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User profile for user: oijulia
oijulia Author
User level: Level 1
16 points

Help! Recurrent "activation required" message after upgrade to iOS 8.1

Hello,


I recently upgraded to iOS 8 (directly from iOS 7 to version 8.1). Ever since, my phone keeps giving me a message saying "Activation Required" (see images). I am able to activate my phone normally, if I'm logged in to iCloud I have to enter my e-mail and password every time (so I logged off from iCloud for now).


The problem is:

- This happens at least 10 times a day, even more.

- The phone can only be activated on wifi (3G and LTE never work, although the phone gives me the option to try these)

- When the activation is required and if I don't have wifi to do it, the phone is completely blocked - I can't get out of the activation page, no way to see my home screen or access any of the apps, not even the camera, nothing!


I've taken it to Apple store and first they told me to delete everything and start as a new phone. It didn't work. Then I went again and they did a "full delete" (a different way of resetting my phone as a new phone) and installed iOS 8.1 from one of their computers, which they said was different from doing it from my computer. The guy was sure he had solved my problem, but I got the activation message a few hours later.


Now Apple tells me it's a problem with my carrier. My carrier, of course, says this is a problem with the phone.

I don't know what to do! The phone is less than 1 year old and I had no plans to buy a new one in the next year or so...


Does anyone has the same messages?

Does anyone has an idea why my phone is asking for activation so often??


:-(


Any help will be appreciated!


Julia.


iPhone 5

iOS 8.1

User uploaded file User uploaded file User uploaded file

iPhone 5, iOS 8.1

Posted on Oct 31, 2014 1:57 PM

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User profile for user: JSage
JSage
User level: Level 1
109 points

Posted on May 18, 2017 11:17 PM

I just went through 24 hours of **** that started with this, then led to being stuck within any app. Home button seemed nonfunctional, but using the accessibility version (on-screen, not mechanical), results were the same... so it was not the home button. Ditto the power button, once that no longer would let me just quit. Seemed clearly software-related. I hooked to desktop, backed up and restored... multiple times, long story short. Nothing worked. But that activation thing lurked in my head, so.... well, if you've been at this Apple game for awhile, you know that through dot-mac and dot-me and iCloud and so on (none of which really worked well, till I suppose probably recently, since everybody else has mastered the cloud... though Apple has made theirs more invasive than useful)..... at any rate, if you've been at it awhile, you probably have one ID-password for mac-me-cloud and one for your Apple account. And they'd always act as though that was normal, desirable, useful or smart, but it was none of those things. Well, my failing device was the last one that still had "that other ID-pw," the one that USED to be required for iCloud and its predecessors. But I know I've set up more recent devices with my regular Apple ID-pw, same as the one for Apple Store, iTunes and so on. So... I bit the bullet and restored the iPad, but did NOT restore its contents from backup. I just reinstalled things, which is actually not as bad as it sounds. (Just make sure you take "your stuff"... photos, notes, recordings, whatever that are not in Apple's cloud... and dump to your desktop before you do all this.) The apps are easy to reload via the iTunes desktop interface. In fact, it's a heck of a lot quicker than trying to fix the unfixable any other way I found in forums, discussions and/or just tried. So... old iPad, new ID-pw from my Store/iTunes account to set up iCloud, NOT the old iCloud ID-pw... and it works. Could be just the clean slate approach, but... so many discussions blamed the 9.3.x and up upgrades, but this is now still on 9.3.5 and working. If you can find a way to change your iCloud ID-pw for that device via the desktop, that might work... but I wasn't able to access that. Good luck.

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41 replies
User profile for user: JSage
JSage
User level: Level 1
109 points

May 17, 2017 10:26 PM in response to oijulia

Here it is May 2017, and I'm just having this for the first time. What's different is that this is on my iPad. Whereas it does have cellular capability, I have NEVER used that, don't have a number for it, nada. Supposedly available one-month-if-needed, and I've never needed it. All WiFi. That said... same problem. How could turning off Airplane Mode have anything to do with it, if I'm always on WiFi, anyway? I've tried to run their sequence a few times, but it always fails, so I can't get to any settings, can't turn off "Find my iPad," can't do anything whatsoever. Apple continues to circle the drain. Any ideas in this scenario? Thanks.

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User profile for user: Sweetcorsac_wolfie
Sweetcorsac_wolfie
User level: Level 1
4 points

Oct 13, 2017 3:35 PM in response to oijulia

Well now I have this problem only done it 5 or 6 times its getting to the point where I might just switch to android and buy a second hand Samsung as its been so annoying lately but mine only does it when it's about to die. My phone dies around 25% as it isn't a apple branded battery but oh well find my iPhone turned that off nothing I really am beginning to hate iPhone

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User profile for user: SteveChessin
SteveChessin
User level: Level 1
14 points

Dec 19, 2017 3:06 PM in response to Sweetcorsac_wolfie

It just happened to me today (an iPhone 4s, running iOS 9.3.5, the latest version that supports the 4s; it also has no cellular service as that's on a newer phone and I use the 4s as if it were an iPod touch, and keep it in Airplane mode so it isn't searching for cellular service, with WiFi on). This site and others reassured me that this wasn't a case of a virus infecting it so someone could steal my AppleID credentials, but I didn't like the prompt asking for my Apple ID anyway. First I tried a system reset (hold power/sleep button and home button down at the same time until the screen goes black), but it came back up with the same prompt. So then I did a full power off (hold the power/sleep button down until the power-off slider comes up, and then slide it to the off position), and let it sit for about a minute (in case this was caused by background radiation/cosmic rays). Then I powered it back up. It came up in the lock screen and still recognized my passcode, but after I logged in it greeted me with "Hello" as if it were a new phone. I went through the 2 or 3 steps it presented, but skipped the iCloud setup (which this time it let me skip), and it came back to my home screen with all my apps etc. intact. I then went to Settings->iCloud and verified that Find My iPhone was still on, and then went to my Mac, logged into icloud.com/#find, and verified that my phone was indeed locatable.


So I assume this was a glitch, possibly induced by background radiation (as far as I can tell these devices have no ECC on their memory, and if it was caused by single-event latch-up then the full power-off allowed the circuitry to heal), and a minor annoyance as long as it doesn't happen too often.

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Help! Recurrent "activation required" message after upgrade to iOS 8.1

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