Rapid Battery Drain, Hacktivation, and the SAM fix

I'd like to share my experience running the SAM procedure. SAM is the cure to that continual internet pinging that iOSes 4.1 and 4.2.1 do for 'activation certificates' on hacktivated phones. And its this continual pinging that drains the battery fast. There may be unique peculiarities for the various iPhone models, so I'll log my experience so that other 3G jailbreakers may compare.

The SAM author's website and instructions are here - I suggest you visit the source if you are considering breaking off this procedure - but I am going to list the steps here in order for the purpose of commentary.

#1. Add http://repo.bingner.com as a repo in Cydia

#2. Install "SAM" and "SAMPrefs"

#3*. Click "Revert Lockdownd to Stock" in Settings>SAM

#4. Go to Settings > SAM and touch "De-Activate iPhone"

#5. Activate with iTunes. If iTunes says invalid SIM, you will need to manually select the appropriate carrier under one of the methods besides "Automatic" and click on a SIMID.

* There are a few options for step 3, but I went with the simplest.

I'm working with a 3G on custom 4.1 (and baseband 04.26 if that matters)
The first two steps are straightforward. During steps 3 and 4 I got some popup window feedback from SAM, and I don't remember what they said, but nothing that scared me into thinking something had gone wrong.

I went to activate in iTunes. After hooking up, iTunes didn't have anything to say about currently being unactivated or offering me to activate. Instead, it gave me two options: to either set up iPhone as a new phone, or to Restore from {had the name I'd given my previous iPhone incarnation}.

My thinking was "Well, I don't want to set up a new iPhone, that sounds like it would wipe out all of my contacts." So I chose the Restore option. So I look at my iPhone and I see the screen change to say "Restoring iPhone". I then immediately reacted "Oh ****!" and pulled the plug, realizing that I hadn't enacted a simple "Sync", but rather a "Restore" (yeah, I mighta paid closer attention to that word when I read it iTunes), and that my jailbreak was in danger of being overwritten, or worse the phone getting bricked. In other words, a stock Restore procedure was about to be performed on a non-stock IPSW. Kinda sounds like looking for trouble. I have never ever used the iTunes Restore prodecure (DFU yes, but not just-plain Restore), so I have no clue what kind of situation I would have wound up with if I had let the Restore play out.

A few seconds after pulling the plug my iPhone came back to life, and it was still good . But, I'm thinking "Well I still haven't accomplished Step #5-"Activate in iTunes".

So I plug it back in a second time. This time, iTunes automatically syncs my contacts, apps, and email info. That is a good thing, because I would needed to have done it eventually...but I was still expecting something to do with activation. I right-clicked around, looking for anything related to "activation", but found nothing.

So I unplug my phone, test it by making a call, and find out that it's working normally on my T-M0bile. Hmm.

The acid test is to find out if my iPhone is still pinging for certificates.
I check in Settings>General>Usage and note that Sent and Received are at zero.
I enable Cellular Data, and turn off WiFi.
I open the Weather app to see it load and thereby confirm that Cellular Data is working.
I recheck Usage>Sent & Received and note the new numbers.
I check Usage>Sent & Received after a few hours. It's still at the same numbers, so no certificate pinging had taken place. And battery level is still high.

I think it worked.

In hindsight, I have a a question:

Maybe the 3G doesn't require 'activation' as explicitly broken out in Step 5. One of thosepopups that I paid little attention to in SAM may have told me it was already activated. I'm sure that the iPhone 4 requires the heaviest lifting and so may be the instructions are geared to it

Joony said:

Can you verify that Push is indeed working for you?

I can't seem to get my 4.2.1 3GS (BB 5.11.07) to activate within iTunes. It just automatically activates like your 3G...

Click to expand...

What's a good test for Push?

amnesiac1984 said:

I have a 3g that I recently upgraded to 4.2.1 and unlocked.

I think I have managed to activate it using the SAM instructions but I simply can't get push working and the battery is still being drained like crazy.

Does anyone know any more about this? Am I doing it wrong?

Click to expand...

Check your usage. You can toggle off Cellular Data and WiFi to temporarily stop the bleeding. But a look at your phone bill or at settings>general>usage should tell you if you are still trafficing major kilobytes.

A long term follow up on battery life:

A single charge recently lasted me 5+ days, and that's standby and usage combined. Prior to SAM, I was only getting one day or less. So that's some anecdotal evidence to support the fact that SAM does what it does to fix certificate searching and in effect fixes the battery drain problem.

On the push notifications tip, I only briefly looked into it, as I currently don't care much about push. I did see that there a couple of tester apps - iPush Test, and, iPusher.