iPad 3 - "Cannot Connect to iTunes Store" - Updates only

The Complete Guide to Using the iTunes Store

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-complete-guide-to-using-t he-itunes-store/

Can't connect to the iTunes Store

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1368

iTunes: Advanced iTunes Store troubleshooting

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3297

 Cheers, Tom 😉

the_forc3 wrote:

Hello All,

Im having an issue with my new iPad its only been doing this last week or so but its a pain and I now feel I cant get the best out of my apps.

Bascially everytime i hit the updates tab in the app store i get an instant message saying "Cannot connect to itunes store"

This ONLY happens on updates store, i can still purchase and install apps and install free apps etc and if i come across (by seraching) for my app i can update it manually buy hitting update but obviously I want the normal method to work to stay up to date.

Ive seen a lot of posts and people saying about changing dates and times and setting DNS to 8.8.8.8 these methods do not change a thing.

any help would be greatly appriciated 🙂

This answer worked for me on my iPhone. Please go to this link and read the post from Raven.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4235922 Basically you go to Settings: Move your calendar ahead 1 year(not in iCal like I did at first). Get out of settings and go to updates. Get the error "Can't connect to secure server". The go back to Settings and put your calendar back to the right date. That should do it.

Hi guys.

I have the same issue as the OP. It only fails when going to the update tab. For me this is on my iPhone. It only started about a week ago.

First it started on my phone. Then a few days later it started on my son's phone. Yesterday it started on my wife's phone. My daughter's phone and iPad are fine. We all use the same apple id login. This setup has all worked fine for the last 1.5 years.

It fails on 3G as well as wireless at home and at work. I've tried every suggestion I have found on the internet. Most sites mention the same handful of suggestions (e.g. reinstall iBook, reset network, change date, change language, reset location warnings, change restrictions, forget wifi network, changed apple id password, etc). There are a few more I've found that didn't work either. There was one solution that I didn't try which only applied to a jail broken phone.

The only possible thing I haven't tried is resetting the entire phone. I figure a reset of the phone is silly since the problem is spreading to other phones.

I'll go to the Apple store this weekend for some help. I suspect very strongly that they will say that they've had many reports of this problem recently.

Regards,

Barry

I was having the same problem with my wife's iPhone 3GS, and started experimenting after I failed to find a solution here and elsewhere on the Interwebs. I fixed the problem by opening the iBooks app and signing in with our account (the AppleID was already entered, so I just needed to enter the password). Immediately after doing that, I was able to load the updates tab in the App Store app with no error (and was able to download the 25 listed updates).

Does this work for anyone else? If signing into the iBooks store does not work, perhaps try other Apple apps that require their own login, such as GameCenter...

Having exactly the same problem on my iPhone and it just started tonight. Can buy/download an app with no problem, but it's still showing 1 update that I can't get. I've tried deleting/reinstalling my Apple store ID and all the relevant Apple ID questions, date's correct, network's connected properly and I tried the iBooks trick. Nothings working.

FWIW, plugging it in to the computer and dowloading any pending updates erases/installs the number of updates pending. If you go back to wirelessly check for updates, it still says "Cannot connect to iTunes Store" instead of the proper "No Updates Pending"

Ok, I found a solution that worked for me when trying to connect to the iTunes store by tapping the "update" button in the "App Store" app on my iPad 2. Before the solution was implemented I'd always get the error message "cannot connect to iTunes store". Once the solution was implemented I now can connect to iTunes using the "update" button in the "App Store" app and I get the normal message "All apps are up to date". The solution is this: go into Settings, then General, then scroll to the bottom where it says Date and Time. Tap Date and Time and then turn OFF Set Automatically. When you do that a new option will be added that says Set Date and Time. Tap it. You'll now get a drop down feature. Set the Date AHEAD 2 YEARS. The Time you can leave alone.

Once you do that you might get a bunch of reminders and messages that your apps and stuff haven't been updated in two years. Click cancel or close on each of those messages or reminders. Now go back into Settings, General, Date and Time, and turn Set Automatically back to ON. Reboot your iPad. Open the App Store app again and go to the Update button. It might ask you to log back in to your iTunes account. It should now work. If not, close the App Store app completely and open again and try the update button. Hope this helps.

I'm always amazed at how great people are by following through with their solutions. I've seen 10 or more threads on this topic and people always respond with what is working for them. And that helps a lot of participants in the threads. Unfortunately it's always the case that a bunch of people say "that didn't work for me".

Nothing mentioned here so far is any different than what I've seen elsewhere except for a few details. For instance KMF831 raised my hopes since he had a slight wrinkle to what I had tried. I hadn't rebooted after the date change. My hopes were dashed when it made no difference (for me).

I think this thread is about a different topic. It's about what changed a bit more than a week again to cause the OP to start having the problem. I added to the mystery since it started for me roughly the same time as the OPs problem. And then it spread through my families phones over the course of the following week.

I would love to try to understand why it is happening rather than just offering another solution. I'm looking forward to my 10 AM appointment at the genius bar tomorrow.

bweinstein wrote:

I would love to try to understand why it is happening rather than just offering another solution. I'm looking forward to my 10 AM appointment at the genius bar tomorrow.

I am not experiencing the problem ... But I think that we would all love to know what is causing this because it seems that this particular problem has really started to increase among users. I know that I have read more posts about this issue in the last week or so than I have in months.

If Apple provides an answer as to the cause, please post back and share it with the community.

I wish I knew why these issues occur with the iDevices. Many people would like to know what causes the problem while most don't care what causes the problem, rather they just want the problem fixed for their iDevice. For these people these forums are a great source of information to find a "fix". Apple's next big software release, IOS 6, for all our iDevices, is just a few weeks away. It will probably fix the "can not connect to iTunes store" problem but will probably cause a handful of new iDevice issues. Apple's over-the-phone support system is just as bad as Microsofts has been. I'm sure Apple is aware of many of these issues that arise but you usually have to wait for months for a big iOS software update to fix it. I think these forums and communities are great though to find solutions, if even for a portion of people with the issue.

Ok, I honestly have tried EVERY SINGLE suggestion in EVERY online forum including changing the date 1 & 2 years ahead, resetting all settings, resetting network settings, etc.

FINALLY after 1 month of this update issue, I found something that FINALLY worked for me. Please try this even though it may seem similar to other things you've tried and let me know if it works for you too:

1. Go to Settings > General > Date & Time

2. Turn off "Set Automatically" if it is on

3. Change your time zone to a city/country COMPLETELY different than your own (I chose Bangkok, Thailand)

4. Click on "Set Date & Time"

5. Click on today's date and change it to the LAST year that's not greyed out (for me it was 2038 - which also automatically changed the day to January 1st) - You may have pop ups for calendar reminders, etc. Just close all of them which might take a while

6. Go to the App Store and click on "Updates"

7. You should NOW get a message saying "Cannot connect to the Store - A secure connection could not be established. Please check your Date & Time settings"

8. Go back to Settings > General > Date & Time and turn "Set Automatically" to "On"

9. Go back to the App Store and you should be able to access the "Updates" page again!!!

I promised a reply after my visit to the Apple store.

The first support person said "we just have to reset your whole device."

The second support person worked with me for much longer. Ultimately he didn't know the answer. Further he didn't bother accessing any resources other than his training. So he wasn't up on any recent developments.

He directed me to the online Apple support on this issue. I'm afraid I submitted my request to the wrong department. The answer I got (after 12 hours or so) directed me to other places to get help. I'll be sending a support request now.

<edit>

The department I did reached helped with application downloads from a billing perspective. The person who handled the case did indeed research the answer anyway. He pointed me to various resources as well as discussion board links he found.

Here's my update.

I resubmitted my support request and ensured I sent it to support for "Troubleshooting iTunes Store error codes".

Not only did I restate my technical question I also asked:

"Is it the case there is no support for this Apple side failure without paying given that I'm out of warranty? The problem is not in the phone since it affected 3 of our phones over the course of 2 weeks. Even if you cannot answer the technical question please answer that one."

I did receive an automated reply giving me a case number. I submitted the request on 9/3. I've not heard back.

I have received support under Apple Care in the past. They are often unable to help. They seem to rely on an internal knowledge base and the same resources we have access to on the web. I don' want to pay for that kind of support at this point. However, they do have the ability to escalate a problem to an engineer. However I suspect their starting approach will be to restore the phone. I don't need to pay to go down that avenue.

So far, I'm only slightly upset. I would be very upset if I didn't have an Apple store near me.

Even though we seem to feel it's a common problem since we see a lot of discussion on the web, the people who have no problem with this don't bother with discussions. So I have no sense of how prevalent this is. Also I haven't really tried the "ultimate" solution which is to restore the phone. It's good that they provide that option. I've made many calls to Dell regarding screwed up computers. Their typical solution is to reinstall the operating system. On windows that can be a whole day affair since I have tons of software installed. The iPhone reinstall will be far quicker.

If I hear nothing back in a few days I'll be taking that approach. I'll report back in either case.

The same support person got back to me. He apologized not having gotten back to me sooner. Also he seemed to suggest there might be complementary support if I called Apple Care. It seems clear that the express lane does not really offer technical support for the iPhone.

Here's the bad news. Seaottr's suggestion worked for me. Thanks so much Seaottr. I'm now going to have a hard time continuing an investigation which might help others.

Since I arrogantly said we'd like to understand why rather than just get a solution, I feel I now owe a guess at why the fix worked. Please ignore the following if you don't care :-) Also, I'm probably wrong.

Since I had three phones with the problem I had a bit of an opportunity to try some variations of Seaottr's solution. First time I followed Seaottr's suggestions to the letter. It worked. The second time I didn't bother with the time zone. It worked. The third time all I did was set the year to 2020. It worked.

In the past when I'd followed the advice of date changes I'd never been instructed to go more than a couple of years into the future - so I never did.

It seems like my problem was an SSL one (or something like SSL). Changing the time way into the future invalidates Apple's server certificate. That certificate is used to prove to the phone that it is connecting to the real Apple store. Any certificate like that has an expiration date. It's up to a device to download a new one when the old one expires. Or it's up to Apple to provide a new one; perhaps with a OS update.

So setting my time way into the future made the phone think the certificate had expired. It probably then deleted the expired certificate. Then I set the time back to now. The next time an attempt was made to access the store the current certificate was redownloaded. Perhaps that certificate has an expiration date 3 years in the future so in the past just setting my date forward by a couple of years didn't trigger the expiration and discarding of the certificate.

But how did the old certificate that had to be dumped get bad? Since it happened to 3 of my phones there had to be some relationship between those phones. Since my three phones use the same AppleId I'd have to guess that was it. There's really nothing else in common. There might be some coupling of the AppleId together with the certificate which has to be in a valid state. So if something was wrong with my AppleId then it could have caused a problem on all my phones. It's kind of typical to do things like "signing" an AppleId with a certificate. That's the kind of coupling to which I'm referring.

So what makes me think I had a bad AppleId? Well, I hadn't used an email address for my very old Apple Id. Futher the password I had used was invalid by Apple's standard.

Apple's password standards must have changed recently. The old password I had wasn't more than 6 months old. On a lark I went to http://appleid.apple.com to change my id to an email address. However the existing password I had would not be accepted; it was not sufficiently complex. So I made it more complex. (Interesting that I had read posts elsewhere that changing the password on an AppleId has fixed our problem for some.)

So perhaps, Apple was rolling out a new certificate over a period of a week to all their devices. As the new certificate got to each of my phones the bad AppleId triggered a problem. Or they were rolling out some code relating to the tightened password requirements on AppleIds which triggered the problem (that seems more likely).

So, fixing my AppleId and THEN forcing a redownload of the Apple server certificate solved the problem.

I have a 25% confidence level that 80% of this is correct.