wsucoug95

Q: iTunes asking for backup password???

I am upgrading my iphone 4 to iOS 5. I backed up my phone (via iTunes 10.5) and downloaded and installed iOS 5. I am now going through the setup process and it is at the "Restore from iTunes Backup" step. I connect to iTunes and iTunes is prompting me for a password to "unlock your iPhone backup file." No I did not encrypt the iPhone backup, nor is it or was it checked in iTunes. I have tried my iTunes password, my 4 digit unlock code for the iPhone, and several other passwords. When I did the backup an hour ago I was not asked for a password. I am at a loss as to what it is.

iPhone 4

Posted on Oct 12, 2011 1:11 PM

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Q: iTunes asking for backup password???

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  • by barcagiu,

    barcagiu barcagiu Jul 18, 2012 6:14 PM in response to wsucoug95
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    Jul 18, 2012 6:14 PM in response to wsucoug95

    Guys !!! I finaly made it! OK, it is obviously a password that we used a long time ago and most of us we dont remember it (as it happened to me). So what i did i got this program Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker and it found my pass in 2 minutes . Now waiting for Restore to complete . I hope it works for all of you.

    PS: Apple you fked it up big time ....

  • by Fredgallagher,

    Fredgallagher Fredgallagher Jul 24, 2012 10:46 AM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 24, 2012 10:46 AM in response to wsucoug95

    Guys, here is our experience with this bug (and yes Apple this is a bad bug not a bad memory) and here is how we got around it.

     

    My wife recently attempted to upgrade her iPhone to 5.1.1 and iTunes advised her that she would need to do a complete backup and restore process on her iPhone which she agreed to and let it start.  So it did the backup, upgraded her iPhone and then when it attempted to restore the backup it halted and asked her for the password for her encrypted backup.  As other folks have indicated, she hadn't requested this backup or any other backup in the past to be encrypted, but regardless we could not proceed beyond this point.  We tried every combination of password she or I had ever used with no avail.  We also spent hours with the Genius Bar folks and the online Apple support folks and received plenty of empathy but no results. You really are left with the impression that this is your fault and that somewhere in your dark past you or someone in your family encrypted a backup with a password.

     

    So we went the Elcomsoft password breaker route which some folks here have used with success.  i would like to share my experiences here because I feel I owe this forum a favour and also to make sure you know how to get this software to best work for you ,because even though its very powerful, its not totally intuitive.

     

    First Attempt - We downloaded the Elcomsoft free trial version of the software, told it to run, asked it to go against our iPhone backup file, selected the most recent iPhone backup (btw this wasn't that days but instead was one from 2 weeks ago - another bug Apple) and told it to start.  When it starts, it will tell you how long it expects to take and in this case it said 4 hours.  As the Elcomsoft software is running it says what its "attack rate" is of approximately 700 password attempts per second and it displays its current attempt every second so you can see it work through the possibilities. In this case, under their "task" I had accepted the default "english dic - no mutations" So with this default it just attacked with standard unicase dictionary words and after about 2 hours it finished with no success. 

     

    Next Attempt - I wasn't suprised and decided to look deeper. If you double click on "english-dic" it will open a box showing your selection and displaying the mutations options "disabled".  if you click that, you can see that you also have the options of minimal, average or maximal mutations. I chose "maximal" and it in turn advised me that it could take up to 4 days to run this attack! So I quickly backed off from that and chose "minimal" and it in turn advised me that it would take up to 30 hours to run this attack. I chose this solution, but before running it on my wife's backup, I ran it on my iPad's backup on a separate computer where I intentionally protected it with a password of "1234". Off it went, and you could see it apply different combinations of numbers, letters and special characters.  In was kind of fun to see and in less than 2 minutes, it found the password and came back showing 12**.  If you want to see the ** characters, you then need to buy the application at around $80 and get a registration key.

     

    Successful attempt - So with that little success under my belt, I started the "minimal" attack on my wife's computer and her iPhone backup. And 25.5 hours (it said it took 91,871 seconds) later it was successful and showed the result as Pr*****.  So at this stage, you could try variations of Pr and 5 characters, but since we had never encrypted our backup and also never used a password beginning with Pr, and because Elcomsoft was going to save us a lot of grief if we had to leave the iPhone at factory settings, we elected to register the software and proceed with payment.  Success!! Her phone is now on 5.1.1, all her application data is in place and we have a happy household and I am a hero!

     

    Learnings - #1 - Encrypt your iPhone/ iPad backup intentionally with a password you selected vs. letting some bug somewhere select it for you. #2 - Make sure all your important passwords such as your PC or MAC signon and your online banking software are secure and complex, because this type of software is very powerful and there are a lot of bad guys out there that will use it for the wrong reason. Elcomsoft has provisions to protect it from being used for the wrong purpose, but others might not. During those 25.5 hours, I estimate it attempted over 64 million attacks! #3 Elcomsoft is in Russia! So it will take a few hours to process your payment since they don't seem to work 24/7. So kinda of scary, but it worked.

     

    Thanks

    Fred

  • by calebnunez,

    calebnunez calebnunez Jul 25, 2012 4:01 PM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 25, 2012 4:01 PM in response to wsucoug95

    I had the same problem and mine was just the 4 digit password you set up to unlock your phone...

  • by jaymilly,

    jaymilly jaymilly Jul 27, 2012 1:34 PM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2012 1:34 PM in response to wsucoug95

    my password was just my itunes password without the first letter capitalized

  • by PetterMBA,

    PetterMBA PetterMBA Aug 1, 2012 7:53 AM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 1, 2012 7:53 AM in response to wsucoug95

    This is sick!

     

    I don't know how many hours I have been sitting talking to Apple Support (Sweden) and they have "never" heard about this problem. It's a bug! These many people havn't lost their minds. I can't belive they havn't heard about it. It's just crazy to me.

     

    I'm from Sweden and wonder am I the only Swede that this has happened to or are just no one reporting it to Apple. This is something they need to get fixed. I told them that. It is crazy how this thing can happen. You do back-up to prevent data from disappearing, and with this bug, the complete opposit happens.

     

    It's just totally crazy to me that this still is happening to people. I mean the original post is from 12 Oct 2011. It is 1 Aug 2012 now and it has happened to me.

     

    I can't belive it really

     

    Still working on geting the password...after two days...

     

    Thank you everybody in here that you exist and for your support!


  • by Reddymnd,

    Reddymnd Reddymnd Aug 20, 2012 11:28 PM in response to mister369
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Aug 20, 2012 11:28 PM in response to mister369

    This worked for me thanks!

  • by straybuttons,

    straybuttons straybuttons Aug 21, 2012 4:38 PM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 21, 2012 4:38 PM in response to wsucoug95

    Thank you everybody for your support! This is clearly ridiculous and different, utterly random things are working for everybody. I just kept trying random things I would never otherwise have tried because of your suggestions. I have never in my life used my own name as a password, but my first name in lower case worked for the backup to restore my iPod. Now I'm terrified to backup my iPhone in case the password doesn't work! Good luck to everybody still trying - something's got to work.

  • by Trueblue182,

    Trueblue182 Trueblue182 Sep 2, 2012 4:30 PM in response to electronics
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 2, 2012 4:30 PM in response to electronics

    This also worked for me, very annoyed at Apple for knowing and using banking passwords!!

  • by marxfr,

    marxfr marxfr Sep 8, 2012 5:55 AM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 8, 2012 5:55 AM in response to wsucoug95

    It happened this morning. I updated my iOS to 5.1 and it made a backup as usual. I never EVER provided a password for all my backups of iOS - Devices - this is the first backup on my MacBook Pro which all after sudden is encrypted and I DID NOT provide a password and I DID NOT check the encrypt my backup - box.

     

    I tried to restore my backup for 4 hours and I finally gave up. I used my Apple-ID password, my Mac - Password, my iPhone-Unlock-Screen digits - I used 0000 , 12345, password , Facebook - Password , Email-Password, Banking-Password .... NOTHING worked.

     

    This bug seems so random it is unbelieveable - so I keep the encrypted backup and hope that APPLE comes up with a solution - this is unbelieveable - I've lost my pictures and some other data. I've read here that some guy punched in his iTunes-Password for 4 hours and suddenly it worked - what the f.... is that ?

     

    Apple has to come up with a solution and be upfront about this Bug - this is unbelieveable. The responsible manager and developer have to be fired right on the spot.

     

    I'm a Software Engineer too - but not to test such a important feature is a absolut NO GO.

  • by larzmac,

    larzmac larzmac Sep 12, 2012 11:43 AM in response to jaymilly
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 12, 2012 11:43 AM in response to jaymilly

    My password was my iCloud password. With capitals, numbers, and specials.

    It sounds like most of you did not intend to encrypt their backup. I did. I saved the password to my OSX keychain in case I forgot it. That key was lost (how, I don't know), but I remembered the password. It was wrong. I tried nearly all of your suggestions (except olcomsoft, because I only have a Mac). Olcomsoft did point me in the right direction though, saying that the password authentication is on the iDevice, and not through iTunes (as I would have guessed). Try passwords your iDevice knows.

    In case it matters, my iCloud Apple ID and iTunes ID are different

  • by helenfromblackpool,

    helenfromblackpool helenfromblackpool Sep 24, 2012 8:38 AM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 24, 2012 8:38 AM in response to wsucoug95

    ive just recieved my iphone 5 and tried a number of passwords with no luck also..

     

    my itunes password is a number, 4 capital letters, a number then 5 lower case letters ..

     

     

    I just tried my password with all lowercase letters and now the restore is in progress... yippee

  • by fionagabrielle,

    fionagabrielle fionagabrielle Oct 15, 2012 5:03 AM in response to wsucoug95
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 15, 2012 5:03 AM in response to wsucoug95

    gev.iphone is definitely one to try. Wanted to update my iphone4 to iOS6 and I tried EVERYTHING!!! Every password I could think of, old and new for my pc/iphone/Facebook/1234 & 0000 several times and NOTHING worked, even tried the disconnect and cancel as suggested by gev.iphone in their post. Had saved photos prior to update (backed up phone but had copied photos into a file on my pc separately as well) so finally gave up and disconnected the phone deciding that I was going to try my iPhone's option of "start as new phone" rather than back up via iTunes or iCloud and once I had reset the language region etc the phone stated it should be connected to iTunes, did and it sync'd automatically, restoring all my apps, contacts and notes from my notepad and is working perfectly. The only thing it didn't restore was my media. It did warn of this when the update was performed. Make sure you save your photos etc separately out of iTunes. Also, updated my iPad's OS as well and it lost nothing nor did it ask for any password, did it automatically through the settings and not one issue. Have to agree with most on here, apple sort it out!!

  • by AkiKimono,

    AkiKimono AkiKimono Oct 15, 2012 5:58 AM in response to tmg86
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 15, 2012 5:58 AM in response to tmg86

    YAY - followed instructions provided in here and my update has begun

  • by AkiKimono,

    AkiKimono AkiKimono Oct 15, 2012 6:02 AM in response to tmg86
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 15, 2012 6:02 AM in response to tmg86

    Thank you tmg86! Followed your instructions & it's working - YAY. Don't recall putting a password on this at all and it's only my latest back-up which shows the locked symbol when I check my back-up's in preferences.

     

    Glad I jumped into the Apple Support Community to see if anyone had any tips

  • by binitsanu,

    binitsanu binitsanu Oct 22, 2012 9:55 AM in response to picuda
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 22, 2012 9:55 AM in response to picuda

    simple !

    its 1234

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