HOW TO - Resolve iTunes Unknown Error 3194

f4780y · Sep 3, 2011

Recently this problem has started to crop up a lot with users for a variety of reasons. The good news is it can be easily resolved.

Background
When you restore a stock or custom firmware on any Apple device from iPhone3GS onwards, the process is verified with Apple using SHSH Blobs.
Whenever iTunes is requesting your blobs from the Apple signing servers you see this message in the status bar in iTunes...

If iTunes does not receive the reply it was expecting, it can throw an unexpected error which usually says:

"The iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (3194)"

This problem is usually caused because iTunes is not actually talking to the Apple signing servers to get SHSH blobs, but is more likely pointed towards Cydia. This is usually because you have previously used TinyUmbrella to store your SHSH Blobs or you edited your hosts file manually to point to Cydia.

Solution
By default, TU will set your hosts file to point to Cydia when it exits. You can tell it to point you back to Apple servers easily. If you don't already have TU, you can download it from - The Firmware Umbrella - TinyUmbrella

Start TinyUmbrella, switch to the "Advanced" tab, and UNTICK the option which says "Set hosts to Cydia on exit".

You can see the option, which is the second check box in the list, in the following screenshot:

Once you have unticked the option you are done. Just exit TU and your hosts file will be back to normal and pointing towards Apple. This is the best way to leave it. If you need to restore using TU in the future, just press it's "Start TSS Server" button. You never need to change the hosts option again. Just leave it switched off and TU does the rest.

If you don't want to use TinyUmbrella to resolve this problem, then you can manually edit your hosts file. You must REMOVE any of the lines in it which point to gs.apple.com. Just delete them altogether.

On Windows the hosts file can be found in: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
On OSX the hosts file lives in /private/etc/hosts

That should resolve your iTunes error 3194.

Darkstar2007 · Sep 3, 2011

I had to refer somebody to this tutorial earlier. Except I found it on ipadforums

! It worked great for them! Great job man!

iGraves · Sep 3, 2011

darkstar2007 said:
I had to refer somebody to this tutorial earlier. Except I found it on ipadforums ! It worked great for them! Great job man!

That would be me! Haha. I had to manually edit my hosts file for it work for me.

khanjada · Sep 5, 2011

hi ,,, i m not sleeping last 2 night ,,,bcoz i m in big prb ,, I have a iphone 4g, version 4.3 i update it by 4.3.3 and 4.3.5 and then my device goes to recovery mode and also getting 3194 error, when i want to restore it. tinyumbrella give me a message ....u r too late something like that ,,anybody rescue me from my problem...pls...pls..pls...

jntdroid · Oct 10, 2011

Thank you for this - just bought an iphone 4 (VZW) off of craigslist and couldn't update to 4.2.10 - clearly he had tweaked it without telling me... anyway, this appears to have worked. At least it's restoring now, and hasn't given me the 3194 error anyway. Thanks again...

edit: finished up perfectly, all's good now

soccerislife8 · Jan 21, 2012

If this solution does not work for you, I found a few more posted ***LINK REMOVED***. Hope this can help some people!

taimur_3 · Sep 29, 2013

I am interested in updating my iphone 3gs and facing the problem of 3194 error. While following your tutorial, I am experiencing a problem. i.e I am seeing the attached screen shot being unable to uncheck the "Set Hosts" option. Please help

willerz2 · Sep 29, 2013

Remove any Apple hosts from your host file, and delete the host.umbrella file in the same directory as your host file. Then flush your DNS and retry.

taimur_3 · Oct 1, 2013

Thank you. I'll try that

fufighter · Jan 16, 2014

Hello, a friend is receiving this error whentrying to unlock a 3gs, using Sn0wbreeze 0.9.14 and iOS 6.1.3, he already build the custom IPSW and now just is need to restore the iphone with it. He look into the "hosts" fodler and there is nothing there, Never used tiny umbrella or something like that in the past, so he is stuck in the last step of the procedure. I think the main problem is that the computer is running Win 7 64 bits =S . iTunes was the 11.05 (64 bits) then uninstalled and went one version early just to be sure, doesn't work neither. Could anybody please help ?

So far I read in internet very different statements, it seems the last resource is tiny umbrella, heI already have it, probably will try it after school, any advice?

Thanks!!

willerz2 · Jan 16, 2014

fufighter said:
Hello, a friend is receiving this error whentrying to unlock a 3gs, using Sn0wbreeze 0.9.14 and iOS 6.1.3, he already build the custom IPSW and now just is need to restore the iphone with it. He look into the "hosts" fodler and there is nothing there, Never used tiny umbrella or something like that in the past, so he is stuck in the last step of the procedure. I think the main problem is that the computer is running Win 7 64 bits =S . iTunes was the 11.05 (64 bits) then uninstalled and went one version early just to be sure, doesn't work neither. Could anybody please help ?

So far I read in internet very different statements, it seems the last resource is tiny umbrella, heI already have it, probably will try it after school, any advice?

Thanks!!

Are you using Sn0wBreeze or RedSn0w. You said Sn0wBreeze, but the version number coincides with RedSn0w.

fufighter · Jan 16, 2014

I follow a tutorial where they stated that was sn0wbreeze, I downloaded this file:

sn0wbreeze v2.9.14 (For iOS 3.1.3, 3.2.x, 4.0.x, 4.1, 4.2.1 to 4.2.8, 4.3 to 4.3.3, 4.4.3, 4.4.4, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.1.1, 5.2, 6.0.x, 6.1, 6.1.2, 6.1.3)

I dont know if I can link the source

The program was black all black, with a snow flea and you select the options, with arrows in the bottom to confirm the steps.

willerz2 · Jan 16, 2014

What does the error specifically say.

fufighter · Jan 16, 2014

willerz2 said:
What does the error specifically say.

I get a pop-up exatly like this:

I tried the basic: the host file, but there was no references to apple, in fact there was nothing without the "#"
I tried with 11.05 itunes (64bits) and then I roll back one version just to be sure, but the error remains.

Thanks for your fast responses willerz2

azee mehr · Mar 3, 2015

Hi All,
I was on iphone, 16gb, 5.1.1 factory unlock. My iphone was doing like a charm. I tried to update my all cydia apps alltogetter. AND then my iphone booted. Now it stucked at apple logo.

I tried to restore with itunes with 5.1.1 - 7.1.2 - 8.1.2 - 8.2b2 but every time i got itunes error 3194 on three computers even.

I want to have my jailbroken iphone back on which ever ios possible. i have also played with windows hosts file as you told here but of no avail.

Please help.