Q: ANY ONE KNOW WHAT IS ERROR 3 IN ITUNES WHEN I TRY TO RESTORE IPHONE 5 TO IOS 7 IT STUCKS IN THE END AND AFTER 30 MIN THIS COME OUT "UNKNOWN ERROR 3" CAN SOME ONE HELP ME PLZ

Hi peter876,

Thank you for the kind words. All the methods shared by others on our discussion team have contributed to helping solve this thorny problem for various visitors. As you did, I recommend my Freezer Physics be used after all other methods have failed, including a visit to an Apple Store, if possible, and a chat with an Apple Genius.

I continue to believe we may get a fix from Apple in a future OS update but we will have to hang in there for a bit. Our issue appears to me to be a "corner case" (even with this forums 16K+ views, its not a lot of devices). Apple scrapes these discussion threads regularly looking for problems to tackle, so the more people with Error (3) that share their experience, the more likely this issue will get attention (squeaky wheel).

Hi kennethyoung, thank you very much! Your freezer trick worked like a miracle. My supposedly bricked iPad came back to life!

Hi Chewy824,

Glad our groups ideas worked for another user. Have a great holiday!

Hi Kennethyoung,

Please, you said we have to turn off the device completely before trying the freezer trick otherwise it won't work. My iPad is already in recovery mode showind iTunes logo. Is it enough to hold the power button or is there anything else to do to turn it off completely ?

Thanks.

Hi xx1544,

Yes. 10 seconds holding down the power button on the top right edge if the device should turn it off but I have seen one case where it didn't and the user still froze the device and was able to successfully restore the device. Turning it off if you can helps the chips get colder enhancing the likelihood of a successful restore. Let us know how it works out for you

Okay,

I tried it two times (30 mins and 2 hours) but it didn't work. I am stuck with the same problem. May be I'm not freezing it enough. Do you think this issue can be solved with iOS 7.1 ?

7.1 is already out at Developers so any fix in 7.1.0 is unlikely. The issue is being looked at by Apple so depending on what they find for a possible software fix it will come later. Your device not being fixed for Error (3) by any of the techniques described on this thread may make it a good candidate for the AppleCare engineers to study for this problem. Have you talked with an Apple Genius and store manager and contacted AppleCare directly on this issue? Of not, I urge you to do both as they may be collecting some of the devices that exhibit Error (3) to study the failure mode and see if a software fix can be derived.

I already contacted them through the chat. They told me to send it back to apple so they will give me a new one (i'm still under warranty). The problem is that there is no apple representative in my country. It is now more than two months i'm looking for a solution. May be I will just buy a new one. But please, keep us informed whenever a solution is provided by apple. Thanks in advance.

Hey all,  I rarely reply to these posts but i wanted to let everyone know what i did to resolve the famous "error (3)".  After dozens of attemps to restore my ipad using several different methods I gave up and contacted apple.  I've been through several sessions with apple engineers (hours) and were not able to resolve the issue.  I came accross this thread and noticed the "freezer trick".  I tried it several times to no avail.  I then read someone's comment that you want to start restoring the ipad immediately after taking it out of the freezer to keep it cool.  I did this about a dozen times at least and never worked.  In my final desperate attempt i decided to leave the ipad in the freezer while it was being restored.  I almost **** myself when i saw the "successfully restored" message!  Craziest troubleshooting/solution i have ever come accross. Thanks kennethyoung for the wackiest computer fix ever!  Hopefully this post can help someone else!

Hi dubiHowzer

It paid off for you to be persistent. The "physics" behind this "trick" all has to do with getting the Flash memory cells as cold as practical and keeping them as cold as possible during the Flash erase process, which is where the "failure" is occuring. I had not considered suggesting to the 2-3 others that had reported the "freezer physics trick" not working for them that they leave the iPad/iPhone in the freezer during restore, but since this technique has worked for one of us, I urge th to go back and give that a technique a try.

Thanks for taking the time to report your success to the group!

my ipad3 ios5.1.1 also having error 3 when i tried to update to ios 7.0.4 few days ago and i was googling all kind of solutions and finally found this thread discussing the same problem..  my ipad3 seems to be in recovery mode eveytime i connect it to my pc windows7..so i cannot use my ipad at all.. can't even restore...

my laptop could not recognize my ipad.. luckily i never did the same with my iphone4.. now i never want to update my iphone..at the moment...i guess.. but i will try to do the "freezer trick" as suggested by kennethyoung during the weekend, and will update the progress!!

Okay so far my ipad will not work. Last night i tried the freezer trick which for me did work but i got a (3194) error and ive looked multiple places for a fix. Changing my hosts and using tiny umbrella which wouldn't work because it wouldn't install to my computer, i even tried adding hosts but still no luck. Also, I have tried using my girlfriends computer with an up to date itunes on both computers, but only ended up getting an error (-1) if anyone has a possible solution to my problem would be greatly appricated I'm at wits end trying different things. Right now i am attempting to freeze the ipad and restore it on my girlfriends computer. Kennethyoung, I have a question did you restore in recovery mode or did you recover in dfu mode?

Hi jhawk929

I restored in Recovery mode the first time I froze my iPad 3. I have read about 3194 error elsewhere for a different issue. Can you share the log file from this failure attempt by posting on this forum? We may be able to analyze it as a group and suggest something.

The 3194 error is from attempting to install a ipsw file that is not for the current iOS.

okay well i dont currently have access to my logs because i am not at home however i did get past the original error of the (3194) error but during the recovery process in dfu mode i made it to the last 1% area and it stopped giving me the (3) error. The way i routed past the (3194) was instead of using a ios 7 download i found in my appdata folder i went throught itunes and made sure it was the most recent version alas im stuck with the (3) error.