Apple often makes mistakes in the process of releasing updates. Sometimes it's as mild as a typo in release notes, sometimes they publish broken links, sometimes the update fails to install entirely because of a metadata error.
This is a list of things that Apple has messed up in that area. It does not include bugs in the actual released software, only errors in the release process and server-side configuration.
I'm still not sure how to describe this category of errors; I may reword it and rename the page in the future.
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. |
20 September 2021
iOS 15.0 was released. The iPad mini (6th generation) was added to the iTunes plist,
in a list of IDs related to DFU and Recovery, but the string looked like <string>iPad 14,1</string>
.
This was fixed in 5 October 2021
removing the extra space.13 December 2021
iOS 15.2 was released. The iTunes plist had two errors in the FirmwareSHA1
key for IPSWs,
which would prevent successful download of those IPSWs by iTunes or Finder when restoring a device:
iPhone_4.7_15.2_19C56_Restore.ipsw
was listed with an incorrect hash that actually corresponded toiPhone_4.7_P3_15.2_19C56_Restore.ipsw
.iPhone_4.0_64bit_15.2_19C56_Restore.ipsw
was listed with a truncated hash, 36 hex digits long (missing the last 4).
Both errors were fixed 4 hours later.
10 February 2022
iOS 15.3.1 released. When the iTunes plist was updated to add the new IPSWs (6pm UTC), this change was also done in an unrelated part of the file:
</dict>
- </dict><key>iPodSupport</key>
+ </dict<key>iPodSupport</key>
<dict>
This suggests the plist file was edited by hand in a text editor, and they hit backspace in the wrong place.
At 7pm UTC it was broken even more, seemingly duplicating a range of a few thousand lines above this syntax error. At 9pm UTC it was fixed properly.
4 May 2022
iOS/iPadOS 15.5 beta 4 (19F5070b) was released. The developer portal link for "11-in. iPad Pro (3rd generation), 12.9-in. iPad Pro (5th generation)", which should point to iPad_Pro_Spring_2021_15.5_19F5070b_Restore.ipsw, incorrectly linked to iPad_Spring_2021_15.5_19F5070b_Restore.ipsw instead, which is the IPSW for the iPad Air 5.
After pinging Apple employees on Twitter, and possibly contacts through other channels, the link in the developer portal was fixed on 9 May 2022
.24 October 2022
iOS 16.1 released. In the iTunes plist, one of the places where the IPSW is advertised for the iPad7,5 incorrectly had:
<key>FirmwareURL</key>
<string></string>
This was fixed with the correct URL a week later, on 1 November 2022
. In addition, the affected URL continued to randomly disappear and re-appear until at least 9 November 2022 , probably due to CDN caching issues serving the old plist before the fix.9 November 2022
iOS 16.1.1 released. The com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate.xml and com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdateDocumentation.xml manifests in mesu contained download URLs to basejumper.apple.com (Apple's internal employee-only download server) instead of updates.cdn-apple.com.
It's unclear if this actually prevented normal users from installing updates, since it's possible the relevant iOS versions use pallas rather than mesu to get software updates.
This was fixed for SoftwareUpdate on 11 November 2022
, and for SoftwareUpdateDocumentation on 14 November 2022 .11 April 2023
AirPods firmware update 5E133 was released for several AirPods models. All the relevant MobileAsset manifests in mesu contained download URLs to basejumper.apple.com (Apple's internal employee-only download server) instead of updates.cdn-apple.com.
The update was rolled back to 5B59 2 hours later (manifests changed to their previous contents), and 2 more hours later 5E133 was re-released with the correct URL.
11 July 2023
iOS 17.0 beta 3 was released as public beta, with a new build number (21A5277j) vs the developer beta (21A5277h). The developer portal link for the iPhone 12 Pro Max (expected filename iPhone13,4_17.0_21A5277j_Restore.ipsw) incorrectly pointed at the IPSW URL for the iPhone 12 mini (iPhone13,1) instead.
This was still not fixed by the time beta 4 was released, so we never got a download URL for that IPSW.
29 August 2023
iOS 17.0 beta 8 was released. The developer portal had an incorrect link to some IPSW, and when they fixed it, they broke a different one. The link for iPad_Pro_HFR_17.0_21A5326a_Restore.ipsw was incorrectly the URL from the previous beta, with only the filename replaced, resulting in a broken link.
It's unclear if it was ever fixed in the dev portal, but fortunately someone saved the correct URL before the error was introduced.
Relevant Mastodon thread: https://infosec.exchange/@siguza/110975355960873348
22 January 2024
iOS 15.8.1 was released. The iTunes plist for IPSWs didn't update the link for the iPhone 6s, meaning anyone trying to restore was getting iOS 15.8 instead.
This was finally fixed on 1 February 2024
, after 15.8 became unsigned on 30 January 2024 .20 February 2024
iOS 17.4 beta 4 was released. The developer portal link for the iPhone SE (2nd generation) (expected filename iPhone12,8_17.4_21E5209b_Restore.ipsw) incorrectly pointed at the iPad_Pro_HFR IPSW instead, which is for the iPad Pro (2nd generation).
This was still not fixed by the time 17.4 RC was released, so we never got a download URL for that IPSW.
19 March 2024
AirTag firmware update 2A73 was released.
The MobileAsset manifest for AirTag updates has configuration for staged rollout,
indicating on which dates the update should be installed on 1% of AirTags, 10%, 25%, etc.
This configuration incorrectly had two digits for the year
(such as 03/19/24
instead of 03/19/2024
),
which would make iOS think the date already passed,
and the update would be immediately installed on 100% of AirTags.
This was fixed on 22 March 2024
, but it's possible the update was already installed on most AirTags by then.24 June 2024
iOS 18.0 beta 2 was released. Several hours later (already June 25th in UTC), the delta OTAs of this update were removed from Pallas. The full OTA remained available.
It's possible this was not a "server mistake", and the deltas were removed due to a legitimate reason, such as a bug in the update installation process. But no release notes ever said anything about it.
8 July 2024
iOS 18.0 beta 3 was released. The developer portal link for the iPad (8th generation) (expected filename iPad_10.2_2020_18.0_22A5307f_Restore.ipsw) incorrectly pointed at the iPad_10.2_2021 IPSW instead, which is for the iPad (9th generation).
This was still not fixed by the time 18.0 beta 3 (build 22A5307i) was released, so we never got a download URL for that IPSW.
13 August 2024
iOS 17.6.1 and visionOS 1.3 stopped being signed in SHSH, despite being the latest version. This prevented regular users from doing an update or restore. iOS 17.6 was still signed, so advanced users could still install it manually via IPSW, but this left the Vision Pro with no signed versions at all.
Both issues were fixed a few hours later; the exact timing is hard to determine.
17 September 2024
iOS 18.1 beta 4 was released. The developer portal link for the iPhone 13 Pro had a non-functional URL for iPhone14,2_18.1_22B5045g_Restore.ipsw.
This was still not fixed by the time beta 5 was released, so we never got that IPSW at all.
The same day, a firmware update was released for the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. The mesu manifest for it linked to basejumper (internal download server).
The URL was fixed in 3 October 2024
, over two weeks later.19 September 2024
The support article "Identify your Apple Watch" added the Apple Watch Series 10. For the 46mm cellular model in China mainland, the model number A3006 was listed, but that's an iPad Pro model. It was fixed with the correct number A3206 on 8 January 2025 .
3 October 2024
iOS 18.0.1 and macOS 15.0.1 were released. The developer portal, where the IPSWs can be downloaded, incorrectly labeled them as iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1.
Fixed about 2 hours later.
15 October 2024
macOS 15.1 beta 7 was released. However, this never materialized on the developer portal, meaning we never got that IPSW.
The same day, AirPods firmware beta update 7B5013d was released. For A3048 (new AirPods Pro 2 USB-C), it was correctly released as a beta, in the mesu directory AirPods2022Seed. For A2618 (original AirPods Pro 2) and A2968 (the USB-C case for the new AirPods), the beta was incorrectly published as a regular asset.
It was fixed about 6 hours later, rolling back the regular asset to 7A305, and publishing 7B5013d in AirPods2022Seed for those two devices as well.
23 October 2024
iOS 18.2 beta was released. The developer portal was missing IPSW links for iPad Pro (11-inch) (3rd generation), iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (5th generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (M4), and iPad Pro 13-inch (M4).
This was still not fixed by the time beta 2 was released, so we never got those IPSWs at all.
30 October 2024
The MacBook Pro with M4 was introduced, and a special build of macOS 15.1 (24B2083) was released for it. When adding the new macOS IPSWs to com_apple_macOSIPSW.xml, a plist syntax error was introduced:
<key>805339426</key>
<string>Mac15,12</string>
<key>838893858</key>
<string>Mac15,13</string>
<string>Mac16,1</string>
<key>604012850</key>
<string>Mac16,2</string>
<key>637567282</key>
<string>Mac16,3</string>
It was fixed 9 hours later by adding a missing <key>
line before Mac16,1
.
This strongly suggests the plist file is edited by hand in a text editor.
11 November 2024
watchOS 11.2 beta 2 was released.
For Series 9 and Ultra 2 (N207bAP, N207sAP, N208bAP, N208sAP, N210AP),
the SoftwareUpdate assets in Pallas were missing ArchiveDecryptionKey
,
and instead had WKMSURL
and KnoxURL
pointing at Apple-internal URLs.
This prevented installation of the beta on those models.
It was fixed about 4 hours later.
MacRumors coverage: watchOS 11.2 Beta 2 Failing to Install on Some Apple Watch Models: 'Software Update Failed'.
11 December 2024
macOS 15.2 was released. For M4 Macs, the com_apple_macOSIPSW.xml file incorrectly listed the IPSW for 24C2101 (instead of 24C101), which only supported the unreleased MacBook Air M4. Apart from leaking the existence of the MBA M4, this meant that trying to restore an M4 Mac using Apple Configurator would fail because the 24C2101 IPSW didn't support it.
The XML file was fixed 2 hours later. Later, the IPSW was also deleted from the CDN.
16 January 2025
Pallas responses for UAF assets (and a few non-UAF like OSEligibility)
started intermittently missing the _OSVersionCompatibilities
and _MinOSVersion
fields.
This is dependent on the asset type, the parameters (like TrainName
),
and the specific pallas server contacted.
As of 28 January 2025
this is still broken. It's unclear what the real-world impact is.21 January 2025
iOS 18.3 RC, macOS 15.3 RC, etc. were released. The release notes for macOS 15.3 RC talk about "users new or upgrading to macOS 18.3", due to a copy-paste from the iOS 18 release notes.
27 January 2025
watchOS 11.3, etc. released.
At the same time, the SoftwareUpdate assets for watchOS 10.6.1 had their CompatibilityVersion
increased from 22 to 24 (watchOS 11 uses CompatibilityVersion=23
).
This meant older watches that don't support watchOS 11, but didn't yet update to 10.6.1, couldn't install the update.
It was fixed 24 hours later.
MacRumors coverage: Apple Breaks watchOS Updates On Older Apple Watch Models.
10 February 2025
iOS/iPadOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 17.7.5 were released.
The list of security advisories swapped the links for these two releases. The link labeled "iOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 18.3.1" went to the iPadOS 17.7.5 security notes, and the link labeled "iPadOS 17.7.5" went to the iOS 18.3.1 security notes.
It was fixed within minutes.