Last night, my iPhone suddenly insisted that it needed to be activated, even though it was currently playing a song. I dutifully typed in my password, but it replied that the activation server could not be reached.
So I tried again. And again. And again.
I restarted my phone. No luck. Still got the same screen.
A quick search on Twitter revealed I was not the only one with this problem. Like others, I was using the GM of the iOS 7 beta. While the error message was about the activation server, it seemed unlikely the server itself was down — if it were, it wouldn’t be an isolated issue affecting only a tiny portion of users.
Most likely the beta software had simply expired, and it was giving me a very unhelpful message.
I downloaded the new, official iOS 7.02 from the developer portal and attempted to install it. But iTunes wouldn’t let me, because Find My iPhone prevented it. I was told to turn Find My iPhone off in the Settings on my iPhone — which of course I couldn’t, because I was locked out of my iPhone. Catch-22.
I finally got my phone back working. Here’s the solution in case someone else encounters this problem. This assumes you have your phone backed up, either to a computer or via iCloud. If not, yikes.
This also assumes you’re an actual developer and can download iOS from the portal.
- From the developer portal, download the appropriate iOS 7.02 for your iPhone. You’ll end up with an .ipsw file.
- On your computer, log into iCloud.com. In the Find My iPhone section, look in All Devices. Find your iPhone. Click on it. In the panel that comes up, click Erase iPhone. Seriously. You’re going to erase it. I know it’s scary. But your phone is effectively useless right now, so you gotta do something.
- Once your phone is erased, put your phone in DFU mode. Here’s a video that explains it.
- When your phone shows up in iTunes, you’ll be able to do a restore. Hold down the Option key while you click Restore, and choose the .ipsw file you downloaded. It’s basically the same process as when you installed the beta in the first place.
- Wait and hope. Pray if that’s your thing.
- When your phone boots up again, you should be able to restore everything either from iTunes or iCloud. All of my stuff showed up just fine.
Of course, just because this worked for me is no guarantee it will work for you. But I suspect many people caught in this loop can escape it the way I did, so I wanted to offer one solution.