ANY ONE KNOW WHAT IS ERROR 3 IN ITUNES WHEN I TRY TO RESTORE IPHONE 5 TO IOS 7 IT STUCKS IN THE END AND AFTER 30 MIN THIS COME OUT "UNKNOWN ERROR 3" CAN SOME ONE HELP ME PLZ

Hi kulas,

It's frustrating but I still have a small hope that Apple will integrate a error (3) fix into a future update, but given the necessity most of us have to use our devices, any such fix may not be until iOS 8, which is so far out as to be almost useless to most bricked devices those of is have now. The problem still appears to be on such a small percentage of devices that there could be a valid concern that any error (3) fix could create another unanticipated failure mode that could generate more device failures than currently being created by error (3). I don't know that this is the case in this specific circumstance, but having developed early Flash technology, there is no simple 100% foolproof mathematical algorithm for successfully erasing flash chips. It's a statistics game and the devices getting error (3) are, sadly, statistical edge cases.

had same problem, tried every possible suggestion from diff forums, finally tried putting it in the freezer for about an hour . then tried to restore again and it worked! dont know how or why but it did! thank god!! was driving me crazy

Hello, i need a help, my iPhone 5S wos working perfectly, but after update to iOS 7.1 on restoring i got error 3 on iTunes and the iPhone is Stucking near 99,9% of completing the restore. and my iPhone 5S stil in recovery Mode showing to connect in iTunes.

Forgive me for bad whiting, iam in Angola my language is portugues.

Can same body help to resolve this probleme please??

It seems to me that Apple could roll out the firmware update only to those that are affected by the unknown error 3. For example, have it available to download and install manually. This way it wouldn't be a mass update.

I have a 4S that I've tried freezing multiple times to no avail. I'd really like to get it working.

Hi, I tryed to update på Iphone 5 to the latest version. The reason i tryed to upgrade was that my phone just keept serching for 3G.. it says search... in the top left corner. When i try to update it will get stuck att 99.9-100% and after a while it will say error (3). I see that you recommend to talk to Apple, but i got no Warrenty. I bought this iphone 5 at Telia (telia is a phone company). What should I do? The freezer trick dident work.

My phone is currently in the freezer. Trying an hour with paper towel wrapped around it. Also updated iTunes, cleared that cache thing from page 2, and deleted the host file for good measure. Thinking of trying to update it while it's in a bag dipped in ice water if this doesn't work. It heats up really quickly when the update starts. I'll update this in a few hours with the results.

It keeps running out of battery when I take it out of the freezer, hopefully the battery isn't shot...I'm now charging it while it's in a bag inside a cup of ice until it charges enough to where iTunes will recognize it. Could the cold be causing the battery to fail?

Edit: Okay it came back to life and is currently trying to update while in a cup of ice! If this doesn't work at least it's one of the weirdest fixes I've ever tried. Seller lied and told me it was a 3194 error - I wish.

It happened to me exactly as you describe, the only thing, that did not get loaded when it was cold enough to restore without error, until it takes a bit of temperature is not possible to make the phone load the logo, even if they spend hours loading in the freezer, the warranty is operating

I just wanted to post on this as I had the EXACT same issue. Searching for signal, thought it would update to maybe help it out. But started getting that 3 error. I have been watching this THREAD FOR DAYS. The freezer technique about 10 times, all failed. I have tried doing DFU installs using numerous tools... all failed.

FINALLY have my IPHONE back. WITH SIGNAL. The freezer technique works... cannot blieve it but it does BUT I updated mine WHILST it was in the freezer, cable popping out of it... and some how that worked. So hope thats help to those who have tried it and has a failure...

This encourages me since I'm on my 4th try with the freezer. I'm going to take it out in two hours and sandwich the phone between two ice packs to keep it cold. It heats up super quick when updating so I'm thinking that's the problem. If that doesn't work I'll take it home and try it in the actual freezer (I'm at work so it'd be weird if I was just standing by the freezer for an hour holding a laptop).

Okay, tried 3 hours freeze and then ice packs and no luck. Now I took a ziplock, made sure it was waterproof and dry inside, and stuck the phone it it and surrounded it with ice water. If this doesn't work I'm updating it while in the freezer.

Greats Thanks for SunshineSinCity

to restore your iphone

1: itunes newest > it's need to downloaded the newest update file in your computer...

if you are in the DFU mode, you need to find some computer already have this updatefile and just update their itunes

2: move file hosts to desktop

3 : cmd > ipconfig[space]/flushdns

4: leave it in dfu5: restore it > done! Thanks ^^

i did it in many iphone 😀

Message was edited by: Solestyles

My daughter's Iphone 4S finally experienced this error 3 issue last night during an update to IOS 7.1.

She had been experiencing the 'searching' problem on and off for the last month.

The phone is a 'refurb' which I purchased at Christmas, so well out of any Apple warranty.

I have gone through most of the 30 pages of theis thread this morning and hopefully armed with a few ideas to try out this evening. Thanks to the main 'champions' of this thread for their perserverance with Apple.

Interesting to point out to all you unfortunates whose device has just gone out of warranty and maybe you have not managed to resolve this matter.... Sellers of consumer goods within the EU are obliged to guarantee the conformity of the goods with a contract, for a period of two years after the delivery of the goods. Application to 'Small Claims' process costa around £100......

Further to my earlier post, I put the phone in the freezer for 45mins (-22degC) and went through the update twice and the phone updated on the 2nd attempt, so another success for your method. Just waiting to 'activate' it but the server is down.

Thanks for your help.

Hi guys, I'm having exactly the same problem as described by everyone before excepts I get error 1669 instead of error 3.

My iPhone 5S started to say "Searching..." in the morning after charging it all night. I removed the SIM card and it was still saying "Searching...". It didn't realize that there was no SIM inside. I reset network settings, reboot the phone, etc and but it was still on "Searching". So, I decided to do a restore... It's the worst thing I did. It stucks at 66% (aprox) in the iPhone progress bar while restoring and iTunes fails with error 1669. I've never seen error 3. But I have exactly the same symptoms as you described in the 30 pages of this thread.

I followed the "freezer" tip with no luck. I always get the same error. It's weird that error 3 and error 1669 seem to be the same. I read the logs you posted here and compared with my iPhoneUpdate.log's and they seems to be very similar.

I bought the iPhone on October 2013 (it's on warranty but there's no support for iPhone in my country). I updated iOS always via OTA. After 7.1 update I started to have some battery drain problems, so I decided to do a DFU restore to see if this could solve the problem. It was the only update I did to the phone using iTunes. It was successfull. 10 days later I started to experience the problem described above (Searching and 1669 when restoring).

If it helps, I'm posting 2 logs. The first one is when I did a successful restore. The second is one of the many attempts to restore without luck.

_______________

Succesful DFU restore (12 days ago):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c1u38htj8nthzob/iPhoneUpdater%208.log

_______________

Unsuccessful DFU restore (2 days ago to now):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hb5jyieb1rstazx/iPhoneUpdater%205.log

Any suggestion, idea, or whatever will be very appreciated!

Thanks!