Yesterday I jailbroken a friend of mine’s iPhone 5 and after a successful Jailbreak I went on to installing a tweak that I didn’t realize was not yet compatible with iOS 6, which made his device go into a endless boot loop. At first a feared the worst and thought I would have to restore his iPhone, certainly not ideal because a lot of his data was not backed up. Then I remembered that MobileSubstrate features a failsafe and I was able to correct the situation.
After this ordeal I thought to myself that a lot of other people will likely be in this same boat and I should write an article explaining a couple of ways to fix a bad Cydia tweak installation without actually have to restore or re-Jailbreak your device. This applies if you cannot get out of Safe Mode, are stuck in an endless boot loop, have installed a pattern lockscreen tweak that has locked you out and pretty much any other problem experienced after a bad Cydia tweak installation.
How To Fix A Faulty Jailbreak Tweak Installation
Method #1: If you are simply stuck in Safe Mode then your solution is extremely simple. You will just need to launch Cydia, go into the Manage tab, then the Packages Section, find the Cydia tweak or tweaks that are giving you issues and uninstall them. Once they are uninstalled you can respring your device and it should be back to its normal Jailbroken state again.
Method #2: For those of you who are in reboot city and can’t get out of a boot loop there is actually a solution to the problem thanks to a recent update to MobileSubstrate from Saurik. When your device is rebooting hold down the Volume Up button and doing this will essentially cause MobileSubstrate to be disabled, which in-turn kills all of your tweaks temporarily.
You can then launch Cydia, go into the Manage tab, then the Packages Section, find the Cydia tweak or tweaks that are giving you issues and uninstall them. Once this is complete reboot your device and make sure it reboots into a normal Jailbroken state again.
Method 1 or method 2 should allow you to fix most issues caused by a bad Cydia tweak installation. I know method 2 has saved me many times. Let us know if you have any other suggestions in the comments section.
Excellent article. This feature should be something every jailbreaker knows about. Cydia provides freedom for our devices, but with freedom comes risks. This is a GREAT fail-safe for those risks. Great article.
Its a pretty flawless jailbreak I’ve tested out most A5x devices with out a hitch, issues usually come with someone messing with it the device. We gotta realize with more new iPhones and iPads comes more and more “n00bs” to the scene. Thank god it’s not like the old days or we’d be seeing a lot issues. With the iPhone 5 about as dummy proof as u can get so must the jailbreak methods. People shouldn’t just jump into jailbreaking for the sake of it. You’ve gone this long without ever using a jailbroken device.. Just a warning to new users…you CAN screw your device up if you DON’T know what you’re doing
I don’t mean “n00b” in an offensive way..just Internet lingo
no need to apologize, this feature of cydia (Method #2) already there for a long time (it’s already there back then in ‘Absinthe-Period’), i’m surprised that a writer of ijailbreak didn’t even know about it. if those noobs jb their phone without any sufficient knowledge and messed up their device, its their own stupidity. nobody force them to jailbreak their iDevice.
and if you can’t figure out which it was, removing mobile substrate (which will remove the problem) will fix it, then just reinstall it back.
wish i knew that 2 hours ago just finally restored my iphone 4 after installing siriport 6 on my iphone 4 running ios 6.1 *hint DONT DO THAT IT IS NOT COMPATABLE YET. thanks
I never said I didn’t know about it, I reported on it when it first came into existence, I said it slipped my mind for a few moments :P
I had a similar problem after jailbreaking to 6.1 where the phone would always boot into Safe Mode. I had about 30+ tweaks and had no idea where to begin. I did not want to delete them one-at-a-time to find the problem tweak and then have to reinstall everything.
I stumbled onto a note in some forum that talked about the SBSetting app. It has an option to turn off Mobile Substrate Tweaks. I launched it, scrolled to bottom, went to System Wide Options>Mobile Substrate Tweaks and turned everything off so I got a good boot. Then back to Mobile Substrate Tweaks,turned 5 of them on and respring again. I kept doing this until it went into Safe Mode and then turned the last batch of 5 off. By turning them on one-by-one, and respringing, I found the bad one. Then immediately go to cydia and uninstall it. Then it was back to SBSettings to continue on through the list. I actually found 4 that were failed.
This was a lot better than uninstalling everything to find the one that was causint the problem and then reinstalling the ones that had been deleted.
Don’t do what I did: I actually didn’t go to Cydia right away to uninstall it. I uninstalled it later. SBSettings even says it must be turned on during an uninstall. So I had to do a reinstall, turn it on and then uninstall it again.
Or have a mentor as i did.
i wasnt replying to you, if you are like me and tech blogger, youve got a grasp on it. I was merely stating the fact that jailbreaking isnt a MUST for everyone. As Saurik reported the other day Cydia has never seen so much traffic, about 3 million more hits than the absinthe jailbreak brought, more idevices more people who dont know what theyre doing/
I´ve installed siriport on my ipod 4g. Now i´m in a bootloop, but pressing/holding the volume-up button has no effect. Any ideas?! :)
Very Useful Information, Thanks!!!
my problem is when i try to install a tweak it does not try to install it says running but the bar at the bottom does not even move a inch and it wont install plz help
Thank you Jaden! You saved me. Had at least 150 new, un-backed up tweaks/packs/mods/repos, 75 roms/games, 50 photos & vids, 10%+ of Vice City, 100 bookmarks…etc. Grabbed a tweak, then boot city. I searched “boot logo forever” lol and everything said dfu mode-itunes restore. I was waiting for the ios ipsw to finish dnlding, probly 2 mins from restore when I found this article. Method #2 worked! I never would have remembered/found all my lost stuff. Don’t forget to backup!
I got on the computer today fully expecting to restore my iPod. It’s been screwed up for quite a while and I couldn’t find a way to fix it without losing my stuff. You saved my iPod. Thank you so much!
And I just remembered I had a halfway complete Oracle of Ages save file on GBC.emu.
I tried it and it’s still not working. How long should you hold the volume button down? Should you continue to hold the (sleep) button as your holding the volume button.
Alright so i have the Pangu jailbreak and Method 1 and 2 does not work at all. I see the apple logo it goes away after 5 mins or so then a blank black screen shows up and thats it. Then it repeats the process…. Over…. and over… and OVER again. I can’t see any other option than restoring it. Oh i have a ipod 5th gen btw
It Worked! Thank you so much! I used method 2, and it took a while to get a hang of it, but basically after the apple logos disappears and it goes into that backlit black screen, I rebooted the phone by holding the power and home button, and as soon as the screen went completely dark, I held down just the volume button until the lock screen appeared! If it helps, I also had my phone plugged in
it actually worked
thank you so much
I tried the volume up and it still won’t work still stuck in boot loop after rebooting after getting a siriport help me please and I tried to restore on iTunes and that won’t work
DEAR GOD THANK YOU!! I WAS PANICKING I CAN’T BELIEVE IT WORKED!!!!! (method 2)
god bless ur life with the 2nd method u really saved my life im praying for u i almost died bc my phone wasnt working at all omg thank you so much
i tried this and it still works good looks dude!!!
I love you! Thank you! I love you!
thanks mannnn it really worked for meeee
Once i open my phone my apps dont show so it reboots and i try agian an it just keels doing it
Thank you very much for the option 2 ! you saved my phone ! you rock!!!
Thanks so much you just saved me the pain of rejailbreaking
thnks for helping to fix my problem. very useful method 2. thanks again.
I had my iPad plugged in, but I think it was somehow losing charge despite saying charging. It was a cheap USB wall charger. I was updating critical updates for cydia, and didn’t realize how low my battery had gotten despite having it plugged in… And the iPad restarted during the update process. Now when it boots, it seems to think it’s an iphone, because icon spacing is messed up on homescreen, there is no dock, and when I boot any app it runs iphone-size in the corner of the screen, and touch/tap interaction is broken so my ipad was basically bricked.
But I found this article which helped remedy the issue… Every time I restart my iPad I have to hold the volume up button now. And everything works again. I don’t know what else to do, because there were about 30 critical updates at the time it restarted, and I have no idea which one was corrupted.
Amazing mate. You just saved me from restoring n losing my data. Thanks a lot.
my problem is that i downloaded a tweak by a unknown repo and it automatically went to the lock screen and i could not swipe to unlock and so then i powered off and powered back on and it was normal ipod mode so then i went to my computer and booted my ipod tethered but right when i pressed cydia it automatically had the same problem went to lockscreen and i couldnt slide so i repeated the process on computer 3 times and i want to try the volume thing you suggested but i gotta wait because its like rlly early and my parents would know i was up all night
dude, method two has saved me. thanks !
You saved my bacon, holding the volume up button during boot worked, was the able to uninstall the culprit, thanks a million
Hi! It happened when i successfully jailbreak my iphone 4 and then when i try to install Alkaline app which i watched in the youtube for beginners like me. Btw i already installed it right but when i finally go back there again to do some more alteration my phone gets hanged and afterwads my phone gone black screen i tried to recharge it and yes its charging but i didnt see my screen yet i know it coz of the sound id my charged or not. I totally don’t know what happened tho i tried the method 2 but its not working for me . Please help me and reply for me. Thanks
I install a tweak and my jailbreak gone and now i try to jailbreak again but when i jail it i stop in mark and my device restart 3 timeand then up whit no jail.how i can fix this?(ios 9.3.3)
My iPhone has a stuck volume up button from falling on the phone off a ladder. Now I lose my JB cuz it disables substrate every time it boots. Anyone know how to turn substrate back on or prevent volume up when booting without disassembling the iPhone?