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Iphone stuck in Recovery Loop

L

LorPGDL

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 23, 2011
139
0
Hi guys,

got a bit of a problem on my hands, tried several things but nothing works so i am turnin to you as my kind of almost last resort :eek:

Anyways, first off I got a locked Iphone 4 from Vodafone UK which hasnt been activated yet.

1. I jailbroke it yesterday using limerain and installed cydia on it.
2. The cydia icon disappeared
3. couldnt find a solution to get it back, so i did a restore through itunes. asked me if i wanted to update to 4.3.2 (from 4.1), did that, thought it wouldnt be a problem because whilst restoring the jailbreak would be deleted anyways and i could rejailbreak
4. turns out i was wrong, whilst updating it encountered an error and now itunes tells me i have an iphone in recovery mode and that i must restore it before it can be used in itunes. well i wish i could do that, but neither does it work when i just use the firmware apple got me to restore, nor does a custom firmware i downloaded work nor one i cooked myself with snowbreeze. it always fails because of an unknown error.

i always put the phone in dfu mode before doing the restore. (i use ireb)

neither tinyumbrella nor recboot works in getting me out of recovery mode.


now ive read in another thread that it is almost impossible to brick an iphone. well im not very proud of it but i think ive succeded :(

do you have any ideas how i can restore the firmware without itunes giving me an error msg?

there is no way to completely wipe any data off the iphone and have a "fresh start" is there?

thanks for trying to help me guys getting pretty frustrated :(
 
fix

go into your itunes hosts file and delete the lines that say "gs.apple.com" at the end. if you dont know what im talking about, google "how to edit itunes hosts file" i suggest copying the lines and saving them in a document before deleting them, but once you delete them, try restoring again and it should work.

-Marcus

an  a day keeps windows away
 
Delete the gs.apple.com from host file. I had the same problem. It was funny because the lady from Apple Support was like, " I have no idea what's causing this but we've been seeing a lot of this recently." :rolleyes:
 
first off, thanks guys for the tip, unfortunately i already tried that and it didnt work.

its always giving me the unknown error occured msg at the verifying iphone restore process almost at the end, i seriously dont know what else to do. i cannot restore any firmware on my device :(

is there any other way of doing a clean wipe of all the software on the device or of circumventing itunes or something?

i read in this forum that its almost impossible to brick your phone. i might have achieved that feat :mad:
 
LorPGDL said:
first off, thanks guys for the tip, unfortunately i already tried that and it didnt work.

its always giving me the unknown error occured msg at the verifying iphone restore process almost at the end, i seriously dont know what else to do. i cannot restore any firmware on my device :(

is there any other way of doing a clean wipe of all the software on the device or of circumventing itunes or something?

i read in this forum that its almost impossible to brick your phone. i might have achieved that feat :mad:
Click to expand...

Not trying to scare you, but mine bricked this way. Tried it on 3 computers, some clean installs, tried tiny umbrella to click it out, everything. Took it to the apple store, they couldn't get it to restore, it's dead. Mine's a 3GS btw.
 
Hmm, I'm quite sure this can be fixed. However, if you do NOT want to deal with it, id suggest taking it to Apple and having it replaced.

When opening your /etc/hosts file, what is displayed? would you post a screen shot of it?

Try putting the iPhone in DFU mode, not recovery.
 
jmack549 said:
Not trying to scare you, but mine bricked this way. Tried it on 3 computers, some clean installs, tried tiny umbrella to click it out, everything. Took it to the apple store, they couldn't get it to restore, it's dead. Mine's a 3GS btw.
Click to expand...

hey man, sorry to hear that, for you and for me, i just dont get why a software issue would be able to brick a phone, i would understand it for a hardware issue but software is usually nothing permanent, so kinda weird :confused:
 
yup, already did that. with ireb. after that i open itunes, it tells me i got an iphone in recovery mode and that i must restore it... i press shift + restore, take one of my custom roms or the stock 4.3.2 one (doesnt matter which), then itunes gets to work and usually whilst verifying the new copied firmware it tells me it encountered an unknown error andim back at square one :(
 
dont use ireb.


hold power and home for 10 seconds while the phone is connected to the computer. Then, iTunes should recognize it...try once more. :) If this doesn't work, someone with a greater mind will have to assist.
 
ClutchThese said:
dont use ireb.


hold power and home for 10 seconds while the phone is connected to the computer. Then, iTunes should recognize it...try once more. :) If this doesn't work, someone with a greater mind will have to assist.
Click to expand...

nah im afraid that didnt work either, thanks for trying to help me, im afraid i got meself a brick. im just glad i didnt pay for it, otherwise the iphone next to me wouldnt be a brick no more but the instrument of a gruesome murder of an apple genius ;-)
 
LorPGDL said:
...otherwise the iphone next to me wouldnt be a brick no more but the instrument of a gruesome murder of an apple genius ;-)
Click to expand...

I don't quite understand this? How is this the fault of an Apple Genius? Seems self inflicted.

I am always amazed that despite posts by people who successfully follow mainstream jb paths, e.g., redsn0w or pwnagetool, others go their own way with products like ireb (and sn0wbreeze) that others have had problems with then wonder why and how they got into trouble. :confused:
 
TC25 said:
I don't quite understand this? How is this the fault of an Apple Genius? Seems self inflicted.

I am always amazed that despite posts by people who successfully follow mainstream jb paths, e.g., redsn0w or pwnagetool, others go their own way with products like ireb (and sn0wbreeze) that others have had problems with then wonder why and how they got into trouble. :confused:
Click to expand...

first off, it was meant to be a joke. second, i am new to the iphone and didnt know any better. third, i dont want to start again with the android ios crap flame wars and **** but i must admit, with the htc hero i had before something like this could never have happened, its just not possible to brick an android phone. i repeat, its just software, how can you not restore it? apple could, but i understand they dont want to. other than that kudos to apple for creating a gorgeous looking device, just not agreeing with how the software is working
 
People with a lot more knowledge of the iPhone, iOS and jb, e.g., thelatinist, have posted it is impossible to brick an iPhone uploading software to it. However, I think they've said, interrupting an upload of the firmware can cause problems.

Hopefully, the Apple Store can solve your problem.
 
Last edited:
I must redact my latter reply, it is possible to brick your android handset as well, just a lot harder.

i didnt interrupt any updating process, i was just stupid enough to update with a jailbreak on it. thought it would be erased before the new firmware would be copied, turns out i was wrong :(
 
LorPGDL said:
i was just stupid enough to update with a jailbreak on it. thought it would be erased before the new firmware would be copied, turns out i was wrong :(
Click to expand...

I have upgraded the iOS on my iPhone4 with a jb on it and had not problems. In fact, I did this on my work WindowsXP PC which is not my primary iTunes PC, that's my iMac. I went from 4.1 jb with limera1n to 4.3.1.
 
TC25 said:
I have upgraded the iOS on my iPhone4 with a jb on it and had not problems. In fact, I did this on my work WindowsXP PC which is not my primary iTunes PC, that's my iMac. I went from 4.1 jb with limera1n to 4.3.1.
Click to expand...

then i dont understand what has gone wrong, but at least it gets me partly off the hook for screwing up ;)
 
I had this problem yesterday and it took a good 3h just to fix it. But what i did wass..:

1) Pull up TinyUmbrella
2) Start the TSS server
3) Restore the apple firmware and you should get an error 1015 or something like that
4) see if tinyUmbrella will kick it out of recovery
5) if it doesn't then go and jailbreak it with greenpois0n and this should allow you to see the activation screen on the iphone. Where it says like slide for emergency but the phone still isn't activated through apple
6) jailbreak it AGAIN with redsn0w and just have clicked install cydia, this will get you past the Activate screen and you will be able to use your phone.

Remember this was ALL with my 3GS with 4.3.1 to start with, and after many restores i brought it down to 4.1, then back up to 4.2.1.
 
thanks for your input :)

unfortunately tinyumbrella wont even recognize my iphone anymore, its in a permanent pwned dfu state and wont go out of it :(

i tried tethered booting with redsnow and it got stuck on the pineapple logo. good thing was tinyumbrella recognized my iphone after that. tried putting cf on the iphone, unknown problem, trinyumbrella didnt do anything, tried "fix recovery", didnt work.

stuck in dfu again :(

i cannot even get back to the usb cable itunes logo thing, seems like im in pwned dfu limbo :mad:
 
Have you tried turning the phone completely off, and then holding the home button and plugging the usb cable in and then seeing what iTunes does? I had an issue where my 3GS would go into an endless boot and this solution fixed it for me. Formatted my phone with the latest firmware and was set ever since.
 
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