Ios9 stuck on slide to upgrade

There are ways I am sure - none would be supported by Apple -

"Apple's firmware updates are "signed" with the servers to make sure that you can't downgrade your device."

Try putting the phone into recovery mode.

To put your phone into recovery mode, I will have you disconnect your phone, close iTunes on your computer, and hold the power button down on your phone until it powers off.

After that, you are going to hold the home button down while reconnecting your phone with the cable. Continue holding the home button down until you see connect to iTunes on the phone screen.

After a few moments, you will see an iTunes screen open on your computer that will give an option to restore.

When you set the phone up after that, set it up as new and wait for the update patch to restore your back up.

Wonder when this patch will come. Seems restoring is also causing this stuck loop. I had a successful update (sans being locked out of being able to sign into Find My iPhone, which I was never prompted to sign out of in the first place. That's when Apple Support said to restore in recovery mode... outside of setting up as a new device there are no current options to retain data.

How long did this take you? I'm going through the process now (with my 5c GSM). After going through the update screens on iTunes, iTunes then told me to wait while my phone was busy (or something like that). My phone had a status bar that took about 20-30 minutes to fill. Once it finished, iTunes changed to the default music page and my iPhone is no longer showing up in iTunes. My iPhone's screen is now just the Apple logo (no status bar or anything else). My computer sounds like it's doing something, but I'm at work and have a lot open so that could be something else (although it's similar to the noise it made in the early stages of the update). Were you stuck at this stage for a while, with just the Apple logo?

I'm going to let it sit for a while and see what happens.

Thank you so much for your help! I tried so many things before that and while it didn't go exactly as indicated (for me, the connection to itunes on the phone screen didn't happen until later), the end result was exactly what I wanted. Thank you for saving me time and money!

**Update to my above post, with full instructions and my current status, in case anyone else is in a similar bind (and in case this ends up working)**

I'm using an iPhone 5C (GSM). I got the "Slide to Upgrade" error while trying to go from iOS 7 (maybe 7.1.2?) to iOS 9 yesterday morning (09/21/15). Note that I do have a passcode set. I tried to update via wifi when I got stuck in this loop. I'm running the most current iTunes (12.3, 64-bit) on a fresh install to my basically new desktop running Windows 7.

My most recent backup was July 2014 to my iCloud (it's been full since then). My phone has never been backed up on any computer, so I can't back it up to a computer at this point (needs authority, which requires a working phone). I can't back it up to my iCloud account without buying more storage space (long story, but I can't get it to let me buy more- possibly a different issue, but ignore this for now), and even with more space, I'm not sure if I could back it up to my iCloud account.

Note that I can escape the screen by resetting the phone (hold both buttons until it resets), and then going through the motions again. This inevitably leads back to the "Slide to Upgrade" screen.

So, my goal is to escape the "Slide to Upgrade" error without losing data (as "restore" methods suggest), or to create a backup some other way before doing a "restore" method. This is my attempt at the former, following a combination of advice from the following two posts in this thread: Re: Ios9 stuck on slide to upgrade and Re: Ios9 stuck on slide to upgrade

1. Download iTunes (newest version), which I didn't have before this mess.

2. Download iOS 8.1.4 to my computer from https://ipsw.me/8.4.1 as suggested in this post from a few pages ago: Re: Ios9 stuck on slide to upgrade. (Note than I have an iPhone 5C GSM, and was previously running some version of iOS 7, so 8.4.1 would still be an upgrade relative to what I had two days ago.)

3. Connect my iPhone to my desktop, and reboot my iPhone into DFU mode (I did this from the "Hello" screen).

[To enter DFU mode, hold both the power and home buttons until the Apple logo appears (10 seconds), and then immediately release the power button but continue to hold the home button (about 3 more seconds).]

4. iTunes gives a message with the options "Cancel", "Restore", and "Upgrade". Hold "Apple" on a Mac or "Shift" on Windows when you click either "Restore" or "Upgrade" (I later saw someone say Alt for Windows; I used Shift)

4A. The first linked post (and many others) went the "Restore" route. I did not.

4B. I followed the second linked post and held "Shift" and clicked "Upgrade"

5. This asks you to locate the iOS file. Find the file you downloaded in Step 2, and open it here.

6. This *should* work....

However, I am currently stuck in another loop. At first, things seemed to go smoothly. It restarted my iPhone, and then the Apple logo appeared with an installation progress bar. After about 20-30 minutes, that finished. It then went black and immediately reset to just the Apple logo. It also disappeared from iTunes. My computer seemed to still be working on it (judging by the noises, although I was also working on other things), and after about 10 minutes the logo disappeared. After going to a blank screen for a second, it reset to the Apple logo again.

This has been repeating for about 2 hours now, although the computer no longer makes "busy" noises and the whole process now only takes a few minutes (steadily got fast for about an hour). Occasionally, the Apple logo will appear as a dark, metallic gray as it fades out, and sometimes the whole screen will be lightly overlayed with grayed vertical bars (about 8-10 across), kind of like a watermark on paper, as it fades out.

I have no idea what to do at this point. I suppose another reset is probably the best strategy. I'll update this if anything changes.

I got my mobile to work thanks to everyones post but made the mistake putting in the 4 digit pin/securitypasscode code in. And it went back to the same issue. So I would recommend not putting in the 4 digit pin. If some has solved that problem please let me know. Because it now means if anyone uses my ph they have full access.

I did just that - it installed IOS 9 when setting up as new device.

And the first time, the WIFI didn't want to work. Redo. Then, Safari didn't load correctly. In fact, Safari's "delete history" button wasn't even there. When I set up restrictions, I couldn't "click here to allow" so I set it up again. Then, it wouldn't let me sign into "Find My iPhone" at all even though it was enabled in settings. Again, clean install. Then, Safari's delete history and delete web browsing data are both missing or grayed out but I can delete history with my phone. What a MESS. What I don't know is that somehow I maybe got a bad download? From iTunes or iTunes itself was a bad update? And if either is the case, how is that remedied?

The only back up that I had of the first ios9 install magically disappeared after I got my iPad working as a new device. 😕

Nothing has gone right. iTunes no longer says "you have purchases - would you like to transfer them before you back up" anymore, either. Have to do those manually. So weird.

Update to my earlier post-

I let it reset itself repeatedly for a few hours. Reset times were down to about 3 minutes each, as noted at the end of my last post. I tried the hard reset (holding both buttons for 10 seconds, then releasing both) a few times, but it basically did nothing. I eventually put it back in DFU mode and tried a few other versions of iOS.

I tried going back down to iOS 7.1.2 (which I think is what I had as of Monday morning), but it was blocked by iTunes (I forget the exact error message, but some time on the internet suggested this was because Apple has blocked anyone from going back to an iOS that old). I then thought maybe my phone wasn't GSM, so I tried the "Global" version of iOS 8.4.1. iTunes immediately let me know that this was incompatible with my phone, so I canceled that.

I then decided that since I was possibly sitting on iOS 8.4.1, maybe it would now upgrade to iOS 9 without any issues. I went through all the same steps and ended up stuck in exactly the same place- the slide to upgrade error.

I'm going to try various (path-dependent) combinations of iOS upgrades in the background while I work today. Here goes nothing!

Did anyone try to see if iOS 9.0.1 has solved the issue? I have one more iPad to upgrade, but I don't want to go through all the trouble I had with my other iPad again.

⚠ Totally same issue with iOS 9.0.1 ⚠

HEY APPLE WHAT ARE YOU DOING ? ℹ

If there is a hardware problem, give us a return program by serial number ! ✅

Just got it to work with iOS 9.0.1!!!

I plugged it into my desktop with iTunes running. From the very first screen past the passcode, i used iTunes to update to 9.0.1.

Things went smoothly until I got to the Apple ID login page. I was frozen at the "It may take a few minutes to set up your Apple ID..." screen. After half an hour, I just powered it off (normally). I then powered it back on normally. That screen never came back up, but I hit the "Continue" button from the successful upgrade screen and this time got to an iCloud login screen. I put in my password, and it took me to a screen that said "Updating iCloud settings...", where I got stuck again. After about 10 minutes, I again powered it off normally and then turned it back on. This time I hit the "skip" button, got through the rest of the instructions, and made it into the standard iOS interface!

Notes: I still have all the files on my phone from before, such as those stored in "Photo Lock+" / "My Disk", but all of my contacts are missing. All of them. I hadn't lost a contact since I got my first phone nearly 12 years ago, but now I have. Oh well, I'm much more concerned about my other data. Maybe those will come back eventually. I'm currently backing up my iPhone to my hard drive and still exploring to see what made it and what didn't.

Also, I still have my passcode enabled. I never turned that off. I also chose not to ever try to enable Find my iPhone during the setup because I had seen that that caused other people problems. It was originally enabled before this fiasco started on Monday morning, though. I also still haven't tried to set up my iCloud account on here. I'll probably wait on that one for a more stable release.

All in all, I wish I hadn't started this on Monday morning and I wish I still had iOS 7.1.2 with all my contacts (and other data that is potentially lost), but I'm glad to have my phone back with at least not everything wiped.

Thanks for nothing, Apple. I'll certainly remember this when I'm looking to buy a new phone in May!

If I never did itunes backup before can I do it now? when the phone stuck on "slide to upgrade'

I had the same problem ipoe

This is what he outlined, and it worked perfectly for me. Although the firmware for 8.4 is not hosted by Apple, it is the correct firmware -- I had no trouble installing it and no trouble upgrading to 9.0 from 8.4. The issue (at least in my case) was in upgrading from 7.0 -- put me in a loop that nothing (hard reset, etc., etc., etc.) fixed.

Step 1 - Backup your pictures! Even though you can't get to your phone and use it you should still be able to backup your pictures

Step 2 - Download IOS 8.4.1 for your iPhone or iPad from this site --> https://ipsw.me/8.4.1

The file was taking a while to download for my phone so I searched the filename on Google and downloaded from Mega.

Step 3 - Reboot phone into DFU mode - hold down power button and home button - when it reboots let go of power button - still hold home button

At this point it will ask you to connect your phone to iTunes - will have to connect phone to the computer.

Step 4 - Hold down the Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) and and then click restore.

Step 5 - Browse to the 8.4.1 file you downloaded and select it. This should restore to the previous IOS version. Note: This will wipe phone.

Step 6 - Restore from backup. Hope that you backed up before attempting to update.