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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

Please help ,what is (UNKOWN ERROR 3) in itunes when i try to restore iphone 5 to ios7 please help

iPhone 5, iOS 7

Posted on Sep 25, 2013 8:54 PM

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693 replies

Oct 3, 2018 1:15 PM in response to johncali9

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..

Jan 9, 2017 10:38 AM in response to kennethyoung

I am happy to tell your "freezer" procedure works very well to this day. I can't thank you enough for sharing your experience on the subject, including the explanation about it.

I got the exact same error of you during the DFU restore (the logs showed the "update_baseband: failed to perform next stage" error message).

After trying to no avail all the types of resetting and restoring, I finally found your procedure. I put my iPhone 5c on the fridge for about 40 minutes (inside a ziplock bag), then got it out and put it on top of an ice pack, protecting the phone with paper towel, restarted and, this time, finished the DFU restore flawlessly. After that I restored the contents from a backup file via iTunes and 'voila' an iPhone 5c emerged from a paper weight. Again, thank you so much.

Jul 20, 2017 1:46 AM in response to johncali9

Four years since John's original post, I have the same issue - this time installing iOS 11 beta 2 on an iPhone 7 Plus. Also saw the "Searching" issue (whilst running on iOS 11 beta 1) a few days before updating. Strangely, now my device is bricked, when I try to restore the iOS 10.3.3 IPSW iTunes spits out error no. 52, only the iOS 11 IPSW shows error no. 3 - strange! Here are the last lines of my death logs: (clearly also a baseband issue 😟)


Restoring iOS 11 beta (error 3)


[22:32:40.0002] ==== end of device restore output ====

[22:32:40.0403] AMRAuthInstallDeletePersonalizedBundle

[22:32:40.0486] <Restore Device 0x60800034db50>: Restore failed (result = -1)

[22:32:40.0514] AMRestorePerformRestoreModeRestoreWithError failed with error: -1

[22:32:40.0514] Finished RestoreOS Restore Phase: Failed

[22:32:40.0515] State Machine Dump, status:ERROR - [state:Recovery remaining-cycles:0] -> [state:RestoreOS remaining-cycles:0 (current state)]

[22:32:40.0519] Changing state from 'Restoring' to 'Error'

[22:32:40.0519] State is now set to error

[22:32:40.0523] Restore completed, status:3

[22:32:40.0523] Failure Description:

[22:32:40.0523] Depth:0 Code:-1 Error:AMRestorePerformRestoreModeRestoreWithError failed with error: -1

[22:32:40.0523] Depth:1 Code:-1 Error:Failed to handle message type StatusMsg

[22:32:40.0523] Depth:2 Code:-1 Error:failed to update device firmware

[22:32:40.0523] Depth:3 Code:-1 Error:ramrod firmware update failed

[22:32:40.0523] Depth:4 Code:1004 Error:update_baseband: failed to perform next stage

[22:32:40.0523] Depth:5 Code:3 Error:Fail to ping baseband: kBBUReturnIOError


Restoring iOS 10.3.3 (error 52, same device, same setup!)


[17:02:33.3888] ==== end of device restore output ====

[17:02:33.4067] AMRAuthInstallDeletePersonalizedBundle

[17:02:33.5321] <Restore Device 0x6080003461a0>: Restore failed (result = -1)

[17:02:33.5347] AMRestorePerformRestoreModeRestoreWithError failed with error: -1

[17:02:33.5349] Finished RestoreOS Restore Phase: Failed

[17:02:33.5349] State Machine Dump, status:ERROR - [state:Recovery remaining-cycles:0] -> [state:RestoreOS remaining-cycles:0 (current state)]

[17:02:33.5354] Changing state from 'Restoring' to 'Error'

[17:02:33.5354] State is now set to error

[17:02:33.5358] Restore completed, status:52

[17:02:33.5358] Failure Description:

[17:02:33.5358] Depth:0 Code:-1 Error:AMRestorePerformRestoreModeRestoreWithError failed with error: -1

[17:02:33.5358] Depth:1 Code:-1 Error:Failed to handle message type StatusMsg

[17:02:33.5358] Depth:2 Code:-1 Error:failed to update device firmware

[17:02:33.5358] Depth:3 Code:-1 Error:ramrod firmware update failed

[17:02:33.5358] Depth:4 Code:1004 Error:update_baseband: failed to perform next stage

[17:02:33.5358] Depth:5 Code:52 Error:Fail to create transport kBBUReturnFailCreateTransportInitial


Still in warranty, so no way I'm going in the deep freeze 😉 Speaking with an Apple engineer (Simeon) to see what can be done.. I'll update if there is any generally useful info made available, but after four years I'm not holding my breath!

Oct 8, 2013 8:13 AM in response to Kevb2013

I am having the same issue. My girlfriends i4 started to say "searching" after the first update to iOS7....

Did the whole airplane mode on and off thing, reset network setting, and everything, but nothing worked. Finally did a restore and was able to get service back to the phone. This happened almost everyweek, making me restore all the time. Then one day it said to upgrade to iOS 7.0.2, so did that and the phone froze in the middle of the upgrade. Tried to restore, got the error 3 code that I cant seem to find any info on anywhere!! Took the phone to apple, guy could not fix and told me that i now own a brick.


My issue seems to be a hang up in the firmware....it goes almost all the way on the progress bar on the phone, then craps out in the same spot everytime. I tried even using redsnow to get in and boot, but nothing. Only thing interesting is that it says that its missing keys.plist.


SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!!

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

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