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iTunes error 17 when upgrading/restoring?

Every time I try to restore or update my iPhone 5s in iTunes (using my Windows Vista) I get the message "The iPhone/iPod cannot be updated. An unknown error occured (17)", and my iPhone is stuck in recovery mode. (I have a program to "kick" it out of recovery mode so I can still use it without needing a restore.) I'm not sure what is causing the problem, but it's really anoying and I would like to get it fixed ASAP. I have already tried restarting my computer, uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes, disabaling my firewall, and uninstalling my antivirus, but nothing has worked. I am positive that the problem is not being caused by the iPhone because I have tried to restore / update my old iPod 4g, resulting in the same error code... One more thing, I was getting "error 3004" earlier, but that turned into "error 17" whenever I disabled / uninstalled my antivirus (McAfee from Bell)... Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks.

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.2

Posted on Oct 25, 2013 1:42 PM

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Posted on Dec 15, 2013 2:20 PM

Hi,


I've just had the same problem with iPhone 5s and because I have a Windows PC and a MacBook Pro, I tried on both side: with the same error : unknown error (17). I found a post here on the apple community, about how to fix this error on Mac OS X (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5381396?answerId=24051676022#24051676022) and it worked for me. I tried, after fixing the problem on OS X, to see if there's any similar fix for Windows and I found this (http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/article.php/991281/Net-Tip-etc hosts-for-Windows.htm).

In theory, in /Windows/System32/drivers/etc there's a file named "hosts" that looks like the one on Mac OS X.

I haven't tried yet but maybe if you delete from that file all the *.apple.com entries, it should work again.

Let me know!

14 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Dec 15, 2013 2:20 PM in response to jakecool84

Hi,


I've just had the same problem with iPhone 5s and because I have a Windows PC and a MacBook Pro, I tried on both side: with the same error : unknown error (17). I found a post here on the apple community, about how to fix this error on Mac OS X (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5381396?answerId=24051676022#24051676022) and it worked for me. I tried, after fixing the problem on OS X, to see if there's any similar fix for Windows and I found this (http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/article.php/991281/Net-Tip-etc hosts-for-Windows.htm).

In theory, in /Windows/System32/drivers/etc there's a file named "hosts" that looks like the one on Mac OS X.

I haven't tried yet but maybe if you delete from that file all the *.apple.com entries, it should work again.

Let me know!

Dec 22, 2013 9:36 AM in response to WickedOrange

Hi, sorry for the long wait for a reply;


I had ended up looking around on google for a while after I had posted this question and came across the same solution; I totally forgot about this post! Anyways, yeah you’re right, if you have error 17 navigate to /Windows/System32/drivers/etc then open up the file named "hosts" (with notepad or something) and remove all the _.apple.com entries. Problem solved. As for error 3004, that was just my antivirus blocking something in itunes.

iTunes error 17 when upgrading/restoring?

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