iPhone 4S upgrade to 9.3.5 problems - Help requested

[Koenfucius]

Been trying to upgrade my wife's phone from iOS 8.1.2 (JB) to the most recent iOS version. For unknown reasons, it had started to play up, with Messages, Phone function and FaceTime failing to work at all, random reboots etc. At first tried to clean it using Cydia Eraser, which continually crashed before completing. Eventually it seemed to complete its task, but left the phone in an uncertain state: Cydia and JB tweaks gone, but all other apps/settings still there.

So I decided to cut my losses and simply upgrade to the latest iOS via iTunes (my wife is not a great JB tweak user anyway).

This is proving to be less than straightforward. The first part of the process went well, until the device was supposed to reboot and connect to iTunes (on Windows 7). What happens is this:

1. iTunes asks whether I want to give this computer access to the phone. I say "sure, fine", and get a prompt "To allow access, please respond on your iPhone".
2. Meanwhile the iPhone has booted to a white screen saying 'Slide to upgrade'
3. I slide and am asked for the lock code, which I provide
4. I get a white screen with a black logo and a gray progress bar underneath
5. First time round: a black bit appears on the progress bar, but nothing happens.
6. After a while the screen goes black for a few seconds, returns with the black logo on white background, but this time without the progress bar. This stays for a few minutes, then the process repeats: screen black for a few seconds, back to black logo on white for several minutes etc. -- repeated a few times
7. Then the phone goes dark and appears to reboot: black screen/white logo. iTunes seems to spot the phone, and asks the same question as in [1.]. Back to step 2, 3 and 4.
8. Now the black part of the progress bar continues until it's about halfway, then suddenly the screen goes black, then back to white with a black logo but without progress bar. We're back to step 6 once or twice, until the phone again appears to reboot.
9. Same as before, only now it's been with the black progress bar about halfway (right under the middle of the apple), with no movement at all for about 30 minutes now. Doesn't seem to be going anywhere...

(All this time the phone has remained plugged in to my PC.)

How can I proceed from here please? Many thanks in advance!

K

 

[Koenfucius]

Well how about this. I leave the phone while I go and get some lunch and when I come back it seems to have completed the upgrade. All fine!

 

[eyoungren]

Well how about this. I leave the phone while I go and get some lunch and when I come back it seems to have completed the upgrade. All fine!

When I update a jailbroken iDevice, the process I use is to backup and turn off Find My iPhone. Then I put the phone in DFU mode and use iTunes to restore/upgrade as new. Once that's done I restore from the backup I made.

This has the benefit of wiping out any traces of the previous jailbreak. Not so much of a concern on a 4s where you just upgraded to the max version it will run, but a concern for other, newer devices.

There have been several cases where people just plugged in to iTunes and upgraded a jailbroken device. When they went to jailbreak later on the newer version of iOS they discovered that their previous jailbreak still had pieces installed that prevented them from installing new tweaks. Removing the old JB pieces wasn't possible except with a full restore.

You probably won't have any issues but I wouldn't exactly consider your jailbreak completely wiped from your device either.

Just pointing that out is all.