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sudden activation lock screen on iPad

E

essiw

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2015
94
72
Netherlands
I was busy playing a game on my iPad, I quit the game and suddenly out of nowhere the apple logo pops-up (like when you start up your device), after which the device asked for an activation of the device. There was no way out of the activation screen and I am pretty sure it was a legit apple screen, so I filled in my e-mail and passport and that worked. After doing so I got a pop-up on my mac (the iPad was also connected via cable) that a new iPad had been authorised to use FaceTime (or some other apple social app I did not use, I clicked it away as I do not use those apps).
I am 100% sure what happened was legit, thus done by Apple. But it made me wonder why it happened. Does someone have more information about this, and whether I should be worried or not (e.g. that this happened because someone has my account details?).

I am pretty sure nothing is wrong, but better to be save than sorry. Any comments are welcome :)
 
essiw said:
I was busy playing a game on my iPad, I quit the game and suddenly out of nowhere the apple logo pops-up (like when you start up your device), after which the device asked for an activation of the device. There was no way out of the activation screen and I am pretty sure it was a legit apple screen, so I filled in my e-mail and passport and that worked. After doing so I got a pop-up on my mac (the iPad was also connected via cable) that a new iPad had been authorised to use FaceTime (or some other apple social app I did not use, I clicked it away as I do not use those apps).
I am 100% sure what happened was legit, thus done by Apple. But it made me wonder why it happened. Does someone have more information about this, and whether I should be worried or not (e.g. that this happened because someone has my account details?).

I am pretty sure nothing is wrong, but better to be save than sorry. Any comments are welcome :)
Click to expand...

You should immediately login to Apple and change your password and enable 2 factor authentication. Hope you still can...

Don't do it from the phone.
 
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bufffilm said:
You should immediately login to Apple and change your password and enable 2 factor authentication. Hope you still can...

Don't do it from the phone.
Click to expand...
Where do you base this on? Do you know why I got that screen? If not, than it might as well just be something that apple did, so that I could make use of messages/facetime on my iPad. There is no credit card linked to my account, and I receive e-mails when someone logs in on iCloud, which did not happen except for the times I did it myself. To be sure I clicked on the option to log out of iCloud on all browsers. I am still able to log in, and only the devices that I own are shown on the iCloud page. I am just wanting to know if anyone has any information about why I would get that screen at all. As it does not make sense to me why I would get it on my iPad, except maybe because that iPad is not yet updated to the last OS (which I do not want)?
 
essiw said:
Where do you base this on? Do you know why I got that screen? If not, than it might as well just be something that apple did, so that I could make use of messages/facetime on my iPad. There is no credit card linked to my account, and I receive e-mails when someone logs in on iCloud, which did not happen except for the times I did it myself. To be sure I clicked on the option to log out of iCloud on all browsers. I am still able to log in, and only the devices that I own are shown on the iCloud page. I am just wanting to know if anyone has any information about why I would get that screen at all. As it does not make sense to me why I would get it on my iPad, except maybe because that iPad is not yet updated to the last OS (which I do not want)?
Click to expand...

I don't know why you got that login screen. The login to Apple and 2-factor authentication, etc is just to be safe.

Perhaps someone can shed some light on why.
 
I changed my password when it happened, just to be sure... But it is weird that Apple doesn't provide a reason when that screen pops-up. Because of the pop-up on my mac I am fairly certain that it had something to do about synching my message/facetime app with my iPad, which somehow did not happen before, or that the terms of use were updated but since I did not update my iPad I had to do this?

So a question to the others for which it happened, are you on the latest software version? Because if we are not that might explain why we got this screen. I did not see it on my up-to-date ipod touch.
 
Happened to my iPad Air a few minutes ago.
Don't think this is a coincidence.
 
Oh boy. How should I start telling my story. This activation lock screen could have turned my iphone 7+ into a brick.
I made my Apple ID in 2013 when I was at my previous employer on their work email ID. Didnt bother changing it even after leaving the job. They deactivated my account after my resignation.
Now out of nowhere, yesterday, Apple locked my Apple ID on both my macbook pro and iphone. I couldnt answer my security questions correctly and my email was not in my access. I had find my iphone and find my mac turned on that didnt let me erasing my phone. So I took a bold step and erased my iphone from recovery and restored it but guess what, on turning the phone on I had an activation lock waiting up for me. My ID was locked. I had nowhere else to go except my previous employer.

I went today in the morning to meet the network administrator, a very nice guy indeed. He told me that he had to take approval of the authorities before taking any action. Moreover my account had already been deleted 2 years ago. So after 6 hour long requests and recommendations from some personnel, they finally agreed and made me the account with the same username. I unlocked my Apple ID after sending a reset link to that ID using Forget my password thing on apple ID website.

The thing is, had they not given me the access of the old account, I would have been holding a brick right now.

Now I have changed the email address of the same Apple ID to my own personal email address, a thing which I should have done 2-3 years ago.
 
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Ugh, got this as well. Along with the Calendar spam invites recently, this is all very weird and concerning activity.

My 2 year old iPad on 9.3.5 was locked overnight while I was sleeping, I know the email and password used to set up the device, so signed in and it worked like normal. I then got a message on my iPod touch saying that my Apple ID was now be used on a "new" iPad (even though clearly not the case as I've same iPad for years). As suggested, this all looks legit, stemmed from something going on with Apple/iCloud. Clearly I did nothing to initiate this and have two-factor authentication so really doubt my account is compromised. Seriously what is going on with Apple recently...
 

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Aneef said:
Oh boy. How should I start telling my story. This activation lock screen could have turned my iphone 7+ into a brick.
I made my Apple ID in 2013 when I was at my previous employer on their work email ID. Didnt bother changing it even after leaving the job. They deactivated my account after my resignation.
Now out of nowhere, yesterday, Apple locked my Apple ID on both my macbook pro and iphone. I couldnt answer my security questions correctly and my email was not in my access. I had find my iphone and find my mac turned on that didnt let me erasing my phone. So I took a bold step and erased my iphone from recovery and restored it but guess what, on turning the phone on I had an activation lock waiting up for me. My ID was locked. I had nowhere else to go except my previous employer.

I went today in the morning to meet the network administrator, a very nice guy indeed. He told me that he had to take approval of the authorities before taking any action. Moreover my account had already been deleted 2 years ago. So after 6 hour long requests and recommendations from some personnel, they finally agreed and made me the account with the same username. I unlocked my Apple ID after sending a reset link to that ID using Forget my password thing on apple ID website.

The thing is, had they not given me the access of the old account, I would have been holding a brick right now.

Now I have changed the email address of the same Apple ID to my own personal email address, a thing which I should have done 2-3 years ago.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing! That's what can happen if we set up an online account of sorts on a business email address instead of a private one. Good lesson!
 
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This just happened to me yesterday on my IPad Mini 4 on Verizon running 10.3.2. All of a sudden, I got activation lock. I had to log into my account to unlock it. It was random.
 
This is happening to all of my companies devices that share an icloud account this week. They are set to not update via a tvos profile. They are going white and asking for icloud info to bypass the activation lock. We do not give these users the icloud info so this is causing a lot of problems.
 
This just happened to my iPhone as well. Activation lock screen, worked after with no issues.
 
This just happened to my iPhone 6, i put my phone down for 30 sec, when i picked it up again the phone was in the lock screen (legit apple login) and impossible to skip, the screen claimed that the find my phone has been activated (bogus claim as i have been the only owner of this phone), so i went to my imac to login in icloud and see what was going on, i proceed to go to find my phone and it said no devices online, the only way to proceed was to put the apple id in the lock screen, so i did it, and after that i reseted my apple id password (with 2 factor authentication ), and then is when it hit me, in order to log in again i had to put the password again under settings and that pop up did not looked legit, inputs and text seem a bit off, so in my opinion this could be a elaborate way to force you to log of change password and re-login, i am just going to leave this in here for precent. sorry for the tin foil hat.
 
Happened to me today. Couldn't remember ID password so had to login on my comp and change my Apple ID password. Once I put the ID and new password in I was able to use my iPad again.
 
hi i have just joined this forum as i have similar problem and need help. My son was using the ipad for you tube and said his videos werent working, i restarted the ipad by holding both the buttons and then all was well. a little while later he said something has happened on the ipad, and it is asking him something, he was watching a video and it suddenly was asking for the icloud activation. I enter the details but it says it isnt the right account. i rebooted the ipad and after entering the passcode i still get activation lock. I have a vague recollection of seeing this icloud activation lock screen before a long time ago when i updated it to ios 8 and i must have entered the right details in at that time. the email i think it wants is my late wifes email so i enter that and the password but it says the password is wrong, i tried the password reset and it shows part of a rescue email that i dont recognise. what can i do?

i am not sure why the activation lock came up as i bought this ipad from a dealer on ebay in 2013, updated it to 8 about a year or 2 ago and never updated after that.
 
sreenireddy said:
hi i have just joined this forum as i have similar problem and need help. My son was using the ipad for you tube and said his videos werent working, i restarted the ipad by holding both the buttons and then all was well. a little while later he said something has happened on the ipad, and it is asking him something, he was watching a video and it suddenly was asking for the icloud activation. I enter the details but it says it isnt the right account. i rebooted the ipad and after entering the passcode i still get activation lock. I have a vague recollection of seeing this icloud activation lock screen before a long time ago when i updated it to ios 8 and i must have entered the right details in at that time. the email i think it wants is my late wifes email so i enter that and the password but it says the password is wrong, i tried the password reset and it shows part of a rescue email that i dont recognise. what can i do?

i am not sure why the activation lock came up as i bought this ipad from a dealer on ebay in 2013, updated it to 8 about a year or 2 ago and never updated after that.
Click to expand...

You may need to go to your apple account on a computer to see what your apple ID is. I couldn't remember mine and it wouldn't take my email address either. I also reset my password from the computer. Once I had the correct ID and new password it worked.
 
Just happened on my iPod Touch. Was just surfing for something. First thought, scam. Reboot. Activation prompt won't go away. After reading 6 pages of people insulting each other over whether it's a BUG or a SCAM I concluded it's a BUG. Entered password and Apple prompted like I just registered a new iPod. No software updates. Nothing. But then it's normal. iCloud informed me I logged into a "new" iPod Touch (my own) and that was it. Should I change my password? No idea. Seems like the safe thing. But it's amazing how the only answers out there are from message forums. Where's Apple's take? How are they constantly rated #1 in service when they have no official answers on jack squat and you have to PAY them to talk to someone or drive an hour to an Apple store and make an appointment to do so only for some "genius" to tell you they have no flipping clue.

Worse yet, I read this "bug" was supposedly fixed on "older devices" in iOS 9.3. Well, I'm running the last iOS version for an iPod Touch Gen 5 (9.3.5) and it just had the bug happen. So much for their "Fix".
 
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