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

I dont have any idea why this error 3 have ever happened to me.

Seems like the most common issue here is that the phone is on "Searching Forever" status and for a quick fix you will to restore it and ended up with a brick phone.

My experience also is the same my iP5 is on searching forever status given that it is a factory unlocked phone. It's on 7.1 BTW, So first I tried resetting all the settings same result and i ended up updating my phone to 7.1.1 and hope for a fix the update stuck at 99% and rebooted itself and asking me to connect the phone to iTunes. So i didn't expect that there would be any problem because i already tried and restored my apple products way back so i expect that the restoration would be a breeze but i was end up disappointed ended up with error 3 forever,

Tried kennethyoung freezer fix but no hope I tried it multiple times but still that f*cking error still occur.

i've call apple and they say that they will honor my phone even its out of warranty given that i will give them some $$$ for the fix and sending it back to country where it is purchased so its a much hassle for me so i just rather keep the phone.

But still i dont lose hope..

search the net for iphone(4-4s-5-5s which is ur device) baseband chip or iphone 4 schematics. There is a baseband chip and 2 diode near bb chip(this is my case in I4). do not replace bb chip because of all network information inside of it as encripted and connected with CPU. just try ur chance; heat the chip max 375 degree as celcius with full flux. (all responsibility is yours by the way)

I am also facing similar problems with my iPhone 5C. My device was having the following problems.

a) Contacts Search issue

b) 3G Data issue

c) Mobile Network issue.

I had reset my iPhone so many times. Finally I tried to restore / upgrade my iPhone to 7.1.1 through iTunes. This did not proceed successfully and an error came at around 50%. The message is "The iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (3).

Kenneth, I tried your freezing method and it worked out brilliantly for me. I set the freezer to -19 degrees Celsius and left it in there for about 15 min, afterwards I restored the phone. I did keep the phone cool during the restore with ice packs. No errors at all.

Kenneth,

Had same problem with iPad 3. Restored while in freezer several times. Fix lasted 1 hour to 3 days. I just restored again and updated the iOS to 7.1.2 which I am hoping will solve the problem. I have not seen any posts since he new iOS. What is going on? I have had no problems after watching a movie, restoring all files, and running regular updates. Anyone else try yet?

Thank you for the kind words!

I don't know what error 27 is. I would suggest you repeat the restore process again outside of the freezer. If it hangs on Error 3 again, repeat the freever steps. If it only now hangs on Error 27 regardless of doing restorer at normal temps or freezer temps, you should search this forum for Error 27 solutions.

To the best of my sources Apple has NOT put in any code changes to fix Error 3. With iPhone 5c's and 5s's starting to show the problem, I am hopeful iOS8 MIGHT get a code fix for this. As I've stated before the code fix could be very tricky for Apple. There are a lot of moving parts dealing with Flash erase algorithms and potential security stuff going on, so this is likely not trivial. Right now the number of devices failing appears to be statistically insignificant - although thats hard for us users to swallow when our $700-$1000 iOS device takes it's last breath during a normal iOS update that Apple "pushes" to every user. If an influential writer had it happen to their iDevice and they in investigated, found this thread, interviewed a few people, then wrote about it, Error 3 would quickly be "no more". Sadly I don't have that pull.

Hello, kennethyoung. Do you know, if Apple will do smth with this "Error 3"? Cause i live in Ukraine, and there's no official Apple Store. Our local fixing center is filled up with iPhone/iPad that is stuck with an "Error 3". Today i'll try your freezer trick, and will post the results.

Some questions about the freezer trick:

1. I need to put my iPhone in the towel with dry rice, is that correct?

2. If the freezer trcik will work, iPhone will work correctly, no "Searching...", or it will just work without network?

Again, thanks for enthusiastic help in our problem.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread, especially @kennethyoung 🙂.

I just encountered this "unknown error 3" for the first time only a few days ago. After spending hours on this issue, I realized that this is a pretty widespread and unresolved issue. Here's my story: I was trying to update my iPhone 5 (never jailbroken) from 7.0.6 to the latest 7.1.2 through iTunes on a PC because I didn't have enough space to update directly on my phone. Unfortunately, the update process failed and I got stuck in Recovery mode. At first, I was able to exit the Recovery mode using a third party tool. However, I noticed that my phone could no longer find a cellular network. The network status remained to be "Searching..." on the top-left corner no matter what I tried. (I even tried my SIM card on a different phone and it worked fine.) Also, I noticed that the baseband info in Setting was gone/empty.

So I decided to do a Restore hoping that it would fix the issue. Now I wish I didn't. Obviously, the Restore process failed and I got stuck in Recovery mode---for real---this time. I tried a few third party tools and none could get me out of it.

I tried Restore several times and kept getting "unknown error 3" at the end. I have tried on 2 PCs, turning off antivirus program and firewall, unplugging all unnecessary USB cables, etc. Finally, I tried kennethyoung's freezer method, twice. For some reason, It failed when I tried it for the first time. However, I decided to try it again the next day and surprisingly it worked! I guess I didn't freeze it long enough when I tried it for the first time, even though I left it in the freezer for nearly an hour I believe. I wrapped the phone in a paper towel and put it in a sandwich/freezer bag filled with some rice, both times.

Unfortunately, now I face another obstacle which has already been mentioned in this thread. I'm stuck at Hello welcome set up screen because I could *neither get my phone activated through iTunes *nor Wi-Fi. I also noticed that no IMEI info could be displayed when I press the little "i" in a circle thing at the bottom-right corner of the Hello screen. Now I'm not sure if I could ever get this phone activated...

Any suggestions on how to pass or bypass the activation process..? Thanks again!

Thank You Thank You,

I updated today to 7.1.2 on IPad 3 7.4.2014 could not get out of recovery I thought about freezing, I do computer repair and freeze hard drives all the time to get data off. your post made sense to me and I new nothing was wrong with my ipad(it was working great) or computer

Thank You again

The same problem here (like 2 days later after I upgraded to iOS 7.1.2),

Day 1) searching for service provider with no success, and stops me from using by asking me to activate, and saying that cannot connect to the apple server though my wifi is in a good condition.

Day 2) run out of battery, and prevents me from even charging. Apple store folks provide me the option of replacement with $300... declined.

Day 3) somehow allowed me to charge, so I see the "activation" screen again. I tried to upgrade/restore from this point, and could only receive error 3 ever since.... I tried the freezer trick a few times, without success yet. I'll try it more in the next a few days.

Thanks so much!!!!! Genius. Phone was constantly searching so I decided to update to latest firmware. Bam! Error Code 3. Froze it for 30 min and restored. Like magic it was back. I did get a new SIM card before I tried this and MAYBE that will solve the issue of still searching for the people who have successfully restored their phone but have "searching" issues. But you are the man!!!

A quick update on the last message concerning "searching" issue. After I just proclaimed my success with restoring and not having a searching issue I restored my backup. All of a sudden, my phone is stuck searching. I refreeze and restore once again and everything is fine. Attempt to backup (full backup with photos etc) and searching again. So finally, I did the freeze physics, set up as a new iPhone and just synced my contacts and downloaded my apps again one by one. No issues for 12 hrs

Hi guys, I have the same problem with my iphone 5 (error 3). I read the whole topic and I think I tried all solutions to bring it to life again. It was working well on 7.0.4 (no problems at all), than 7.1.2 update came out and I downloaded it, tried to restore and everything it gives me is unknown error 3. I've tried "freezer fix" a few times, didn't work, but I'm still trying. Here is my restore log. Thanks in advance.

https://mega.co.nz/#!pksFiTTb!NevQcPMSzQV0k8f_QDhnHSzU4Q3yICVRCIwNHBWSzdw

UPDATE:

I didn't mention that I bought this phone as used and it was working.

After I searched all forums, I found out that maybe bad battery is causing this error and most of other errors, so I opened the phone and BUM !

Chinese 2680mah battery in it. I've also tried restoring without battery, I get other unknown errors like 21, 2009.

Thanks in advance.