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idevicerestore fails if '-x' flag is specified (iPhone 3GS and 4 with iOS 5.0.1)

#253

Updates fail if the '-x' flag is specified to exclude updating the NOR/Baseband.

The process appears to complete successfully: the program reports success, and the device shows the normal screens with the progress bar when updating is being performed. However, after the process is 'complete' the device restarts but remains booting into restore mode.

Output from the process can be shown here: (for the iPhone 4)... http://pastebin.com/TCM4bJ3y

This occurs with both the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 when updating to iOS 5.0.1.

Reported by Ian Woods · February 22nd, 2012 @ 12:53 PM

State: invalid
Milestone: none
Assigned to: Martin S. Martin S.

Activity

  1. Martin S.
    Martin S.
    • State changed from new to invalid
    • Tag set to boot, idevicerestore, nand, nor
    • Assigned user set to Martin S.

    This is all working fine and as expected.
    The NOR/NAND writing is skipped correctly from what you describe. Mind that it is not only the baseband that is written here.
    If a specific iOS firmware upgrade requires a NOR/NAND write, it will only boot correctly if you restore without the "-x" option.
    If you update to iOS 5.0.2 for instance it might work to use "-x", on the other hand if you upgrade major versions (iOS 4 to 5), it will most likely always be required.
    In the newer models the baseband update appears to be separated from the initial NOR/NAND write, it might be possible to be able to actually skip only that specific part in the future.

    February 24th, 2012 @ 11:17 AM

  2. Ian Woods
    Ian Woods

    Thanks Martin.

    Is there a way of detecting if a particular firmware can't be restored with the -x flag set (other than hard-coding version numbering checks)? I may be able to add a simple check early in the process to warn/fail in those before putting the device into recovery mode.

    February 24th, 2012 @ 11:24 AM

  3. Martin S.
    Martin S.

    Not really, I think we noticed that sometimes you need the write even on minor upgrades so the new LLB is written to the device. The thing is, some iOS versions do not want to boot if you still have an old bootloader version.

    So this option is really just useful for restoring the filesystem to the device from the same firmware to basically reset it back to a post restore state and save time by skipping the NOR/NAND write process in the end.

    February 24th, 2012 @ 12:36 PM

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