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Unable to Activate

When setting up an iPad Air 1 (2013 model), after I connect to WIFI is try to connect to the server, then I get the below message -


Unable to Activate

Your iPad could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached.

iPad Air Wi-Fi, Cellular

Posted on Mar 11, 2020 10:07 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 11, 2020 10:13 AM

This Apple document should help:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201407


If your problem is widespread, you should consider that you may have a network routing or DNS issue. Without assistance of your network administrator, there’s little that you can do to resolve the former, but the latter is relatively easy to test.


Manually set your DNS settings to a trustworthy recursive DNS provider, such as Quad9, OpenDNS or Cloudflare.


On your iPad, you can change your DNS settings here:

Settings > WiFi > [Your Network] - touch the “i” icon, then select Configure DNS > Manual and add/replace the existing entries with either of these Recursive DNS providers - all which are trusted and highly reliable.


Quad9

Primary 9.9.9.9

Secondary 149.112.112.112


OpenDNS

Primary 208.67.222.222

Secondary 208.67.220.220


If the issue you are experiencing is occurring because of bad DNS, this change should be successful in resolving the problem.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 11, 2020 10:13 AM in response to DillonRYR

This Apple document should help:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201407


If your problem is widespread, you should consider that you may have a network routing or DNS issue. Without assistance of your network administrator, there’s little that you can do to resolve the former, but the latter is relatively easy to test.


Manually set your DNS settings to a trustworthy recursive DNS provider, such as Quad9, OpenDNS or Cloudflare.


On your iPad, you can change your DNS settings here:

Settings > WiFi > [Your Network] - touch the “i” icon, then select Configure DNS > Manual and add/replace the existing entries with either of these Recursive DNS providers - all which are trusted and highly reliable.


Quad9

Primary 9.9.9.9

Secondary 149.112.112.112


OpenDNS

Primary 208.67.222.222

Secondary 208.67.220.220


If the issue you are experiencing is occurring because of bad DNS, this change should be successful in resolving the problem.

Mar 11, 2020 10:26 AM in response to DillonRYR

This help page may provide some additional insight:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201407


The page refers to iPhone, but is largely applicable to iPad as well.


If still having no luck, you should consider contacting Apple Support to seek assistance. You’ll find the link to Contact Support at top-right of this page.


I hope you find this information to be helpful.

Unable to Activate

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