Ipad Air 1 128GB + Celullar activation problem

[Jarded47]

Hi,

I have been trying to upgrade to IOS 12. The iPad Air is asking me to activate it and when I hit Activate it comes up with the message "It may take a few minutes to activate your iPad" . After a few minutes I get "Your iPad could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. Try connecting your iPad to iTunes to activate it, or try again in a couple of minutes." I have been trying for over an hour and still no joy. I have tried connection through iTunes and through wifi and nothing. Any suggestions or is the server actually down or being hammered with everyone upgrading?

Regards
Jerry

 

[scifan57]

Is your internet connection working properly, if possible, try using another WiFi hotspot to see if that helps.

 

[Jarded47]

Is your internet connection working properly, if possible, try using another WiFi hotspot to see if that helps.

I tried another wifi network and iphone hot spot and still the same problem

 

[scifan57]

Was your iPad activated before the attempted update? Whenever I've updated I've never had to activate the iPad again as part of the update process.

 

[Jarded47]

Yes, the previous owner used normally and icloud is turned off on it. When I try to restore the iPad from a different back up on my mac its comes up with an error on my mac saying that it has failed to establish a session. And when I try to set it up as new, I get an error saying that the activation server isn't available at the moment and to try again later and I also get the same error when I try to set it up through my iPhone.

 

[J. A.]

Try restarting the iPad - just turn it off and on again.
If that doesn‘t help, force restart it: press and hold Home and Power button at the same time until the Apple logo appears. As soon as you see it, let go of both buttons. The iDevice will power up on it‘s own.
If possible, use a different (and reliable) Wi-Fi (a friend‘s, not your own) to continue updating/activating it.
If you still can‘t get past the activation screen, use recovery mode to restore your device:
If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

One more thought:
You told us that the previous owner used it normally. Did you make sure that this iPad is not connected to the former owner‘s iCloud ID any more?
Is this the first time you use this iPad?

 

[Jarded47]

Try restarting the iPad - just turn it off and on again.
If that doesn‘t help, force restart it: press and hold Home and Power button at the same time until the Apple logo appears. As soon as you see it, let go of both buttons. The iDevice will power up on it‘s own.
If possible, use a different (and reliable) Wi-Fi (a friend‘s, not your own) to continue updating/activating it.
If you still can‘t get past the activation screen, use recovery mode to restore your device:
If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

One more thought:
You told us that the previous owner used it normally. Did you make sure that this iPad is not connected to the former owner‘s iCloud ID any more?
Is this the first time you use this iPad?

I contacted the previous owner and he confirmed that the iPad is 100% not connected to any icloud account. I haven't activated it yet as when I bought it, it had the message that it couldn't activate. This problem came up for the previous owner when he updated to ios 12.
If I put in a sim should it give me a choice so I can set it up through 4g?

 

[J. A.]

That should also be possible.

The iPad Air was released by Apple in 2013. The battery’s performance and capacity might also be the reason for your problem. Maybe it’s not effective enough any more and has to be replaced.

If you can’t activate your iPad, visit an Apple Store or authorized reseller/service provider near you. Don’t forget to take the sales agreement with you.