Fix for Altserver the background refreshing on Windows

Hi guys,

For about a year now I’ve been plagued by this weird Altserver problem on Windows. This happens on Windows 10 and 11.

I can start Altstore and it might temporarily find my phone but it will never automatically refresh my apps for me. I can manually refresh through a cable or by restarting my PC but I figured out what is causing this.

The problem is Apple Mobile Device Service. This is a piece of software included with iTunes/iCloud that is responsible for finding your phone on the network. This service loses track of your phone if it is locked I have noticed, so that’s why everything has been so flaky.

I realised that restarting this service with my phone unlocked allowed it and in turn Altserver to find my phone again and refresh the apps. When Altstore asks Altserver to refresh its apps in the background it means that AMDS will not be able to find it and connect it to the right device on your network because the device is locked or has been locked since the last restart of the AMDS.

So what can you do to fix this? Open Notepad, then copy and paste this: 

NET STOP "Apple Mobile Device Service" 
NET START "Apple Mobile Device Service"

Now save this as: whatevernameyouwant.bat

Now check your Altserver, when you hover over “Install Altstore” does it list the name of your phone? If not, it cannot find your phone on the network. Unlock your phone, then right click the .bat file you just made and run it as administrator. This will restart the Apple Mobile Device Service and force it to search for your phone. If all is good now Altserver will list your device in the “Install Altstore” list. This means you can refresh your apps through Altstore.

If you still cannot see it, make sure that you have turned off any VPN software you might use. If you do want to use your VPN software, enable split-tunneling and add Altserver.exe to the apps that don’t use the VPN (maybe Apple Mobile Device Service.exe too but I have not found this necessary).

Now we can put this process into task scheduler to make sure the PC does this automatically every 5 minutes so that there is a way higher chance of Altstore and Altserver can find each other and refresh the apps.

Open task scheduler, action, create task. Make sure the options “Run with highest privileges” and “Run whether use is logged on or not” are checked. You will have to enter the credentials of an admin account. Make sure “Do not store password” is not checked. This will make the task run without interrupting you with a command window.

Go to the tab triggers and add a new trigger, at log on, any user. Uncheck everything except “Repeat task every:” and set it to 5 minutes. For a duration of “Indefinitely”. Check the “Enabled” box and click OK.

Go to the tab “Actions” and Click “New”. Set it to “Start a program” and for Program/script browse to your .bat file and select it.

Then in the tab settings I chose to enable “Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed”.

Press OK and now you have your task. Enjoy.

No source files or tests are named. Start by reproducing Windows background refresh with Apple Mobile Device Service and AltServer, then trace how locked-device discovery affects the refresh flow; done means apps refresh automatically without manually restarting the service.