I've seen my share of useful, not so useful, and downright silly app error messages. The iTunes error message "iTunes could not restore the iPhone because an error occurred" is on my top list for useless and obvious. iTunes doesn't give you any clues about the source of the problem or if there is anything you can do to fix it!
As the lead developer for Decipher Backup Repair, software for fixing corrupt and otherwise broken iPhone/iPad/iPod backups, I've explored many of the underlying causes of this generic "error occurred" message while working with customers.
Here's some reasons for the "iTunes could not restore the iPhone/iPad/iPod because an error occurred" message:
A connection problem between the iPhone and the computer that results in some of the files not transferring.
Missing data in the backup.
The backup being stored on an external or network drive with intermittent connectivity.
Any error that iTunes doesn't have an explicit message for.
In my experience it generally means that there was something unexpected in the backup that the iPhone doesn't know how to handle, so the entire restore attempt gets abruptly rejected. The "error occurred" message is a catch-all for when iTunes doesn't have a better explanation. The good news is that we've fixed a lot of restores with this error message, so we have some fixes for you to try!
If all of the above suggestions didn't help with the "an error occurred" message, then it's likely that there are problems with the backup itself that are causing the error. For those situations, we made Decipher Backup Repair to scan and fix corrupt/broken iPhone/iPad/iPod backups that won't restore in iTunes.
Download Decipher Backup Repair
Follow these specific steps to repair your iPhone backup that has an error occurred message
Next, we're going to restore the new repaired backup in iTunes:
In the rare event that you still cannot restore your backup after using Decipher Backup Repair, we'll help discover the problem and fix it, or refund your purchase.
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