iPhone iOS 5 restore error -34

Keith,

Your previous post said that you could not get 5.0 installed. What did you do to get 5.0 running?

it gives you several options. select delete cancel restore. your device was backed up the last time you synced. when you delete restore you should be able to sync itunes with all your stuff. for some reason the ios5 install only syncs the firmware that came with the upgrade. you have to add your own items back. i hope this helps.

im glad this is working for some users. i know it is not the solution for all, but if you are at the point of the restore, it should work. i have seen other boards with the same problems as us. unfortunatly, i dont have the time to post on every board. so if you run across this problem in another board, please redirect them to this possible solution. i know some devices dont have this issue. my wifes iphone upgraded without a hassle.

thanks,

Keith,

Yes, after I hit delete restore, my phone finished loading 5.0 and looked like all the content was gone. But when I hit Sync, everything showed back up in the capacity settings. It did take a long, long time to sync the content back in (hours). I have 24 GB to resync to the phone and I have iTunes convert higher bit rate songs, so times may be less for others.

The best thing to do is to be patient and to wait for the next patch or update.

Thanks, pro bowler & bladibla. This worked for me as well. It was quite scary to click that button that said "delete backup," but it seems to have worked.

Here's what I did:

1) When I got the error message, it asked if I wanted to cancel, continue or delete backup.

2) I clicked delete backup (& proceeded to sweat buckets)

3) iTunes took me back to the start page of the iPhone, so I clicked "restore" as if I was going to start fresh.

4) iTunes and the phone started doing its thing, but somewhere in the midst of it, it started syncing.

5) In the middle of the syncing, I got a message asking if I wanted to proceed with restore or continue syncing. I chose "continue syncing" (or whatever the NOT restore button was)

6) it continued syncing like normal and all appears to be well. It's now copying my music and has already synced my apps.

So, if you don't see me on this board again, that's me sorted.

Would never have figured it our nor would I have had the guts to click 'delete backup' without the help of you guys. Thanks!!

I was having the very same issue as you guys, and followed the exact steps described by Pro bowler, but it didn't fix it. Actually got worse. Now i have an ios5 phone that is completely empty (no apps, music, settings) and when i connect to itunes, it only offers me to restore with an "unknown" backup from 2000. I am not seeing the backup i took before ios5 upgrade procedure started.

any advice?

Grrr.

I'm having the same problem.

In theory it would seem the method above simply wipes the phone and re-syncs with movies, apps, and and so on from your computer. This is very different from restoring the phone's local data/setting.

For me losing the data is a big deal, also I didn't sync anything but managed everything manually. My pictures were backed up so I'm not worried about that, and I can always redownload apps and music, but I'm worried about missing all the individual app settings (I have hundreds) and local data.

Has anyone confirmed that the above method actually restores from the backup?

My theory about all is is that the new OS is bigger than the old one and that those of us with nearly full phones are getting hosed. So I guess the second question is: is there any way to edit down the backup and remove certain classes of data... my guess is that's it's all encrypted and this is impossible.

rg

'Delete backup' seems to mean deleting the partial backup from the phone, and not from iTunes. This misunderstanding is why it looks so scary.

The steps by pro bowler worked for me; I got the error, hit 'Delete backup', got an empty iPhone, which immediately tried to sync, clicked 'Restore', it restored my data, and after that it synced everything. I haven't lost anything - I'm just disappointed my favourite ebook reader (Stanza) does not work under iOS 5.

Incidentally the cause of the error seems to be a bug in iTunes. You will get it if you have a music library that is too big to fit on your phone without on-the-fly downconversion to 128Kbps; iTunes seems to forget about this setting when upgrading to iOS5 and restoring.

I followed pro bowler's advice (thanks!) and then synced immediately after the restore. My phone was restored exactly with the application data and settings from my last backup (which was a few days ago, since I rather foolishly forgot to backup before updating the iOS) as well as my music, apps, etc. The only thing that went wrong was that all my contacts vanished, but I was able to make them reappear with some help from google.

go through the link . ur prob shld get solved http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3125

I've just done this

Error -34 is an out of space code so I think Raul is on the right track

Anyways after a few goes hitting 'continue restore' and geting nowhere I noticed at one point that my phone appeared to be operational

I swiped it open and found myself at the iOS 5 setup screen and followed the instructions

At the end of this I found iTunes had restored everything on my phone (contacts, messages, call log & apps) except my music (about 25GB)

This fits with the out of space bit as in it defaults to not restoring any media but does restore the vital stuff

At this point I retried the restore but this time when prompted I deleted the backup

My phone rebooted and went into autosync with iTunes

It is currently syncing my music (although what I'll have to leave behind yet I don't know)

Hope this helps