Q: Stuck at "slide to upgrade" IOS 9

Restore your iPad: Connect your iPhone to iTunes on your computer, backup, and then select Restore to Factory.

It gets back to the same screen. "slide to upgrade"

I have iPhone 4s and I spent the whole night today restoring 4 times, until I figured out the problem. The problem appears to be with the passcode to unlock your phone. That is, if you have a passcode enabled then you get stuck at this screen. After doing the restore 3 times, I have figured this out and restored without setting the passcode at the initial setup stage. After I got everything running, I enable the passcode and then my iPhone fell into an infinite loop between the screen "slide to upgrade" and enter passcode. So I ended up doing the 4th restore and kept the passcode disabled.

Needless to say, I cursed my decision to upgrade to IOS 9 an infinite number of times, as up until now I was running IOS 7 and everything was working fine.

I'm no expert, but I'd say there is some bug with passcode.

Seems to be a bug when updating from iOS 7 to iOS 9 (skipping 8). I solved my issue by downgrading to 8.1.4 as it is still signed by Apple, restoring my back up and then updating to 9 and it worked. I detailed some instructions in another post and I'll paste it here:

Hi all, I HAVE A FIX!

Spent the last 12 hours pulling my hair out trying to find a solution to the problem - and I think I have one!

Did a bit of Googling and a guy on Reddit had the solution that worked for me. I upgraded from iOS 7 to iOS 9 and that caused an issue when I tried to restore my back up. However, by downgrading to 8.1.4 (as it is still signed), restoring the back up (my files all returned, but my apps disappeared strangely..) and THEN update to iOS 9 and it finally worked.

Here's the solution:

Finally fixed it! You have to downgrade to 8.4.1. Outlined the steps below.

Step 1 - Backup your pictures! Even though you can't get to your phone and use it you should still be able to backup your pictures

Step 2 - Download IOS 8.4.1 for your iPhone or iPad from this site (Choose the right one for your model) --> https://ipsw.me/8.4.1

The file was taking a while to download for my phone so I searched the filename on Google and downloaded from Mega.

Step 3 - Reboot phone into DFU mode - hold down power button and home button - when it reboots let go of power button - still hold home button

At this point it will ask you to connect your phone to iTunes - will have to connect phone to the computer.

Step 4 - Hold down the Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) and and then click restore.

Step 5 - Browse to the 8.4.1 file you downloaded and select it. This should restore to the previous IOS version. Note: This will wipe phone.

Step 6 - Restore from backup. Hope that you backed up before attempting to update.

Hope this helps you all! :-)

EDIT: Reinstalled the apps by going into the app store and viewing my purchases - they're all there. Downloaded them all and they all sorted themselves back into their categories as I had them before. Whatsapp conversations were also restored so it works. HOORAY!

I posted this on another thread as well: I have an iPhone 5 and had the same problem of getting to the 'Slide to Upgrade'. I would reset my phone by powering off holding both the Power Button and the Home button. Then when it started back up, I would release the power button while holding down the home button. After numerous attempts of bypassing different options when asked to set up the phone, I did not set up a passcode. This finally allowed me to get past the 'Waiting to copy' in step 5 of 5 in the iTune sync process and the 'Slide to Upgrade' on my iPhone. When iTunes showed that it started copying the files, the screen on my phone would flash from the Apple symbol to my home screen and back to the Apple symbol. Then after my laptop showed that the sync was finished, I left my phone connected as it was still doing something because the status bar would show movement on the phone, go blank, and then showed movement again along the status bar. FINALLY my home screen popped up and all of my files had been restored.

I tried your way and it Finally work, but from time to the Apple Symbol still appears with status bar, and blink between screens even after disconnected. Do you still encounter like what I have. And did you enable the passcode option after everything is done.

Step 2 - Download IOS 8.4.1 for your iPhone or iPad from this site

You gotta be kidding if you think I'm going to some random unknown site to download some dodgy firmware.

I just tried restoring from iTunes when in recovery mode, and it didn't work the first time. So I tried again and it worked, but I had to set up as a new iPad, lost all my data. No huge deal for me as I didn't keep much on the iPad due to not trusting it for this very reason.

Funny how setting up the new iPad has everything turned on by default, I just spent an hour turning off all the "share your whole life with iCloud" and "get notified about everything".. and "allow search to look everywhere even  up your own backside so we can find the best result". So much stuff to opt out of it's hilarious. I've never used iCloud, Facetime, Find your iPad, or Game centre  in the past, and don't wish to use those services, but suddenly "welcome to your iCloud and Facetime accounts, we've taken the liberty of logging you in and defaulting everything on your iPad to use these services" etc. So rude.

Thanks for the info.  Trying it now.  This will be at least the 6th time I've tried to install this update.  "Frustrated" doesn't begin to touch it.

I think there's an Android in my future.  At least with them, I DON'T expect it to "just work."

Yes, I still had the status bar appear throughout the day after doing the upgrade. I think it is happening when I open an app for the first time after the upgrade. I have not reset a passcode. Waiting.

Thank you, harpreet0singh! You are my hero!

My iPad2 was stuck in endless reboot loop after trying to update to iOS9.

This solution worked perfect for my iPad2 which previously had some version of iOS7. The problem seems to be a update from iOS7x to iOS 9.

But contrary to harpreet0singh´s solution I didn´t press restore but update. First I updated manually iOS 8.4.1 from https://ipsw.me/8.4.1 , afterwards I updated manually to iOS 9 with the appropriate file from here: http://www.gottabemobile.com/2015/09/16/the-secret-to-skipping-long-ios-9-downlo ads-and-problems/

Did not have to restore any data or apps from backup, everything is here :-)

Good luck!

Kind regards,

joww

Thanks for this. Just sorry that I didn't find it first, before trying the update. Apple, you suck!

ssame problem with our phone!

Well, I was able to do a factory restore to iOS 9 without jumping through any other hoops and that seemed to go OK, but now I'm in download (and reboot) **** from an iCloud restore that is taking massive amounts of time and sometimes refuses to take my valid iCloud account ID and password. Probably massively slow from all the poor chumps (like me) who have had problems upgrading and now need to restore their data and apps.