Udate: It’s come to my attention that a number of people are wondering what, exactly, it means if your phone DOES give you an error of 3014.
In my case, it was caused by Apple’s servers being overloaded, and iTunes couldn’t complete a connection to verify the update – IE, if iTunes can’t talk to the server, you won’t be able to update your phone. The other thing to note is that even just a slow internet connection can muck up your update, or any firewall issues. Bottom line, make sure that your computer has fast, unrestricted access to the internet.
A couple of days ago I, like many other millions of iPhone wielding techies, gleefully downloaded the latest update to the operating system, iOS 5. And it promptly bricked my phone.
I knew something was wrong the moment iTunes informed me, with clinical detachment, that an error of number 3014 had occurred and to please try again.
This is the sort of thing that makes ice trickle down my back when I’m at a client’s house – interrupted installs are never a good thing, in the same way that half-baked meatloaf is never a good thing.
But this wasn’t a client’s phone. I was in the inner sanctum of my office, so to speak, where computers go to be healed, not corrupted. So I spent a few moments frowning and poking and only then did the ice start to trickle on the spine. This ice was different, however; it wasn’t the fear that a routine update on a clients computer had gone horribly awry, it was the fear that sets in when you feel that other, higher powers may be toying with you. That the fates are cruel and had just plucked a strand, the strand that represented some very expensive gadget you owned, right out of existence. It didn’t help that this was the first time in my entire life that an update had gone wrong. This is for my own personal equipment mind you – other computers I work on wig out all the time. But somehow, miraculously, up until now, I’ve never had a system upgrade hiccup, ever.
In retrospect, I’ve found that very interesting. Perhaps it’s a phenomenon akin to advice – that we never take our own. It’s harder to be rational about something that affects you directly, because that starts to play with your emotions. But whatever it is, rather than approach it as a problem to solve I began to have panicked thoughts in my head: Apple better have an answer! I hope they can tell me what to do! Did I really lose everything? HOW DARE THEY.
So much of how we approach any given situation has to do with how it is introduced to us. When a problem is ours, we have a critical decision to make: do we take ownership of it or not? There isn’t a right answer there, this isn’t a parable on responsibility – sometimes the smart thing to do is recognize that you have better ways to spend your time than, say, excavating a septic tank. Those are the times when you pick up the phone (hopefully not a bricked one) and call a professional.
Which is how I chastised myself back into action. I realized it was absurd for me to think of checking in with Apple when people have paid me good money to solve problems exactly like this one – and I didn’t have any gut-reaction panic modes then.
A couple of hours later, I had a working iPhone once more – I hadn’t done anything particularly magical, either. I essentially tried a cycle of three different things over and over, like a battering ram, and eventually it took. More than likely, it just had to do with Apple’s servers getting hammered by other eager techies, and the update process finally managed to connect. But in the process I learned a few things:
1) TimeMachine doesn’t back up your iPhone firmware files.
2) If your phone isn’t working, everyone will immediately try to call you.
3) This was a great reminder to me about how most of my clients must feel when they call me. It’s something that is far too easy to forget in this line of business. Because people come to us for answers, and because others are assuming that we do, in fact, have all the answers, it become perilously easy to start behaving towards your clients like you do. That leads to being a snotbox, and while it’s true that I kind of am one to friends and family, I certainly try hard not to behave that way towards clients. A much more friendly method – and, in fact, effective, because it enlists more than just your own brainpower – is to act as though you are both embarking on this task together.
4) This is a parable and the moral is this: never assume that a problem can’t be solved until you’ve tried every possible option. Once you go down that road, you’ll realize that there are almost an unlimited number of things you can try to get something working. There is no more effective troubleshooting technique. Whatever you do, don’t assume it’s the fates, or intractable magic.
And always remember: one possible solution is to call us!