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SPNarwhal

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 22, 2009
1,260
156
illinois
I bought an iPhone 3GS that was jailbroken, running version 4.something

I just went to restore it in iTunes and it removes all software and such, but when it gets to the "Verifying iPhone restore with Apple.." portion, it waits for a minute or so and then gives me an error saying that the "iPhone Software Update Server cannot be contacted or is temporarily unavailable at this time."

which I don't think is anything that is going to go away, and I doubt it would do that if I tried with another phone.

Anybody have this problem before? and am wondering if there's any 3rd party software that anybody knows about that would allow me to restore/install new OS onto this iPhone?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
No other programs to my knowledge.

Might be staying the obvious but, have you tried restarting or restore with DFU mode?
 

Yep, did DFU.
Tried to install it manually too, but still needs to go through a "Verify" with Apple, and that's where it gets stuck.

Even did the whole Terminal System File thing to find an Apple.com link to disrupt, but there wasn't any.
 
I know some older jailbreaks updated the hosts file to prevent the iPhone from trying to talk to Apple...

Maybe this is the issue...

On a mac this is in /etc/hosts
On windows: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Make sure there isn't anything in there thats redirecting iTunes away from Apple.
 
I know some older jailbreaks updated the hosts file to prevent the iPhone from trying to talk to Apple...

Maybe this is the issue...

On a mac this is in /etc/hosts
On windows: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Make sure there isn't anything in there thats redirecting iTunes away from Apple.

That's what I did before, but nothing was connected to Apple.
I've also tried on my other Mac and same thing.
(I didn't personally Jailbreak it, I bought it Jailbroken. Would the phone itself change my computer's host files? Can't imagine that it would.)
 
Level 3 had a huge outage this morning. they are a backbone provider for lots of ISP's which is why you couldn't reach apple
 
Level 3 had a huge outage this morning. they are a backbone provider for lots of ISP's which is why you couldn't reach apple

How do you know for a fact that he was effected by the Level 3 outage? Did you contact the original poster to find out? Did you contact his Internet service provider?
 
Wowza, well, I guess that's what happened. What kind of luck is that?
Never had a problem like that before, first time I go to do a jailbroken 3GS, bad timing.

Ah well, resolved, I guess it wasn't a real problem then.

Thanks for all the life-support though, you guys.
 
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