Programs released by Apple have proven themselves primarily for ease of use and stability. But still, when using iTunes, the user is not immune from errors. Moreover, a failure may occur due to software problems, problems with the computer and mobile device.
One of these situations is iTunes error 3194. The following will discuss the circumstances that can lead to this failure, as well as ways to fix it.
Reasons
There are a lot of reasons that lead to error 3194 in iTunes. But all of them can be divided into two large groups: software and hardware. In the first case, we are talking about various failures associated with the process of updating or restoring a mobile device. Sometimes the problem occurs due to errors in the computer itself, for example, due to virus threats or the actions of anti-malware software. There are other situations as well. Any of them can be easily solved.
For hardware reasons, things are different. If the problem is in the cable, then just change it. In other situations, you must contact the service center, where the master will repair the device.
Troubleshooting
Everything is clear about the causes of iTunes error 3194 when restoring. Now let’s look at the options for fixing it.
First of all, you need to use the methods recommended by Apple. If this does not help, then there is an alternative option – editing the hosts file.
Option 1: Basic methods
There are several standard solutions provided by the developer for any iTunes-related crashes. Most often, doing them is enough to fix the problem. First of all, you need to restart your smartphone or tablet, as well as your computer and try again.
You should also check the version of the program. To do this, launch iTunes, in the toolbar, call the menu “Help” and click on the item “Updates”.
Third party software may conflict with iTunes. Because of this, various errors sometimes occur, including the one with code 3194. Most often, this applies to antiviruses. Security tools often block programs from running. Accordingly, they should be disabled before updating or restoring the iPhone.
Option 2: Editing the hosts file
Error 3194 in iTunes when restoring the firmware may occur due to a corrupted hosts file. It is responsible for the computer’s network connections. In some versions of Windows, direct editing of this document is closed, so you need to use a workaround:
- Deactivate iTunes.
- Invoke the Start menu. There, find the Notepad element. It is usually located in the standard system programs section.
- Right-click on it and select the option to open with administrator rights.
- In the program window, press Ctrl + O and navigate to the following folder: “system driveWindowsSystem32drivers”.
- There, find the etc directory and expand it.
- In it, select the hosts file and click Open.
- In the text of the document, find all the lines that contain apple in the title, you need to delete them.
- Then, in the program window, click “File – Save As…”.
- Specify any convenient folder as the location.
Document editing is almost complete. But, most likely, it is saved in the txt extension, which needs to be changed. Initially, this function is not available, it can be enabled using the Control Panel.Launch the desired item, change the display to classic view, and open Explorer Options (sometimes called Folder Options).
Go to the “View” tab, scroll to the bottom of the list. There is an item “Hide extensions …”, it must be deactivated.
At the end, click “Apply” and close the window. Now open the folder where you saved the edited document. Select it and press F2. Delete the .txt postscript, if present. As a result, the file will be called hosts, not hosts.txt.
Activate its copying in the context menu. Now change to the etc directory whose path was specified earlier. There, rename the hosts file to oldhosts and then paste the edited document.
Now all that remains is to restart your PC and check if iTunes error 3194 reappears when restoring or during a firmware update.
