2.1) yesterday in Peru.

  5. Tony says:

    I got an iPad first Generation, Not to sure which iOS it's running. It happened while I was playing a game on my iPad, I didn't even plug it in to itunes, and all the sudden just turns off, and that screen pops up above when I went to check what's the problem.

    Any thoughts or help?

  6. Punk says:

    Got a new iPhone 4.. But I don't know if it is an issue.. When I connect the phone to iTunes using my PC after a restore, I don't get the notification "iPhone is activated" but the iPhone does get activated and goes to set up! From Paris..

  7. Harry Warren says:

    I had this problem on my iPad. Went to apple store they gave me another thinking it was broken and it happened again! They could not figure it out.

  8. John Corbitt says:

    I had this happen to an iPad 2. It would act like it was updating to new software(4.3.1 and 4.3.2) and it would lock up in dmu status. I tried three computers, 2 PCs and 1 Mac. Then I went to my brother in law's PC which didn't have iTunes on it, downloaded iTunes and it worked. I have not updated since then for fear of locking up my new iPad 2. I love these iPads but am quite disappointed with iTunes and the fact I have to tether to iTunes to update my iPad.

    John

  9. Foamysking says:

    Well it is not uncommon for apple to have the activation servers off line for a weekend to do some updates usually it proceeds a large slam on the servers like iOS 5 would cause. If that is the case apple support advisors would have fore knowledge of the servers going off line.

  10. Pistol7 says:

    Earlier today, I successfully activated my iPad 2, and proceeded to upgrade the iOS from 4.3.1 to 4.3.3. While restoring, I received an error message stating that the firmware was not compatible with the device (something like that). I wonder if anyone else has experienced the same issue? If so, is there a way to overcome it?

  11. Allison says:

    That's interesting that this article came out. I had a similar issue yesterday, but it wasn't on the end of activating a device but backing them up. I tried to back up and and transfer data first from my 1st gen iPad and then from my iPhone4 and Whn I tried to plug in each device, iTunes popped up with a message saying that the device couldn't be synced with iTunes. Glad to hear I'm not e only one who was frustrated yesterday!!! If anyone else bad this particular issue, what did you do?

  12. Frank72 says:

    Well Rene, thank you for your permission to mock Apple for the horrible and useless activation process, it helps to tone down the hubris.

  13. Jonny says:

    Well im from the UK and i activated my iPjone on IOS 5 the other day, so i decided to do it for my original iPad, when i tried to set it up it got to the last section and said, it couldn't be activated and so did iTunes. It's been like this since 2 days ago... :/

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