How to fix frozen iPad after iPadOS 26 update during Apple Pay setup?

I encountered the same thing with a brand new iPad Mini recently purchased few days ago.

Came with iOS 18 installed. Did some basic set up but didn't touch the wallet. Then let it update to iOS26, and I got the same hanging if I tried to skip / "do it later" option. Tried restarting the iPad several times, same result. Didn't matter if it was connected to Wifi or not.

Eventually, I tried just adding a real credit card I had with me to it.

It worked.

Then just removed the credit card from Apple Wallet after the initial questions were done and I could use the iPad normally.

The setup process on iPad os 26.2 seems completely broken. I just experienced it with 2 different iPads. The only thing I found to fix it is to hold the lock button and hit restart setup process, deleting any data and then blasting through the setup without adding any info to get into the Home Screen, then adding Apple ID and everything else afterwards.

Doing the setup as Apple wants you to just does not work, it’s embarrassing. It just spins and spins at various stages of setup and eventually stops progressing.

I’ve never witnessed this level of disfunction in my Apple products.

I just tried something and it worked.

Fist of all, my ipad was already connected to my wifi.

when I tried to pass the apple pay, it started to bugg. + the infinite loading … (I think i’ve restart and retry for like 50times cause what the .. ? )

but lucky me my electricity was off for like an hour so I’ve tried to restart just in case but without wifi and it worked !!!

It didn’t even show the apple pay step and It continued with the steps even faster. Before my electricity came back, I’ve connected my iphone data to my ipad just to make sure there was no problem with the apps.

Everything is fine now.

Reconnected my home wifi too and everything works.

I had to do the volume up, volume down hold the power button until it power cycled, then once it’s back on you hold the power button until a list of options come up and press “restart setup” or something similar to that. It’ll delete any info you’ve added to set up and start from the beginning.

from there you just skip everything it asks you in order to get to the Home Screen and do it after the fact.

Spent a long time on the phone with Costco support over this. After repeated restarts, what worked was plugging the IPad into a power source and was able to get passed Apple Pay and complete the set up.

This did it for me with my new iPad Air, thanks!

All I did was restart the iPad and a second later going into the AirPort Utility app and forcing my router to restart. The time it took to reboot was enough to get past the blockage.

Setup can be a long process, and I just didn't want to deal with Apple Pay at that moment, verifying all the credit cards, which each have their own method. I fully intended to do it, just not right at the moment.

This bug is unacceptable, I encountered it with my new iPhone 17 a few months back as well.

Set up process for iPad Pro was taking an age, really a ridiculous amount of time. Multiple hangs especially on the Apple Pay section. Finally found a hint about disconnecting from wifi -so I moved out of range from my wifi router and restarted the process. I was able to proceed eventually to the main screen and from there to install and shut off all the cr#p that comes with Apple products.

Considering all the promotion of the speed and convenience surrounding Apple products I realise that considerable patience is required during the set up process. I never really understood just "what is it doing....??"

Hey! Got a fix: plug it into a Mac and then unplug it.

I plugged the iPad into my Mac and attempted to reset it but it wouldn't let me due to find my being enabled on the device already. I was about to give up but just by disconnecting the iPad from the Mac it seemed to unfreeze things and suddenly the iPad moved quickly through the remaining setup steps.

I had this same issue. Just got an iPad pro 11 m5 and was hanging on the apple pay screen. Whether I wanted to skip or add my card, it wouldn't continue through. I didn't have the option to try without Wi-Fi like someone else said. Instead my fix (which is hard to recommend to people) was I set up apple pay on my already set up iPad I was upgrading from. Then when I set up the new iPad it took the info from the iPad and didn't even ask me about apple pay as it's already on the account. If you don't already have an apple device, you might be able to add apple pay through a browser maybe through icloud?

anckerboy24 wrote:

I had this same issue. Just got an iPad pro 11 m5 and was hanging on the apple pay screen. Whether I wanted to skip or add my card, it wouldn't continue through. I didn't have the option to try without Wi-Fi like someone else said. Instead my fix (which is hard to recommend to people) was I set up apple pay on my already set up iPad I was upgrading from. Then when I set up the new iPad it took the info from the iPad and didn't even ask me about apple pay as it's already on the account. If you don't already have an apple device, you might be able to add apple pay through a browser maybe through icloud?

No, you can only add Apple Pay directly on an iOS device. If it hangs there is a communication problem with the card issuer. If you have VPN installed that can be the cause.

Let me tell you about my experience. We do a grocery shop for an eldely gentleman (93) each week. His 10 year old iPad gave up the ghost so I took him into Currys to buy a new one. We get back to his to set it up (I've never owned an Apple product but trusted in the "premium" brand that things would be easy to set up and transfer over). We turn it on, move his iPhone close to the iPad, hey presto, they talk to each other. Get to the Apple Pay screen and, uh oh. Wheel of doom. I then have the most painful IT related experience of my life having to both narrate the issue to my friend and find the solution in real time. So I pull the plug out of the wifi to get rid of wifi connections and also plug the ipad in. The setup then gingerly plods on through all the screens (at a painfully slow pace that I might have expected from my 128k ZX Spectrum) but not before hanging on each screen deciding whether to move on or not. We then have to update the ipad and then reset to factory settings to start all over again but this time with the updated OS. It goes past Apple Pay thankfully. How on earth would a 93 year have fared on his own with that experience? It was atrocious. Appalling. Painful. I thought Apple was a premium product. How on earth did a bug that bad get shipped on to the shelves for the ordinary man in street to buy? It's by far and away the most painful IT experience of my life and I worked in Tech Support for many years. I'll be steering clear of Apple and any requests from friends/family to help and recommending anyone against buying Apple. Don't even get me started on the number of spelling errors on the setup screen which did make me concerned for a moment or two that we'd purchased some knock-off version.

1. Press and quickly release the volume up button.
2. Press and quickly release the volume down button.
3. Press and hold the top button until you see the Apple logo (this might take longer than 10 seconds).

The operative word here is QUICKLY for the first two buttons, then a long hold for the SIDE button; and try it a couple of times, the timing is a little tricky. If done correctly this will always work unless the phone has a hardware problem. 

I tried all of the Options above, Hard Reset, Plugging into Charger, Plugging into MacBook none of them worked.

Then I decided to try without WiFi, but on the WiFi screen it automatically logged into my WiFi so I was messing around to see if I could get it to Forget WiFi from there i pressed on the WiFi set up a few times and all of a sudden it jumped past into the rest of the set up.

So I think 1 of 2 things happened, 1. Maybe it just takes Apple an hour or more to send the signal to the iPad that you want to set up without Apple Wallet? or 2. I actually did something to make it skip the screen. I think it's #1 as I doubt my ability to be an iPad Whisperer.

I had to rotate between blocking WiFi on my Ubiquiti access point. This caused it to go offline and allowed it to proceed. SO ANNOYING.