Q: activation lock problems

Take the device and its purchase receipt to a physical Apple Store.

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(124045)

Biomeddan wrote:

 

that would be good but where I live we are no where near an Apple store. Is there some other way through phone support

If an Apple Store is not convenient you must ship the device to Apple.  To make arrangements, call 800-275-2273 in the U.S.A. and I think Canada.

I believe this is a back-end problem and nothing to do with the device itself. I'm having the same problem right now and working it through with Apple support in Adelaide. Applied restore/update using iTunes but could not re-apply the original activation appleid/password as used when the device was originally purchased and activated by me (I have the receipt).  The device was visible in iCloud for the relevant appleid under "Find my iPhone" and listed as a device in the Settings section. After doing some online research the first thing I did was delete the device from the iCloud "Find My iPhone" page - note that it still appeared in iCloud Settings page. Used iTunes to restore/update the device again but could still not activate. Called Apple Support and was on the phone for 2 hours and spoke with 5 support staff. The last technician did concede that there was something inconsistent and that the activation process appeared to have not completed properly. He said he'd get back to me by email when he'd worked it out. That was 2 days ago. This morning I accessed iCloud and noted that the device had now also disappeared from the iCloud Settings page so assumed that Apple had fixed whatever "inconsistency" had previously occurred. I tried another restore/update with iTunes and still no luck with activation. I will report back to this forum once the problem is resolved.

Well, what a palava. After a week I ended up calling back and immediately got through to a tech who knew what he was doing. It turns out my daughter had set up another appleid and used it on the device. Two appleids is doable but is very confusing until its explained to you - I'm not going to try here. Anyway, with the help of the tech we re-instated the original appleid and simplified the resulting mixed appleid app set up as best possible. Took almost an hour of changing appleid emails, verifying them, re-activating, changing appleid emails, reverifying, restoring, restarting, etc etc.  I recommend avoiding running with two appleids unless you absolutely know what you're doing. Not for the feint hearted!