Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Yet another "Reset All Settings" Issue...

N

NPBTHO

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 3, 2010
12
0
Hi there. I am yet another idiot who selected Reset All Settings (NOT Erase All Content and Settings) and now has an iPhone stuck in recovery. I searched around the boards and couldn't find a previous topic that matched my exact situation, however, so I'm posting here in the hopes that something can be done.

I have a 3GS, 16GB, MB. When I got it I jailbroke and unlocked with blackra1n without any issues and everything was wonderful until today. I had been messing around with a bunch of the settings and decided it would be easier to reset instead of going back and toggling each one. I didn't anticipate that the reset would restart my iPhone. Since it's a 3GS, I thought running blackra1n would fix this as it has several times before. Unfortunately, it seems to be stuck in some kind of loop.

blakra1n seems to run normally, with the picture of Geohot and the flying iPhones coming up, the iPhone resetting, and then the program telling me to run blackra1n again. The second time I make it rain, however, at the point where the phone would usually return to normal, I instead see a screen that is the Apple logo with a progress bar below. The progress bar fills up rather quickly, but then the phone stays on the screen for several minutes before rebooting once more and going back into recovery mode, whereby the cycle starts over. The Apple + progress bar screen was the same one that appeared immediately after I selected "Reset All Settings", just before it shut down and everything went wrong.

So now I'm wondering just what's wrong with my phone and whether I can avoid the dreaded 3.1.3 restore. Unfortunately, my phone is not pwned nor do I have the SHSH. The screen with the progress bar is interesting though, because I'm wondering if resetting involves several reboots, and if maybe the iPhone will be back to normal if I just blackra1n my way through more reboots (stretching, I know, but I really have no idea)? Since I only reset the settings, I assume my firmware is still installed, so can I still return it to normal? Or can I restore it while preserving jailbreak and/or unlock?

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
NPBTHO said:
Hi there. I am yet another idiot who selected Reset All Settings (NOT Erase All Content and Settings) and now has an iPhone stuck in recovery. I searched around the boards and couldn't find a previous topic that matched my exact situation, however, so I'm posting here in the hopes that something can be done.

I have a 3GS, 16GB, MB. When I got it I jailbroke and unlocked with blackra1n without any issues and everything was wonderful until today. I had been messing around with a bunch of the settings and decided it would be easier to reset instead of going back and toggling each one. I didn't anticipate that the reset would restart my iPhone. Since it's a 3GS, I thought running blackra1n would fix this as it has several times before. Unfortunately, it seems to be stuck in some kind of loop.

blakra1n seems to run normally, with the picture of Geohot and the flying iPhones coming up, the iPhone resetting, and then the program telling me to run blackra1n again. The second time I make it rain, however, at the point where the phone would usually return to normal, I instead see a screen that is the Apple logo with a progress bar below. The progress bar fills up rather quickly, but then the phone stays on the screen for several minutes before rebooting once more and going back into recovery mode, whereby the cycle starts over. The Apple + progress bar screen was the same one that appeared immediately after I selected "Reset All Settings", just before it shut down and everything went wrong.

So now I'm wondering just what's wrong with my phone and whether I can avoid the dreaded 3.1.3 restore. Unfortunately, my phone is not pwned nor do I have the SHSH. The screen with the progress bar is interesting though, because I'm wondering if resetting involves several reboots, and if maybe the iPhone will be back to normal if I just blackra1n my way through more reboots (stretching, I know, but I really have no idea)? Since I only reset the settings, I assume my firmware is still installed, so can I still return it to normal? Or can I restore it while preserving jailbreak and/or unlock?

Thanks in advance for any help!
Click to expand...

It's 3.1.3 for you. https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9374069/
 
If your previous jailbreak was untethered and you can get the phone into recovery mode (not DFU mode) then there is a chance you could restore to a custom 3.1.2 firmware. It all depends on whether your iBoot is still pwned.
 
All right, so it seems I am confused as to the meaning of "pwned". I got the impression it was some sort of older jailbreak/hack done through a tool only available for Macs, so I never bothered researching any further. Is there a jailbreak lexicon somewhere for the newbs?

My first (and only) jailbreak was tethered (meaning I hooked it up to my computer via USB and ran blackra1n, right? Right?). I dunno if the "tethered" negates things, but since that single jailbreaking and unlocking nothing has gone wrong, I have never "lost" the jailbreak, nor have I ever at any point done a restore or installed anything through iTunes.

Edit: oh, and I can get my iPhone into recovery mode (with the USB + iTunes). It automatically goes into recovery mode when I try to start it.
 
My (n00b) experience:

I jailbroke my iPhone (3GS, OS 3.1, baseband 5.11.07, bootrom 359.3) with blackra1n (I don't know why, but I always laugh when I pronounce this out loud) and unlocked with blacksn0w.

After a restart, WiFi stopped working, so I did as geohot suggested and "Reset Network Settings" putting me in the same situation as you are currently in.

So, first things first: Your phone is already pwned, since you used blackra1n to jailbreak it, and since you say you were only tethered the first time (this means you have the older bootrom, which is pwnable - the new bootrom is not).

This is what I did, if your device information is the same as mine, it may very well help you:

1. Put my original SIM back into my iPhone.
2. Made sure iTunes was not running.
3. Found and downloaded a stock version of the 3.1.2 firmware for my version of iPhone (google it, it won't be hard).
4. Downloaded PwnageTool 3.1.5 from the official torrent link off of the iPhone Dev Team's blog page.
5. Ran PwnageTool, selected my phone (3GS), clicked into the next screen, then went into Expert mode and browsed for the IPSW file I just downloaded.
6. On the next screen, I double-clicked "General" and, on the screen that appeared, I then unchecked "Activate phone."
7. I then clicked the gray "Arrow Back" button to get back to the build configuration screen.
8. Then, I simply double-clicked "Build" and let it prompt me for a location to save the custom IPSW to after it has completed the build process.
9. To make things easier for myself, I asked PwnageTool to save this file to the desktop. Then I waited while the build proceeded.
10. PwnageTool completed the build, then asked me if my phone was already pwned. I clicked "Yes," since my phone was already jailbroken with blackra1n.
11. PwnageTool then presented me with the "iHaz success!" screen and prompted me to turn off my iPhone, and put it into recovery mode by holding down the Home button on the device while connecting it to your computer.
12. I had to then get my device out of the reboot loop. I held down both the power and home buttons until the screen went COMPLETELY dark. (You should probably shine a light on to your phone while you're doing this maneuver; if your screen goes dark but you can still see the Apple logo, your device is NOT powered off.)
13. I then put it into recovery mode by holding down the Home button and then, while keeping that button held down, connecting it to my computer. I did not release the Home button until the device showed the "Connect to iTunes" icon, and iTunes started and informed me that it found an iPhone in need of recovery.
14. Once I got that prompt, I clicked the OK button to dismiss it.
15. Then, I OPTION-clicked the "Restore" button.
16. iTunes prompted me to locate an IPSW file. I selected the custom IPSW file that PwnageTool created for me.
17. I waited while the iTunes performed the restore on the phone. Once it was done about 20 minutes later, I had a phone that was updated to 3.1.2, with baseband 5.11.07, bootrom 359.3 and still jailbroken.

Some notes on this:
1. You will obviously lose anything you hadn't already synced. Suck it up and deal, sorry.
2. I had edited my /etc/hosts file (as root) to fool iTunes into believing that it was contacting Apple when it was really contacting the Cydia servers. I do not believe you have to do this. Since your phone was already jailbroken, I believe that feature has been defeated. Your mileage may vary.

Epilogue:
I've confirmed that this procedure works multiple times for me, based on the criteria I listed above. I give no guarantees that it will work for you, but based on your situation I don't see why it shouldn't. DON'T go to 3.1.3 for ANY REASON unless you don't care about losing your jailbreak and unlock. If you do, you are SCREWED.

I downloaded blacksn0w from Cydia and the unlock AND WiFi seem to work until I reboot my phone, then I lose WiFi. For now I'm just going to deal, as I will not be resetting my network settings anytime soon. If I need WiFi after a reboot, I'll just uninstall/reinstall blacksn0w. I've read that the cause of this issue is some sort of race condition, whether it's with blacksn0w or 3.1.2 and the 5.11.07 baseband, I'm not sure. I don't particularly care, really. ;)

Speaking of reading, I did a lot of trawling the Internets searching for solutions that involved not having to upgrade to 3.1.3. I almost caved and did it but in the end found a way to fix my issue. I write this in hopes that it will help you and others stay jailbroken as well.
 
Thanks so much for your post roxnadz. I have also been searching around frantically and it seems like the only hope I have is to try and install a 3.1.2 ipsw and pray that it takes. I'll take it before 3.1.3 though. Thanks for giving me such a thorough writeup to follow.

Also, can someone explain just what "pwned" refers to, so I know?
 
One other clarification: you mentioned a tethered jailbreak. For future purposes, every jailbreak requires the phone to be connected to the computer via USB cable during the actual jailbreak so that is not what is meant by tethered jailbreak.

A tethered jailbreak is one where you have to run Redsn0w or Blackra1n a 2nd time to restart the phone after performing the actual jailbreak.
 
Applejuiced said:
pwned means already Jailbroken.
Not on stock firmware.
Click to expand...

To be more precise, it means that iBoot has been modified to boot unsigned firmware. A tethered jailbreak won't do, since the security checks are still present. Jailbreaking means modifying the firmware to remove the chroot jail, pwning means modifying iBoot to remove the signature checks that prevent booting a modified firmware.
 
thelatinist said:
To be more precise, it means that iBoot has been modified to boot unsigned firmware. A tethered jailbreak won't do, since the security checks are still present. Jailbreaking means modifying the firmware to remove the chroot jail, pwning means modifying iBoot to remove the signature checks that prevent booting a modified firmware.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification.
So a 3GS iphone thats been JB and has a tethered JB would not be considered pwned?
And a 3GS with the old iboot thats JB at the moment would be pwned?
 
Applejuiced said:
Thanks for the clarification.
So a 3GS iphone thats been JB and has a tethered JB would not be considered pwned?
And a 3GS with the old iboot thats JB at the moment would be pwned?
Click to expand...

Exactly. The reason for the distinction is that it is pwned phones which can accept a custom firmware made with PwnageTool (and which are therefore guaranteed to be jailbreakable as long as they stay on the jailbreak train). The new bootrom 3GS and iPT3 are jailbreakable but not pwnable, which is why they can only have a tethered jailbreak. This also means that they cannot be restored to custom firmware: jailbreaking isn't enough.
 
@NBPTHO: No worries, I just hope I steered you on the right track. I'd gone through all that and figured I'd save you all the trouble. Oh, BTW, when yous tart PwnageTool, you have to select (obviously) the phone you wish to use. I didn't say that in the instructions -- bad tech writer! Bad!

@the latinist: Thanks for the clarification. So, if NBPTHO was able to boot his phone without having to run blackra1n again, his phone should be pwned as well as jailbroken because he has the old bootrom. Correct?

I should have hopped on the jailbreak train sooner. I had 3.0.1 originally and updated to 3.1 (baseband 5.11.07) without thinking of the consequences. Fortunately I did not put 3.1.3 on it (never had plans to).
 
roxnadz said:
My (n00b) experience:

SNIP
Click to expand...

I've had my phone jailbroken for a year now with no problems. Didn't download anything today, didn't do anything unusual. For some reason my phone crashed and was stuck in a boot loop for over an hour. ANYWAY...used your steps above and I'm fine now. Thanks for taking the time to type all of that out, very helpful :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back