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

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.

Hi! Simply go to settings on your device (ipad or iphone) and go to icloud (it's on the same place as where you turn on airplane mode etc, scroll further down and go to "find my iphone" ( or find my ipad) and turn it to "off". It worked for me thank goodness because i'm in europe and couldn't access my ebooks, email, or use the internet.

I'm posting this here as a reply to first comment to save people from reading 4 pages of responses to get to this solution. I'll post it as a comment too! Thanks to the person who suggested this! It saved my vacation!!! :-)

Hi! Simply go to settings on your device (ipad or iphone) and go to icloud (it's on the same place as where you turn on airplane mode etc, scroll further down and go to "find my iphone" ( or find my ipad) and turn it to "off". It worked for me thank goodness because i'm in europe and couldn't access my ebooks, email, or use the internet.

I'm posting this here and in a reply to first comment to save people from reading 4 pages of responses to get to this solution. Thanks sooooo much to the person who suggested this! It saved my vacation!!! :-)

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.

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

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.

I would talk to someone higher up when you take your phone in to your phone carrier.

Activation process - cellular data is a carrier feature.

oijulia wrote:

So you're saying that this activation process is something related to the carrier network?

Yes. Somehow your carrier is not completing the activation process for cel use on the network. That is why it is repeatedly asking you to activate the phone.

Because that's what the Apple store guy told me, but my carrier says activation is for sure an iPhone issue.

Carrier support is usually terrible. The carrier support staff are often ignorant or just outright lazy. When they cannot trouble shoot the problem the easiest thing for them to do is to blame the iPhone.

No. Your account/phone number is probably not provisioned correctly. It could be a problem with your number only. As razmee209 has suggested: talk to someone at the carrier who is higher up in the chain and who probably knows what he is talking about/doing.

Getting a new iPhone will not really solve your problems as it is highly likely that the problem is not at the iPhone end.

yes i have the same problem exactly. i was locked out of my phone when abroad on many occasions due to lack of wifi.

Hello,

I am having the very same problem. iphone 5 & ios 8.1.

When the phone is searching for carrier signal it comes with the "Activation Required" message. Without wifi or itunes connection it is impossible to activate?

I cannot rely on this phone anymore. Whenever I need the phone in the city, I am facing the "Activation Required" screen.

Tried many many things: restore, DFU restore, geek squad, check with carrier... Still no solution...

Did you guys solve your problems? What is your status about this problem? If you have solved it, please help...?

Thanks,

john

i am planning a trip to the genius bar .. although not optimistic of a solution .. probably a carrier problem .. but so difficult to get any sense from help line with carriers. i use uwclub atm fyi .. i simply cannot carry on like this, so will have to change from iphone in a few months time