No service, constant "searching" and poor 3G on AT&T iPhone 4 w/ FW 4.3.1 & 4.3.2 JB

[yenniedn]

Hello all,

I'm a long time and fairly knowledgeable jailbreaker and want to bring an iPhone 4 issue to the forum's attention and possibly get some help to resolve it. (Excuse the long post but background info is relevant.) I've been working on this ALL day and have confirmed the existence of this problem on SIX (6) different iPhone 4's so it is NOT an isolated problem for one or two quirky phones. The background info is as follows:

- I (and all in my family) use AT&T and do not rely on an ultrasn0w unlock.

- all phones are used with protective cases to minimize/eliminate likelihood of the Death Grip issue.

- all iPhone 4's have been redsn0w/pwnagetool jailbroken since FW 4.1 and have SHSH hashes saved back to at least 4.2.1 (some 4.1).

- all phones have (or had) either 02.10.04 or 03.10.01 preserved basebands.

- Several weeks ago, I used pwnagetool custom IPSW to update my iPhone 4 upto 4.3.1 w/ 03.10.01 and yesterday my wife's to 4.3.2 w/ 02.10.04. Both phones were previously JB'ed on 4.2.1 and worked perfectly.

- I did NOT have the no bars bug on my phone on 4.3.1 so I did not have to install ultrasn0w to bypass that. My wife's phone needed to have ultrasn0w 1.2.2 installed in order to pick up her AT&T microSIM but seemed to work fine afterwards.

I had used my phone for a couple of weeks and didn't notice any problems (I don't make/receive many calls or texts) but last night I noticed that my wife's phone would:

* FREQUENTLY drop from 4-5 bars down to 1 or 2 (or sometimes ZERO) bars then enter "searching" mode
* "searching" mode is either followed by a return to normal service or "no service"
* once in "no service" it'll stay there for some random period of time before it'll pick up service again.
* calls/texts can only be made/received when phone has at least 4 bars - anything under three bars means no calls or texts in or out!
* turning off 3G and connecting via 2G/EDGE seems to solve the problem - but turning 3g back on immediately brings back problems

I thought this was a problem with just the 4.3.2 JB on my wife's phone so I checked mine on 4.3.1 and discovered it had the same behavior - I probably just didn't notice it before since I keep the phone in my pocket and seldomly look at it for any extended amount of time. Some quick research showed this was likely due to the preserved basebands so I did a default itunes restore on both phones to bring them up to 4.3.2 FW w/ normal 04.10.01 BB. I then noticed that the now completely STOCK phones would not pick up the AT&T SIM's!!! So I had to redsn0w JB then ultrasn0w 1.2.2 in order to even get AT&T service back (no need for djayb6.com's ultrasn0w 4.3.2 fix because ultrasn0w 1.2.2 supposedly fixes the 4.3.2 bug). The bad news is the same problems still exist - so it doesn't seem like going up to the current baseband helps.

Since then, using the 6 different phones I have tried all of the following:

- custom restored back to 4.2.1 w/ 02.10.04
- created & used sn0wbreeze custom 4.3.2 IPSW restore w/ 02.10.04, 03.10.01 and 04.10.01 BB
- set up newly restored phone as new phone as well as restore from backups
- fully stock 4.3.2 / 04.10.01 restore through iTunes WITHOUT jailbreak

And no matter what I try, the problems are still there!!! It seems that there is some problem caused by @i0n1c's 4.3.1/4.3.2 JB that causes very unreliable 3G service on a stock AT&T iPhone 4! Whatever the issue is, it appears to persist even after a default restore!

My wife's iPhone 4 has just been restored to fully stock factory condition and it won't even pick up her AT&T microSIM unless I turn off 3G and connect only by EDGE!!! As soon as I turn 3G back on, all the headaches come right back! This abnormal behavior is constant and renders the phones basically unusable. I can't even (reliably) have a stock iPhone 4 on 3G anymore!

(One last oddity: these problems also happen on my 4.3.2 JB'ed 3G iPad 1st gen so it's not just the iPhone 4! I have not tested the 3GS.)

Has anyone else noticed these problems? If not and you're on AT&T w/ @i0n1c's 4.3.1/4.3.2 JB, watch your iPhone 4 and you'll notice it under 5 minutes.

CAN ANYONE OFFER A SOLUTION???

[iYeow]

Not sure what your problem is but just to let you know :
On my factory unlock iPhone 4, I get less bars without Ultrasn0w than my 3GS unlocked with Ultrasn0w 1.22 at 4.3.2.
You must ensure you have at least a bumper for your iPhone 4

[yenniedn]

Not sure what your problem is but just to let you know :
On my factory unlock iPhone 4, I get less bars without Ultrasn0w than my 3GS unlocked with Ultrasn0w 1.22 at 4.3.2.
You must ensure you have at least a bumper for your iPhone 4

I should've mentioned above that this doesn't appear to be a death-grip issue - all phones have protective cases on them.

Will edit this info into the original post. Thx

Update: after all the wasted time this morning, this may very well turn out to be a local AT&T service issue . . . my Mom's 3GS on stock FW 4.2.1 is exhibiting the same behavior. This phone was not jailbroken previously and has operated in its current state for months with no change until today.

So this could just be a temporary AT&T network issue??? Frustrating nonetheless.

[iYeow]

Arh, fortunately , it is Atnt tower issue . If this continues to go on , time to change carrier providers

[HybridParticle]

iPhone family haha

anyway is most likely your carier is having some issues

In my country, phone cables are underground lol