How to Fix iPhone Errors 1600, 1601, 1602, 1603, 1604

Sebastien, Feb 16, 2010

iphone error

Many of you have been asking me about those annoying iTunes errors while trying to restore your iPhone using a custom firmware with PwnageTool or SnowBreeze. Usually, the error you get says:

The iPhone “iPhone” could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (1600 – 1601 – 1602 – 1603 – 1604)

There is an easy and quick fix for this. The downside is that it is Windows only (Mac version is in the work), and that it only works for iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iTouch 1G and iTouch 2G. In other words, no iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G support.

iREB (iTunes Restore Error Bypasser) is a neat little tool that will help you fix these errors.

Step 1: Download iREB from here.

Step 2: Launch iTunes and put your iPhone in DFU mode (hold power and home button together for 10 seconds; release the power button and keep holding the home button until iTunes tells you it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode.

Step 3: Once iTunes has detected your iPhone in recovery mode, close iTunes and launch iREB.

iReb

Step 4: Select your device and wait for the screen to go red or white.

Step 5: Launch iTunes and hold the SHIFT key while clicking on restore. A window will open. From there just browse for the custom firmware you want to restore to.

You should be good to go. iTunes should restore your iPhone to the desired firmware without giving you any error.

 
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  • damir

    ty so much for this :) u saved me a 20euro for fix that my operator wanted :) :)

  • http://sanmuthiya.lk@myt.mu Teletaz25

    Thanks a lot. :) It works and saved money too… ;)

  • juan salgado

    thank:) worked great

  • Rolf

    Hi there , I still get the error 1604 after I use iReb. Can you please hellp me ? I have iPhone 2g.

  • ShAzEb MuGhAl

    thxxxxxx alotttt My Problum is Solved and Save Money………….!

  • amr

    hey i just bought this iphone 3G from ebay, just for parts so its black all the time, recognised b itunes and gives me the same error msg, tried ur method, its only ireb doesnt finish loading and stops halfway through at (WAITING FOR IBSS) what do i do please?

    thanks

    • Teletaz25

      Hi Amr, i can’t tell you for iPhone because i tried it for my iPod Touch 4th Gen and it works. try to do it again and it was supposed to flash your screen for some moment by giving you a green screen.

      If it doesn’t work, then i will advise you to do some other options, follow the details:
      1/ Download firmware for your iPhone
      2/ Connect your iPhone to iTunes
      3/ Click on shift Key + Restore

      You will get a popup, then browse where you have saved the firmware. Leave the rest to iTunes. :)

      IT MUST WORK

  • lildude

    do as u said but still getting same erroe 1601
    please help me out what to do.

    • Teletaz25

      Hi Lildude,

      If it doesn’t work, then i will advise you to do some other options, follow the details:
      1/ Download firmware for your iPhone
      2/ Connect your iPhone to iTunes
      3/ Click on shift Key + Restore

      You will get a popup, then browse where you have saved the firmware. Leave the rest to iTunes. :)

      IT MUST WORK

  • fourth

    If my error is 1015, would it work?

    • Teletaz25

      Hi Fourth, yes it must work because mine too was error 1015 :) Whatever, the command error, this software works it.

      If ever it doesn’t work, then i will advise you to do some other options, follow the details:
      1/ Download firmware for your iPhone
      2/ Connect your iPhone to iTunes
      3/ Click on shift Key + Restore

      You will get a popup, then browse where you have saved the firmware. Leave the rest to iTunes. :)

      • fourth

        Telataz25, I’m afraid this has not worked for me. I just get 1015 again. The firmwares I’m browsing to are jailbroken 4.2.1 with an iPad baseband, and some 4.1 I downloaded, not sure of its details.

  • waleed

    do as u said but still getting same erroe 1601
    please help me out what to do.

    • Teletaz25

      Hi Waleed, please follow the options that i posted for AMR. If any problem, do let know.

  • adad

    i still have the same error again… what should i do??? i keep receiving about the ipod could not be contacted… plss someone help me here

    • Teletaz25

      Hi Adad,
      please follow the details that i provide AMR. If not ok, please tell.

  • ali

    thanks a LLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT

  • Rizzay

    Is there a solution for 3GS?

    • ByrdMan

      I had these errors also on an iphone 3G S after I tried installing custom firmware made by pwanage tool & what it was is the device was stuck in DFU mode. The only thing that worked for me was this. I used the latest version of redsnow to pull the device out of the dfu loop. Redsnow will fail & error out because of no valid iOS firmware installed but you should now be in recovery mode instead of DFU. Once you use redsnow to pull you out of DFU mode, you can then restore again without getting the 1600 error. Please use a different custom or stock ipsw after this. I know the latest pwanage tool & sn0w breeze tool became available last night so you could try to rebuild your ipsw with one of these tools. Let me know if this worked or if you need more complete step by step instructions.

    • ByrdMan

      Use redsnow to pull the device out if DFU loop. Redsnow will fail but you will now be in recovery mode instead of DFU. Then you will be able to restore using a different custom or stock .ipsw. Latest versions of pwanage tool & snowbreeze were released yesterday so you can try one of these. Let me know if you need a step by step.

      • fourth

        ByrdMan, I’m pretty sure mine, for one, is in Recovery not DFU, since it has the “plug me into iTunes” screen. Right? I’ve tried running redsn0w on it and yes, redsn0w fails and it ends up in Recovery (the “plug me into iTunes” screen), but then when I try to restore in iTunes either to Apple or custom 4.x firmware, I just get the 1015 again. Any thoughts, anybody?

      • Rizzay

        thanks mate…..It did work, buttttttt
        I am in a bigger trouble now. I restored my iphone to 4.2.1. than i went ahead to jailbreak it with redsn0w with the ipad base band. Redsn0w did its work in my PC as side its done, but my phone still showed the pineapple logo. After a while the logo changed to apple logo and than to Connect to Itunes. Now I am not sure what to do?
        Any help will be highly appreciated.

      • ByrdMan

        @Rizzay, since you flashed your iphone with the iPad baseband there is only a couple things you can do to fix this. One, if you have your SHSH Hashes saved, you can restore to 4.1 and use tinyumbrella to kick you out of recovery mode once it’s done. Second, if you can not go back to 4.1, you will have to use pwanage tool or sn0wbreeze to create custom firmware on 4.2. I might also mention that from now on since you have the 6.15 baseband, you will have to restore from custom firmware for 4.2 & up.

      • Rizzay

        Thanks alooooooooooot……
        My Iphone is working smooooooooth

      • kbk_75

        Can anyone help me please? I was due to sell my jailbroken, unlocked 3GS running 4.0 today. I decided to Erase all content and settings so the buyer would not have access to my info. I got stuck on the Apple boot screen. So I downloaded Pwnage Tool 4.2 and the latest 4.2.1 firmware, made a custom IPSW and started to Jailbreak. Got into iTunes to restore and got a 1601 error.

        At this point my phone screen was blank whether or not I held power and home button, released power button after ten seconds, held home button for another ten seconds, whatever. So I ran Redsn0w 0.9.6b6, chose the default 4.2.1 IPSW and started to patch the phone. Redsn0w finished and the phone rebooted, but it’s still stuck on the Apple logo. What do I do next? Please help.

  • fourth

    I should also mention that I have used iREB, gotten to a green screen, and still I get 1015 when I try to custom-restore with iTunes.

    • ByrdMan

      This may be a dumb question but have you tried using Tiny Umbrella to kick you out of recovery mode? If not, you can try hitting the kick out of recovery button. If that does not work, and you have SHSH Hashes saved, then restore using TinyUmbrella and when you get the error at the end, click on kick out of recovery. You are right by the way, if you see the connect to itunes on your iPhone, you are definitely not in DFU, but in Recovery. The instructions I gave before will only work on the 1600 errors from being stuck in a DFU Loop.

  • need3Gjailbreak

    I have an iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G but get “unknown error (21)” when trying to restore to a snowbreeze’d 4.2.1 firmware[1] – any suggestion on what I can do to get it to work? I got the same error when 3.1.2 was on my iPod Touch, I upgraded it to factory 4.2.1 and tried again but same error. Thanks!

  • Tyler Moore

    I got an error “{6}”?? what should i do? ive spent about 6 hours using snowbreeze, qwkPWN, iREB, all that. i have an iphone 2g w/ no sim card, i restored it accidently, trying to get back in. i used 3.1.3 firmware, and im so close, theres just one stupid error, that is now in my way, please help!

    • ByrdMan

      I think error code 6 has to do with your firewall or antivirus blocking ports. Since you are on 3.1.3 I would do this. Restore back to stock 3.1.3 & then use redsnow to jailbreak and hacktivate. In your case I would disable your firewall first before restoring.

  • Derpderpderp

    Wow. I cannot get this to work.

    Everything will be going fine (Green screen, I get a snowflake and status bar on my iphone) then when the status bar gets to 98% my itunes page gives me the 1600/17/1601 error code.

    I have downloaded and used ireb and my iphone 3G will not jailbreak.

    I really have no idea what the propblem is. Any help would be great.

    Thank you in advance.

  • Young G

    Thank you bra this worked so good .

  • BRIANNA

    THANK YOU !!!!! I WANT TO MARRYY YOU AND HAVE YOUR BABIES :D ;D;D;D;D;D

  • Haitham

    An unknown error occurred (1015)

  • lamboboy007

    My iPhone 3G screen won’t turn red or white…HELP PLEASE

  • http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/2010/02/16/fix-error-1600-1601-1602-1603-1604/ magic

    thanks bro u saved me time i spent 3 days nothing worked u the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • valerie

    I didn’t find anything here regarding similar problems but with an iphone 4. I don’t know what happened.i plugged my iphone in for updates, all went well until synch. “..could not be restored.” “unknown error occurred. (3601)
    Can anyone help? i’ve retarted my computer and even installed latest itune verson. Please help

  • Mischelay

    Please help. So my trouble began when my wifi was disabled. Meaning I could not select wifi because the feature as it was greyed out. I searched the internet and tried all types of fixes except freezing the phone or using heat to re-solder the wifi chip. One fix was to jailbreak the phone. That went successfully. So I took the phone to a local shop. They asked if they could flash the phone and I agreed. While the phone was in the shop, I upgraded to Window 7 and the latest itunes. The shop could not fix the wifi problem so I went back to pick get the phone. When I charged the phone it booted to the apple logo. I have been unable to get it to restore. I have been able to get the phone in DFU mode. I have tried to restore to several ipsw file versions for iphone 3G by shift+restore in iTunes. I continue to receive either a 1611 or 1015 error. I have used redsn0w, tinyumbrella, and iREB to no avail. Is there some other way to restore the phone? What do you suspect the shop did that is causing this issue. Do I have any other recourse? Do you think if I took the phone to the Apple Store they could at least get it back to usable even if there is still no wifi?

  • Mihael Keehl

    I just recently sold my iPhone 3GS, however, I am still have my original iPhone 2G (8GB/Silver), I was able to create a custom firmware using Sn0wbreeze 3.1.3, however I am unable to restore in iTunes as I am getting an error 1600. When I try using iREB, it doesn’t make my screen white or red, what should I do? Any help would be appreciated.

  • PROStrength

    3g 16 gb – 1601 error code with no jailbreak ???

    What do i do ?

    I get to the very end of the restore and it keeps giving me errors??

    thanks

  • Timmy45

    thanks it’s work!!!!!!

  • http://www.xcelliphonefix.com Mike

    If you get 1015 error only works for 3g iphone download recboot, you will get two different files one put iphone in recovery mode and one takes it off of recovery mode open the one that takes the phone out of recovery and wait, one you get error 1015 click on awake my phone button on the recboot and your phone should work. The error 1015 fixed thanks

  • Fei

    Can someone help me #.#” I give up i’m gona commit a suicide, I just cant get this to work. I have ipod touch 4g updated 4.3. I’ve used snowbreeze for jailbreaking, I did all the steps and when it comes to restore stage, I have to shift click + Restore to browse my new firmware which the name is starting with snowbreeze… then while the process I get error saying “The iPod could not be restored. An unknown erroe occured (3014)” cmon guys help me out, I tried alot of solutions along with iREN-r4

  • http://blog.shivku.com Shivku

    Thanks @ByrdMan. Your comment for @Rizzay was helpful to me too. I was mucking around with 4.1.2 all along when all I needed to do was to get to 4.2.1. Thanks once again.

  • Alex

    i’m also having the same problem with my iphone 2g as Mihael Keehl is having.please if anyone can provide any kind of help.
    thank u

  • Ben

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!! I would make out with you if you asked me to.

    I used Pwnage tool to make a 4.3.1 ipsw from my 4.1 iPhone 4, then uploaded it to my PC. iTunes gave me the dreaded error (21). I put my phone in DFU mode and ran iREB-r4. Then tried iTunes again (shift-restore), worked like a charm.

    You guys are incredible.

  • Danish

    i tried this but. couldnt get it…….. i did it step by step…. but when ever i try to restore my ipod touch 4 it says unknown error 3194… how can i fix this….. plzzz help me….

  • Mak

    Awesome….I have been struggling to fix this issue for 24 hours now. iREB fixed the issue for me!!

  • mellodeen

    I tried this the first time and it worked but then it died again. Second time, it won’t even start. The screen is now black. Is it dead? Btw, it’s a 1st generation itouch. Please, if anyone has any help. I try restoring it and it kept saying “error 1600″ all the time.

  • Saqib Mushtaq

    thanxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx alot boss

  • chandara

    http://www.rikez.com/?p=1999#comment-2260

    IT MAYBE HELP FULL FOR 3G USER

  • wawan

    my phone is iphone 3gs version 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01 not yet jailbreak, Im using Windows
    please help me, Im doing this step:

    1. download spirit(jailbreak)

    use spirit to jailbreak ur phone(it has onscreen instructions)
    then open up cydia and itll ask u to save SHSH blobs
    click
    Quote:
    yes, make my life easier

    then just to be safe, save ur SHSH blobs to ur comp
    get download links from here
    Code:
    http://thefirmwareumbrella.blogspot.com/

    open tinyumbrella, have your iphone connected to ur comp and select it from the left panel
    then click on save SHSH(on the right side)

    wait for it to save and now ur ready to update using sn0wbreeze
    download sn0wbreeze from here
    Code:
    http://ih8sn0w.com/index.php/welcome.snow

    and the 4.3.3 firmware for ur device from here
    Code:
    http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/

    open up sn0wbreeze and search for the firmware u downloaded
    itll load up for u and wen its at the screen where its got a few options
    go into baseband preservation mode
    click the arrow and itll start creating ur custom firmware
    when its done, press done and itll show u how to put ur phone into DFU
    follow the instructions and ull be ready to restore

    open up itunes and hold shift and click the restore button
    find the new custom firmware u just made
    let it restore

    after this step, my phone still on DFU mode, what should I do? please help me

  • Shane

    OMG thank you so much, you rock. I have a ipod touch 3g on 4.3.3 JB, I just got it all set up and started syncin all music and movies, AND THEN my damn cat jumps on the bed and starts puking. So I grabbed my laptop out of the way in a hurry and therrrre goes my ipod flying off the USB cable onto the floor, power cable pops out of laptop, I got shocked somehow and as cat starts up chucking I tossed her on the floor. My ipod just finished restoring. Thnx agin.

  • KAY

    Very nice top top top ,Thanks!!!!!!

  • David

    Thanks so much for this info. I was getting error 1600 and using this made it work :)

  • fith

    fourth: did u get it working? i have the same issue as you.

  • Rui Aires

    Thanks alot. it realy worked :) ))))))))

  • bRyAn

    not working. i get an unknown error 1601. :(

  • Iphone Helper

    Easy way to fix errors

    1.Restore using stock ipsw and itunes.
    2. Now, restore using custom ipsw (make sure you get into dfu mode to do this)
    3. Sit and relax while itunes installs the custom ipsw onto your device

  • icko1996

    Must I minimize iTunes after launching iReb, or i have to completely close iTunes?

  • Hind

    I get error 9 on my iphone and I am afraid its comms board error .. can u tell me how to know its the comms board not a software related issue
    Thank u so much

  • Tanveer rao

    i did all the steps and got the error 3194. apple says about the error that this device is not compatible fot this build. i m trying to degrade from 4.2.1 to 4.0.

    any help guys ! will be gratefull

  • legacyofboom

    TNX!! alot i had to do it 20 times to get it right..
    tnx again!!!

  • Daryuosh

    my iPhone is 4 version 4.3.2 when i download from App store a game i get an unknown error has occurred plz help me

  • kyle

    Dude, it’s about freakin time someone got it right. i’m so glad i stumbled upon this site, and it only took me 7 hours. you are a lifesaver bro….Kudos

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