iPhone not appearing in iTunes (error 18)
I’ve had a few issues with the phone today: namely the thing isn’t being recognised by iTunes, plus my music and videos have mysteriously disappeared from the iPhone itself.
Upon trying to restore the iPhone from a backup in iTunes I got the dreaded message:
The iPhone “iPhone” could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (-18)
Luckily after a bit of jiggery-pokery I managed to get it functioning as normal with all data and settings restored following these steps:
- On the iPhone, go into Settings > General and do a full delete of settings and data
- Hard-reset the iPhone by holding the power key and the home key until the Apple logo appears
- Plug back into iTunes
- iTunes recognises the iPhone and offers to set it up fresh or perform a restore. Pick restore
- Bingo!
Phew got a bit worried there for a moment. Hopefully this might help someone in the future!
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IPhone » I’ve had a few issues with the phone today
January 2, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I had a similary issue after upgrading to Leopard. This only partly solved it.
I have an iPhone running 1.1.3 and it worked like a dream on 10.4.11 with iTunes 7.6.
I then upgraded to Leopard, 10.5, then immediately upgraded to 10.5.1
iPhone would no longer be seen in iTunes. Although iPhoto would spot it. Other iPods were also spotted in iTunes. The fix that worked for me also required re-installation of iTunes 7.6 eg:
1. Follow the steps above (reset and remove all data on iPhone)
2. Hard reset iPhone
3. Re-install iTunes 7.6
4. iPhone reappears in iTunes. Restore iPhone data.
NIck
January 28, 2008 at 9:52 am
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Błąd(-18) w itunes, ratunku... - MyApple.pl
February 7, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I ran into the same issue, before I try what’s said above I was wondering if you lose all of your contacts when you do the data reset…
Gene
February 19, 2008 at 10:23 am
no you don’t lose your contacts or settings as iTunes does a backup of those each time you sync. Its totally safe I promise!
Ben
February 19, 2008 at 10:56 am
i have an iphone and when i plug it in it charges but the itunes cant read there are no messages telling me theres a error or anyhtin its just no reading my iphone anyone has solutions thx u
waz
February 25, 2008 at 2:04 am
My iPhone is not visible on my G5 nor on my iMac (Motorola processor). But, it is visible on my Macbook Pro. (Intel processor)…. Why???
Yes, all updates to itunes, iphone and operating systems have been performed.
ron
April 8, 2008 at 10:41 pm