“An unknown error occurred (-9838)”

I went to the AT&T Store this morning at about 7:45am to wait in line to get a new phone. The new iPhone 3G has all the features that I’ve been waiting for, so I decided since my old phone was over three years old, it was time to take the plunge. I was probably 25th in line and I talked to the people around me until it was my turn to enter at about 8:30am.

I got the phone and did the appropriate account changes. The salesperson (Mike) at the Pittsburgh Mills mall was very nice and friendly. He plugged the phone into the computer to authorize it. Apparently, the phones aren’t suppose to leave the store without being activated so that people can’t sell them on eBay and such places.

The authorization is done via iTunes, so I could theoretically do it at home. Unfortunately, Mike and I stood there for 50 minutes and watched the progress bar do absolutely nothing but say “Accessing iTunes Store.” After some calls to other stores, they decided to just start sending people home with the inactivated phones.

Once I got home, I immediately plugged in the iPhone to activate it as I’m excited to play a game called Quordy that my friend developed. Quordy is one of those word finding, puzzle games, but it allows you to challenge your friends and it keeps win/loss statistics and stuff like that. It’s fun. I recommend it to all iPhone users. Anyway, when it started the “Accessing iTunes Store” business, it threw an error that read:

We could not complete your iTunes Store request. An unknown error occurred (-9838)

There was an error in the iTunes Store. Please try again later.

So now I sit here with a very expensive and shiny brick. This better get resolved before 3:30pm. I have a musical excursion tonight that I don’t to want miss without my new toy.