iPhone What survives a restore after jailbreak

[bboyredcel]

Hey, i just switched to Straight Talk from AT&T and im encountering a few small functionality hiccups on my 4S that seemingly can only be fixed by Jailbreaking my phone. I dislike jailbreaking as a whole. I used to jailbreak every FW but i've had numerous issues that i'd rather avoid discussing. ANYHOW. Some stuff isnt working such as:

Facetime (wont activate)
iMessage (wont activate)
Siri (who cares)
MMS (incorrect APN)

I know i can fix the MMS w/o JB but the iMessage thing cant be fixed w/o modifying carrier.plist slightly. Im wondering if I jailbreak, edit carrier.plist, then backup via itunes; if i can then unjailbreak and restore the phone from that backup and retain the contents of my edited carrier.plist and thus have functional iMessage on a non-jailbroken 4S. Does carrier.plist survive a restore?

Thanks.

 

[dhlizard]

Hey, i just switched to Straight Talk from AT&T and im encountering a few small functionality hiccups on my 4S that seemingly can only be fixed by Jailbreaking my phone. I dislike jailbreaking as a whole. I used to jailbreak every FW but i've had numerous issues that i'd rather avoid discussing. ANYHOW. Some stuff isnt working such as:

Facetime (wont activate)
iMessage (wont activate)
Siri (who cares)
MMS (incorrect APN)

I know i can fix the MMS w/o JB but the iMessage thing cant be fixed w/o modifying carrier.plist slightly. Im wondering if I jailbreak, edit carrier.plist, then backup via itunes; if i can then unjailbreak and restore the phone from that backup and retain the contents of my edited carrier.plist and thus have functional iMessage on a non-jailbroken 4S. Does carrier.plist survive a restore?

Thanks.

FaceTime and iMessage should activate just as they would if using an AT&T sim
Siri on our 4S works the same on AT&T or Straight Talk (probably not working correctly due to wrong data settings)

As far as the correct data and MMS settings, that requires a jailbreak and purchasing TetherMe ($5) from Cydia to expose the Cellular Data Network page for APN settings.

I recommend a clean restore to 5.1.1, choose set up as new, jailbreak with Absinthe 2.0.4, then just buy the single Cydia app which will not cause any negative effects.

Here are the APN settings for Straight Talk:

 

[iphone4champ]

My 4S works great jailbroken on Straight Talk with no problems at ALL. best thing I can think of is to restore & jailbreak again to remove what ever bug it is you have.

 

[bboyredcel]

iMessage only works via apple id w/o jailbreak & carrier.plist modification. I have a new number on ST that hasnt been linked to my apple id via imessage activation. It is impossible for iMessage to verify your phone number on activation over ST because it sends an international text message to the UK to do that in a format that ST does not support. you must dial 011+[countrycode]+[number in international format] on straight talk to send an international text. The fix is to edit carrier.plist to use a different (canadian) activation server as well as fixing the dialing format for imessage activation.

Siri and FaceTime have the same issue. I think siri might not work simply because im using a proxy server to compress data, but facetime definitely uses the same activation method as iMessage.

I can fix MMS w/o jailbreaking by editing an iTunes backup.

What im asking is if i lose the changes that i made to carrier.plist if i restore the phone.

 

[dhlizard]

iMessage only works via apple id w/o jailbreak & carrier.plist modification. I have a new number on ST that hasnt been linked to my apple id via imessage activation. It is impossible for iMessage to verify your phone number on activation over ST because it sends an international text message to the UK to do that in a format that ST does not support. you must dial 011+[countrycode]+[number in international format] on straight talk to send an international text. The fix is to edit carrier.plist to use a different (canadian) activation server as well as fixing the dialing format for imessage activation.

Siri and FaceTime have the same issue. I think siri might not work simply because im using a proxy server to compress data, but facetime definitely uses the same activation method as iMessage.

I can fix MMS w/o jailbreaking by editing an iTunes backup.

What im asking is if i lose the changes that i made to carrier.plist if i restore the phone.

I have an iPhone4 and iPhone 4S on StraightTalk
Siri works quite well on the 4S on StraightTalk
FaceTime and iMessage both got registered using my StraightTime cell numbers quickly and without issue on both phones.

I believe this is because StraightTalk is an AT&T MVNO

Jailbreaking is not an issue/requirement for either of these, but jailbreaking does allow the opening of the Cellular Data Network settings page via Cydia hack.

 

[bboyredcel]

I ended up getting iMessage, Siri, and Facetime to work by sending an actual text to their respective activation numbers.

iMessage: 011+445773142076
Facetime & Siri: 011+447786205094

as soon as i texted those numbers those services started working. Tested on a friends phone who was having the same issue as me on StraightTalk and it worked for him as well.

I think that some people are having better luck than others w/ iMessage/FT/Siri activating automatically based on where they are in respect to the network (att vs. t-mo antennae). I have no idea why the results have been so mixed but I can definitely confirm that on two iPhone 4S' iMessage was not working for days after repeated attempts to reset network settings, turn on/off, power cycle, etc.. and that issue went away after i performed the steps above.

@dhlizard - if i cancel my service with AT&T, to which this 4S is bound by contract, and get them to unlock it... will i then get the cellular data network menu back in preferences or is the phone detecting the carrier based off of the sim or something and then dynamically loading the carrier settings that way? If so, that sucks for ppl who purchased factory unlocked devices, yet still live with these ludicrous configuration restrictions.

 

[dhlizard]

I ended up getting iMessage, Siri, and Facetime to work by sending an actual text to their respective activation numbers.

iMessage: 011+445773142076
Facetime & Siri: 011+447786205094

as soon as i texted those numbers those services started working. Tested on a friends phone who was having the same issue as me on StraightTalk and it worked for him as well.

I think that some people are having better luck than others w/ iMessage/FT/Siri activating automatically based on where they are in respect to the network (att vs. t-mo antennae). I have no idea why the results have been so mixed but I can definitely confirm that on two iPhone 4S' iMessage was not working for days after repeated attempts to reset network settings, turn on/off, power cycle, etc.. and that issue went away after i performed the steps above.

@dhlizard - if i cancel my service with AT&T, to which this 4S is bound by contract, and get them to unlock it... will i then get the cellular data network menu back in preferences or is the phone detecting the carrier based off of the sim or something and then dynamically loading the carrier settings that way? If so, that sucks for ppl who purchased factory unlocked devices, yet still live with these ludicrous configuration restrictions.

I am not aware anyone using StraightTalk was having issues getting FaceTime, iMessage and Siri activated. Since StraightTalk is an AT&T MVNO, the activation messages should get processed correctly and not interpreted as International SMS.

Glad you got it sorted out.

Nope, AT&T iPhones, even after unlocking, do not display the APN settings panel.
Buy TetherMe from Cydia to expose that.