Scott Bernard wrote:
New Info/ Half Solved
My normal system is a fully updated High Sierra with the highest possible iTunes allowed = It will not update support files to connect to my iPhone 13 mini, my iPhone 12 Pro, or my iPhone 15 Pro Max (all on ios 17.0.3). Sometimes it prompts for them, but fails to download and gives me a network related error.
I have no idea what about my normal system is different from the clean install, but at least now I know they CAN work correctly, and I just have to keep hunting for the problem.
More info/ Improved Solution!
- Double check your iPhone's tech specs and make sure its supposed to have Syncing supported for your MacOS, and your iTunes.
- Double check your iTunes manually to make sure it's the highest available for your system. On High Sierra for example, a new version was released, but it never automatically appeared in the App Store "Updates" for some users, so it never got installed. You can't solve this without it.
- If you updated iTunes, unplug and plug your iPhone and try the support file download again, in case that fixed it. If not...
- Do a Clean install of your system, and migrate your setup into the Clean Install. Here are some preferred instructions on how to migrate, without having Permissions problems. Is there a difference in results between Migration Assistant app and 'Transfer Information' option during OS installation?
- You may have to reinstall the highest iTunes again, into the Clean Install. The High Sierra Installer for example, installs an older copy.
- Unplug and plug your iPhone and try the support file download again. In case it doesn't work, restart your system once, and try again. You should be good now.
Explanation:
In my case, I discovered that the failure to download the faceless support update error, was caused by a larger problem that needed to be fixed. We found the main problem, but not what was causing it in order to fix it. A Clean Install and migration is the best workaround instead.
The Main Problem:
It seems there is something local stopping connections to at least swscan.apple.com, but we don't know what/where it is in order to fix it in-place.
Do you have the same main problem?
1. First, I suspect you have to be on High Sierra to have this problem. I installed multiple Mojaves and they were all error-free.
2. Second, check for these related errors to the main problem. Errors 1-3 are the easiest to test for, but maybe some of the other errors look familiar too.
1) Can't add Google or Yahoo email accounts to Internet Accounts pane.
2) Software Update failing on High Sierra: (NSURLErrorDomain error -1012.)
3) iOS 17, iPhone not showing up on 2009 iMac iTunes. (this thread)
4) Can't download High Sierra full installer.
5) other unspecified "server" or "connection" errors.
3. Third, do 1-3 occur together? If you have 1 or 2 of the errors, but a 3rd one works fine, you likely don't have the problem described above, and this solution would be overkill.
Conclusion
If you think you have this main problem too, I would definitely do a Clean Install, per instructions at the top of this post.