Elliott C. Back: Technology FTW!

iPhone Activation Problems, Errors, Hacks, and Solutions

Posted in Apple, Cracking, Errors, Hacking, Hardware, iPhone by Elliott Back on July 2nd, 2007.

According to an informal engadet poll, 40% of iPhones aren’t working properly, and another 12% had problems with activation. Those numbers are right, almost 50% of iPhones have activation problems! For those of you still waiting, the activation screen of glory looks just like this:

iphone-activated.jpg

Here’s a few activation tips for you guys:

Activate with two iPhones

You’ll need two iPhones. Plug one into iTunes and select “I am a new AT&T Customer” and choose to activate “2 or more phones on an individual or FamilyTalk plan.” After you get the activation complete email, plug in the second iPhone and select “I am an existing customer” then “replace a phone on my account with this iPhone.” Reuse the earlier number and activate your second iPhone. When you plug in your second iPhone it will unlock for use but without an assigned number or account.

DVD-Jon’s Hacked Activation Server

You’ll need to install UltraEdit-32 and iPhoneActivationServer 1.0. Open iTunes.exe with UltraEdit and change the following offsets and values:

Offset 2048912, value 33C0C3
Offset 257074, value 28
Offset 257013, value 33C9B1

Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add the line “127.0.0.1 albert.apple.com.” Then run DVD Jon’s activation server, open itunes, and plug in your iPhone, which will activate automatically in about 60 seconds.

The Prepay Method

Buy an iPhone but don’t sign up with AT&T for any of their plans as of yet. Plug it into iTunes with 999-99-9999 as your SSN, and you’ll fail the credit check. At this point you can pick a GoPhone prepayed plan, and zip over to the AT&T GoPhone funding page to add some money to your card. Don’t fund it over the phone or set it up with actual AT&T employees, or it won’t work and you will be sad.

Calling AT&T

Call the customer support at 1-800-331-0500. If you’re coming from an old number or account try getting in contact with an AT&T state Number Porting office (1-888-898-7685). The number 1-877-800-3701 is supposed to be good, if not overwhelmed. The after hours number is 1-866-801-3600.

Reboot!

Turn off your iPhone and remove the SIM card. Cycle it, put the SIM back in, and turn it on again.

Ping like mad

You might think plugging in your iPhone to sync it with iTunes is good enough, but actually according to rc3, you should leave it plugged in until it activates. A support tech with AT&T told him that the activation system works by pinging the queue of unactivated iPhones. If your phone is not connected, you’ll lose your place and have to start over!

According to a Reuters story, the activation issues are solved, but I don’t believe them:

About 2 percent of those who bought iPhones since they went on sale Friday faced delays in activation with AT&T, the exclusive U.S. service provider for the widely anticipated cell phone, according to a source familiar with the matter. By Monday, those issues were mostly resolved, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said. “We have resolved nearly all of the issues and we feel confident this is behind us now,” Siegel said. “One by one, we worked to resolve (the problems) and now nearly all of them have been resolved.”

Yeah right… well, hope these tips help! Feel free to leave your complaints / sucess stories in the comments.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 pm and is tagged with iphone activation problems, ultraedit 32, engadet, gophone, iphone, itunes, offsets, iphones, ssn, credit check, hacks, number 1, customer support, 898, hosts, poll, apple, money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

Viewing 4 Comments

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    I HOPE THAT AT&T IS PREPARED TO HANDLE THE POTENTIAL CLASS ACTION SUITE THAT COULD ARISE FROM ALL OF THEIR ADVERTISING CLEARLY STATING IN MUTLIPLE PLACES ON THEIR WEBSITES AND PRINTED LITERATURE, ADS AND TV COMMERCIALS THAT I PHONES CAN BE ADDED TO CURRENT FAMILY PLANS THEN AFTER THEY HAVE COMPLETELY MISLEAD AND FALSELY ADVERTISED ( WHICH THEY SHOULD BE INFORMED IS ACTUALLY ILLEGAL) THIS CLAIM ALL OVER THE PLACE, THEY HAVE TOLD CUSTOMER AFTER CUSTOMER THAT IS COULD NOT AND BETTER YET, WOULD NOT ADD IT TO THEIR ACCOUNTS---------I ACTUALLY THINK THAT THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE UP TO THEIR CLAIMS THAT YOU CAN---OR THEY HAVE A SERIOUS ADVERTISING VIOLATION ON THEIR HANDS FOR TRUSTING CUSTOMERS WHO HAVE SPENT 500 DOLLARS OR MORE ON EQUIPMENT THAT THEY WERE ASSURED WOULD BE AS SIMPLE AS ADDING TO THEIR PLAN AND NOW AFTER THE FACT ARE SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE-----WHAT A MAJOR DISSAPOINTMENT AND A HORRIBLE BUSINESS MOVE FOR AT&T AND I HOPE APPLE KNOWS WHAT A MAJOR HIT THIS WILL BE ON THEIR BUSINESS AS IT REFLECTS EXTREMELY POORLY ON THEM FOR THIS MOMENTOUS SINGLE MOST DISASTROUS LAUNCH OF A PHONE IN HISTORY.....................AND LONG STANDING ATT CUSTOMERS HAVE BEEN JERKED AROUND AND TREATED LIKE VILLAINS------------BAD BAD SITUATION AND I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TO GET INVOLVED IN THIS MESS UNTIL THESE COMPANIES CAN RESOLVE MANY ISSUES, AND CONTRARY TO THEIR NEWS RELEASES, THESE PROBLEMS ARE NOT AT ALL SOLVED AS OF 7-07-07
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    The i phone issues are NOT resolved as the press release suggested on july 2nd. As of July 7th, the problems are alive and well. There are major problems still with activating and then getting your phone added to your family plan. If you are a business person with your phone through your company----YOU CANNOT USE YOUR NEW IPHONE THROUGH YOUR BUSINESS ACCOUNT. You will loose all the benefits you may have on your voice plan through your company. You will be forced to open a new account billed to you personally with all the high costs associated with not sharing your minutes or benefits of your corporate plan, or if you have an existing family plan already separately from your business, you still may not be able to add it to your account or be forced to go to a new family plan and loose rollover minutes you have acrued. Either way---you will loose your benefits your company plan has afforded you in that you will have to get a separate and new account for the iphone. I do not sense that there will be any reasonable solutions offered, at lease any time soon, so I would BEWARE if you are thinking about buying a 600 dollar phone that after the purchase, after the fact, you find out all the horrible news about your service and activation. This comment is in no way intended to serve as a slam to at&t. It is to genuinely make the customer, even the longstanding loyal at&t customer, that they may be forced to make choices they do not like in order to even be able to use the I-phone, or they wont even be able to use it on their account at all especially in the event of those with company accounts. I hope this is helpful to anyome contemplating the iphone.
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    Today I also got the Iphone but had a lot of issues for activation of the same . My BUSINESS ACCOUNT Can't be activated with the Iphone . the other option is to open a new account . Now my question is when I have brought the 500 bucks phone from apple why can't I simply put the same and get my phone activated ?
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    Just got an iphone and having connection problems the entire afternoon. Tells me to unplug and retry -rinse and repeat. I'm not happy for what I paid for this thing for it to act this way
 

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