Rookie: Downgrading from iOS 9 to 8.3 & Restoring From iOS 9 backup to iOS 8.3

[klawitter]

You can "update" without losing ANYTHING
-download ios 8.3
-open itunes
-hold shift(option for mac) and click check for update
-select your newly downloaded ios 8.3
all is good you're back on 8.3 without any dfu or fear of losing what's on your phone

 

[windywalks]

You can "update" without losing ANYTHING
-download ios 8.3
-open itunes
-hold shift(option for mac) and click check for update
-select your newly downloaded ios 8.3
all is good you're back on 8.3 without any dfu or fear of losing what's on your phone

I'm afraid all this is going to leave anyone with is an iPhone stuck in DFU mode.
The incompatibilities between iOS 9 and 8 data won't let it boot.

 

[Swarm1424]

Hey I need some help. So I was on 8.4 beta and updated to iOS 9. iOS 9 was horrible on battery life so I did a backup and now I can't see the backup available in iTunes. It shows my last backup as June 15 but it is not available to select when I hit restore from backup. Any idea, I lost all my babies photos etc. pls help me figure out how to restore using that backup, I am assuming it has to do with some incompatibility using the older and newer softwares. Let me know if you have recommendations

 

[windywalks]

What computer do you have?
Did you erase your phone already and went back to beta4?
When did you do the upgrade to iOS9, June 15 maybe?

 

[johno168]

goto %appdata%\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ on Windows or wherever your backups are stored on OS X. Edit Info.plist with a text editor.

You will see
<key>Product Version</key>
<string>8.3</string>

This indicates the version. It may be 9.0 if you are on iOS 9. change it to match the version of the iOS you want to restore this onto. YMMV and I would recommend backing up the file before you edit it. I haven't done this from 9.0 to 8.3 so who knows what kind of weird issues it may introduce.

Can anyone confirm this works going down from 9.0 to 8.3/4? I've also done a rookie move into not backing up my 8.4. Now that Beta 2 isn't going to be released, I need some battery in my life hahaha.

EDIT: Tried this, and it worked. Mostly. Much of the data that I wanted to be restored, my messages, weren't. However settings, and alarms and most of everything else was restored. Going back to 9B1 now.

 

[windywalks]

Can anyone confirm this works going down from 9.0 to 8.3/4? I've also done a rookie move into not backing up my 8.4. Now that Beta 2 isn't going to be released, I need some battery in my life hahaha.

EDIT: Tried this, and it worked. Mostly. Much of the data that I wanted to be restored, my messages, weren't. However settings, and alarms and most of everything else was restored. Going back to 9B1 now.

I've done this too with the same result.

 

[Stuke00]

Can anyone confirm this works going down from 9.0 to 8.3/4? I've also done a rookie move into not backing up my 8.4. Now that Beta 2 isn't going to be released, I need some battery in my life hahaha.

EDIT: Tried this, and it worked. Mostly. Much of the data that I wanted to be restored, my messages, weren't. However settings, and alarms and most of everything else was restored. Going back to 9B1 now.

I haven't tried from 9.0 to 8.3. 8.4 to 8.3 did restore everything back. Thanks for testing it out!

 

[MrGimper]

Before upgrading iOS, ALWAYS go into your mobilesync folder and append something like "- iOS 8.3" at the end of the folder name. That way when your iphone backs up again, it will create a new folder and you'll always have your previous backup untouched.

excellent advice. I never thought of renaming the folder.

 

[Stuke00]

excellent advice. I never thought of renaming the folder.

I believe you can also goto iTunes settings and find your backup there, right click and choose archive.

 

[MrGimper]

I believe you can also goto iTunes settings and find your backup there, right click and choose archive.

Just been looking around in there. I always do an iTunes backup of my iPhone and iPad before upgrading firmware. However I only see one backup for each, which was taken yesterday just prior to updating to 9 b2. Can't see any previous backups and I certainly haven't deleted any. I guess that's your point, only 1 backup retained per device??

 

[kevroc]

excellent advice. I never thought of renaming the folder.

I do that before each upgrade. I have an 8.2, 8.3, 8.4b4, 9.0b1 and now 9.0b2.

I had rolled back to 8.4b4 Monday night, but then when back to 9.0b2 when I saw that released. Noticed quite a few problems still so went right back to my 8.4 copy.

It's nice because when you restore your phone, you get that little dropdown where you can choose which backup you want to restore from. I have about 6 "iPhone" options in there, but when you select one it gives you the "date/time" of that backup so I keep my backup folder window up and it's easy to see which "date/time" correlates to which folder because of the folders date/time stamp.

It can be a little space consuming, but I can't tell you how many times that's saved me from having to start from scratch. I actually don't think I ever have...

 

[johno168]

Is there anyway to JUST backup and restore SMS/iMessages from say 9.0 to 8.3? :/

 

[OJCDEV]

Can anyone confirm this works going down from 9.0 to 8.3/4? I've also done a rookie move into not backing up my 8.4. Now that Beta 2 isn't going to be released, I need some battery in my life hahaha.

EDIT: Tried this, and it worked. Mostly. Much of the data that I wanted to be restored, my messages, weren't. However settings, and alarms and most of everything else was restored. Going back to 9B1 now.

This did not work for me. Even after changing the plist version to the lower number. I got an error whilst restoring. Can anyone recommend a solution for me?

 

[windywalks]

Is there anyway to JUST backup and restore SMS/iMessages from say 9.0 to 8.3? :/

No, there is not. I've researched this high and low to no avail.
All you can do now is wait patiently for the public beta version, which I hope will fix more of the bugs.
That might even happen early next week with the advent of Apple Music on iOS 9 beta.

 

[fleamaiden]

Hey guys.....i updated to the ios 9.0 beta public on ipad but it was so weird that i tried to go back to the last stable firmware.

First i reset my device to factory settings, then itunes downloaded ios 8.4 and began to downgrade my ipad.

But when it was restoring my device, nothing happened and now its frozen on the connect to itunes screen.

When i try to restore with a new firmware, my itunes return the error 3104 and i can't do anything.

Hope someone have an answer
and no, i don't have a backup saved

 

[conepwnd]

How to downgrade to IOS 8 using IOS9 backup

So I recently updated my phone to IOS 9, everything was pretty good until my action camera app couldn't work with my phone because of IOS 9. I know this because I tried it on my friends Iphone and it worked fine.

Now I would like to downgrade my phone back to IOS 8, I know you click Restore iPhone then use a backup but the problem is it won't be able to use the IOS 9 backup.

Is there anyway to downgrade my phone to an IOS 8 version using a IOS 9 backup of the phone?

Thanks, Enoc

http://i.imgur.com/B9E2pun.png

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-downgrade-to-ios-8-using-ios9-backup.1903898/

 

[windywalks]

Just read the post prior to yours.
The general consensus is that no, you can't do that even if you try.

I have and the result of tampering with backup version designation yielded a partial restore without iMessage content and who knows what else since I didn't feel like screwing around any more with the only backup of my phone I had.

You'll just have to carry on using your device as is and hope that future beta versions and finally the release version of iOS 9 fix the problems you are having on pre-release software.

 

[deeznuts]

Guys if you're on any iOS 9 beta & want to downgrade back to 8.4. Btw 8.3 is no longer being signed. Do NOT select update in iTunes & select the ipsw because it would put your phone in dfu mode & ask to restore no matter what. It doesn't work, I tried it today with my iPhone 6. You have to restore ONLY

 

[MrGuder]

Guys if you're on any iOS 9 beta & want to downgrade back to 8.4. Btw 8.3 is no longer being signed. Do NOT select update in iTunes & select the ipsw because it would put your phone in dfu mode & ask to restore no matter what. It doesn't work, I tried it today with my iPhone 6. You have to restore ONLY

Right I've done this several times after you restore it will ask you do you want to set up your phone as new or from a prior backup that is where I picked my last saved backup and then 8.4 reloads along with all your saved messages then it loads all your apps and the music, music takes the most time for me 6000 songs.

 

[daijholt]

Can anyone confirm this works going down from 9.0 to 8.3/4? I've also done a rookie move into not backing up my 8.4. Now that Beta 2 isn't going to be released, I need some battery in my life hahaha.

EDIT: Tried this, and it worked. Mostly. Much of the data that I wanted to be restored, my messages, weren't. However settings, and alarms and most of everything else was restored. Going back to 9B1 now.

Good to see this works! I expected there'd be a few things missing but for the most part that sounds optimistic!

 

[dannymichel]

I've done this too with the same result.

The only reason I want to restore anything from my iOS 9 backup is to restore my messages. Has anyone tried the modified file method and succeeded bringing text messages over? Also, anyone know if there's an app to backup text messages and restore?

 

[ejromm]

Can anyone confirm this works going down from 9.0 to 8.3/4? I've also done a rookie move into not backing up my 8.4. Now that Beta 2 isn't going to be released, I need some battery in my life hahaha.

EDIT: Tried this, and it worked. Mostly. Much of the data that I wanted to be restored, my messages, weren't. However settings, and alarms and most of everything else was restored. Going back to 9B1 now.

it told me the file was corrupted