Then I connected my iPhone and commenced the iOS 5 update. The backup and update seemed to go fine. Then it tried to restore from the backup it had just taken (from the iCloud servers by the looks as my internet connection started downloading at full speed), after 12 minutes or so of 1mbps downloading the download stopped and it continued with the restore, but after a while bombed with the following error:

An error occurred while restoring this iPhone (-35).

Drat. So I found Apple’s reference to the positive 35 error code on http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3694#error35 (no mention of a negative 35 error code though) which suggested replacing the cable with a known good one. I tried that, and iTunes popped up saying that it was interrupted while restoring, and would I like to continue, or delete the backup:

iTunes was interrupted while restoring the contents of the iPhone “Spunky2″. Would you like to restore this iPhone again now?
[Cancel] [Delete Backup] [Continue Restore]

I clicked continue. Then I got:

An error occurred while restoring this iPhone (-34).

This error is apparently about security issues (permissions?) if it’s true that the minus / plus sign in front of the error number is irrelevant. From Apple’s support page:

Error 20, 21, 34, 37: These errors typically occur when security software interferes with the restore and update process. If you are using a PC, follow this article to resolve this issue.

Security software. The only ’security software’ I have on here that I can fathom may have something to do with this is the virus scanner ClamXAV but this is not configured to do anything automatically and is just so I can scan files I am suspicious of. Perhaps there is a permissions issue. Perhaps it doesn’t like something about my iTunes library structure. Who knows. There’s nothing helpful logged that I can see in Console.

Well anyway I tried unplugging it and plugging it in again and getting it to retry the restore, but it keeps throwing up error -34 immediately. So then I clicked OK to the error and went into iTunes and clicked the Done button on the setup iPhone page, and now it’s sync’ing all my apps to the iPhone. Perhaps this will achieve the desired result. If not I’ll again try to do a full restore to factory settings and restore from backup and see how that goes.

Update It seems to be restoring correctly now. I shut down the iPhone and my Mac and left them that way (in disgrace) overnight. This morning I powered them on, did the Restore again, again selecting a backup taken a few hours before the upgrade, and it’s gone through with no errors. It restored the configuration, rebooted, and now it’s sync’ing all my music, apps etc. Looking much healthier.

Have you tried turning it off and on?

Afterthoughts My ADSL connection became unstable later in the evening, and it’s possible it dropped out while trying to do the initial restore, or during some other crucial just-have-to-check-something-with-apple’s-servers type operation. I wonder how people are going to go with slower or more unreliable internet connections. I guess those folks will have to find someone with a good setup (mac with high speed, high reliability internet connection) in order to feed and water (eg backup, upgrade) their iThings. Of course this is based entirely upon conjecture.

iOS 4.3.3 contains changes to the iOS crowd-sourced location database cache including:
• Reduces the size of the cache
• No longer backs the cache up to iTunes
• Deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off

I like the term ‘crowd-sourced location database cache’.

That would be in response to:

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

http://offensivepolitics.net/blog/2011/04/visualizing-iphone-location-tracking-with-r-and-google-maps/

etc

Well, good! I mean, what were you thinking Apple? (Or weren’t you?)

This time I’m logging a bug report with Apple. Silly me, I should have done that back in March! But would it have made any difference? Hmmmm. Logged as Apple Bug ID# 5297776.

I used to have my MacBook Pro set up to connect to the internet via the card using Three (Hutchison) Australia, however after the update my settings were blown away. Worse, my menu bar started having an endless fit, relaunching over and over. Briefly I would see a new icon from the WWAN Support Update appearing giving me signal strength before it crashed. Over and over. Removing the wireless card restored my menu bar to normality.

I see that some people had their airport connections stop working after applying this update, but this hasn’t happened to me. MacFixit have an article talking about this issue.

I’m also regularly astounded that Apple don’t supply any sort of software removal tool. They go to the trouble of packing their software and keeping the package descriptions under /Library/Receipts/ but there’s no automated way of removing a software update of software installation save finding all the files and deleting them manually, and hoping that the package only added new files…

So if you doubleclick on /Library/Receipts/WWANSupport_Update.pkg and then go to File -> Show Files, you can see a list of files it installs. You can then remove them by manually finding each and dragging it to the trash, or opening up Terminal and running the following commands:

cd /Library/Modem Scripts
sudo rm “WWAN Support”

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras
sudo rm -R WWAN.menu

cd /System/Library/Extensions/IOSerialFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns
sudo rm -R AppleWWANSupport.kext
sudo rm -R AppleWWANVerizon.kext

Now, download the driver again for the Merlin XU870 and install it, and then follow the instructions on that page to configure it up. For Three Australia you use a ‘phone number’ of “3NetAccess”, and leave Username and Password blank.

Edit the following file:

vi /System/Library/StartupItems/SerialTerminalSupport/SerialTerminalSupport

Find the section that reads:

# To disable configuration of the serial port for use as a terminal,
# change the value for the line below to $FALSE. The default is $TRUE.
# This change will only affect server platforms.
ENABLE_SERIAL_TERMINAL=$TRUE

Just set that $TRUE to $FALSE and reboot.

Background, also from the same SerialTerminalSupport file:

# Serial Terminal Support
# -----------------------
# The status field in the following line in /etc/ttys is automatically
# set to 'on' thus enabling the serial port (tty.serial) for terminal
# access:
#
# tty.serial "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600" vt100 off secure
#
# This behavior may be turned off by setting the ENABLE_SERIAL_TERMINAL
# variable below to $FALSE and setting the status field for tty.serial
# in /etc/ttys to 'off'.