iOS 14 Unable to Activate after restore

App & System Services Core OS iOS Beta

nagrom1978 OP

Created Jul ’20

Replies 20

Boosts 0

Views 13k

Participants 21

Last night I restored my iPhone 11 Pro Max to iOS 14 beta. After iPhone restored I am stuck at the activation screen.

In setup assistant after selecting country and signing into my WiFi my iPhone tries to activate. After a few seconds I get:
"Unable to Activate

Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached. Try connecting you iPhone to a Mac or a PC with iTunes to activate, or try again in a couple of minutes.

If this problem persists, contact Apple Support at apple.com/support"

Restored on a MacBook 12" running macOS Big Sur beta 2
Shutdown iPhone on setup assistant screen and restarted.
Used multiple good Wi-Fi connections.
Also tried activating on Cellular.
Tried removing sim card and reinserted.
Tried a different sim card from the same carrier.
Re-downloaded iOS 14 IPSW file.
Put iPhone back into recovery mode.
Opened finder selected iPhone, held down option while clicking on restore.
Selected iOS 14 IPSW file.
iPhone restored.
Get the same activation error.
Put iPhone into recovery mode.
Opened finder, this time I selected restore without holding option.
iPhone restored back to iOS 13.
Also tried activating through finder and I get the following error: "Activation Failed The iPhone cannot be synced. Received an unexpected response from the device."
Still receive "Unable to Activate".

It's almost 24 hours and I am still unable to activate my phone. Anyone else having issues?

Boost

novatroop77s OP

Sep ’22

I to have the exact same problem same as others reported with specific Iphone 11 when took to apple said would be £250 to exchange to an refurbished device.

bluprince13 OP

Dec ’22

Same problem on my iPad. Apple said it’d cost us £450. 🥺

melonrhyme OP

Oct ’23

I'm having the same issue with the iPhone 11. It couldn't connect to the cell data.. when I went to "Mobile Data", there were not setting options available and it said to update your iOS version. I was not able to update it as it kept getting stuck in "Verifying Update" after downloading the file.

Decided to do a hard reset and thought it might help. Unfortunately, it made it worst!

After resetting, I experienced the same issue that's shared here...unable to activate the phone... I tried using both the wifi and connecting to Mac methods.

Finally, I did a "restore and update" in the Finder...managed to update it to iOS17...but it's still stuck at the "Unable to Activate" stage.

Victorsoyvictor OP

Feb ’24

I am in the exact situation, the Genius bar told me to pay $500AUD, is a disaster maybe we can organize to get our refubrised for free. I had 3 months ago a battery replacement, then I did a fresh factory reset and voila... cannot activate and I have tried all the Macbook stuff/update/reinstall.

I need the device for work (run on old device and see performance changes).

Sandeepkushh OP

Jul ’24

I was using iphone 14 pro max!!! Within 1year and 6 month… It lost network connectivity. After getting instructions from apple care, i reset my Iphone, now it is stucked on unable to activate page, i tried almost every ways, but, it is still showing unable to activate, if i only had this problem, then I would have probably said that it is my bad luck… but, now i am seeing, thousands of customers have this issue with iphone, Service centre technicians are saying it is hardware problem, MC, you fu * cking robbers, what r u making which very soon becoming a garbage and taking a huge amout of money in place of that garbage… We need solution, we want our phone back… we didn’t pay for having this garbage which costs 1,70,000 Rs ….