Activation Lock still present after Erase All Content and Settings

[chrfr]

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Hi I wondered if u can help me I just recently brought an iPhones and activation lock is enabled I don't know the previous owner as it was from a police auction if I pay £25 I can delete and erase everything will this do anything it is it a waste of money

You've wasted your money.

 

[iPhoneGuy1982]

Hi,

Isn't Erase All Content and Settings supposed to disable Activation Lock? I was just someone with a second-hand iPad Mini 1 running 8.3. The new owner had set up his own Apple ID, but we decided to do an Erase All to get rid of all the other stuff that was on there (old photos, apps, etc). I went into Settings and did an Erase All Content and Settings. It asked for the current owner's Apple ID, and everything appeared to go as per normal.

However, during initial setup, it popped up with Activation Lock and wanted the previous owner's Apple ID and password. Shouldn't it ask for that when you do an Erase (instead of the current owner's details)? Part of the reason that I suggested doing a full Erase was to ensure that Activation Lock wouldn't cause trouble in the future - I figured that the erase would fail (due to needing the password) if AL was still active.

Can anyone explain how this happened? Apple's documentation indicates that doing an Erase will ask for the account details of the account that it's Activation Locked to, but that didn't happen. Is this a potential bug in 8.3? Has anyone else run into this issue?

AUGUST 20, 2017
This problem still exists and Apple is too blame,they offer this advice "Get in contact with the previous owner and have him or her turn off find my iPhone".
I have seen a lot of devices get erased where I sign out of iCloud (which also turns off find my iPhone for that deviceand when one goes to activate the device it again asks for the username and password which is not what I wanna touch on but I'm throwing this out there separate so that what I'm about to report doesn't get confused for this,there is a worse glitch,Ready?

My sister signed out of her iPhone,Before I erased all content and settings I signed into my iCloud so when I erased the device if it glitches it will ask for my info which I know.
So I go to erase the device i am prompted to sign out of my iCloud (turn off fmi) so I do it.When the device is done erasing and I'm back at the startup page guess what happened?It asks for the previous owners Apple ID and password!!!!!!!
WTF Apple

 

[GuilleDublin]

AUGUST 20, 2017
This problem still exists and Apple is too blame,they offer this advice "Get in contact with the previous owner and have him or her turn off find my iPhone".
I have seen a lot of devices get erased where I sign out of iCloud (which also turns off find my iPhone for that deviceand when one goes to activate the device it again asks for the username and password which is not what I wanna touch on but I'm throwing this out there separate so that what I'm about to report doesn't get confused for this,there is a worse glitch,Ready?

My sister signed out of her iPhone,Before I erased all content and settings I signed into my iCloud so when I erased the device if it glitches it will ask for my info which I know.
So I go to erase the device i am prompted to sign out of my iCloud (turn off fmi) so I do it.When the device is done erasing and I'm back at the startup page guess what happened?It asks for the previous owners Apple ID and password!!!!!!!
WTF Apple

This is pretty much my case. At this stage I can even skip the Activation lock just going back in settings and changing the connection network. After that the system doesn't ask again for it.
I've tried a fresh total restart dozens of times, from the device, in Itunes, in restore mode, in DFU mode, even from the former account "find my phone" remotely (the one requested at activation) because previous owner gave me full acces to his account, and almost always with the same results.
I said "almost" because ramdomly I got twice a request of the new Activation ID (my own one), once from Itunes after DFU restoring and another after standalone restart.

At this stage I'm pretty sure this is a glitch but what I'm not sure is if it's a hardware problem or an issue in the servers and the "findmyphone"/activation service itself. I don't think its an firmware problem as I restored in DFU mode and also I update it.

I would like to know if someone here has an idea if the activation/"findmyphone" service is manage totally by the servers or it has an internal/hardware process because it could be that there is some ROM memory damage in my ipad hardware that produces this glitch.

Thanks for your comments, this is a very helpful and interesting thread to follow.

 

[jasonsmith_88]

2023 and this issue still exists.

I used Erase all Content and Settings when selling a 2022 MacBook Pro. The confirmation dialog told me that Find My / Activation Lock would be disabled. I proceeded by entering my Apple ID password and the device was erased, and everything appeared normal on the setup screen.

When the new owner was setting up the MacBook, they were prompted for my Apple ID and were unable to use the device. I had to go into iCloud and remove the MacBook.

There are two scary things here.

First is that Erase all Content and Settings does not seem to always disable activation lock. This means that people following Apple's instructions may be unknowingly selling devices which are still locked to their iCloud account.

Second is that it isn't immediately obvious whether a device is locked on the device setup screen. Only when you proceed to set up the device do you learn that it's iCloud locked.

 

[chabig]

2023 and this issue still exists.

I suspect the answer is in post #4 of this thread.

 

[anshuvorty]

Isn't Erase All Content and Settings supposed to disable Activation Lock?

No. You have to manually remove it by:

• signing out of your iCloud account BEFORE initiating Erase All Content and Settings reset option OR
• going into iCloud.com and removing the device from your account.