IOS 9.3 has bricked my iPad

Forums › Apple iOS and devices › IOS 9.3 has bricked my iPad

mattwnz

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#193766 23-Mar-2016 14:09

Saw that my ipad wanted to apply an update, and proceeded to do this. Took about an hour to complete, but I now can't get past the white Activation screen. It just times out and says the activation server is not available, and to try connecting to itune. When I connect it to itunes it says that it is unable to activate the device and to go into an apple store, and then gives a list of addresses in the UK. I have done everything I have read to, such as doing multiple restarts, but nothing helps. Anyone else have this problem?

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#1518446 23-Mar-2016 14:13

We've done a few devices here already and not had any issues.

Been a mixture of iPhones and iPads.

Is your iPad a cellular model?

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mendit

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#1518448 23-Mar-2016 14:14

I just updated mine and it updated without a hitch

tdgeek

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#1518452 23-Mar-2016 14:23

mattwnz:

Saw that my ipad wanted to apply an update, and proceeded to do this. Took about an hour to complete, but I now can't get past the white Activation screen. It just times out and says the activation server is not available, and to try connecting to itune. When I connect it to itunes it says that it is unable to activate the device and to go into an apple store, and then gives a list of addresses in the UK. I have done everything I have read to, such as doing multiple restarts, but nothing helps. Anyone else have this problem?

Id hope that yours was caught in a server heavy period, so hopeful;y its not bricked, just delayed. Have you tried later on?

Behodar

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#1518456 23-Mar-2016 14:44

It's not bricked. "Bricked" means that it has the functionality of a brick. Bricks do not typically provide addresses of UK Apple stores :)

With that said, i updated from 9.2.1 this morning (on an iPhone, not an iPad) and was not asked to activate anything.

Teeps

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#1518457 23-Mar-2016 14:44

mattwnz:
Saw that my ipad wanted to apply an update, and proceeded to do this. Took about an hour to complete, but I now can't get past the white Activation screen. It just times out and says the activation server is not available, and to try connecting to itune. When I connect it to itunes it says that it is unable to activate the device and to go into an apple store, and then gives a list of addresses in the UK. I have done everything I have read to, such as doing multiple restarts, but nothing helps. Anyone else have this problem?

Try a different wifi network or tether the iPad to your iPhone (if you have one) just to activate it.

When I have tried updating my devices at work I have found that they download ok and start to install but get stuck on the activation screen so would appear that the firewall is blocking it. By tethering to my iPhone and using cell data it gets past the activation screen and then you can turn hotspot off again. It hardly uses any data.

Just my experience but may work for you too.

mattwnz

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#1518492 23-Mar-2016 15:19

Behodar:

It's not bricked. "Bricked" means that it has the functionality of a brick. Bricks do not typically provide addresses of UK Apple stores :)

With that said, i updated from 9.2.1 this morning (on an iPhone, not an iPad) and was not asked to activate anything.

That is the function it has, it is not allowing to proceed past the activation screen, it is just in an infinite loop. It is itunes on my PC when connected to the ipad that tells me the addresses to go to. I do have other ios devices and they upgraded fine, and the activation went through fine straight away.

This is a 3G version of the ipad, but it won't allow me to connect to the 3G connection to activate it, only wifi. I have also tried tethering it via a mobile phone, but it still does the same thing.

PoHq

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#1518498 23-Mar-2016 15:25

Presuming you have tried a hard reset? Power and home button for 10 seconds at same time.

Failing that plug it into iTunes and do a restore that way.

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mattwnz

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#1518505 23-Mar-2016 15:41

PoHq: Presuming you have tried a hard reset? Power and home button for 10 seconds at same time.

Failing that plug it into iTunes and do a restore that way.

Tried all that. My new ipad is unaffected, just this older ipad 2, which has the mobile connection which I use while travelling. I have done a search on the apple committees, and it looks like it is a common problem with the ipad 2, as there a quite a few posts about it, and only about the ipad 2.https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7501357 I did phone them, and they say they are flooded with calls about it, and it isn't something they know an answer for, and are going to have to get someone to conect me about it once they have a soltion. So looks like it is going to take a while to get it fixed. Apparently people have also tried to restore it, but that also failed, so it looks like it has bricked most ipad 2 's who have done the upgrade. So a bit of a warning for anyone upgrading an older device, probably hold off for now.

PoHq

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#1518522 23-Mar-2016 16:10

Have you tried putting it in DFU mode? And then restoring ?

mattwnz

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#1518534 23-Mar-2016 16:44

PoHq: Have you tried putting it in DFU mode? And then restoring ?

I don't have a recent backup, as my new ipad is the one I sync with itunes on my pc. Apparently though from other feedback on the communities website, it can continue to fail even after a restore, or the restore also fails. So I will wait to see what solution apple come up with. I am guessing it is a bug in ios 9.3, which will be fixed in the next version.

tripp

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#1518542 23-Mar-2016 16:51

Yes I would suggest a DFU of the unit and wipe/restore.

google will tell you how to get the device in DFU mode :)

mattwnz

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#1518586 23-Mar-2016 18:47

tripp:

Yes I would suggest a DFU of the unit and wipe/restore.

google will tell you how to get the device in DFU mode :)

Thanks, that looks like it is going to be my only option. Looks like Apple testing isn't up to what it used to be, as they have had a few of these types of bugs that have bricked devices of late. It is the first time I have had an ios update fail, and it wasn't even a major OS update, as it doesn't really add much functionality to an ipad 2. But at least they do release updates for it though after such a long period of time.

xpd

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#1518828 24-Mar-2016 09:58

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/23/ios_93_update_bricks_ipad_2s/

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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CYaBro

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#1518875 24-Mar-2016 11:05

Yup have had a couple of calls this morning with this issue, thanks Apple!

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CYaBro

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#1519113 24-Mar-2016 15:30

So looks like Apple have pulled the 9.3 update for the iPad 2 3G devices.
I've just done one for a customer, had to put it into DFU restore mode and then restored via iTunes and it downloaded the latest version of iOS for the iPad 2 3G and it was iOS 9.2.1.

The device is working again too.

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