The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An internal error has occured.

[max-sjc]

I ran into the same problem. But I got around it by turning off sync the content stored on my phone. {photos, podcasts, etc}. This made the back up step fast too

After that the "restore" succeeded without any problems and then I was able to put stuff back.

 

[MikeRich]

One needs to connect turned off iPhone to computer while holding home button:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808

Aha! Progress - thank you it's now visible to iTunes. Excellent - now let's see how much further I can get.

Very helpful - thank you.

Mike.

 

[slpknt2886]

Yayy!

After 5 failures, I now have iOS 5! FYI, if itunes doesn't recognize you, unplug usb and plug back in. Worked for me.

 

[falconman515]

19 pages of people trying to update / restore OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER Again!!!

Hmmmmmm.... Wonder why it keeps failing?

STOP JAMMING IT UP AND HAVE SOME PATIENCE PEOPLE.

Your constant retries is whats killing the system and giving all these errors to people.

I promise you all.... you will have your iOS 5 bliss at some point in time today people.

Good luck to all.

 

[MacDaddy77]

Stopping the spinning wheel

MikeRich (and whoever else needs the help)

I am not a forum poster, but I did get around this issue you are having, so I signed up to answer your question. I know that random forums have helped me numerous times, so needed to repay the karma.

Solution: KEEP READING ALL THE WAY THROUGH THIS...
After doing a HARD RESET BY HOLDING DOWN POWER AND HOME BUTTON wait until the Apple logo appears and release ONLY the POWER BUTTON within about 5 seconds it should fix itself and return back to normal state. If it does not, then wait 3 to 5 more seconds and then release the HOME BUTTON. Waaalaaah.... it should work. It sounds simple but it worked first try for me.

After a ton of attempts using a hard reset, I was able to find this somewhere randomly on the internet and it worked for me. Hope this helps.

Strangely enough just as I was typing this (after 4 hours) it looks like I am finally able to get iOS5 to installed. Talk about karma. Good luck Mike and all! What a crazy day.

 

[dknightd]

did they remove the option to fill X gb from playlist Y?

 

[solowmodel]

I've been having the same problem on both an IPhone 4 and ipad2

Downloaded 10.7.2 and rebooting iPhone to see if it helps...

 

[udance4ever]

patience Daniel son

3rd time is a charm for me - looks like the 2 times I tried in the first hour the release was out, I got that error - 4 hours later, tried again and it's looking like it's working and restoring from backup!

 

[Dandrews524]

i encountered this same problem earlier today around 3 pm est. i did a hard reset on my iphone 4 and restarted my computer and it worked right away. it scared me for a sec but everything ended up being fine

 

[jsh1120]

Here's an idea. Not original. It's more or less a variation on the way it's done in the Android world.

Rather than throw open the doors and invite literally tens of millions of users to update their operating systems at the same time, why not stagger the availability of the update to groups of users? iTunes presumably has the email addresses of virtually every iPhone, iPad, and iTouch user in the world. They could simply have sent notification to several million addresses each day over a period of a couple of weeks and limited iOS updates to particular groups.

But what do I know. I'm not accustomed to the magical user experience in which everything just works.

 

[djr929]

4.5 hrs in and still just the spinning animation and apple logo. iPhone isn't recognized in iTunes either. Running low on patience now. Lion upgrade worked fine.

 

[Pickles.]

I'm no genius, and it's probably not my place to say, but the hell with it, I've tried over 10 times to update and it hasn't worked. It looks to me like the servers are just way to crowded, kind of like shops on December 24th an hour before closing time really.

All I'm saying is, if I'd been running this release of the update, I would've released the update at the same time, but in each different time zone. So there wouldn't be a problem, because people in some countries would have gotten the update yesterday, etc. Not globally at one set time to everyone at once.

Just sayin'...

 

[irDigital0l]

Tried 3 times, 3rd one was the charm!

 

[philip456]

Finally after 5 hours

Five hours continually trying to restore. Half way through I got the phone into restore/DFU mode and couldn't get it out. A big worry as it seem that I'd bricked it.

But now it's updated to IOS5 and restored my settings from my last backup.

Time to play.

 

[HarryPot]

Here's an idea. Not original. It's more or less a variation on the way it's done in the Android world.

Rather than throw open the doors and invite literally tens of millions of users to update their operating systems at the same time, why not stagger the availability of the update to groups of users? iTunes presumably has the email addresses of virtually every iPhone, iPad, and iTouch user in the world. They could simply have sent notification to several million addresses each day over a period of a couple of weeks and limited iOS updates to particular groups.

But what do I know. I'm not accustomed to the magical user experience in which everything just works.

Pandemonium would break loose if this happens. All over the world.

 

[thendoking]

Just solved it

Been trying for a while -- I hard reset the iPhone - (top right button and home button) - until the screen went blank --- plugged back in - opened iTunes - and then ignored update -- went straight to the restore button (to avoid backing up for the 100000th time) - and it worked straight away...

Hope this helps

 

[jamoin]

After 6 hours of having, what looked very much like, a bricked iPhone; iTunes has *just* started restoring the software.

Maybe Apple have fixed something...

Surely they could pre-empt such a huge server load? AND cope with it, given their new server farm for iCloud.....

Just a thought,....


EDIT

I take it all back.... it is still failing...

fml..hopefully all me meetings have been synced to MobileMe, otherwise tomorrow will be interesting..

ffs

 

[mlblacy]

spinning wheel + Apple...

after 4 hours of the same apple logo and the same spinning loop i finally got it done.

so... the big question IS, did you just leave it spinning & displaying the apple logo for 4 hours??

No problem leaving it alone, but it seems to be in an endless loop going nowhere.

Have tried a hard reset, and the same thing occurs. Can't go into "airplane mode" either, because the device is bricked as is. Itunes won't recognize it.
Reluctant to delete my backup for obvious reasons... it is my backup.

Any useful clues, or just let it go until it takes??

 

[technickal]

no lie, i turned on my mac's firewall and it worked!!!!

its even loading a backup so i didnt lose my data!
i had the black screen making me resotre it issue. woot! glad apple pulled thru.

 

[Lycanthrope]

I did a twin hard-reset, after that it win't startup in any way, shape or form.

I wouldn't mind too lucy, but it's the wife's...

Update here - iP4 was TOTALLY dead. In the end I opened the case and disconnected the battery. That brought it back at least into the alternating Logo/Spinner situation.

What a kerfuffle!

 

[AreYouIn?]

Mine is not working at all. I've restored my phone multiple times as well.

 

[amphibious]

What are the solutions for the Apple Logo -> Spinning loop?

I can hold the power to shut it off, but it immediately turns back on, then goes back to spinning.

I can do the home/power reset, and it just goes back to spinning.

Holding solely the home button after the home/power reset doesn't seem to do anything.

iTunes won't recognize the phone at any point in the process.

 

[agreene24]

I'm so pissed off. It finally upgraded to iOS 5 but it completely screwed up my phone. I backed everything up in the start but then it said last backup was in July and it deleted everything I had on my phone after the last backup. So some of my photos and videos are gone, some of my contacts, and all of my apps were added for some reason and now I have to delete all the apps I don't want. All 2,000+ songs were also deleted and now I have to put all of them back on. This was just a mess. I'm so pissed.

 

[majestade]

Fix for "The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An internal error has occured."

I managed to work arround it, but you need redsn0W 0.9.9b4

1. execute this comand: sudo nano /etc/hosts
2. Set the entry " 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com"
3. In redsn0w select Extras >> Recovery Fix

after this....i got it working!

Hope it helps!!

 

[jamoin]

What are the solutions for the Apple Logo -> Spinning loop?

I can hold the power to shut it off, but it immediately turns back on, then goes back to spinning.

I can do the home/power reset, and it just goes back to spinning.

Holding solely the home button after the home/power reset doesn't seem to do anything.

iTunes won't recognize the phone at any point in the process.

Hold power + home until screen turns off, then hold just the home button, whilst plugging in the USB. Keep the home button held down until the 'connect to iTunes' logo appears, then release home button.

It does work, if you do it properly!!