my failed jailbreak :(

[QCassidy352]

First, this is NOT a knock on jailbreaking or an attempt to discourage others. I'm just sharing my experience.
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I finally broke down and jailbroke my 3GS last night. It did not last long.

I am on 3.0.1, so I had to use redsn0w. Not quite as simple as purplera1n, but pretty darn easy.

So after it's jailbroken, I used Cydia to install backgrounder (my main reason for wanting to jb). It hung on install, forcing a hard reboot of the phone. Ok, no big deal. Tried again and got it installed.

Installed winterboard and looked at some themes. Cool, but nothing I liked enough to install. (some of the themes I've seen here are way better!)

I noticed the battery was draining a lot faster than usual... but decided not to worry about it.

Woke up this morning and found that I had a greatly diminished cell signal and no wifi. Tried to search for my network, but it couldn't find any networks in range (there should be about 10). I sorta panicked and restored from last night's backup.
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I jailbroke on my 2G pre-2.0, and eventually went back to stock after the phone became slow and unstable. From everything I'd heard, jailbreaking was a lot different now, so I thought I'd give it another shot (really just for backgrounder and winterboard). Maybe I should have given it more time and tried to troubleshoot, but I guess I just don't want to be troubleshooting my phone. I know it's a mini-computer, but it's also my phone. I want it to just work.

I'm sure lots of you will tell me how great your jb phones are, and I don't doubt it. And for those of you who want to know the "point" of this thread, I guess it's that jailbreaking, while pretty easy and mainstream, is still a hack that does funny things to the ways your phone is supposed to run, so I'd advise anyone on the fence to think about whether they're willing and able to deal with that.

 

[FastangV6]

Sorry your experience wasn't very good. I haven't ever messed with 3.0.1, but have not had any of the problems you described with 3.0 JB. It's been working great for me with no adverse affects so far.

 

[Wiss]

I have not JB'ed my phone for 3.0+... Your experience sounds odd, unfortunately. I am sure you have been to the iphone Dev Team, but may want to post there to see what they say.

 

[QCassidy352]

yeah, that's what I've heard from a lot of people. I don't know where I (or the process) went wrong. It's too bad because I was looking forward to exploring my new options.

 

[FastangV6]

Stock is only a restore away, so if you have the time and patience you could always try it again and see if you experience the same things...

 

[QCassidy352]

Stock is only a restore away, so if you have the time and patience you could always try it again and see if you experience the same things...

That's a good point. Only took about an hour total to restore and get all my data back on my phone. It's very nice that there's so little risk.

 

[Lethalleftpeg]

after a couple of weeks of thinking about jailbreaking my 3gs, i decided to go ahead last night. redsnow tutorial and i was on 3.0.1. redsnow crashed during my first attempt (had me worried for a bit) but my second attempt was successful.

my battery seems to drain a bit quicker, but not significantly enough to bother me.

everything is fine for me and im enjoying customising my phone which is the only reason i done it. that guys top 10 cydia apps convinced me to to take the plunge and give jailbreaking a try.

 

[ozzyman500]

How can people fail at jailbreaking? It's not that hard at all. I never had problems with 3.0. Although I haven't messed around with 3.0.1 yet since I really feel no need to jailbreak anymore. Just use DFU mode and restore to stock.

 

[QCassidy352]

How can people fail at jailbreaking? It's not that hard at all. I never had problems with 3.0. Although I haven't messed around with 3.0.1 yet since I really feel no need to jailbreak anymore. Just use DFU mode and restore to stock.

I didn't "fail" at it in that I successfully used redsn0w. The phone exhibited problems after that; I don't know why. I didn't do anything but use redsn0w and install backgrounder and winterboard from cydia.

 

[IBradMac]

That sucks that you had a bad go around...ufortunately I had troubles my first time as well. I jailbroke with pwnage tool and had several glitches, some of the same ones you have described. I rejailbroke using redsn0w and everything seems to be working fine. A little slower than before, but not enough to notice.

 

[Vandam500]

after a couple of weeks of thinking about jailbreaking my 3gs, i decided to go ahead last night. redsnow tutorial and i was on 3.0.1. redsnow crashed during my first attempt (had me worried for a bit) but my second attempt was successful.

my battery seems to drain a bit quicker, but not significantly enough to bother me.

everything is fine for me and im enjoying customising my phone which is the only reason i done it. that guys top 10 cydia apps convinced me to to take the plunge and give jailbreaking a try.

That guys me? Awesome though! Enjoy your new phone!!! That is what a iPhone + jailbreak equals to me, a new phone