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