MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that...

How Wireless Will Pave the Path to Neobank Profitability

I'm delighted to bring you an opinion...

An end of an era: Vodafone UK turns off 3G services

I thought it was worthwhile highlighting this...

Is anyone else having problems restoring their iPhone backups?

IMG_0009

I made a classic mistake on Friday night when I was sorting out the new iPhones for myself and my wife.

Two iPhone 6 devices arrived on Friday morning and then late into the evening I decided to get them setup.

I backed up my wife’s iPhone 5S and then my own iPhone 5S.

And then I promptly erased my wife’s iPhone 5S, ready for the phone to be recycled.

I fired up her new iPhone 6 and went through the restore process.

Everything was fine during the set-up process until the time came to perform the actual restore. That failed. I tried about 10 times.

The error I got was invariably the same:

Lost Network Connection

Your iPhone could not be restored because you are no longer connected to the Internet.

This, sadly, is blatantly not true, given I’ve got a highly reliable BT Infinity 2 connection here and the rest of my devices are all performing perfectly fine. I tried multiple hotspots. I even used my MacBook to masquerade as a private hotspot. Nada. Now and again I’d see a message on the phone saying “Two hours remaining” or “40 minutes remaining”, indicating the restore was working…

And then the same error message would appear again.

Eventually my wife went to bed. Without her phone. And that’s saying something. It’s almost unnatural to go to bed nowadays without your phone ‘working’.

I eventually decided to setup her iPhone 6 as a new device.

Which was a total flipping arse for her. And then for me, when my iPhone 6 wouldn’t restore my backups — it was suffering from exactly the same symptoms.

I reasoned that the error must be due to the sheer number of people hammering Apple’s iCloud servers on Friday. I used the same reason to explain the continual error messages across the weekend. Backup works fine. Restore seems to be flawed.

And now I’ve got a problem: Worry. I’m not accustomed to Apple stuff not working.

My worry is that when I lose my iPhone, the restore still won’t work.

What is the flipping point of paying for a 200gb iCloud account when the flipping thing doesn’t work?

I’ve been wondering whether to contact Apple and try and get some support. But I am not holding out much hope. I don’t know if I can be bothered.

It’s been seriously inconvenient to lose all the basic settings I thought I’d be able to restore in a few minutes automatically.

Have you come across a similar situation? Did your iPhone restore process work without a hitch? Any suggestions?

Both iPhone 6s are setup and working now — it did take me most of Saturday night to get my new 6 back into operational mode with all the various passwords and services setup again. So I don’t have an immediate need to restore — but I do want to know that when I need it, it will actually work!

Rather disappointing. If you’ve any suggestions, I’m keen to hear them!

5 COMMENTS

  1. Why not use iTunes to bsckup/restore devices? I always bsckup to my imac manually before doing major iOS updates, and it’s quicker to restore than icloud.

  2. I’ve noticed that my 6 will not hold a connection with my home router and so have similar symptoms, and given it’s also backed by a very reliable connection, in this case VM’s 150Mb/s cable. I’ve been thinking it was my router, in fact I have even bought a new wifi router, but have yet to install it. So perhaps it really is dropping of the wifi network ? check on your router’s connections page (if it has one) to see if the device is actually properly and continuously connected.

  3. I rarely comment on these things but I am so furious about this issue that I’m tracking down every forum that discusses it. The only explanation I can think of is that icloud is a scam. Sprint (my carrier) had no explanation for it, Apple can’t fix or explain it either. I’ve been trying to restore mine to June 19 since yesterday, spent my precious day off at the apple store and still no solution.

  4. I had backed up my 4s and had updated it to the latest version when I wanted to backup my new iPhone 6 it wouldn’t accept the backup because the iPhone 6 was not updated. So I went back updated the new phone and proceeded to back it up but I never got the page where it had the restore button again. I end up with my contacts missing 170 numbers and when I add new ones they are disappearing again. Also I also had to do what you did by going to purchased apps and downloading them again and having to re put my email and password which was a pain. I just don’t know how to solve my contact problem.
    Anyone have any suggestions?
    Thanks

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recently Published

MWC: What device highlights did you miss?

So, early last week I predicted that next to nothing from Mobile World Congress would break through into the mainstream media. I was right,...

How Wireless Will Pave the Path to Neobank Profitability

I'm delighted to bring you an opinion piece from Rafa Plantier at Gigs.com. I think it's particularly relevant given the recent eSIM news from...

An end of an era: Vodafone UK turns off 3G services

I thought it was worthwhile highlighting this one from the Vodafone UK team. For so long - for what feels like years, seeing the...

Mobile World Congress: Did the mainstream media notice?

I resolved this year to make sure I wrote something - anything - about Mobile World Congress, the huge mobile industry trade show taking...

NordVPN: Thanks again, Revolut

When I upgraded to Revolut's Ultra offering, I did so with a strong focus on the Financial Times digital subscription which normally retails at...

Revolut’s Roaming eSIM: 1 week later

This week I have been using Revolut's new eSIM capability whilst I was in Sweden for Stockholm FinTech Week. I'm an Ultra subscriber so...