Pangu-Jailbroken Verizon iPhone 4S Stuck In Reboot Loop

[Brian Dipert]

I have a 16GB iPhone 4S running iOS 7.1.2 which I seemingly successfully jailbroke using Pangu 1.2 (Mac OS X). Post-jailbreak, however, I didn't wait for the home screens' icons to finish rebuilding themselves prior to running Cydia for the first time (where it modifies the file system). I'm guessing this non-wait is what caused the issue I'll describe next, because I've successfully jailbroken other iOS devices without this same problem appearing.

Now, the phone boots to the lock screen fine, although it reports that I'm almost out of storage memory. From the lock screen, I can run the Camera app, etc without issue. But as soon as I unlock the lock screen, I'm briefly presented with a blank home screen, and the phone then reboots to the Apple logo-display stage. I can't get past this point in the boot process.

iOS 7.1.2 is no longer signed, so my only full-restore option is to non-jailbreakable iOS 8.0.2. Any other ideas, folks? I'd like to get back to a stable jailbroken iOS 7.0.2.

 

[Brian Dipert]

I have tried, by the way, doing a hard reboot (simultaneously pressing the sleep/wake and home buttons). And booting while holding down the up-volume button (to temporarily disable Cydia's Substrate). Neither helps

 

[willerz2]

Since you don't have OpenSSH, it's impossible to resolve without a kernel debug cable, and even then you'll have to patch and push the renewed boot chain on your own. You can attempt to run SemiRestore since Pangu now includes Afc2Add with the jailbreak. Or on the assumption that Cydia properly cached itself and was able to unpack the Cydia Installer package as root, you can attempt to install OpenSSH via debian package through iFunBox or CyberDuck.

 

[Brian Dipert]

Unfortunately I don't have access to a kernel debug cable. Do you have any interest in attempting to help me revive this handset? I'm a contributing editor for EDN Magazine and other print and online publications, and would be interested in writing up the project and your contributions to it.

 

[willerz2]

You'd have to make one. I'm not aware of any that are sold premade online, but the components are easily accessible and there are quite a few guides available online on making one. I don't fully understand the kernel outside of the iPhone 3GS and below, and that's only from the iOS 5 and below standpoint. With the amount of updates to the kernel since the turn of iOS 6, I haven't gone above and beyond to break it down. I would say something like iOS stackexchange where there are more developers/hackers there that can potentially help.