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Push not working on AT&T 3GS post-blackra1n even when restored as new

C

cinematheque

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 20, 2009
11
0
So I'm using a 3GS on AT&T, activated by AT&T, running 3.1.2 firmware. Up until a couple of days ago, it was working fine--jailbroken with blackra1n although I'm not sure which RC (2 or 3 I think). I never unlocked it because I didn't need to.

Facebook app update comes around with push. I notice it isn't pushing anything to me, so I test to see if I can get push at all via AIM, which is successful. I get one Facebook push notification out of the many I should have received. Please note that up until now even jailbroken I was receiving all of my push notifications (as far as I know).

I was, however, getting that "YouTube unavailable" issue I'd heard about so I installed Push Fix, which I actually grabbed from the Sinful Repository since that was the only one I could find (I heard it was elsewhere?). Hereafter my YouTube worked, but my push stopped working altogether. Wasn't getting AIM alerts, eBay alerts, AP news alerts, or anything. Tried uninstalling and re-installing a couple, still no dice. Removed Push Fix, still no dice. Went through and uninstalled, one-by-one, all of my Cydia apps...no dice.

So today I restore my phone. I set it up to restore as new, and then I synced all my data, which I backed up last night, back onto the phone. Now not only am I not getting push notifications, but my signal is intermittent (unfortunately I'm in the middle of nowhere so 3G is unavailable), sometimes the GPS goes out and I have to reboot, and whatnot. Again, reinstalled several apps that should be pushing things. I even went out of my way to add like a bazillion things on eBay that I should be getting watch alerts for. Push is still not working. I plan to restore it again, and if it doesn't work, restore it again and then not sync it, but I dunno. I'm getting pretty worried about it, since as far as I can tell, all traces of my jailbreak should be gone the way that I reset it.

So ummm...I think that's about all the information that seems pertinent? I've done my fair share of Googling on the matter and I'm coming up short. It seems that most people with push problems were using unlocked phones, and that most push problems were resolved by re-jailbreaking after restoring. Mine aren't even resolved by restoring without the jailbreak.

Anyway here's hoping someone has an idea here because I didn't realize how much I relied on my push.

Thanks!
 
My phone and my wife's are 3GS phones from AT&T and NOT jailbroken or any other hacks... None. We downloaded
the facebook app with push and it's update. Push used to work but around yesterday ALL push stopped. Tested with PING! No go. Mint. No go. Scrabble. No go. All used to work fine with push. Never an issue. Don't know what to do. Was thinking that it might just be my phone so I checked my wife's... Same issue.
 
That's bizarre...but seems to suggest that Facebook is what's messing up our phones. Have you tried uninstalling it and seeing if push works again? I'm going to do that right now, but I thought I'd ask if that works for you.
 
I have reinstalled... Fb still jacked. I think facebook push is taxing AT&T's network...
 
I don't know. I tried sending myself an IM when I had Facebook installed, and didn't get push. Then I uninstalled Facebook, tried it again, and I got push. Facebook back...no push. Facebook overtaxing AT&T's servers sucks but I could see that...but it seems like server overload would be affecting everybody's push even if you didn't have Facebook installed, but in this case, it seems like Facebook is actually blocking the push. But that seems wrong...I feel like if Facebook were destroying push notification for the masses that I would have found more about it in all the ridiculous amount of time I've spent trying to troubleshoot, since this actually started as my inability to get push on Facebook. It took me a solid day to establish I couldn't get push anywhere.
 
Update: This morning I got a push notification, my first one while Facebook is simultaneously installed, but it was somebody else's. I heard that this was a problem when utilizing Push Fix, which I wish I had read more about before I installed. The problem is that I already restored my phone, as new, and somehow I still seem to be suffering from the Push Fix problem. Could this have changed something in my phone permanently? I know that it uses the same kind of ID number for multiple phones which is why it happens, but I don't know much about it. My AT&T account and phone are legit and current, and if restoring it doesn't work, how can I go back and un-do whatever Push Fix seems to have changed?
 
i was wondering if facebook in general jacked up the push on my phone all together. yesterday morning, as a test, i used PING! to send a message, over push, to a friend. failed. i was getting NOTHING by push or sending anything. then all of a sudden around 11am cst PING! started working again, but facebook push, still a no go. worked great in 3.1, just not 3.1.1.
 
28,000,000 Facebook iPhone Users.

Pre-FB Push:
Just 28,000,000 iPhone Facebook users clicking on the Facebook icon on their iPhone to get updates.

Post-FB Push:
28,000,000 iPhone Facebook users getting notified INSTANTLY. BILLIONS of bits of data going across an already crappy network.
 
I'm still not getting any push at all. Just tested via AIM and ebuddy. Nada. Just that one random ebuddy push that belonged to somebody else a few hours ago.
 
Try not restoring from backup. Restoring from backup preserves all kinds of settings which might be interfering with push. Restore to 3.1.2 official and then choose "set up as new phone" rather than restore from backup. Your content will all be synced back, but settings and such will not. If push still doesn't work, report back.
 
so you're not having any problems with push? i restored from backup yesterday, and no go, but didn't try a clean restore. i can tell you that my wife's phone is also having problems with facebook push and not getting them. i get push from other things, like Google Sync, Ping, etc...
 
thelatinist said:
Try not restoring from backup. Restoring from backup preserves all kinds of settings which might be interfering with push. Restore to 3.1.2 official and then choose "set up as new phone" rather than restore from backup. Your content will all be synced back, but settings and such will not. If push still doesn't work, report back.
Click to expand...

I did that, but it seems to have actually preserved some of my settings anyway. I mean to say, in a House-type diagnosis, that the reason I'm not getting my own push is FB-related, since it works without FB, and the reason I'm getting somebody else's push is because of Push Fix, which I installed a few days ago. I basically un-jailbroke it by setting it up as a new phone and syncing it from the back-up, but you know, then why is my phone still stuck on Push Fix? I'm concerned Push Fix alters something deeper than I know how to mess with. At this point it's behaving like a virus...it doesn't matter what I do; it's stuck there, even when I wipe everything. But then again, I haven't tried to wipe everything and then NOT restore all of my content. I mean like I said, I did what you suggested, and it didn't work. So I'm next going to try to set it up as a new phone, without trying to put any of my old data back, and then see what happens. I hate to do this because I do want to keep all my texts and voice memos and so forth. I don't care much about preserving any settings since that's all pretty standard stuff that'll take me five minutes to put right. I just care about the actual visible content. Even the music isn't a thing because I have nothing on my iPhone that isn't in iTunes.

I've been trying to read how I can wipe my phone completely and restore them without syncing my phone from a previous back-up, but it seems I would have to jailbreak it in order to do that, and since I'm pretty sure that somewhere somehow jailbreaking it in the first place led to this result, I'm hesitant to take that step.

I'm thinking I might try to downgrade the firmware and see if that nudges my phone, but I don't know.

I'm not optimistic. The way things have been going I'm pretty sure I'm just going to be having the same problems because I'm a moron who didn't do enough research on Push Fix to choose not to install it. And then I may still be having my push blocked from Facebook. I'm just going to try it again and see what happens.
 
cinematheque said:
I'm not optimistic. The way things have been going I'm pretty sure I'm just going to be having the same problems because I'm a moron who didn't do enough research on Push Fix to choose not to install it. And then I may still be having my push blocked from Facebook. I'm just going to try it again and see what happens.
Click to expand...

Calm down a bit. PushFix is not a virus, and you can't have caused any permanent damage to your phone. No need to panic.

First of all, why did you install PushFix? PushFix is only for people who are not on AT&T and can't activate with an AT&T SIM. Installing PushFix on an AT&T phone will do nothing but mess up the push settings.

Second of all, by restoring from backup you probably restoring some of the PushFix settings. Backups save some odd things you wouldn't expect them to, including carrier settings. The only way to get rid of them is probably to set up as new.

You do not need to wipe your iPhone. You do not need to downgrade firmware. All you need to do is restore and set up as new. That will eliminate all traces of your previous jailbreak and put you right back where you were out-of-the-box.

I would suggest that after you activate and sync your phone and before you jailbreak, you try another non-Facebook Push-enabled app to see if your push works. If it does not, then you can contact the genius bar about it. If it does, you can install Facebook and see if that works. If it doesn't, then you'll have your answer.

Finally, if you do set up as new and later find that the problem was not related to your backup, you can always restore the backup later.
 
What I'm saying, though, is that I did what you said, exactly, and that didn't fix the problem. I did restore to Apple 3.1.2, then set up as a new phone, and then I went back and imported all my old data from the old back-up. I didn't restore it using the back-up, I restored it as new. And when that happened, I still wasn't getting push notifications until I removed Facebook. I tested this using multiple apps that push--mainly, AIM, eBuddy, Nimbuzz, IM+, and eBay. But this morning, even though I set up my phone as new, I still got a push notification for the wrong person, which is symptomatic of Push Fix, even though my phone has, since I installed Push Fix, been set up as new. This is why I compare it to a virus--I know it's not malware of any type and even when I was jailbroken I did change my root password to avoid the so-called iPhone worm, but I'm saying, it appears to be sticking there even when I restore the phone as new.

Installing Push Fix was a stupid move at the time and like I said, I wish I'd read more about it than I did, but so far I haven't encountered any problems with my phone that weren't solved by restoring it. (And only once did I have a problem that bad.) I wasn't receiving push from FB and at the time I wasn't finding a lot of people having the same problem, so I wondered if it was the jailbreak. Furthermore using blackra1n I did encounter the YouTube Unavailable thing that seems to come from unlocked phones, and Push Fix claimed to fix this as well. It did fix the latter. But if I had known the way that it worked I wouldn't have installed it. Like I said, that is my own mistake, but it's still somehow clinging to my phone even when I restore it.

And again, I'm trying to restore it and set it up as a new phone yet again, but this time I'm not going to put any of my data back on it. Somehow Push Fix seems to be grabbing hold on something in my phone that doesn't take a restore into account, and I have no idea what that might be. It could be that Push Fix modifies something that isn't touched by a restore, but I don't know enough about the iPhone OS to know what that might be. Or it could be that Push Fix modifies something in my back-up that stays there even when I set it up as a new phone, then go back to sync it with that back-up.

My point here is, very explicitly: I did set it up as a new phone, and THEN I went and synced it with my back-up. I did not restore to the back-up. And I am still not getting push as long as I have Facebook installed, and I am still getting somebody else's push notifications.
 
Okay, another question: Is there any way to restore my SMS messages and notes and whatnot without jailbreaking my phone to access the root folder? I'm working on a Mac and DiskAid doesn't seem to allow this but I do have access to a PC. I feel like I read about a magical mythical program that can do this on Windows but it's possible I dreamed it up.

I already un-jailbroke my phone once, at someone's suggestion that if I set it up as new and then synced it with my back-up it would really only pull my text messages and whatnot and put them back on the phone, while I'd still be jailbreak-free. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the person who told me was wrong. I don't even know. I also can't seem to locate my last back-up before I jailbroke though I know it exists. I have backed up numerous times since...does it delete the oldest back-ups? Somehow I think I actually messed up my iTunes library as a result at some point. I don't know. I now have like 15 old iTunes libraries even though I should have two. One of them absconded with several playlists...maybe it also absconded with my back-up.

Thinking about just jailbreaking it using Pwnage instead of blackra1n. I have established that blackra1n kind of sucks.

Also, I apologize if I sound like a moron. I am not great at software manipulation.
 
Okay, I'm going to try one more time to tell you what you need to do. I feel like this will again be a waste of my time because you seem unable or unwilling to read and understand what I have already told you. But here goes.

1) Restore to the official firmware and set up your iPhone as new. Yes, you will lose your stored SMS, but your phone will work. Do not restore from backup. Forget your old backup. You can't use it. It's f*cking up your phone. It doesn't matter when you restore from it, it will still f*ck up your phone. The backup contains settings files that you've modified while jailbroken, and anytime you try to restore from it these settings will be restored. I don't know how much clearer I can be. If you still don't get it, I give up.

A last word of advice: don't try to jailbreak again. You obviously do not understand enough about your phone or about jailbreaking to do it successfully. Jailbreaking is not for everyone, and certainly should not be undertaken by anyone who can't understand and follow simple instructions on a forum.
 
Look, I get it. I got what you're saying, and I did it. What I was saying was, and I guess this doesn't actually matter in the big scheme of things, that I'm now having trouble finding my last back-up before I jailbroke the phone in the first place, which would seem to preserve a lot of my crap that gets deleted when I set it up as new without preserving the f'd-up settings.

But you don't have to be a d-bag. I had another person who spent a lot of time adamantly insisting that I would be able to set my phone up as new and preserve my SMS and everything by opening the back-up after I had done that. One of you was obviously wrong, but I have no idea, because I'm not terrible with computers but I'm also neither a hacker nor a programmer. And not everyone who has reason to jailbreak a phone is a hacker or programmer, so it's kind of d-baggy to insult me since, if I understood what the hell was going on, I wouldn't have posted it in a forum. So thank you for helping me, but not for being condescending because you know more about it than I do. Of course you do. Lots of people do. You win. Congratulations. But that doesn't mean I'm somehow unworthy of the sacred institution of the jailbreak.
 
cinematheque said:
And not everyone who has reason to jailbreak a phone is a hacker or programmer, so it's kind of d-baggy to insult me since, if I understood what the hell was going on, I wouldn't have posted it in a forum. So thank you for helping me, but not for being condescending because you know more about it than I do. Of course you do. Lots of people do. You win. Congratulations. But that doesn't mean I'm somehow unworthy of the sacred institution of the jailbreak.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry if you felt that I was insulting you; that was not my intent. I was giving you honest advice based on my own experience jailbreaking and my observations of many others who have tried to jailbreak without the requisite knowledge and experience. While jailbreaking has come a long way and is far more accessible than it used to be, it is still something that should not be done by blindly following a guide; it requires understanding of what you are doing so that you can fix your phone when something goes wrong. People without that knowledge break their phones, as you clearly did by installing PushFix. But please do not confuse this advice for a personal insult. You are not the first person I've recommended not jailbreak, and you will not be the last.

I'm sorry you think that makes me a "d-bag"; I think it makes me a realist.
 
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