[ADVICE] Restore iPhone after unlock!

You need to be VERY careful. The ultrasn0w unlock is soft, and therefore if you upgrade your baseband (which a future firmware upgrade will most certainly include) then you will LOSE the unlock, possibly forever. If you upgrade to 4.1 without taking precautions at the moment, your baseband will be upgraded and you will have no unlock.
It is impossible to say what to do for a future firmware that has not been released yet, but if / when you consider upgrading to 4.x in the future, check the advice which will be available once the firmware, jailbreak, and possibly unlock, are released for that version. Don't blindly proceed with an upgrade unless you are sure of the results it will give you...

To restore back to 4.0. from an upgrade, you need SHSH blobs and Tiny Umbrella.
Without these two, you can't downgrade the iOS for 3GS or iPhone 4.
The blob currently avaiable is 4.1. However, you should get in the habit of saving your blobs with Tiny Umbrella anyway.

desiprince1212 said:

Hey everyone,

Ok so I used Jailbreakme.com for 4.0.1 then added the repo for Ultrasn0w and unlocked my phone (turned off 3G)


Question: Let's say when, hypothetically, iPhone 4.5 comes out and I want to update it, can I restore the phone in iTunes - upgrade - and re-Jailbreak and unlock again?

What exactly does the unlock do? Lock the modem firmware? Changes the baseband?

Thoughts. Thank you so much everyone! I will do my best to help other people and keep this community growing! Thank you again!

Click to expand...

desiprince1212 said:

So you're saying once i use ultrasnow it's not possible to upgrade unless I backup my blob, right? Any easier way?

What exactly is a blob?

Click to expand...

No. The last post is confusing the issue (no offence eastercat). It is always possible to upgrade IOS to the latest version, but you risk losing your unlock and jailbreak if you do so without checking out the status of the version of IOS & baseband which you upgrade to. This has NOTHING to do with SHSH blobs... Blobs do not protect your unlock. They are not directly related to ultrasn0w.

You originally asked about hypothetically upgrading and preserving your unlock. My advice is still valid. You need to be extremely careful, but you cannot get exact instructions on what to do until a new version is available and we know the situation. However, since you have an unlocked phone now, DO NOT UPGRADE until you are sure that the version you are updating to has both a jailbreak AND an unlock available.
At the moment, if you upgrade the baseband on your current phone you will LOSE the ultrasn0w unlock, possibly forever. The baseband cannot be downgraded as things stand and ultrasn0w relies on a baseband exploit which has been patched.
Today it is possible to upgrade to 4.1, which cannot be jailbroken, and you can preserve your current baseband, but since you are already jailbroken and unlocked I would in no way recommend that... In the near future there will be a jailbreak release for 4.1 (and possibly 4.2 at the same time). Be careful, as an unlock for the new baseband will most likely NOT be released at the same time. Again, I can't say it enough. Be careful. There are dozens of threads on this forum posted by people who upgraded and lost their unlock because they didn't check the details. If you rely on the unlock, TAKE CARE

There is some good information in the following thread regarding SHSH blobs, tiny umbrella, and downgrading firmware, and if you do a search you will find many threads discussing them...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1023947/

eastercat said:

To restore back to 4.0. from an upgrade, you need SHSH blobs and Tiny Umbrella.
Without these two, you can't downgrade the iOS for 3GS or iPhone 4.
The blob currently avaiable is 4.1. However, you should get in the habit of saving your blobs with Tiny Umbrella anyway.

Click to expand...

Restoring an iOS version does not restore the baseband.....

For example, you have iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0.1 Jailbreak and has the ultrasn0w unlock in place. You have iOS 4.0.1 SHSH blobs save at Cydia.

Now, somehow you upgrade your iPhone 4 to iOS 4.1 via iTunes. Yes, you can go back to iOS 4.0.1 and Jailbreak again. But, your baseband is the wrong version and cannot be unlocked by ultrasn0w. Nor can you go back to the older baseband. So you do the Jailbreak, but not the unlock.

S-

desiprince1212 said:

I greatly thank you for your help. But maybe you could advise me something pertaining to my specific situation...


I jailbroke with Jailbreakme running 4.0.1, and used Ultrasn0w to unlock.

I am going to Europe for 2 months then coming back and probably never going again. So if I update it to let's say 5.0 next summer, would that be okay? How would I do it? Restore then update or straight up update through iTunes (which will remove the JB, but keep my phone in tact or brick it)?

Click to expand...

OK, so you are saying that you will no longer want the jailbreak or unlock once you come back from your trip? In that case it is easy. You can upgrade using iTunes whenever you like to whatever the latest version is. You will lose your unlock, but don't worry, you cannot brick the phone...

desiprince1212 said:

Not exactly. But i wont mind if i lose the unlock forever but I need my JB haha. I love having it jailbroken. would that be possible? or how would we go on about this? thank you again

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Wow! You're hard work mate!

So, if you don't care about the unlock, but want to keep the jailbreak, then guess what? You only need to check whether the version you choose to upgrade to has a jailbreak available. Simple!
You will just update using iTunes and then re-jailbreak. But as I keep saying, it is impossible to tell you the method until the jailbreak is available for the version you want to upgrade to! When the time comes, come back to the forum and check the latest news!

To complicate things, you might want to consider keeping your unlock if you intend to sell your phone for cash in the future. Unlocked phones tend to attract more money!

desiprince1212 said:

Hah! Just dedicated.


Perfect so to conclude this.

After Jailbreakin using Jailbreakme on iPhone 4 (4.0.1), and using Ultrasn0w to alter the baseband.


I am able to update and rejailbreak again with KNOWING the possibility of losing my jailbreak forever (since it doesn't matter to me because I won't be going abroad anytime soon).

Please correct me anywhere I may be incorrect. Thank you again!

Click to expand...

Yes, but I think you meant the possibly of losing unlock, not jailbreak. And don't upgrade until you are sure the jailbreak for the new version is available!
As of now, your phone is the best it can be!

I've read in passing about upgrading the version via Tiny Umbrella without upgrading the baseband (not that I would try that). However, it's possible I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

No offense taken. We're all learning here.

f4780y said:

No. The last post is confusing the issue (no offence eastercat). It is always possible to upgrade IOS to the latest version, but you risk losing your unlock and jailbreak if you do so without checking out the status of the version of IOS & baseband which you upgrade to. This has NOTHING to do with SHSH blobs... Blobs do not protect your unlock. They are not directly related to ultrasn0w.

Click to expand...

eastercat said:

I've read in passing about upgrading the version via Tiny Umbrella without upgrading the baseband (not that I would try that). However, it's possible I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

No offense taken. We're all learning here.

Click to expand...

Yes, its possible to update the firmware but maintain your old baseband version so it can be unlocked. Thats only for iphone 4's though using TU like you said above.