3GS Old Bootrom Being Very Stubborn

[totbl]

I've tried nearly everything to get this phone up and running. Sn0wbreeze's Custom firmware freezes on me, the progress bar doesn't even move to 2%.

Redsn0w tells me "60000 ms!! Giving up..."

And GreenP0ison gets stuck at the last step on the pineapple screen.

I've been through multiple tutorials, restore loops, boot loops, the whole shebang! lmao

I'm out of ideas.

I just want to get this phone working. Jailbroken or not. It was working fine before on 4.2.1. Then I tried to iTunes upgrade to 4.3.2 and it error 29'd be.

Now I'm hitting dead ends left and right!

I just realized 4.3.3 has been released. Hopefully this gets me up and running!

Same error.

At one point I DID get this phone into the emergency call screen but I don't believe it was with 4.3.2/3 I think it was 4.2.1. What the hell am I doing wrong?

How do I go about getting this into Tethered Mode through redsn0w? It worked once but not anymore. It just goes to the Boot Logo loop and/or Recovery Loop.

I must be missing something obvious.

*Edit*
After many many MANY hours of fiddling with this, I've finally got it running.

I upgraded to 4.3.3 which failed with error 29 pretty quickly.

I then used redsn0w with 4.3.2 stock firmware and clicked Install Cydia.

It got stuck on Activating Libraries.
After a few minutes, about 15, it restarted and got stuck on the Apple Logo.

I then put it on recovery mode and kicked it out with tinyumbrella.
The apples logo came up and after about 10 minutes a progress bar slowly filled up and it FINALLY! loaded to Emergency Screen.

It's now running on 4.3.3. I'm not sure if it's jailbroken or not because I'm stuck on that screen and I have no SIM to activate it with ATM.

Thank the lord! But now it doesn't seem to charge normally. It will only charge correctly if I "Slide to Off" while it's plugged in to the wall or computer.

However, it seems to restart every 5-7 minute for no good reason. I mean, it's only on the Emergency Call screen, I don't get it.

What do you think?

[Orby]

Error 29 I've seen tied with battery (and internal circuitry delivering correct voltages, wattage, amperage, ohms, etc.) problems, which seems to fit with the random errors and trouble charging.

Almost assuredly hardware-related, but how bad the system's sunk isn't as easily determined. Replace the battery yourself if you're 100% comfortable with the process and irrevocably voiding your warranty permanently. Otherwise, take it in to an Apple Store for (hopefully) a swap-out.

[totbl]

Hey Orby, I have just ordered a replacement battery.
Buy.com - 1200mAh iPhone 3GS Battery Replacement With 7 Pcs Change Tool Kit

Hopefully it fixes the situation. I'm not feeling too optimistic about it, though.

The phone doesn't restart when on the recovery screen but it does (even if plugged in!) if it's on Emergency Call (maybe anything involving the OS) which leads me to believe it's not the battery as I've ruled out software faults already...

I guess we shall see.

[Orby]

Hey Orby, I have just ordered a replacement battery.
Buy.com - 1200mAh iPhone 3GS Battery Replacement With 7 Pcs Change Tool Kit

Hopefully it fixes the situation. I'm not feeling too optimistic about it, though.

The phone doesn't restart when on the recovery screen but it does (even if plugged in!) if it's on Emergency Call (maybe anything involving the OS) which leads me to believe it's not the battery as I've ruled out software faults already...

I guess we shall see.

It may be a current thing--the phone only draws 100 mA via USB when in Recovery mode, but 500 mA when in normal operation. Might be a dispersal issue, maybe an overvolt, hard to tell remotely.

A new battery is the starting point, IMO; since I agree with you in that the odds are next-to-nil this is a software issue.

PS: That's a damn good deal on a 3GS battery. Hopefully it works well.

[totbl]

You're very knowledgeable when it comes to the technicalities of electronics. As a computer technician and network administrator these insights tend to sand off my rough edges. I appreciate it!

Yeah, it even comes with the needed tools. What can I say, I know how to search. haha
Also, the APN is 6160433 which I've read is compatible with 3GS.

Interestingly enough, this phone has been on for over 20 minutes now and it hasn't rebooted, the battery percentage is reporting a little over half. It was shutting off before with about 10%, maybe the battery has just been reporting wrong or something.

To test out all it's functions, I've been thinking about using sn0wbreeze with a 4.3.2 custom activated IPSW. I'm nearly certain it won't go all the way through just as redsn0w did and I'll have to kick it out of the recover cycle.
Or it will just fail completely...who knows. I guess there's only one way to find out.

What do you think? Would testing certain apps be a good idea? IE camera, mic, games, etc etc.

P.S. Do you think this phone has been jailbroken through redsn0w? Is there anyway I can tell?


*Edit*
I went ahead and tried it. It error 29'd as expected in iTunes. So I used redsn0w once again and it went through without me having to use TU. Surprising.

It seems to have activated it though, so I'm guessing the snowbreeze IPSW stuck.

Last question: Since it's now activated or hactivated, can an official carrier card still be used?

[Orby]

My expertise lies more in the fields you listed, ironically. I'm a freelance IT consultant who does networking on the side for grins.

You went with 4.3.2 stock and redsn0w, right? Apple's probably still officially signing 4.3.2 (they usually have a 24-72 hour window of overlap with old and new firmwares being signed immediately following a release). Therefore I'm not terribly surprised that restore went through correctly.

Redsn0w hacktivates iPhones that have /not/ been officially activated in iTunes by default, so this phone being usable is expected behavior. You can double-check your activation status with SAM (Subscriber Activation Module, available free in Cydia from the repo.bingner.com repository), and I strongly advise you do so.

"FactoryUnlocked" (or "FactoryActivated" can't remember which) means your phone is hacktivated, and "WildcardUnlocked" (or "WildcardActivated") means you're officially (iTunes) activated. If you're hacktivated, I strongly recommend you hit the "De-Activate" button in SAM and then plug your iPhone into iTunes with your AT&T SIM in it. Then you'll have your legitimate, official activation (which will help with heat generation and battery consumption issues, to name two big ones).

Your phone will work just fine on AT&T with or without an official activation, however, YouTube and push notifications may be flaky/erratic/just plain broken if you're not officially activated (plus the battery drain/excessive heat generation symptoms listed earlier may plague you).

EDIT: I'm reading through a bunch of old error logs for this error, and they all seem to point to "/dev/uart.gasgauge" (battery charge/discharge/charge level monitoring via software I think) failing in bootloader stage. Smells like the error is indicative of a bad battery to me.

PS: I've seen three Apple part numbers (616-0431, -0433, and -0435) for batteries and stories of one battery number not working and another one did (or vice versa). No clue on that one, so caveat emptor.

[totbl]

Glad to hear that's your field, it's a lot of fun isn't it? Minus when things get stubborn, yknow! haha

I find it odd that I had jailbroken it with redsn0w the first time and it wasn't hacktivated. *shrugs*

I've installed SAM which is a very nice app. Thanks for the tip.

Are those error logs about "/dev/uart.gasgauge" from verbose mode? Where did you come across that?

Anyway, you've given me some optimism with that! You can add another 'Thanks' above your name! (Well...to the right and a smidgen down.)

THANKS!

[Orby]

Glad to hear that's your field, it's a lot of fun isn't it? Minus when things get stubborn, yknow! haha

I find it odd that I had jailbroken it with redsn0w the first time and it wasn't hacktivated. *shrugs*

I've installed SAM which is a very nice app. Thanks for the tip.

Are those error logs about "/dev/uart.gasgauge" from verbose mode? Where did you come across that?

Anyway, you've given me some optimism with that! You can add another 'Thanks' above your name! (Well...to the right and a smidgen down.)

THANKS!

SAM's great, ain't it?

Those error logs usually come from /mnt1/restore.log on the iOS filesystem, and I'm pretty sure iTunes also keeps a log from its end (~/Library/Logs/iPhone Updater Logs/ on OSX).

To add one of those "Thanks!" you were talking about: there's a button directly above my signature (and a smidgen to the right) that says "Thanks!" on it. Not to toot my own horn, but that button will do what you want it to.

PS: It /is/ a lot of fun when technology doesn't get stubborn, but moreso when clients don't either.

[totbl]

SAM is awesome, I expected it to put me back at the emergency call screen, to my surprise it didn't!

I'll check my logs to see if that line is mentioned anywhere.

Oh and...You got it, bub! But for me, it's directly below your sig, maybe it's just Opera. I know many sites don't support it so it does have trouble rendering pages sometimes.

Y'know what? I rarely have stubborn customers. I just realized, it's probably because I have the cheapest prices around. I figure, cheap prices = more word of mouth advertising and our economy is down in the dumps so I know how strapped people are around here. I've never taken the stubbornness aspect into consideration, though.