Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. How do i fix this?

Did you check your security software settings? iTunes has to be able to contact Apple servers during this process: iTunes for Windows: Troubleshooting security software issues

I have the same problem with a replacement phone that just arrived. Did you fix this?

I wiped the old phone to see if it was a problem with the new one and that's the same deal now, won't activate.

nameisLeo wrote:

Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. Try connecting to your iPhone to iTunes to acivate it, or try again in a coulle of minutes.

I have tried connecting to itunes and activating it but it still did not work.

Please help...

As you didn't post back can we assume the issue has been resolved for you?

Did you follow Ingo's advice?

Yes, I've been through that advice - never had problems with same equipment over the last 2/3 years.

Open your hosts file and look for any lines that contain gs.apple.com. If you find such lines delete them, save the file, and, if your computer is Windows, reboot. You need to have administrator or root privileges to edit the hosts file.

Mac: /etc/hosts

Windows: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

no sign of any extraneous entries in /etc/hosts for me

I am led to think that the problem is somewhere between the phone and the activation server seeing as it affects two different handsets.

I've rebooted everything on my network, tried plugged into itunes on 3 machines (all of which could access the itunes store fine), and on 2 different wifi access points. I have to assume that the server is down but I can't find any way to confirm the activation server status.

I really am running out of options.

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I just did a DFU restore and tried to activate the new phone again over WiFi and it's worked now.

To be completely sure whether it was the DFU restore or not I've just tried to activate the old phone (also a 4S, exactly the same model) whilst plugged into iTunes.

That failed.

So I tried again with the old non-DFU'd 4S over WiFi without the cable (to remove itunes/computer/internal networking from the equation) and that also failed.

I'd say it's fair to assume that the DFU at least helped in this case - I also noticed that the graphics when you're selecting the language/location were slightly different (showed a world map) after the DFU.

My friend has the same problem as well!

Kindly help!

If you read the other messages in this thread, and the messages in the "more like this" box on the right side of the first message, you will know everything there is to know about this error and how to fix it.