Installing 4.0: It has taken 1 hr to backup and not done yet?

My iPhone is normally backed up on my iMac back home, but I'm traveling so I tried to make a backup on my MacBook Pro that I have with me.

I installed the latest iTunes, the latest Mac OS, but I'm still getting stuck on the "back-up" part. Sometimes the bar doesn't move at all, and sometimes it moves just a sliver.

I had read the part about it taking over an hour, but I left the thing plugged in ALL AFTERNOON without it moving, and then tried again ALL NIGHT, and this morning it was in the exact same spot.

Strange things are afoot at the Infinite Loop.

I am trying this now.. Did you lost you texts when you did these steps?

it turned out Great!!
thanks!

My phone did the same thing. Then it said that it couldn't do it. Afterwards I pressed update again and it told me it was backing up. Little to my knowledge it did not back up (although it told me) and it restored my phone back to February 2010. I have no idea what to do, I just lost everything.

The OS 4.0 install is FINALLY finished.

If you have a 3g then do yourself a favor and just use the backup/restore method. As stated in a previous post, I tried 5 times (to the tune of several hours, including overnight) to use the "Update" button to move to OS 4.0. It didn't work for me. Therefore I used the backup/restore method and was done approximately 90 minutes later.

REMEMBER, YMMV. However, all of my information and applications were backed up and restored perfectly (at least Apple got that part right).

Best of luck to those still hoping to see OS 4.0 on their 3g phones.

Followed instructions from the tauw.com link (thanks Soulblighter33!) and the whole process including backup took 30 min.! Everything is on the phone and working.

<this pertains to my 3G phone>

I had many of the problems listed on this and other topics in the forum. After I waited a huge amount of time on several tries, I got the error "Error backing up this phone and the error number -402653138, and the choice to wipe the phone and install fresh, which I was not inclined to do (being a PITA to restore all the apps and settings).

But, I finally got it to work. Here's how:
(1) I put the phone in Airplane mode
(2) I turned off synching of movies, music, etc., so there was little on the phone except apps.
(3) Ran the Update.

This got it to work. I'm unhappy that a released (not beta!) Apple product is so difficult to install, and has so many problems. Yes, I want a new iPhone, but until I can afford to buy one, I expect that my current model be update-able without requiring a day and a half of my time!

I have upgraded 2 x iPhone 3G 16GB and an iPod Touch all from OS 3.1.3 to iOS4 and with the exception of the first iPhone which included the download '37 min' all updates have taken about an hour give or take 'not each device was sync with the same applications' In all cases I started with a sync to create a backup and then proceeded with the update. Perhaps the time issue is related to what OS the device is being updated from....

Message was edited by: adnixon

I had been in the backing up stage for almost 2 hours, and it was about a quarter of the way done, and then it randomly quit and started restoring to factory settings! Is this normal??

George Coghill wrote:
As suspected, once I hit the 271 MB mark the progress bar started moving. I noticed the earlier backup (which had a "1" appended to the folder name which otherwise was the same as the current backup) is now gone.

This, I was watching my Backup, and as soon as it matched the size on disk, that backup was deleted and the bar started zooming.

That definately tells me, deleting stuff off your iPhone before updating will make it go MUCH faster.

Message was edited by: Radigan

3.75 hours to update my 8GB iPhone 3G to ios4. Really?!?!?!

You could right-click on your iPhone and choose Backup.

Then instead of clicking "Update" instead click Restore. Do you want to restore and update? YES

iPhone updates without the backup hang. Upon completion to iOS4 you choose restore from previous backup of "SoandSo's iPhone" All your stuff is restored and everything is groovy.

Actually, Nuke and restore from backup finally did work like a champ. All Apps reinstalled with customizations and preferences intact. What really took a long while was that I have a couple iPhoto Albums synced with over 1,000 photos in each. During the restore it went through the full prep and load process for all of these photos, and that took a while. Then it took quite a while to reload my 16 pages of apps! Then I reorganized almost al the apps into folders so now I'm down to five pages and it is quicker to navigate to an app on page 5 than flipping throuh 10 pages! I do notice some things run slower in iOS4 on the 3G, but I'll only have to put up with that for two weeks while I await delivery of "Four."

I experienced the freeze in backup on the update as well. I tried several times with the same result so did the restore instead. It still tool 2 1/2 hours but everything seems to have updated successfully. After the restore completes it ask to reinstall the last backup.

All of my apps, music, contacts and even settings are all in place as they were before the restore. At least with the restore you can see the progress it's making and the steps it's going through. Definitely a less frustrating experience than they update.

My iPhone 3G will simply not update to 4. It will not get past the backup stage, even after 3+ hours. The bar would not be past, say, 5%. I read the thread and went to the folder where supposedly the backup was going on. It did show activity, but after 3 hours and it not moving I just quit the whole process. I'm starting to think that this update is simply not compatible with iPhone 3G.