I updated my ipad to 9.3 and now it will not activate

Question

I updated my ipad to 9.3 and now it will not activate

Hello,

I usually wait many weeks before updating any apple product, however someone else in my house updated the IPAD 2. It is currently an expensive looking brick

'If the problem persists, contact apple support at apple.com/uk/support' which is odd as I'm in New Zealand, anyway I tried a couple of different ways they oferred and each way they wanted money from me.

I have followed many of the suggestions posted here plus elsewhere. I have:

Connected to my laptop with iTunes, disabled the firewall from both laptop and router

Connected to a different network, failed to active

Restore from iTunes where iTunes downloaded 9.1 but did not install on the IPAD 2 saying it failed to activate

Reset from iTunes, failed saying it was unable to activate

I have an IPAD 3 which I am not keen to upgrade at all.

Any ideas?

iPad 2, iOS 9.3

Posted on Mar 24, 2016 12:42 AM

Reply

Answer 1

norm123

Community Specialist

Mar 25, 2016 12:57 PM in response to Sigh. So difficult.

Hi Sigh. So difficult.,
Sorry to hear that you are having issues with the update on your iPad 2. I know you have done some troubleshooting on your end, but check out the steps outlined in the article below to get this sorted out.
It will have you put your iPad into recovery mode and then plug it into your computer. Once iTunes recognizes it, you should be prompt to either restore update your iPad. Click on Update and it will reinstall the update without erasing the content on it.
If you can’t activate your iPad 2 (GSM model) after you update to iOS 9.3
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206214
Have a good day

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 28, 2016 7:57 PM in response to norm123

Hi, thanks for the reply. This process was the same i tried before however I went through steps 1 - 5 anyway.

My itunes is at version 12.1.2

An iTunes window opened up saying iTunes wil update the iPad to 9.1 and verify with Apple.

iTunes downloaded some software. Part way through the download my iPAD started up and reported the same error before the software could download on iTunes.

I waited for things to change - left it alone.

About 10 minutes after the down load finished I wen through steps 3 - 5 again, this time iTunes extracted data and after less toime I got the slightly different error 'this ipad ''ipad'could not be updated, an unknown error ocurred (3194)

cheers,

Any further suggestions?

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 26, 2016 4:40 AM in response to Sigh. So difficult.

Hi, Resolved!!

Happy. iPad 2 is now Updated to 9.3

Lesson was..... ....

Follow the instructions in the link provided by norm123

My iTunes was not on the latest version - for some reason iTunes was not updating - it helps if you are on 12.3.3. I chose a different laptop in the house that was already at 12.3.2.

Then during the download of the update the iPad was coming out of recovery mode and I was unsure how to deal with that. If the iPad comes out of recovery mode, which it will do after (I think) 15 minutes just put it back into recovery mode.

Cheers,

Reply

Answer 4

norm123

Community Specialist

Mar 28, 2016 7:57 PM in response to Sigh. So difficult.

Hey Sigh. So difficult.,
Glad to hear that you got it worked out and explained what happened during your restore process for others to look out for.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Take it easy

Reply