25 June 2009: iPhone 3.0 software update
Summary: If you have a problem installing an iPhone software update try deleting the update from the iTunes library "~/Library/iTunes/iPhone..." and let iTunes download it again.
While upgrading to Apples's OS 3.0 for iPhone the process stopped with an error. The only option left at this point is to accept the iTunes offer to restore the iPhone to factory settings, install the latest OS and recover settings from backup. A sync in iTunes would then restore apps, music files, etc.
I accepted the offer and waited for my iPhone to be restored. Each time, the process halted with the "iPhone could not be restored..." error. Error number 14 was quoted but I am not sure that this really helps in resolving the problem since Apple lists a whole range of possible error codes. Clicking on the information button in the error message dialogue loads the support page TS1275 "Update and restore messages on iPhone and iPod touch" which had been updated on 19 June 2009.
After rebooting my Mac as instructed and determining that iTunes was indeed up-to-date I really felt that I did not want to remove and reinstall iTunes. This process was already taking much too long and the thought of potentially losing my iTunes library to boot made me think that there must be another way.
As it happens, I had been having problems downloading the iPhone 3.0 sdk. It kept failing with verification errors after downloading what appeared to be the correct file size (> 2Gb). Perhaps, iTunes had downloaded a corrupt file. Only one bit has to be wrong after all. Even though iTunes does not give verification errors on downloading the update I thought I would tell iTunes 8.2 to clear its download cache and reload the update. Clearly, iTunes users are not supposed to need to resort to this - there is nothing in the interface to enable downloaded software updates to be deleted and downloaded again.
A quick Internet search revealed that the location of downloaded software updates for iPhone is "~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates". I moved the appropriate update to another location (after all - if this did not work I might need to move it back again) and started iTunes and connected my iPhone. iTunes offered to download the update and update my iPhone.
This time the update went correctly - restoring software, verifying software, restoring firmware and finally the "Restored to factory settings" message.
DJP-S
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