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I had the same problem and i honestly didn't expect the "read the thread for it to work" because I've never had any luck with that type of stuff but to my surprise it actually worked, just take the time to read it because this is insane to me.
 
I. do. not. believe. it.

I was erasing and restoring my phone after having it unlocked with my provider, and I have been having problems for FOUR frustrating hours. Multiple times it had an error pop up telling me it could not restore from iCloud backup, the verification codes would not send to my phone, and I was about ready to throw it through a window. I googled what to do as my final try, and I came upon this thread. Against my better judgement, because I usually do not believe this stuff, and I had nothing better to do, I read every single word of the thread. Not expecting to see anything, I looked down, and no word of a lie, it says 43 minutes. 43 minutes is better than it being stuck at "estimating" forever. Say a little prayer for my phone to the Apple Gods.


I read the thread and it started.

Amazing.
 
I. do. not. believe. it.

I was erasing and restoring my phone after having it unlocked with my provider, and I have been having problems for FOUR frustrating hours. Multiple times it had an error pop up telling me it could not restore from iCloud backup, the verification codes would not send to my phone, and I was about ready to throw it through a window. I googled what to do as my final try, and I came upon this thread. Against my better judgement, because I usually do not believe this stuff, and I had nothing better to do, I read every single word of the thread. Not expecting to see anything, I looked down, and no word of a lie, it says 43 minutes. 43 minutes is better than it being stuck at "estimating" forever. Say a little prayer for my phone to the Apple Gods.
[doublepost=1469839666][/doublepost]Wow!! It worked for me too.
 
I really thought you guys were full of it.. i really did.. some people waited several hours until reading this thread in its entirety. me i am impatient so about 20 minutes checking a few times in between and nothing has happened. Read the last reply and it now says 1 hour remaining. god damn guys, magic is real *sheds tear*
 
My daughter's iPhone was stolen yesterday. Read all this. Trying to reboot from iCloud backup. Not working so far. Hoping posting this helps
 
WHAT THE HELL?!!!! THIS THING IS LEGIT MAGIC!!! My phone was stuck at the estimating time remaining all last night and the blue bar would not move. read this thing and now I've got 3 hours remaining
 
WHAT THE HELL?!!!! THIS THING IS LEGIT MAGIC!!! My phone was stuck at the estimating time remaining all last night and the blue bar would not move. read this thing and now I've got 3 hours remaining

Skipped to the last page and suddenly it says about 2 hours remaining looool
 
Ok. I don't normally believe in this kind of stuff but I was stuck restoring my wife's iPhone because it's been giving her problems with the GPS and the battery. Restored it last night and then left it to do its thing only to discover it stuck when I came downstairs.

We to look for a solution and found this thread. Started reading it, restarted my wife's phone a couple of times and it still wasn't working. Started downloading iTunes in her new laptop and logging into that as I was getting frustrated and about to try to restore from iTunes. Look over at her phone and it's displaying 41 minutes, went to 42 and then dropped to 37 minutes.

Not sure if logging in to iTunes on her computer helped or if this thread is really something magical but I'll be damned it seems to be working!!
 
Lot of us came on here because they wanted to restore their phones for the new jailbreak - including myself ;)
Well, after being stuck, came on here and started to work after reaching the 7th page. Too good, wow. Hope it works for everyone too.
 
Trying to setup my new iPhone and it is stuck at restoring my iCloud backup at the time remaining: estimating part.

I turned it off and back on, disabled Find my IPhone on the old phone, but it is still hanging there. Been about 45 minutes or so now.

Just wondering if anyone else had this issue or if it is just that a lot of people are restoring their phones and the servers are just overloaded or something.

Thanks!
[doublepost=1470018260][/doublepost]Omg! As I read this thread I thought, "what a waste of my time! This is no help at all" Then, the unthinkable happened! After hours of trying and waiting it actually started working! This is freaky lol! I don't know how tbis happened but it happened. Thanks!
 
Ok this whole thread is 8 pages long and more.... I've read enough to page 3... still says Time remaining: estimating...
Let's hope it works after I truly read through this thread....
[doublepost=1470097181][/doublepost]
Ok this whole thread is 8 pages long and more.... I've read enough to page 3... still says Time remaining: estimating...
Let's hope it works after I truly read through this thread....

OMG IT WORKED NOW IT SAYS 20 MIN REMAINING
 
Didn't believe it but it worked for me. Sorted in 10 minutes and I'd spent an hour on the stuck screen. AMAZING
 
Am I the only person that hasn't had the magic? someone give me the magic please
Honestly it really did start working the moment I came on this thread lol wtf! I even just signed up just to comment ha.
[doublepost=1470352403][/doublepost]
Okay this is just weird at this point. I am an Apple iOS Advisor and a customer had tried EVERYTHING.

He had been on the phone with Verizon for hours trying to get it fixed.
I went through my resources and couldn't find anything immediate so I caved in a Googled it.

I was giving this a glance and saw what was happening for others and thought.. "Why not".

I put the customer on hold and quickly read this post in its entirety out loud in my head.

Then I went back to him and had him restart his device and try yet another time. And BOOM the time came up and restore was initiated.

I don't know if the rest of you were kidding but this ACTUALLY worked lol closest thing to magic I've seen!

P.S I made this account when I got off, JUST to post this lol
 
made an account to say this thread worked. I don't get it. This is some serious magic man.
 
YAY!!! It worked for me. After staring for 45 mins and a couple of restarts I decided to google and landed here. Created an account just to keep the mojo going. Im at the apple store and they just shrugged. Came here and it started working.
 
Oh. My. Lord. Reading this thread actually worked! I thought everyone else was just BS'ing about that, but it really worked! New phone was stuck on "time remaining" with a little bit of blue bar filled in. It was that way for about 20 min, when I stumbled on this thread. Started reading it, then got "2 hours remaining" and - no lie - the further I read into the thread, the more significantly my time went down! Currently on "3 minutes remaining." Hope it works for others! CRAZY!!

Editing to add...
I was down to "less than a minute remaining" so I closed out the thread entirely. It was stuck that way for about 5 min. Just for fun, I opened the thread again to read responses I overlooked and, not kidding, it FINISHED THE DOWNLOAD!! Crazy stuff afoot, but I won't question it. It worked. That is all I need to know. And all you need to know
 
Last edited:
SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH!!!! I've been frustrated with my iCloud backup not working on my new iPhone 6s Plus. It was stuck on "time estimating" for forever. I finally got a "2 hours remaining" but lost wifi connection so had to start over (all this was happening while reading this forum). I restarted my upload and then read the last post... My upload was still "estimating time". So I decided to start reading again... Still estimating... Then I set up an account, and as I was doing so I was at 2 hours left, as I started typing this I was at 2 minutes, then it went up to 3 minutes and now it's down to 1 minute... I'm hoping that when I hit "post reply" that the M. A. G. I. C. happens. Fingers crossed... Here goes nothin'
[doublepost=1470530456][/doublepost]
SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH!!!! I've been frustrated with my iCloud backup not working on my new iPhone 6s Plus. It was stuck on "time estimating" for forever. I finally got a "2 hours remaining" but lost wifi connection so had to start over (all this was happening while reading this forum). I restarted my upload and then read the last post... My upload was still "estimating time". So I decided to start reading again... Still estimating... Then I set up an account, and as I was doing so I was at 2 hours left, as I started typing this I was at 2 minutes, then it went up to 3 minutes and now it's down to 1 minute... I'm hoping that when I hit "post reply" that the M. A. G. I. C. happens. Fingers crossed... Here goes nothin'
Well-- it's been 8 minutes since I first posted and my phone is still at "less than 1 minute remaining"... Ugh!
[doublepost=1470532464][/doublepost]45
Oh. My. Lord. Reading this thread actually worked! I thought everyone else was just BS'ing about that, but it really worked! New phone was stuck on "time remaining" with a little bit of blue bar filled in. It was that way for about 20 min, when I stumbled on this thread. Started reading it, then got "2 hours remaining" and - no lie - the further I read into the thread, the more significantly my time went down! Currently on "3 minutes remaining." Hope it works for others! CRAZY!!

Editing to add...
I was down to "less than a minute remaining" so I closed out the thread entirely. It was stuck that way for about 5 min. Just for fun, I opened the thread again to read responses I overlooked and, not kidding, it FINISHED THE DOWNLOAD!! Crazy stuff afoot, but I won't question it. It worked. That is all I need to know. And all you need to know
minutes passed, still at less than 1 minute remaining...
 
SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH!!!! I've been frustrated with my iCloud backup not working on my new iPhone 6s Plus. It was stuck on "time estimating" for forever. I finally got a "2 hours remaining" but lost wifi connection so had to start over (all this was happening while reading this forum). I restarted my upload and then read the last post... My upload was still "estimating time". So I decided to start reading again... Still estimating... Then I set up an account, and as I was doing so I was at 2 hours left, as I started typing this I was at 2 minutes, then it went up to 3 minutes and now it's down to 1 minute... I'm hoping that when I hit "post reply" that the M. A. G. I. C. happens. Fingers crossed... Here goes nothin'
[doublepost=1470530456][/doublepost]
Well-- it's been 8 minutes since I first posted and my phone is still at "less than 1 minute remaining"... Ugh!
[doublepost=1470532464][/doublepost]45

minutes passed, still at less than 1 minute remaining...

How long did it take after that?! Mine finally finished after I re-read some of the posts. It was way eerie. I'm not a believer of this kind of stuff, but this freaked me out! (In a good way.) And actually, it didn't take too long for my apps to download, either (once the initial restore finished).
 
I'm writing this post with a small tear in my eye. Yesterday my phone was acting super slow. Closing out of apps and folders almost looked like slow motion. I didn't want to deal with it so I just let it go. Later last night I decided I wanted to download a mindless game to play while watching Gilmore girls. The download wouldn't work. So I thought I would FINALLY install the most recent software update that has been nagging me for days. All h*ll broke loose then. The install failed. I decided I would turn the phone off and turn it back on. I got the apple logo and it wouldn't go away. I did try to walk into to the Apple Store and today is a tax free holiday so it was madness. So I decided to go into the office on a Sunday to see if I could get my work computer to help me restore the phone. Finally worked through that issue and used the iTunes backup to install the backup I had on the work computer from Feb 2016 just to see if the phone would work. It did! So I decided I wanted to erase the iTunes backup from Feb and install my most recent iCloud backup from a couple days ago.

The estimated time remaining screen showed forever and then finally told me a backup could not be installed. Power Cycled the phone and tried again. The estimated time just sat there never moving. So I did what I know to do best.. Googled.

I found this thread and I sh*t you not... by the time I got through reading the first page it was up to "Estimated Time Remaining: One Hour" I only had to read through page 6 before my phone completely restored.

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT MAGIC LIES HERE BUT I BELIEVE IN IT.

I would also like to make a million dollars by the end of the year.. and since I'm not sure what kind of magic this is.. I'd like to also stipulate that I'd like that million to come from something good and not from some tragic accident.

I hope this thread works for many other people. It's so odd that it works but it does!

Edited to post my screenshot of the successful backup.
 

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