Looking to solve iTunes iPhone or iPad update errors? read on.
There are 5 apple iDevices in my family now – of which I own an iPhone 4 and an iPad. Ever since I’ve had them (in fact from my very first 3G) I’ve had problems with that eternal turd that is iTunes updating my devices. I’ve only ever managed to get iTunes to successfully update my phone ONCE, and to be honest I’m not even sure I’m remembering that event correctly. I might have been somewhere different entirely in order to get it to update.
Given I’m now pretty heavily invested in the Jobsian ecosystem, I thought I should really solve the problem of updating my hardware using my current kit.
So, I Googled. I Binged. I read and read and read. Nothing solved my problem. EVERY time I updated my phone or my iPad the progress bar would either shoot up and error immediately, or it would spend 20 minutes creeping up and then hang 4 pixels from the end of the bar for what seemed like eternity. All iTunes would give back would be a standard windows error box with a hex error code. Just another reason to hate iTunes. Each subsequent fail brought me closer to decapitating myself in a fit of depression.
Then I noticed something. When my fingers didn’t quite hit the keys properly and I ended up typing a non existent URL into my browser instead of the usual browser’s error page about not finding the URL, I was getting a Virgin Media search page, helpfully asking if I’d meant to type a more sensible URL and would I like to visit any of the pages below. No Virgin. I wouldn’t.
But that set me thinking on two paths.
1) apple software is seriously CRAP given it should verify the update can complete BEFORE trashing your phone and leaving unusable in restore mode.
2) Virgin’s DNS is messing with resolving an apple server late in the update process.
So, with a bit of Google love and the help of their DNS servers, I switched over my router to use the free DNS and tried updating again.
SUCCESS!
So, it looks like Virgins ultra helpful DNS redirection on failure is messing up my apple iDevice update. Bad Virgin. Bad Apple for not checking whether it can actually call home properly
I suspect that many people would be having the same problem, so folks, update your DNS’s to Google’s free DNS and solve the iDevice update problem!
Unfortunately that wont rewrite apples crap software.
check out : Google’s DNS information
