Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
This thread has been really helped me understand the issues with my phone, but the solution posted didn't resolve my problems, after doing the restore deleting the file and recovering from backup I'm still unable to use vv, mms or any 3g/edge data. Has anyone else not been able to get theirs working with this solution?


(using a 3gs btw)
 
Ok guys, here it is another new fix that covers it all while maintaining your data. (CAUTION: Photos from the camera roll will not work after this method is complete so please back them up to the computer first. I'm not responsible if you lose your pictures.

This method is based off of dankirsh's SMS Restore method (Only fixes Cellular Data), loveturtle's Non-Corrupted APN Restore method (Only fixes Cellular Data), and my own unique concepts which seem to fix everything and keep data intact minus the photo roll.

Step 1:
Windows Users: Navigate to "X:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup"​
Mac Users: Navigate to "~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/"​
NOTE: "X:" is the drive you installed Windows on and "User Name" is the name of your account on Windows.

Step 2:
Move all Backup files to another location to make sure the entire folder is empty.​

Step 3:
Plug in your iPhone and perform a full backup.​

Step 4:
After backup completes, disconnect the iPhone and copy the new folder under the backup directory to a separate location perferably named "Old" for ease of use.​

Step 5:
After folder completes the copying delete it from the backup directory, NOT THE NEW LOCATION.

Step 6:
Plug in your iPhone and perform a full restore.​

Step 7:
Upon completion of restore if iTunes asks to restore from a backup that you select a new configuration. While configuring the iPhone for new settings uncheck all sync boxes including Applications and Data. <-- (IMPORTANT)​

Step 8:
Right click the iPhone and backup the iPhone.​

Step 9:
Upon backup completion copy the new backup folder out of the previously mentioned location and copy it to a folder called "New".​

Step 10:
Delete the backup that was recently created in the Backup folder.​

Step 11:
Copy the backup located in the previously created "Old" folder to the Backup folder.​

Step 12:
Upon completion of the copy go into the randomly named folder and delete a file named "8218978e4ab0a48035bb92653145a6be872ea858", then right click the iPhone in iTunes and select "Restore from Backup" and select "Ok" since this is the only backup in the folder.​

Step 13:
Upon backup restoration completion let your iPhone sync itself with the computer and restore all of your applications. (At this point all is back to what it was like at the beginning of Step 1.)​

Step 14:
After all of your Applications are synced navigate into the "New" folder and into the backup folder located inside of it, it will be named as a random string of numbers and letters.​

Step 15:
Copy and overwrite the following files from the randomly named backup in the "New" folder to the "MobileSync\Backup\Randomly Named Backup" folder; "Manifest.mbdb", "Manifest.mbdx", and "Manifest.plist", they are located near the very bottom if sorted by name.​

Step 16:
In iTunes right click the iPhone and "Restore Backup" once again since this is the only backup available, click ok.​

Step 17:
iTunes will display an error and reboot the iPhone, this is normal.​

Step 18:
Upon boot of the iPhone, check your Cellular Data, MMS, and VVM to verify all is working fine.​

Step 19:
If all is working, delete any backup located in the "MobileSync" folder and perform a full backup again. As stated before, your camera roll will not work anymore for your old files. The files appear to be present on the iPhone but are corrupt and will be overwritten when a new photo is taken.

Enjoy your fully functioning iPhone once again and please keep your OLD backup files as I am not sure if the App Data will backup now. I will have to continue more testing with this.

FINAL NOTE: Resetting network settings did not break my iPhone after completing this method.

Update #1: Reports from a few users are indicating this method does work for the iPhone 4 and does fix Face Time. See post #68, #69, and #71 for more information.

This fix worked for me. I had the Spirit jailbreak on 3.1.3 and i have been having this problem since i upgraded to OS4.
A big thank you goes out to everyone who helped solve this issue! (After calling apple twice a few days after i found the issue they were of absolutely no help... figures)
 
To Pilot76103, loveturtle and dankirsh, thank you for the fix. I've been stewing for the past week on how I was going to live without all my information if I was forced to restore and begin with a new iPhone from scratch.

My app info seems to be backing just fine too.

neige
 
Thank you Pilot76103, loveturtle and dankirsh. Took me a little while but all good now. You guys/gals are so clever!
 
Didn't work for my 3GS old bootrom

Thanks for putting in so much time for this! I have no time to do it now, but I will first thing tomorrow. Thanks again!

I did it 1000 times but itunes keep giving me this error at step 12:

iTunes couldn't restore the iphone "iphone" because some files couldn't be restored from backup.

I tried it with both a virgin OS ( iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1) and a jailbroken one (Pwnage Tools 4.0.1)

ANY SUGGESTIONS? I desperately need this.
 
I did post #41 procedure 1000 times but itunes keep giving me this error at step 12:

iTunes couldn't restore the iphone "iphone" because some files couldn't be restored from backup.

I tried it with both a virgin OS ( iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1) and a jailbroken one (Pwnage Tools 4.0.1) and I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything right.

ANY SUGGESTIONS? I desperately need this.[/QUOTE]
 
I did post #41 procedure 1000 times but itunes keep giving me this error at step 12:

iTunes couldn't restore the iphone "iphone" because some files couldn't be restored from backup.

I tried it with both a virgin OS ( iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1) and a jailbroken one (Pwnage Tools 4.0.1) and I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything right.

ANY SUGGESTIONS? I desperately need this.
[/QUOTE]

Just an idea: Anybody has tried copying CommCenter file off the restored iphone after step 7 and then overwriting it to the phone after restore from backup?
 
I did post #41 procedure 1000 times but itunes keep giving me this error at step 12:

iTunes couldn't restore the iphone "iphone" because some files couldn't be restored from backup.

I tried it with both a virgin OS ( iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1) and a jailbroken one (Pwnage Tools 4.0.1) and I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything right.

ANY SUGGESTIONS? I desperately need this.
[/QUOTE]

Nevermind guys,
looks like that error is not important.
I got this working. THANKS A MILLION pilot76103 and everybody else!
At step 15, if anybody saw 2 folders in MobileSync folder, copy that 3 files to the folder which has a time stamp at the end like RANDOMSTRING-20100715-222023.
 
Finally heard back, and it was disappointing. They basically said they think this problem is 100% with people who jailbroke, so they aren't doing anything to fix it.

I think I found the best (yet not simple) fix so far, that lets you not lose your text messages (but you will lose other application data that isn't synced some other way - though the same instructions could be applied to those apps, but is too complicated for me right now). First, backup your phone (and sync any photos to iPhoto, contacts, etc - things not included in iPhone backups), and make like 100 extra copies of that backup so you don't screw it up. The backup is found here:

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

If you have other backups and are confused by the weird folder names, just move all the backups somewhere else, right click your phone in iTunes and backup. That'll leave just one backup folder. Let's call this OLD backup.

After you are 1000000% sure you have that folder backed up, go into iTunes and restore your phone as a new phone. Once you've done that, make sure there the backup folder is empty again, and backup your phone. Let's call this NEW backup. Make a copy of it on your desktop.

What you'll want to do to get your text messages back is the following. In the OLD backup, find the file called "3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28" and copy it into the original (NOT on your desktop) NEW backup folder. Do the same thing with info.plist, Manifest.bmdb, Manifest.mbdx, Manifest.plist and Status.plist.

Now go into iTunes and restore from backup. There should only be one backup there, which is our modified backup. It'll do some work, then freak out and give an error. However, once it finishes, your text messages should be back. Don't ask me why, but for some reason now the MMS and cell data stopped working again for me, so we aren't done.

Delete all the iPhone backups in the backup folder again. Copy the NEW backup from the desktop into the iPhone backup folder. Copy from the OLD backup the file "3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28" into the NEW backup that is now in the backups location.

Restore the phone again using what should still be the only backup. It will give an error again, but when it finishes, you should have MMS and data again. Visual voicemail took a minute to start working.

If you are not confused by the end of what I just wrote, then god bless you. Good luck!

Just stopping by to say thanks. Had this same issue, had previously jailbroken and installed some custom profiles that got screwed with iOS4, possibly integrated with the core APN settings, or something, I'm not sure. Problem persisted when I bought a new iPhone4 and resynced. I didn't care about restoring, but I really wanted my SMS history. Lacking a jailbreak that would let me recover the messages directly on the phone, this saved me a lot of trouble, but I had to follow it absolutely perfect from start to finish. Through all the errors it does seem to work. Hats off to the effort you must've put into figuring out this specific workaround...
 
so restoring the factory settings and starting fresh not from a backup is also a solution?
my new iphone 4 has no mms/data and I don't care about my sms history or any of that jazz since I can access it on my old iphone if i need to. Knew I shouldn't have jailbroke my 3g.
 
I was able to restore my photos by keeping the images and thumbnail files in /var/mobile/Media/DCIM and /var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/100APPLE respectively.

You should be left with a bunch of black icon images when you view your library.

Then, change the 'true' to 'false' in /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/.MISC/Info.plist for DCIMChangedExternally and reboot. When you run Photos again it will rebuild the database.
 
I tried Dankirsh's method and Pilot's method to no avail :(

I'm on a Rogers iPhone 4 with everything working except MMS

My backed up texts are from a 3.1.2 iPhone 2G that had a commcenter patch to enable MMS. It worked on the 2G but not now :(

It works when I have fresh unrestored 4.0.1 FW

Any help would be super appreciated!

oh and I also tried custom profiles from unlockit...
 
I tried Dankirsh's method and Pilot's method to no avail :(

I'm on a Rogers iPhone 4 with everything working except MMS

My backed up texts are from a 3.1.2 iPhone 2G that had a commcenter patch to enable MMS. It worked on the 2G but not now :(

It works when I have fresh unrestored 4.0.1 FW

Any help would be super appreciated!

oh and I also tried custom profiles from unlockit...

FIXED.

I noticed that when the MMSs didn't send, my iPhone wouldn't even keep the picture there after I exited the app, there would just be the "!" and no pic. So I figured it might be a permissions problem. Note that this was BEFORE I jailbroke. The backup that was restored to the unjailbroken phone was from a jailbroken 2G that I would manually backup the SMS folder and set it to 777 recursively.

So I jailbroke my iPhone, set the SMS folder to 777 recursively and boom its working :)
 
How to rebuild the photo library (including the camera roll after manual edits)

I found a solution for my situation:

1. I had various directories of older backed up iPhone photos/videos. I basically wanted to push them all to my iPhone 4 (along with its existing photos/videos). I first brought them all into one directory and used a renaming utility to fix the numbering. This was neccesary since previous backups of phones/videos would occure, then a restore of the phone, and numbering would reset. At this point I had about 600 photos/video files with no numbering collisions.

2. I used an SCP client to access /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE. I deleted its contents and uploaded the results from #1 above.

Of course at this time the photo database/cache is shot and browsing the camera roll fails. In my case it only showed thumbnails for the previously deleted iPhone 4 photos/videos and would fail if I tried to open anything.

3. I once again used an SCP client to access /var/mobile/Media/PhotoData (where thumbnails are stored). I deleted everything in the subdirectory 100APPLE, as well as two sqllite files that were named along the lines of Photos.sqllite and Photos_aux.sqllite. There was also a .plist file in this directory that I (perhaps not wisely) deleted since its content seemed to indicate it was photo database related.

4. I then accessed /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/.MISC/ and edited the Info.plist file in here in two ways: first, set the ExternalDCIM... key from false to true, and then updated the LastNumber setting to reflect the number after the last file of all the photos/videos I uploaded in step #1.

5. Reboot phone, access camera/photos and you will get a Rebuilding Photo Library screen. After this completes the Camera Roll will now reflect the actual DCIM directory, complete with thumnails. I have all my old 3GS photos in there now with current iPhone 4 photos and all the various backups I did over the course of restoring/jailbreaking, etc.

Thoughts - I don't know if I needed to delete the .sqlite and .plist files in step #3. Why? Well, they weren't created after the rebuilding of the photo library... works fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if I messed something up perhaps. If anyone does this, let me know what they find.

Update
Another reboot now shows both the .sqllite and .plist file previously deleted as back on disk (probably generated in memory while rebuilding, then saved as I shutdown).

HTH,
Gol
 
I was able to restore my photos by keeping the images and thumbnail files in /var/mobile/Media/DCIM and /var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/100APPLE respectively.

You should be left with a bunch of black icon images when you view your library.

Then, change the 'true' to 'false' in /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/.MISC/Info.plist for DCIMChangedExternally and reboot. When you run Photos again it will rebuild the database.

This is not working for me on true or false. Mine was already set to false when I checked.
 
Amazing!!!!!!!

This is just fantastic! My problem was lost data when downgrading from iphone4 to 3GS. The advice here allowed me to recover everything. I am thrilled!!!!!!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
 
Golovko!!!!!!

Awesome work, thanks very much. I searched all morning trying to find a few answers to how the photos app works properly, along with the black thumbnails error etc. Heres what I did step by step.

1) Make sure all your photos in /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/100APPLE are named accordingly. You can put any number of JPEGS in here from any source if you want them to be added to Camera Roll properly with thumbnails etc. They need to be named 'IMG_0001.JPG' 'IMG_0002.JPG' etc etc

2) Delete /var/mobile/Media/PhotoData completely.

3) Browse to /var/mobile/Media/DCIM/.MISC/ and edit the Info.plist file:

It needs to read like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>DCIMChangedExternally</key>
<true/> <<<<< Change this to true
<key>LastFileGroupNumber-100</key>
<integer>41</integer> <<< number of photos you have PLUS 1
</dict>
</plist>

4) REBOOT!

Thanks again Gol for the direction! :)
 
Right, I have a problem like this too. I had installed Fake APN, because I did not have a 3G plan with my iPhone.
I upgraded to IOS4 and decided to include a 3G plan with my current bundle. Sadly I found out that my fake APN remains and cannot be deleted. It's not even in the settings anymore, but when I try to install another APN I get an error message stating I can have only one installed.

The guide to using a clean restored iPhone's settings with my current backup sounded good. The clean iPhone works btw! But when I delete the file and replace the three other files, nothing changes.
In other words, this guide does not work for me. Can anyone please help me? Because I don't want to lose my contacts, text messages or app data.
I am quite desperate...

Edit: I have gotten it working!! Thanks for writing the guide. I had to replace the corrupt APN file, with a normal one from my clean restore. That's what did it for me.

Also, how can I get my camera roll working again on a Windows machine? Since I can only view the camera library in my computer.
The guide above for recovering the camera roll was for a Mac.
Any advice?
 
Okay, I'm dealing with this same issue (main thing being no working cellular data - on an unlocked iPhone 4 from the US - I'm in Poland) and trying pilot76103's method. I'd like to ask for one bit of hand-holding; when I go to do a full restore in step 6, I'm warned that the restore will install the latest version of iOS and I fear I'll lose my unlock as I'm on an earlier version (and baseband 01.59.00). Any way to prevent the iOS update (or alternative method that's been found since)? MMS would be nice but data is the priority...
 
Okay, I'm dealing with this same issue (main thing being no working cellular data - on an unlocked iPhone 4 from the US - I'm in Poland) and trying pilot76103's method. I'd like to ask for one bit of hand-holding; when I go to do a full restore in step 6, I'm warned that the restore will install the latest version of iOS and I fear I'll lose my unlock as I'm on an earlier version (and baseband 01.59.00). Any way to prevent the iOS update (or alternative method that's been found since)? MMS would be nice but data is the priority...

Use TinyUmbrella to update your FW without updating your baseband. A guide is available here: http://thefirmwareumbrella.blogspot.com/p/prevent-iphone4-baseband-update.html

HOWEVER, you will have to update to 4.3.3 to jailbreak which is NOT the latest version. Therefore, you have to have 4.3.3 SHSH blobs saved or else you cannot update to this version. If this phone was jailbroken and Cydia was allowed to save SHSHs, then you likely have them saved. You can retrieve your blobs using TinyUmbrella.

To summarize, I would:

Check if have 4.3.3 SHSH blobs with TU
If you don't, you're screwed
If you do, then upgrade to 4.3.3 using iTunes and TinyUmbrella
Jailbreak with Jailbreakme.com
Fix your data problem

Hope that helps ;)
 
@DaMan05 - thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I think I am, for the time being at least, in the screwed category ;) as 4.3.5 are the oldest SHSH blobs I have access to/saved (those are saved for future reference in hopes that I can do the process you describe once/if I have access to a jailbreak for 4.3.5...)
 
@DaMan05 - thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I think I am, for the time being at least, in the screwed category ;) as 4.3.5 are the oldest SHSH blobs I have access to/saved (those are saved for future reference in hopes that I can do the process you describe once/if I have access to a jailbreak for 4.3.5...)

I haven't been foloowing this thread but I don't think that its a question of restoring. Since its an AT&T phone, you will need to change the APN settings to the ones for your carrier. Restoring the phone will not do this.

Search up changing the APN setting to match your carrier

Like I said, I haven't been following this thread but those are my two cents.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.