I have an iPhone 3G, and made the mistake of upgrading to iOS4. It has progressively gotten worse in the months since I upgraded to iOS4, and now it is frequently unusable. I want to downgrade back to iOS3. If I do a backup of the phone right now, and then downgrade to iOS3, can I restore all the app data, contacts, voicemails, call logs, phone settings, etc. back onto the phone?
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Restoring iOS4 data after downgrading to iOS3?
- Thread starter slapple
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It's not going to work, it will tell you that you cannot restore because the software is too old. You can restore upward in iOS versions but not down.
I'm not aware of any workaround but someone could prove me wrong...
1. Download 3.x.x firmware to your PC
2. download tinny umbrella to your PC
3. Hook your phone to your PC and open Itunes. Shift + restore at the same time, it will allow you to pick to firmware you want to restore.
4. click on 3.x.x
5. At the end, itunes will give you a 1015 error.
6. Open tiny umbrella, hit "Exit recovery"
Your phone will boot up normally to the emergency screen. Your phone now have 3.x.x firmware on it.
This isn't entirely what he is asking. Yes you can downgrade your firmware back to a previous version if you have your SHSH's saved, but the BACKUP cannot be restored (4.x backups cannot be used on 3.x firmwares)
For 3G, you do not need SHSH saved to downgrade firmware to 3.x.x. Once the download is completed, then just restore to back up with Itunes.
So a restore from backup from 4.x.x to 3.x.x works on a 3g? It doesn't on an iPhone 4 so thats good to know (I'm not talking about firmware.)
This is what I am referring to and what I believe the original poster is attempting to do, and cannot be done.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3682
This gives a specific scenario so I am not sure how it would work going to 4.x to 3.x but I would assume it's probably the same.
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iPhone 3G doesn't require SH blobs mate.
There's a thread on here that said as much a couple of days ago.
Thank you for the replies. I just went to the Tiny Umbrella web site and looked at their FAQ and see mentions of Cydia. I just want to make sure I can do this without a jailbroken iPhone 3G?
Also, you are saying that when I restore my iOS4 backup onto my iPhone 3G with iOS3, all the data and settings will be restored, and the only potential problem will be that there might be certain apps that won't run on iOS3?
Also, you are saying that when I restore my iOS4 backup onto my iPhone 3G with iOS3, all the data and settings will be restored, and the only potential problem will be that there might be certain apps that won't run on iOS3?
I realize that, I misread his post. You still cannot use a 4.x backup on 3.x firmware. You will get an error. He will need to use an older 3.x backup to recover from.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
No, you can't restore a backup made in iOS to a phone running a version lower than the backup was made on. You can put iOS 3 onto your phone but you won't be able to restore your backup afterwards
slapple said:
No, you can't restore a backup made in iOS to a phone running a version lower than the backup was made on. You can put iOS 3 onto your phone but you won't be able to restore your backup afterwards
OK, I thought haulis was saying the same thing you are saying, but then Crystal-RX said that you can restore an iOS4 backup onto iOS3 if you have an iPhone 3G, but now you are saying Crystal-RX is wrong. Or did I misunderstand the posts?
Crystal-RX is referring to downgrading the firmware, which is possible on the 3G. What is not possible is restoring a 4.x backup onto 3.x firmware.
Two different things are being discussed here. Downgrading in firmware is possible but you will have to set up your phone as new; you cannot restore your 4.x backup on 3.x. You will have to use an older 3.x backup.
Phil A. is correct is his post and we are saying the same thing.
Thanks for clearing that up. I'll have to think about if I want to do that.
Maybe I will try one of the other suggestions first. Like trying to reset all the settings on the phone to see if that helps.
Or what about if I downgraded from iOS 4.2.1 (which is what I have right now) to iOS 4.1? I remember iOS 4.1 wasn't as bad as 4.2.1 is. Could I restore a backup from iOS 4.2.1 onto iOS 4.1?
Maybe I will try one of the other suggestions first. Like trying to reset all the settings on the phone to see if that helps.
Or what about if I downgraded from iOS 4.2.1 (which is what I have right now) to iOS 4.1? I remember iOS 4.1 wasn't as bad as 4.2.1 is. Could I restore a backup from iOS 4.2.1 onto iOS 4.1?
I do not believe that you can unfortunately.
Hmm, what about just doing a iOS 4.2.1 backup, and then re-installing iOS 4.2.1, and restoring the backup, so that it starts from a clean slate and hopefully works better?
Sounds like it is worth a shot to me. I've fixed some issues by doing this. Nothing to lose in trying since you will have your backup.