VMWare + XP + iPhone firmware version 2.1 update = NO
Quick recommendation: do not try to install the new iPhone 2.1 firmware update under VMWare. Trying to do so today was unfun. My phone was temporarily a brick, until I found a coworker’s actual Windows box and installed it from that machine’s iTunes. Until I did that, I was getting lots of “unknown error” codes, like the dread 1611.
Other than this firmware update, I’ve had no problems doing everything under iTunes under XP under VMWare. This one was unpleasant, though.
I wonder what the problem is? Maybe when the phone’s firmware gets flashed the USB device changes in a funny way that confuses the USB pass-through? Try filing a bug. That’s probably something that can be fixed so that future firmware updates will be smooth.
Comment by mrz — September 13, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Well, there was initially a problem where — after some bit of the upgrade process had passed — VMWare warned me that the usb-audio driver (one of them, anyway) was conflicting with something. So I rmmoded the driver and tried again. Linux kept reloading it, so I eventually blacklisted it. The warnings stopped coming, but the firmware upgrade kept failing.
If it’s necessary, I’d be glad to temporarily re-brick the phone to reproduce the bug.
Comment by Steve Laniel — September 13, 2008 @ 8:09 am
Probably no need to brick the phone, but get as much data as you can and report the bug to VMware. They may either create a Knowlege Base article with a work around and/or fix the problem.
Comment by mrz — September 13, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
Where do I file a bug? I just did some quick googling and found nothing. You wanna post a link?
Comment by slaniel — September 15, 2008 @ 7:58 am
I don’t see a place for non-support folks to file bugs directly (huh!). However, you can post your experience to the appropriate forum. Some dev/support folks hang out there and you might either get a tip/workaround or somebody internal might file a bug about it.
Comment by mrz — September 15, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
Hi, Just as confirmation, I am having the same issues with the 2.1 upgrade through the latest version of vmware, 6.0.5 build-109488. My initial upgrade failed and my attempts to re-load the iphone fail, after the download and extraction of the upgrade, in about 2 seconds.
Comment by Bill Brown — September 17, 2008 @ 8:57 am
Hi,
yes…I had the same problem too. I cannot stand Windows and have used only Linux for many years…which worked fine with my iPod too (using amarok). After getting my new iPhone 3G I found that I could, after many tests, use it with iTunes within VMware running XP – but the firmware updates do not work.
Unfortunately it has meant that I have now had to install windows on my home notebook :(
It seems that after the new iPhone software is downloaded and the iPhone reboots, the USB connection is cut and the host OS (linux) tries to connect to the iPhone before VMware can…which seems to cause the problem.
Hopefully this can be fixed…though I don’t know how.
cheers, Kristian.
Comment by Kristian — October 17, 2008 @ 3:03 am
Any news on this? Looks pretty strange…
Comment by Christian Decker — November 6, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
Hi,
I had the same problem with VMware 6.5, but was able to unbrick my iPod Touch. I did this when VMware complained about sndusbaudio:
sudo rmmod usbhid sndusbaudio
and then reconnected Apple iPod USB device (notice the usbhid). Seems to be work for me.
Comment by Terje Bergström — November 22, 2008 @ 9:53 am
So does this mean that you can perform firmware updates from within VMWare now, by simply removing the usbhid module? I tried something similar (removing all of the USB Stack Modules) to no success because then VMWare doesn’t see the USB devices either :-(
Comment by Christian Decker — November 27, 2008 @ 10:13 am
Yep, I upgraded iPod Touch from 2.1 to 2.2 with only Linux host and Windows guest. First it failed as in the original text, but after I removed both usbhid and usb audio modules, I was able to connect iPod Touch to VMware and iTunes continued the upgrade. Took a few retries to get the timing right.
Comment by Terje Bergström — November 29, 2008 @ 4:20 am
I’ve successfully managed the iPhone firmware upgrade with VMWare (using some hints from this page). Full details are here: http://freshfoo.com/blog/iphoneupgradewith_vmware
Comment by Menno Smits — December 31, 2008 @ 6:26 am
Wow, that link got really mangled by the comment submission. Just go to http://freshfoo.com/ and find the article there.
Comment by Menno Smits — December 31, 2008 @ 6:28 am