Installation failed: Can't install the software

First, I cleaned out the Lightning slot (using a 'dental stimulator' that was all plastic.) That got a lot of lint out, and made the connection reliable. But I still had the problem.

Changing cables did not help.

Installing XCode did.

Clearly there is a significant bug in iTunes. I'm appalled at how ****-poorly Apple responds to bugs like this (or even to the serious ones, like the FaceTime bug.) There's no excuse for this, it's not like Apple can't afford to do Software QA.

I had exactly the same issue, resolved right now !

Just be sure date and time preferences in both your macbook/imac and iphone/ipad are synched.

Same issue - all updates current and time/date synced. Switching cables resolved it for me (although I had to force quit iTunes)

Like Jeenou, the error went away for me when I charged my iPad to over 80%.

Try to set the date and try - u can use terminal to set the date and time

Guys i have found the solution. It has nothing to do with your time or date setting because they are obviously set to be automatic which means they should synchronize perfectly.

The issue was the cable. I tried a different cable to see if it will work and then, yes it worked perfectly. It didn't even ask me for that update. The cable i tried was an anker usb cable( a different apple usb cable might work as well) and that worked perfectly.

I can now back up my phone in peace.

Let us know if it works for you too so people can stop stressing about this because it is actually stressful.

Guys i have found the solution. It has nothing to do with your time or date setting because they are obviously set to be automatic which means they should synchronize perfectly.

The issue was the cable. I tried a different cable to see if it will work and then, yes it worked perfectly. It didn't even ask me for that update. The cable i tried was an anker usb cable( a different apple usb cable might work as well) and that worked perfectly.

I can now back up my phone in peace.

Let us know if it works for you too so people can stop stressing about this because it is actually stressful.

Yes, just set the same date format region both iPhone and MAC ex. on my case MAC was set as Buddhism year format but iPhone was set as AD format. - This can solve multiple connect/disconnect repeatedly also , No need to change cable - Thank you

Exactly the same issue out of the blue despite all software being up to date. Swapped cable from 3rd party one (which had previously worked perfectly) back to the official apple cable and all is well.

I had same problem. I was using an older USB charging wire for the connect. I switched and used the new cable that came with the new phone and that solved the problem with this error.

Had to make an account just to post regarding this issue. Ridiculous that the act of using a different cable seems to have fixed this problem for me.. @apple - *** y'all serious?

Changed the wire and worked fine

Had a third-party cable. Switched to Apple cable and it surprisingly fixed the issue!

So in the end I had to track right back and upgrade my Mac OS which meant a time machine backup (recommended by apple) and then the long upgrade process. Then strangely the cables would work for the iPhone recovery which did succeed in restoring by iPhone data. In all it took not far short of 24 hours.

Hi everyone, I just got off with apple support on this. Finally got it to work. So the thing is you need to use iPad cable to connect to iMac to sync. Don't use iPhone or any other cables. The issue immediately was gone once I used iPad cable.