It's day 1 of a MAJOR product launch. Its not like this happens all the time. By all means, let this affect the next year and a half of your life. Being a whiner is a lot of fun.
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AT&T Activations Servers Overloaded with iPhone 4S Launch
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It's day 1 of a MAJOR product launch. Its not like this happens all the time. By all means, let this affect the next year and a half of your life. Being a whiner is a lot of fun.
If it were Apple, then Verizon and Sprint wouldn't be activating people without a problem...the failure here is AT&T's and this isn't the first time, but with each new company that adds the iPhone to their collection and activates without issue, it becomes more and more clear where the problem child is...
OK, interesting update. So I just received a different message this time. Paraphrased, it was, can't activate because the SIM doesn't match the registered SIM for the phone line.
It would appear if you want switch the SIM/IMEI, get your phone activated first, then call and switch things around. I am fully updated in AT&T's system but not in iTunes now.
Now this is the problem I have too. The plot thickens...
OK, interesting update. So I just received a different message this time. Paraphrased, it was, can't activate because the SIM doesn't match the registered SIM for the phone line.
It would appear if you want switch the SIM/IMEI, get your phone activated first, then call and switch things around. I am fully updated in AT&T's system but not in iTunes now.
With one million of these selling in the first 24 hours and with untold millions landing today I don't think there is any way (frustrated as I am) to expect any infrastructure to handle this kind of a load. I think Apple needs to grow up and stop with these preschool launches. Sure, they build buzz but these growing customer numbers mean that the buzz leads to disappointment. This roll out should have happened in stages, not on one day. They pulled this with the iPhone 3G with the launch of Mobile Me on the same day and almost brought everything crashing down. Apple needs to realize it is no longer a toy com pay but a major player with real lives, real work and real money on the line and act accordingly.
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HEY I GOT AN EMAIL!
It is from BevMo and it's telling me about a great wine sale. Since my phone won't activate, I think I'll go there and look at wine. Wine works, is easy to activate and leaves a happy feeling afterward.
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HEY I GOT AN EMAIL!
It is from BevMo and it's telling me about a great wine sale. Since my phone won't activate, I think I'll go there and look at wine. Wine works, is easy to activate and leaves a happy feeling afterward.
I simply went to the Att activation site that was on the card that came with my phone. I followed the online process, then turned phone off and on as it asked me to do. Worked perfect.
Phone was delivered at 10:00am CST. I attempted to activate it at 10:20am.
It failed to activate. I noticed an odd sound coming from the device (16GB black 4S on AT&T), so I held it up against my ear. It sounded like...
It sounded like I could barely hear Siri saying "please hurry".
So I tried to activate the phone a second time, probably about 10:30am by then.
Fail.
So I sat the phone on top of my dresser, went and did some stuff around the house.
About noon, I tried activating the phone for a third time. Bingo-bango it went right through.
For the record, the first two attempts were through the phone itself, the third and successful time was through iTunes.
It failed to activate. I noticed an odd sound coming from the device (16GB black 4S on AT&T), so I held it up against my ear. It sounded like...
It sounded like I could barely hear Siri saying "please hurry".
So I tried to activate the phone a second time, probably about 10:30am by then.
Fail.
So I sat the phone on top of my dresser, went and did some stuff around the house.
About noon, I tried activating the phone for a third time. Bingo-bango it went right through.
For the record, the first two attempts were through the phone itself, the third and successful time was through iTunes.
I have now put the SIM from my IP4 line into the IP4S to see if that appeases the activation gods. My wife's 3GS has officially been off cell connectivity for 3 hours now.
PRO TIP: If you bought your iPhone 4S directly from Apple, you need to activate it in iTunes. iPhone solo & at&t store will fail (today). Apparently there's a separate service agreement that must be checked via Apple or something.
I went into at&t hoping they had some magic checkbox on their system or an alternative server they could ping to speed up activation. Once the store learned I bought my phone directly from Apple, they wanted me to call 1-800-MY-APPLE to activate. The rep. also showed me their internal email/memo telling customers to do this if they bought it from Apple.
Activation ended up working when I connected the phone directly to a computer and loaded up iTunes - even though it didn't work earlier in the day.
I went into at&t hoping they had some magic checkbox on their system or an alternative server they could ping to speed up activation. Once the store learned I bought my phone directly from Apple, they wanted me to call 1-800-MY-APPLE to activate. The rep. also showed me their internal email/memo telling customers to do this if they bought it from Apple.
Activation ended up working when I connected the phone directly to a computer and loaded up iTunes - even though it didn't work earlier in the day.
Switched to iTunes
Earlier today I tried activating through the phone. And I got to the point where it said I was in a line and wait for an email. From what I gather I was put into AT&T's queue and activated at some point later (minutes, hours, I don't know) but that somehow that didn't get to Apple / iTunes so my phone still thought it wasn't activated.
I just plugged it in to iTunes and things went lickety-split. Worth a shot.
Earlier today I tried activating through the phone. And I got to the point where it said I was in a line and wait for an email. From what I gather I was put into AT&T's queue and activated at some point later (minutes, hours, I don't know) but that somehow that didn't get to Apple / iTunes so my phone still thought it wasn't activated.
I just plugged it in to iTunes and things went lickety-split. Worth a shot.
I have tried WiFi. I have tried iTunes. Nothing works. I called AT&T and after punching buttons was told, "Our offices are currently closed...please try your call during normal business hours..." then I was sent to a customer satisfaction survey. I called back and the line was busy.
I am satisfied with the service but administratively, this company is like all the rest. George Carlin liked the term "Mongolian Cluster (eff)"
I am satisfied with the service but administratively, this company is like all the rest. George Carlin liked the term "Mongolian Cluster (eff)"
Same thing happened to me, but once the old one stopped working, I turned the new one off and back on, and then plugged it into iTunes. It activated first time. May not be releated, but worth a try. Mines restoring now.
False. Just successfully activated on the phone itself. Pre-ordered from Apple.
I wish I could at least sync the phone while I'm waiting...
COME ON AT&T!!! WHAT ELSE am I going to do on a FRIDAY NIGHT!!!!!!
COME ON AT&T!!! WHAT ELSE am I going to do on a FRIDAY NIGHT!!!!!!
Activation
Here's my sense after reading all these posts.
If you try activating through your iPhone or through iTunes, then you get a message saying you're put into a queue, you'll get an email, please try again later.
There probably really is a queue. If you don't believe it, then you probably believe that everyone is just simply competing like we're all just trying to crowd on to a bus. In which case, it's best to just spend your whole day clicking and trying to find that opening.
But if there is a queue, then should you keep trying? Some people are theorizing that if you keep trying, each time you lose your place in the queue. This makes no sense. Doing this over the internet isn't like calling in to a call-in center. The way you lose your place in line over the phone is by hanging up - that's what exits you from the queue. But there's no active phone line here - you're just a record in a database. For you to lose your place in line, it would mean that AT&T's systems would have to recognize that you're trying to activate again, and then physically delete that record from where it is in line, to then reinsert it (or update the timestamp, or whatever). I suppose anything's possible, but that would be really stupid, even for AT&T. And, I think we've seen examples of people trying to register every thirty seconds and eventually getting it, so I think that logically rules it out.
What's most likely is that you really are in a queue, timestamped for when you first attempted. They get to it when they get to it, and then maybe they're having trouble emailing you. So, it's probably a good idea to re-attempt activation every hour or so to see if it's been activated on AT&T's side, because that way you might get it done sooner than you would if you wait for the email. You can also keep trying every thirty seconds, but it shouldn't hurt.
As for the people getting clever with swapping sim cards, that just seems to complicate matters.
There was one other mention though about China screwing something up, and some people not able to activate at all... I haven't heard any more details on that.
Here's my sense after reading all these posts.
If you try activating through your iPhone or through iTunes, then you get a message saying you're put into a queue, you'll get an email, please try again later.
There probably really is a queue. If you don't believe it, then you probably believe that everyone is just simply competing like we're all just trying to crowd on to a bus. In which case, it's best to just spend your whole day clicking and trying to find that opening.
But if there is a queue, then should you keep trying? Some people are theorizing that if you keep trying, each time you lose your place in the queue. This makes no sense. Doing this over the internet isn't like calling in to a call-in center. The way you lose your place in line over the phone is by hanging up - that's what exits you from the queue. But there's no active phone line here - you're just a record in a database. For you to lose your place in line, it would mean that AT&T's systems would have to recognize that you're trying to activate again, and then physically delete that record from where it is in line, to then reinsert it (or update the timestamp, or whatever). I suppose anything's possible, but that would be really stupid, even for AT&T. And, I think we've seen examples of people trying to register every thirty seconds and eventually getting it, so I think that logically rules it out.
What's most likely is that you really are in a queue, timestamped for when you first attempted. They get to it when they get to it, and then maybe they're having trouble emailing you. So, it's probably a good idea to re-attempt activation every hour or so to see if it's been activated on AT&T's side, because that way you might get it done sooner than you would if you wait for the email. You can also keep trying every thirty seconds, but it shouldn't hurt.
As for the people getting clever with swapping sim cards, that just seems to complicate matters.
There was one other mention though about China screwing something up, and some people not able to activate at all... I haven't heard any more details on that.
I called verizon and they're not having any issues with their activation servers. Probably because there are less users trying to activate their iPhones.
demand for a new iPhone on ATT is pent up and very large. VZ iPhone coming out this past spring probably means a lot of people simply non in a contractual position to upgrade.