Leads me through the whole update or restore rigamarole, and ends up with the same unhelpful error message every time. It gets stuck on the “progress bar” loading screen on the ipad for a few minutes, then starts the same routine again. This is 7th gen ipad. Unplug from the mac, turn off and on, and I get the infuriating ikea-level instructions, which, of course, start me back where I just was.
Doing this while slogging through my annual flu does not make it any more enjoyable.
But anyway, I tried both recovery and update. Same thing either way. I tried both ways, numerous times. I unplugged it but left it “on.” Hopefully the battery will drain and maybe that will do something? I dunno. It’s out of warranty. Funny thing is, we’re still running a 2009 MBP (updated to SSD) and 2011 iMac (still has original HDD!) both daily, plus 4 iphone SEs and an M1 MBP. All with no major issues. The lightest use of any apple device in the house is the ipad. And the one that now won’t restore is the 2nd replacement in maybe 4 years for inexplicable, unfixable problems. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that this one somehow sorts itself out. Maybe I’ll try an update/restore from a different mac, I don’t know.
I’ve got nothing to help you, sorry, except a little empathy and fingers crossed that you get it sorted out once your flu has gone. And I hope it goes quickly.
A late follow up - perhaps the ipad had some sympathetic response to my annual flu. I couldn’t get it to update or restore no matter what I tried, and Apple was unable to help. I ended up leaving it “on,” and continuing its fruitless demand to be plugged into the mac. I let it sit that way for a couple weeks - not intentionally, I just forgot about it. When I finally got around to recharging it, I did so from my M1 MBP and… SURPRISE it booted up to update mode and successfully installed / activated the new OS. I went through the “new ipad” setup, and then loaded the additional stuff from my backup. After the typical stumbles and stutters that accompany a new OS install, it’s back to running as expected.
