App is installed, but icon does not appear - Help

[Draxx]

Hey guys,

I have this peculiar problem -- sometimes when I install a new app via Cydia or Installer or even via direct SSH, the app gets installed on my iPhone 3g (2.2 5G77).

The problem is, no corresponding icon appears on the springboard, despite Cydia/Installer or direct SSH showing that the app is there, and properly installed (with the correct file permissions et all).

Can someone help with this problem please?

I read somewhere - but for the life of me - I can't find that threat now, despite googling or searching for it here -- which explained something like : just having to delete the springboard's icon list file, and restarting the phone, so that the file would be re-formed on restart and the icons which weren't appearing on the springboard would automatically appear.

Again, I'm not sure if it was a plist file or something, and I can't recall where springboard or winterboard stores the file listing the apps/icons which appear on the springboard.

I'd appreciate any help with this - as I'm sure a lot of ppl are going through the same problems, and may even be performing unnecessary uninstalls/reinstalls of their apps, when it basically just gets taken care off, by deleting a single file on your phone and restarting!

Thanks.

[Poseidon79]

Usually this happens if your phone was previously jailbroken and you had hidden icons and then moved up to a new firmware, restored from backup in iTunes and then installed the same apps. You can use SSH or iphonebrowser to go to /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SpringBoard.plist. (delete the springboard.plist file) Then reboot.

[Draxx]

For starters, I can confirm that the problem was not arising from a previously jailbroken iPhone which was upgraded to a new firmware and then restored from iTunes.

This happened to me with a brand new OOTB 3G 16GB 2.2 (5G77), wherein I had just installed Cydia and proceeded to install iRealSMS and MobileLog.

Luckily, I figured out the solution, and it's quite simple.

All you have to do is navigate to:
/private/var/mobile/Library/Caches

and rename (to be safe -- you can delete this renamed file later)
com.apple.mobile.installation.plist
to
com.apple.mobile.installation.plist.old

Restart iPhone and voila - your missing icons will appear and your apps will start working!


You will also notice, when you navigate back to the same directory, that your iPhone has automatically placed a new and updated version of the com.apple.mobile.installation.plist file in your directory now.

In other words, its safe to delete your plist.old file!