RogerSC

Q: Force iTunes to recognize my iPad Air 2?

I have an iPad Air 2 that I had installed iOS 9.0 Beta on. Lived with it for a few days, and decided to go back to iOS 8.4 due to bugs that blocked too many things.

 

So I followed the recommended procedure, and downloaded and installed the latest iTunes (12.2.1.16), and put my iPad into recovery mode. The iPad was restored to iOS 8.4, as desired, and then I reconnected it to iTunes to restore the backup I made before installing the iOS 9 Beta.

 

Here's where it all falls apart. iTunes freezes (not responding, according to the Task Manager). After a minute or so a stippled iPad appears in iTunes in the place where a full iPad image used to appear in the top menu bar area on. The after a little while longer, a window with a picture of an iPad pops up saying "16-GB iPad", so iTunes knows that there's an iPad plugged in. That message window initially had a spinning symbol in it, but that hasn't spun since the beginning, and has been frozen since. Once it actually put up the message "An iPad has been detected but it could not be identified properly. Please disconnect and reconnect the iPad, then try again", and I thought I was making some progress. So I unplugged the iPad and plugged it back in, and got the same message. Over and over, of course.

 

iTunes never successfully fully connects with my iPad...I've tried everything I can find to get it to reconnect. Turning the computer and the iPad off, and then turning on the computer (which turns the iPad back on). Re-installing iTunes, looking at everything with the device manager to be sure that everything's good in device-land, re-starting the Apple Mobile Device service, you name it, I've tried it. I haven't seen a "Trust" message on my iPad, and I did remove the passcode so that it would be easier for iTunes to just put a "Trust" request window up on my iPad.

 

This is so frustrating. What do I need to do to get iTunes to recognize my iPad? The only thing I can think of is to get rid of everything under iTunes on my computer and totally start over, but that's going to be a heck of a lot of work and may not end up any differently. I have various things going on there, like stored backups, books that are sync'd, a sync'd ring tone, some podcasts, etc.

 

Has anyone ever solved this problem? Or will this iPad never connect with iTunes again? I ended restoring my iPad from an iCloud backup made before I put the iOS 9 Beta on it, but that didn't make any difference whatsoever to iTunes, it still won't recognize my iPad. I feel pretty let down by Apple on this one. I didn't do anything outside of following their directions in installing the iOS 9 Beta, and their directions on reverting back to iOS 8.4. My iPad is usable, but I feel like I just lost a LOT here. No more Beta's for me, if I ever get this to work again.

 

Thanks for any help with this. I'm really getting frustrated with Apple about this one, I liked using iTunes for backups and for syncing stuff to my iPad. Luckily I didn't put the iOS 9 Beta on my iPhone...

iPad Air, iOS 8.4, iOS 9 Beta

Posted on Jul 16, 2015 3:58 PM

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Q: Force iTunes to recognize my iPad Air 2?

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  • by SergZak,

    SergZak SergZak Jul 16, 2015 4:31 PM in response to RogerSC
    Level 5 (7,337 points)
    iPad
    Jul 16, 2015 4:31 PM in response to RogerSC

    Unfortunately, we cannot discuss anything regarding the iOS beta here in the forums. About all the help we can offer is on the following page (which you likely already know about):

     

    What to do before you install iOS beta - Apple Support

  • by RogerSC,

    RogerSC RogerSC Jul 16, 2015 5:30 PM in response to SergZak
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 16, 2015 5:30 PM in response to SergZak

    Seem to have lost my last reply somehow. Okay, thanks a bunch, this is not about the Beta, I was careful not to "discuss" it. I probably should have mentioned that it was the "Public" Beta, though. I didn't think that the fact that it could be installed and reverted was a big secret. If you read what I wrote (novel idea), you'd see that I said not one word specific to my experience with the Beta (other than the word "buggy", nobody would have guessed that one, that's pretty much of a secret that will sink Apple if it gets out).

     

    Anyways, I'm sorry if I violated my Beta agreement by mentioning that I installed it and removed it. Please don't put that on my permanent record.

     

    Turns out to have the same problem with my iPhone iTunes now. So the Beta that I installed on my iPad is clearly not relevant even in the installed/removed case.

     

    Anyone have any real help for when devices are not recognized by iTunes?

     

    Thanks.

  • by SergZak,

    SergZak SergZak Jul 16, 2015 5:56 PM in response to RogerSC
    Level 5 (7,337 points)
    iPad
    Jul 16, 2015 5:56 PM in response to RogerSC

    I fully understood what you meant. However, since it does involve the iOS beta (developer or public beta, no matter) and downgrading from that back to iOS 8.4, it's still considered a beta question, even if you aren't discussing any aspect of the beta code itself.

     

    I and others here are not trying to be jerks or insensitive in some way...that's not our intent. It's the fact that nearly every other question regarding the beta has been removed by the hosts of this forum. I could write up a nice long detailed list of things you can do, try, whatever and the entire topic & post will be deleted by the hosts as they see fit. For this reason, you see very little (if any) replies to any type of questions regarding anything at all to do with the beta. It's not under our (the contributors here) control but the host's control.

     

    You can try the developer's Forum but I doubt you'll see any meaningful replies there either as it's not really to be discussed in -any- forum.

    Developer Forums

     

    My suggestion to you would be to take your device to the Genius Bar and they can probably help you there to recover your device or at least give you some idea of what can be done. You are still under warranty (if your warranty is valid) in spite of running the beta.

     

    https://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

     

    You'll need your Apple ID to make a reservation.

  • by SergZak,

    SergZak SergZak Jul 16, 2015 6:12 PM in response to RogerSC
    Level 5 (7,337 points)
    iPad
    Jul 16, 2015 6:12 PM in response to RogerSC

    I'll add that you'll likely need to start from scratch and restore the device using DFU (direct firmware update) mode. See here:

     

    If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

     

    You'll have to rebuild the device but at least you'll be able to use it...something that you're not currently doing as of now anyways. After DFU, you may even be able to restore from an iOS 8.4 backup, assuming you made & archived one before your "experience".

     

    Good luck to you (and I mean that sincerely).

  • by RogerSC,

    RogerSC RogerSC Jul 16, 2015 7:31 PM in response to RogerSC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 16, 2015 7:31 PM in response to RogerSC

    Okay, took me several hours (???), but finally gave up on the iTunes upgrade and downgraded iTunes from 12.2 to 12.0. This allowed iTunes to recognize both my devices again, the iPad and iPhone. Why I can't upgrade iTunes to 12.2 and have that work, I have no idea. But once I put back all the stuff I had removed while trying to get the current version of iTunes to work on my PC, and then downgraded iTunes, everything's working again on iOS 8.4. All my backups, podcast, books, etc. are there.

     

    Of course, I had to delete iTunes Library.itl, since iTunes wouldn't come up with the one that had been made by a later version of iTunes. Which slowed me down a little, having to reconstruct some stuff.

     

    And I've been able to restore the (ssshhhh) pre-Beta iPad backup that I made, which was the whole object of this exercise. The dfu OS restore was the easy part, as I said, it was trying to get the iPad recognized by iTunes so that I could restore an apps and settings backup that was not working. One thing I had forgotten about is that I'm going to have to re-do the touch ID fingerprints. I like that facility, to be able to get into LastPass (for example) with a finger touch rather than having to type a password is really nice.

     

    Can't say that I've enjoyed the experience, but I've learned not to waste time upgrading iTunes unless I really have to. I've had problems upgrading it before, but never like this, where it would just freeze indefinitely trying to recognize devices that I've been using with iTunes since I got them. Looks like I might be stuck at this version, but at least this version currently works, anyways.

     

    I'd love to see iTunes go away and be replaced by something more consistent and reliable, but don't know if that's in the cards.

  • by RogerSC,

    RogerSC RogerSC Jul 17, 2015 2:06 AM in response to RogerSC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 17, 2015 2:06 AM in response to RogerSC

    I've since found this:

     

    Upgraded to iTunes 11.1 and now it won't recognize my iPhone

     

    which makes sense to me, since this could well be a driver issue. Although Apple should have worked around this, Windows software normally doesn't have this sort of driver incompatibility.

     

    So if I have a few idle hours (unlikely), I might re-do the iTunes upgrade and try playing around with USB drivers.

     

    Or maybe I'll just switch to MediaMonkey, do OTA upgrades, and use iCloud for my only backups. That's most likely the right answer, anyways, iTunes has been nothing but a time-waster on Windows. Like using OneDrive instead of iCloud for syncing photos, one works (OneDrive), the other doesn't (iCloud) *smile*.

  • by Briansyddall,

    Briansyddall Briansyddall Jul 17, 2015 2:28 AM in response to RogerSC
    Level 6 (8,854 points)
    Apple Watch
    Jul 17, 2015 2:28 AM in response to RogerSC

    Hi

    New update for itunes 12.1

    Cheers

    Brian

  • by RogerSC,

    RogerSC RogerSC Jul 17, 2015 11:14 AM in response to Briansyddall
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 17, 2015 11:14 AM in response to Briansyddall

    You know, the latest iTunes is 12.2, which is the one I was trying to install after removing version 12.0. However, I was just reading again about driver problems between version 12.0 and 12.2. Essentially that versions 12.1 and 12. of iTunes are the first full 64-bit versions. That's exactly where I might expect untested driver problems, in a transition between "mostly 64-bit" and "full 64-bit". If the right USB driver isn't installed during an upgrade for some reason, iTunes would not recognize devices. If the 12.0 USB driver wasn't removed with iTunes 12.0, then it might somehow prevent the new 12.2 driver from being installed. This is the sort of thing that I could see happening.

     

    If I play with this some more before throwing iTunes out of the boat completely (tempting), I'll go at it from that point of view. The other way to go that occurred to me is to make a 32-bit Windows VM, and install iTunes there. That would most likely also work, but seems like more pain than I want to support for this functionality.