Someone asked me to help them erase an iPhone 8 so they can trade it in. The phone belonged to their child and the parent had setup screen time and content restrictions on the child's phone. When I try to erase it I'm asked for the normal screen unlock pin, which it accepts, and then it asks for the screen time passcode. This is where the problem begins. The parent has tried every pin they can think of and they all failed. So they called
Verizon and Apple support who talked her through how to change it using the parent's device. I watched them change the screen time passcode, for the child's device, to 1234. I had to wait 60 min to get another chance because they have guessed too many times. When the time was up I tried to erase the phone again. I went to Settings >General>Reset>Erase All Content and Settings and entered the unlock passcode. Then it asked me for the screen time passcode, I carefully entered 1234
and it rejected it! At this point I have no idea how to erase this phone without the screen time passcode and for some reason I can't even change it using the parent's device! I also made sure both iPhones are running the latest iOS (13.5.1). What can I do to erase this iPhone when I don't know the screen time passcode and have no way to reset or change it? check Best Answer
I finally got it! I just wanted to report back in case anyone else ever runs into this.
TL;DR version: On the iPhone the Personal Hotspot was turned on, preventing my laptop from accessing the Apple servers in iTunes when I was trying to Reset the iPhone.
According to Apple; the official method to erase and reset an iPhone or iPad if you don't know the screen time passcode is to plug it into a computer running iTunes, sign into iTunes using a parent's account, then click on the icon for the device and click Restore. When I tried that I was getting an error message that said, " iPhone Software Update Server Could Not Be Contacted".
When I tried to Google that message most of the results were about making sure the computer the iPhone was plugged into had internet access and checking that the firewall settings were not blocking iTunes. I knew that wasn't the case here. My laptop was connected to my WiFi and I could definitely access the internet. I even made sure I was using an genuine Apple usb cable and it was pure luck when I plugged it in for the 100th time I noticed in the bottom right corner of my laptop the network name changed. Even though it showed that my WiFi was connected I was also connected to the iPhone. My laptop was tethered to the iPhone!!!
My laptop was using the old iPhone as it's primary internet connection and they had already activated the new iPhone so it had no cell service (and no internet access). On the iPhone I went into Settings and turned off the Personal Hotspot and tried iTunes again and then it worked! I noticed iTunes had to download a 3.5GB file which I assume was a factory default image for the iPhone. The whole process took about 15-20 minutes and when it was over the iPhone was erased! Then I logged into both the child's and parent's Apple accounts and removed the device.
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