IPhone Software Update Hangs after installing AT&T Wireless Card…? This reghack may fix it…
February 16, 2009 6 Comments
I tried to sync my iPhone this morning (heading out of town later today). ITunes asked me if it could apply a software update, and I mistakenly said yes… About half way through it just hung, and ended up totally hosing my iPhone.
When it hangs like this during a software update, the iPhone will go back into “factory restore mode” (basically it looks like it did when you first purchased it, it will do nothing save for tell you to plug it into ITunes). When you plug it back into ITunes, it will ask you if you want to restore it to its initial state (which you must do before you can then restore a backup).
Regardless of how many times I tried (I wasted hours), during the restore, the process would hang on the “verifying iPhone software” task (eventually the iPhone would restart and the cycle would start again).
After much googling (and cursing), it turns out this was due to a registry setting that was added by the software for my new AT&T wireless card (I did the free upgrade to AT&T’s latest wireless card a few weeks back, and this came with new software).
Apparently AT&T’s software sets a TCP registry setting (on XP) which causes this problem.
Many thanks to jgkurz for his post on the following thread in the apple support forums.
Here’s a copy-paste of the post :
I had the “Verifying iPhone Software” issue on both the 2.2 and 2.2.1 upgrade. I just got off the phone with Apple support and they had me delete the WinXP registry key “TcpWindowSize” located here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Apparently this setting was added by my AT&T Aircard and is known to cause the “Verifying iPhone Software” issue. I had to do a restore on my same PC and not a second iTunes but all seems to work properly now.
I hope this helps.
I removed the offending registry entry, rebooted, and the problem went away. Here’s a screenshot of the offending registry key :

Excellent post!!! Thank you. After spending day and half and talking to several apple reps, I reached at this blog. Just worked fine after that…great job. thanks again.
This post has helped me tons! You don’t know how many times I tried restoring my iPhone and was unsuccessfull, until I found this post! Thanx a million!
Dude, this saved my weekend. Never thought having an AT&T wireless card would be such a pain in the arse. Thanks a ton.
Wow, now that worked awesomely!!!
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wow the best thing ever on iphone thanx…………..i will follow you on google+….