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

....phone would't activate from 'hello' screen....message continually said server was down but this appears to be another glitch or issue, so now back to square one. as I have tried to re-install 7.1 again only to receive code 3 again. Don't think there is any point in 'chilling' the unit again.

....went to Apple store today explaining to them what had happened with my daughters phone during 7.1 install.

Also pointed out that phone was a 'refurb' model, purchased in December, with 90 days warranty, from an internet company. I was not looking for a replacement, I was merely wanting the device to be restored to the 7.0.6 version of IOS as it worked perfectly on this.

I was informed that the device must be faulty and restore to an earlier IOS this was not possible. (There are various reports on the net about the versions of IOS which can be restored as far back as 6.1.3 for the iphone 4s, but apparrantly 7.1 has been designed to prevent this.)

Apple Assistent offered replacement at £159 but wanted to look inside the phone to confirm a serial number. She then withdrew offer once she confirmed there was 'after market' parts fitted inside the phone. ( ....I did tell her it was a refurb....) I told her I was not happy that the update had made the phone useless and if similar was done on a PC, you could at least restore the system to an earlier setting.

This did not cut any ice with the apple assistant. It is my view that this new update (7.1) is not only to kill off 'jail-breaking', but to disable any devices with non genuine parts.

One further enhancement of 7.1, if you had selected 'find my phone' to be switched on whilst using an earlier version of IOS, then the latest update (7.1) locks it out from being reactivated by somebody else .....possibly the reason why I couldn't reactivate the phone on the single occasion when I actually managed to get the update to install.

The learning lessons for me? I should not have bought an Apple device with 'crappy' parts in it because Apple wants me to suffer all I deserve for doing so. Also, I should not buy any other Apple devices into the future because Apple does not want me to be able to restore any device which has a failed install on an update. I cannot prove that the update destroyed my 12 year old daughter's 'fake' phone (description used by Apple Assistant) because I cannot check to see if it still works on an earlier version of IOS....thank you Apple, you have it all sewn up.

Im gonna try and go as in depth as possible, but its late, sorry if I drone

Alright, My sisters phone had the searching nonsense and Apple support said to move her pics to my pc, then update, and we wound up with error code 3. After looking around, trying everything, and almost trekking out to an apple store, I decided to trust K's( your name escapes me, sorry) 25 years of exp and his freezer method. With the case on, I encased it in a paper towel, in about 1 and 1/2 cups of rice, in a ziplock bag, turned upside down in another one, and in one more for good measure.It didnt work, but the progress bar went to almost the very end, it usually froze right past the center, so I went for round 2. Got to the same place and errored again, so for the thid time, I did the same thing but left it in for an hour and 20 or so min, and when I brought it to my pc, I put it into dfu mode asap, and let it update in the ziplock of frozen/cold rice, with only the case on(its thin and only protects the back, its the kind that has a stand), and it worked! It restored and I decide to just gor for the update without setting it up, and that went thorugh as well, I left it in while it restored the backup and all seems well. Nevermind its updated and was connected fore a few min, then went back to searching...Im done. Im going to bed, thanks for the help.

Nielle21, You should be proud of yourself that you got as far as you did.

I just wondering if your sisters phone was an 'untouched' example, or was it like my daughters's phone, a refurb which turned out to contain many non Apple parts. I have a theory that this update (7.1) was built to settle a lot of scores with variuos people, such as 'people who repair cheaply, people who unlock from carrier, people who jail-break and people who steal and sell. Maybe it detected not genuine parts and gave the phone a generic code 3 'fail' which basically disabled it and labelled it as a hardware fault.

My daughters phone started to do the 'searching' routine just after an earlier IOS 7 update. I think apple then locked out any opportunity to reverted to and earlier version of IOS 6 and its fate was then sealed. Her only other option was to update to 7.1 to try to fix the searching problem.

I did notice one thing however and this is the reason for me asking if your sister's phone may have been a refurb.

Many of these refurbs are done and shipped from the Far East, only to be dumped on the UK market just before Christmas, to make a killing. My daughters phone cost £250 and looked real neat and new and was completed with sealed box....but buyer beware. However it really was junk to say the least. Anyway, they say that the searching problem can be fixed by setting the phones time to the correct zone, date and time. These phones arrive from the Far East with Pacific zone setting. Although I changed the zone etc to UK, after the phone was then locked during the download, I went onto her icloud account and noticed the zone was still Pacific....maybe this accounts for the 'searching' issue, but I'll never know.

I'm now heading out to buy her a 'Brand New' 4s from a reputable dealer.

Bought a Iphone 4s on ebay - Would not ACTIVATE, I tried to RESTORE it but go stuck in RESTORE and would not go into DFU mode - put it in the FREEZER for 30 minutes tried to RESTORE in DFU mode - failed - RESTORE in restore mode SUCCESS & it went from 7.0 to 7.1 IOS. a few weeks go by and then it goes SEARCHING for network. I try again to restore and now it is again stuck in RESTORE. Tried DFU mode. disable firewall/antivirus. FREEZER, 30 minutes, 2 hours, 4 hours. I've even tried while it was in the Freezer. Different computer/User, Uninstall ITUNES/reinstall. FlushDNS. Took off FIND MY PHONE from ICLOUD. FIND MY PHONE is on the phone but I can't change that. I am logged into ITUNES with the user name that RESTOREd it before.

Must be something the APPLE SERVER doesn't like

but WHAT?

Ed

I'm having the same problem, im in Argentina too. I've been trying for the past 3 weeks using the freezer technique like 12 times without any luck.

The iPhone's warranty is until June 15th 2014, the nearest official apple store where i could have it replaced is in Brazil, but i won't travel and i don't know anyone that will.

There MUST be some kind of fix we can download.

I am the biggest Apple Fan there is, i have more than 17 Apple products, i've convinced lots of people to buy their products, never a complaint. So please, please help us with this.

Kombauh the problem is that there are no companies that sell the iPhone in Argentina, so no one could replace it. All the AASP that i called told me the same thing, no one can provide me any solutions.

I am really desperate.

I have the same problem 😐with my iPhone 4S... I had a Network Connectivity failure error so I tryed everything possible to fix it on my iPhone 4S, so I decided to restore it but my iPhone got stuck in Recovery Mode when I tryed to restore it using iTunes and always shows "error 3" 😢😢😢 and there is no way to restore it😢😢😢

@KennyYoung:

You have another satisfied customer here! 🙂 You helped to save my iPhone 5 with your "freezer fix"! 😉 First try!

Now I can cancel my appointment at the Apple Store Genius Bar scheduled for this afternoon and save a few hundred $$s too!

Thanks again.

Hi wca2000,

Glad my freezer physics worked for you! I only wish that our group had been able to convince Apple to implement a firmware install fix, for their installation bug, but they've had bigger fish to fry as of late. If a big blogger picked this issue up and runs with it, it might embarras them enough that they will but I don't have that kind of pull.

Just to add my sons experience with his FOUR MONTH old iPhone 4s. Last week it went to "Searching" as many others and he rang the support people. They told him to do all the usual stuff mentioned in this thread and as none of this worked, they talked him though an Itunes restore. As I'm sure you expect, it failed with error 3 at the update fimware point. At this point he was pretty much abandoned (and incomunicado) and then resorted to brother / father to help him get it working again. Thankfully, I found this thread and realised he was not alone! We tried all the listed solutions except the freezer, (because it was clearly under warranty) although I did switch it off for a while and try a cooler environment.

After no success, he was finally forced to make an appointment at the Leeds store (30 miles away). They did attempt to restore it themselves but they also failed and had to give him a brand new phone, with a new warranty!

I just wanted to add my personal thanks for your persistence/assistance with this matter.

Interestingly, today there is an article in the UK Daily Mail (dailymail.co.uk - Science Page) that bears a significant resemblence to the problems your correspondents have been experiencing. Perhaps this will add weight and further publicity to the issue and help to persuade Apple to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Keep making a noise!

Error 3 is a hardware error, presumably the antenna-- my phone went into searching three days ago, and when Apple Store tried to restore, that error came up and the phone could not be restored and that is the explanation I was given.

This is by the way the third phone apple will be replacing of mine since December 2012. I bought Apple Care Plus, luckily. I think it's kind of crazy to be coming up on my fourth phone in 16 months because of {different} technical faults with the hardware.

@kristina195: well, i don't agree with your conclusion. i had this same problem/error on an iPhone5.

The phone was stuck searching for LTE. I attempted an upgrade to iOS 7.1.1 and the process failed with the now infamous Error 3. The iPhone5 was stuck in recovery mode. I tried repeatedly to slog through this recovery mode to no avail. So then I read through this support forum and read about the "freezer fix" and decided to try that. Guess what? It worked!

Are you saying there are other specific flavors of Error 3 for which replacement is the only option? If so, which h/w errors specifically?

Can anyone from Apple shed some light on this??

Thank God, I got a solution for error 3.

Once I failed to restore due to error 3 i consulted Apple service and replied there is no solution with them other than replacement, for that I have to pay 372 US Dollars. [in India there is no warrenty after one year]

I consulted a Third party technician in Mumbai, India. They fixed error with fees of 82 US Dollar. But the sim card network shows "NO SERVICE"

Any one need more details please feel free to call me

India Telelphone 0091-9846928103

Email babymanjaly72@gmail.com

No need for the snarky response kristina. Your post simply said:

"the only method is to get your phone replaced! it's a hardware problem that can't be fixed..."

...and nothing more.

There is another solution that is working for some of us, thanks to kennethyoung. It is for this sort of help that some us seek out blogs like this. Not to get reprimanded when we are trying to keep others informed with possible solutions.

Was your iPhone under a warranty? Is that why they gave you a replacement? Or did you get lucky and they decided they would be nice and give you a new phone?

And before you reprimand me again for not reading through your receipt, I am not fluent in Italian.