Jailbroken? Fix?

idave23 · Jan 25, 2013

When I tried to back up my wife's iPhone 4S today I got the "iTunes could not connect to this iPhone..." etc. error message. I mentioned it to her and she told me that when she was in China last year (without telling me) she tried to get her phone "opened" so she could use a local SIM card but they may have misinterpreted what she actually wanted and made a "mistake".

After a little more discussion about the "mistake" I came to the conclusion that it may have been jail broken. I don't know the first thing about JBing so I wouldn't know how to find out if that's what was done. The phone seems to work normally other than not being able to connect to iTunes on the PC. So, does it sound like it's been jail broken? And if so, can it be reversed? And can that be done here or will they have to do it back in China? Or will we just have to do a complete reset?

willerz2 · Jan 25, 2013

Jailbreaking does not affect the connectivity. What's the exact error. The 'etc' part doesn't exactly give us what the problem is.

idave23 · Jan 25, 2013

The exact text is: "iTunes could not connect to this iPhone. An unknown error occurred. (0xE8000012)."

willerz2 · Jan 25, 2013

Try a DFU mode restore first on the iPhone. Download the latest IPSW for the iPhone (or if you have blobs and your device meets the requirement, you can re-restore) and restore using iTunes or RedSn0w. I'm assuming you're just plugging it in and clicking the restore button. If that doesn't work, we'll have to take slightly more drastic measures to see if they work.

x98car · Jan 25, 2013

If it was indeed jailbroken you may have an issue with your lockdown file. Use something like ifunbox or diskaid and delete the lockdown folder (copy it to your computer first just in case) on your device @ /var/root/library I think it is. Reboot and you should need to activate again, just use itunes to activate normally after that.

idave23 · Jan 26, 2013

OK, all this is Greek to me. When I mentioned in the OP that I don't know the first thing about jail braking, I wasn't kidding. Which also means I don't know the first thing about un-jail breaking and am not about to try. This was done in China without my knowledge. So if it is JB are my options then limited to having them undo it or finding someone here with the ability? Or will a reset do the trick?

Thomasjtsi · Jan 26, 2013

idave... what iOS version is your wife's 4S running right now?

idave23 · Jan 26, 2013

Thomasjtsi said:
idave... what iOS version is your wife's 4S running right now?

5.1.1

Thomasjtsi · Jan 26, 2013

idave23 said:
5.1.1

1. Have you updated your iTunes recently?

2. Are you dead set on keeping it on 5.1.1 or do you mind updating to 6.0.1?

idave23 · Jan 26, 2013

Thomasjtsi said:
1. Have you updated your iTunes recently?

2. Are you dead set on keeping it on 5.1.1 or do you mind updating to 6.0.1?

Yes, iTunes is up to date. As far as going to 6.0.1, we've avoided doing that because of the problems others were having that we just didn't want to deal with because we like our phones the way they are. Kind of ironic now that she had hers altered in China.

But if updating somehow fixes this issue then we may have to consider it. I"m not sure how we'd accomplish that though given iTunes won't recognize her phone.

michaelblakely · Jan 26, 2013

I had this issue once and next thing that happened was the phone wouldn't ever reboot!

idave23 · Jan 26, 2013

michaelblakely said:
I had this issue once and next thing that happened was the phone wouldn't ever reboot!

So then what did you do?

x98car · Jan 26, 2013

You will either need to follow what I posted before to fix it or you will have to restore to 6.0.1 to fix it. If you want to just restore it then put the phone in DFU mode, then iTunes should see it normally to be able to restore it.

idave23 · Jan 26, 2013

x98car said:
You will either need to follow what I posted before to fix it or you will have to restore to 6.0.1 to fix it. If you want to just restore it then put the phone in DFU mode, then iTunes should see it normally to be able to restore it.

I'm confused. It was never at 6.0.1. It was at the original 5.1.1. Are you talking about a reset, wiping everything and starting over?

x98car · Jan 26, 2013

idave23 said:
I'm confused. It was never at 6.0.1. It was at the original 5.1.1. Are you talking about a reset, wiping everything and starting over?

If you restore it iTunes will force you to 6.0.1, and yes it will wipe everything. iTunes should have a backup of it though from whenever you last successfully synced with it. You can restore that backup after.

Or you could try what I said to fix it and a restore would not be needed, it really isn't that hard.