Ios9 stuck on slide to upgrade

Tried it all now. Lost everything going back to factory setting as the last back up I did was in 2014. And it still goes back to the frozen screen. Glad the fix worked for some people though

Yep - here's one person who was about to upgrade from an iPhone 5 to a 6s. Not anymore...

I put the phone into Recovery Mode and installed iOS9 from iTunes, after contacting Apple Support (conversation lasted over an hour while we tried to find solutions!).

Recovery Mode lasts 15 minutes and after iPhone is back to normal the download for iOS9 stops, so what they told me to do is leave the popups open and wait. The Apple advisor "suggested" I just leave iTunes as it is and that once the download is completely finished, the circle around the arrow stops spinning. That's when I should disconnect the iPhone and place it back to recovery mode and restore once more.

Problem is the download for iOS9 is taking so much time. It's been more than 4 hours but I'm still scared to touch anything. I don't want to start downloading it all over again.

I chose Apple because things/bugs like this don't usually happen! It's now half past midnight and I've been struggling with this issue since 3 PM. It's getting on my last nerve.

dayano wrote:

I put the phone into Recovery Mode and installed iOS9 from iTunes, after contacting Apple Support (conversation lasted over an hour while we tried to find solutions!).

Recovery Mode lasts 15 minutes and after iPhone is back to normal the download for iOS9 stops, so what they told me to do is leave the popups open and wait. The Apple advisor "suggested" I just leave iTunes as it is and that once the download is completely finished, the circle around the arrow stops spinning. That's when I should disconnect the iPhone and place it back to recovery mode and restore once more.

Problem is the download for iOS9 is taking so much time. It's been more than 4 hours but I'm still scared to touch anything. I don't want to start downloading it all over again.

I chose Apple because things/bugs like this don't usually happen! It's now half past midnight and I've been struggling with this issue since 3 PM. It's getting on my last nerve.

This is kind of what worked for me. Stuck on "slide to upgrade." In the end I had to restore the iPad; nothing else worked. Here is what worked for me

Connect the iPad (or iPhone I guess) to iTunes. It will ask you to allow iTunes access to the iPad on the iPad, but of course that is not possible as the iPad is stuck. But don't click "Stop." Very important. Just leave iTunes there. Now restart the iPad: hold power+home button past the Apple until it shows "connect to iTunes." Then restore the iPad.

After I had restored the iPad I tried to get back the old contents from my iCloud backup. But once I restored from iCloud backup, I was again stuck on "slide to upgrade," and I had to repeat the above procedure.

Not very impressive of Apple. I did manage to upgrade two iPhone and one iPad successfully, but this older iPad (iPad 3) took my a whole day to get back to work, and then I manually have to restore everything.

How do we get around the "respond on phone" message in iTunes? My mother's phone is also stuck on the "swipe to upgrade" step. I'm trying to connect her to iTunes to do a recovery that way, but I can't respond to any message on the phone itself at this point.

wildroseoftexas wrote:

How do we get around the "respond on phone" message in iTunes? My mother's phone is also stuck on the "swipe to upgrade" step. I'm trying to connect her to iTunes to do a recovery that way, but I can't respond to any message on the phone itself at this point.

That's exactly where I was stuck. As I wrote above, here is how I solved it:

Connect the iPad (or iPhone I guess) to iTunes. It will ask you to allow iTunes access to the iPad on the iPad, but of course that is not possible as the iPad is stuck. But don't click "Stop" on the computer. Very important. Just leave iTunes there. Now restart the iPad: hold power+home button past the Apple until it shows "connect to iTunes." Now the computer will ask if you want to restore the iPad.

Thank you! This is the first I heard of "restore mode" and with your advice, I was able to get my phone back up and running with iOS9. Needed to do a full restore to factory settings, but was easy enough to reload everything I needed.

I had the same issue with my old iPad 2 (which was still on an iOS 7 version). I updated it to iOS 9 and was stuck at the "slide to upgrade" screen.

Finally I got it to work this morning. Two things made a difference in my view:

Make sure you update iTunes to 12.3. The whole process went a lot smoother after that.

Go into Recovery Mode and restore your device. When you choose between "Set up as new iPad" or "Restore from backup", set it up as a new device and then restore it from a backup in iTunes in an extra step. For some reason I was not stuck at "slide to upgrade" when I did this.

Hope this helps.

And another follow-up:

Do not set a passcode. This seems to be creating issues as well.

Thank you! If not for this, I would have a brick instead of an iPad 2. I downloaded 8.4, updated to it, then updated to 9.0 afterward and everything finally worked.

Hello.

My iPad 2 updated. When I couldn't sign into Find My Iphone app at all I called Apple. We did the restore. THEN got the slide to update circle began. Senior Apple advisor was nice - and said a fix is coming. Hopefully it does soon. My son's learning tools and game progress is on this. I spent six + hours attempting to fix it. Lost time a mom can't get back.

I signed that device out if find my iphone from iCloud hoping that helped. I added wifi and passcode when prompted. Same problem. I didn't add wifi or passcode. Same problem. There are so many errors appearing I am not sure what will do when the fix is released. And I hope it is sooner than later.

How did this get out of Beta?

There's not one "solution" that has worked. I have a brick. And I am sad.

I faced all these problems, even restore blocking with "Find my iPhone" feature.

Solution with restoring to iOS 8.4.1 first and then restoring to iOS 9 worked for me.

Here are the steps.

1. Make backup if you don't have it. You can make your backup even at moment when you see frozen "Unlock to upgrade screen". You can skip this step if you've made backup before upgrading.

2. Download IPSW iOS for your device. You have to find it on some torrent site or just get it here: https://ipsw.me/8.4.1 (download is slow).

3. Restore your device to iOS 8.4.1.

3.1 Open iTunes, connect your device via USB;

3.2 Turn off;

3.3 Press and hold both Power and Hold buttons for exactly 10 seconds, then release Power button, still holding Home button until your computer sees a new device;

3.4 Wait few seconds till iTunes detects your device in DFU (restore) mode;

3.5 Holding Alt/Option key on the keyboard, click to Restore button in iTunes. File choosing window should open, point it to IPSW you just downloaded.

3.6 Wait till restoring is complete. Now, you're on iOS 8.4.1

4. Restore your backup. After iPhone restarts, choose the "Restore from backup" option and point to your backup. It will have to restore all your data.

5. Now you can simply upgrade to iOS 9 again, of course if you still want to.

Good luck!

How do you select 8.4? Mine isn't giving me any options like that

I struggled all day today with this issue. I don't know whether I need to take my phone in to be serviced, my computer or both. I wasn't able to back up anything on itunes as it kept getting stuck on Step 2. My saving grace was that I was able to save my pictures and save to icloud on my ipad. I restored and booted my phone back up, as if it were a new phone, but once again, the screen that says "slide to upgrade" is unresponsive. Ajaxy and others who have suggested downloading to get back to 8.4.1, are you able to do that if the phone is unresponsive? I could download it onto my computer but it didn't seem like it would make it to the phone. I am unable to do anything with my phone other than go through the same circular loop that others have previously described. So frustrated! Any words of wisdom?

How can I downgrade?