Downgraded my iPhone 4 from 6.0 to 5.1.1 for JB


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Recent postings by various devs that bring us the jailbreaking goodness it looks like a 6.0 Jailbreak (that is stable enough for users and untethered) is going to take on the order of months and not weeks.

Given that, I decided to downgrade my phone yesterday to 5.1.1 so I could restore some JB features that I missed such as MyWi, BiteSMS, and f.lux.

iOS 6.0 just didn't come with enough features to make it worth more than the JB features available with the 5.1.1 firmware.

I am looking forward to iOS 6.0 being Jailbroken as I have noticed that it is a bit snappier than 5.1.1. This was really apparent when I downgraded. 5.1.1 has a little more lag to it when opening apps and even when scrolling sometimes when compared to iOS 6. The other thing I really liked about 6.0 was the Facebook integration which I didn't think I would think much of. But I did end up using those features to share web links, photos, and make status updates.

For people interested in downgrading to 5.1.1, a few tips:

* Find a guide for downgrading and follow it. I wasted a lot of time thinking I knew what I was doing with TinyUmbrella's server and putting my iPhone into recovery mode. The result was a bunch of cryptic errors that I would have known about if I would have RTFM (so to speak).

* TinyUmbrella's SHSH blob server will not work to downgrade v6.0 to 5.1.1. You MUST use a SHSH stitch method to create a custom firmware file. Options to do this are included in the Extras for Redsn0w (again RTFM).

* After iTunes restores your firmware file that has your SHSH blob stitched in YOU WILL GET AN UNKNOWN -1 ERROR. That is to be expected. Don't be like me and think something went wrong and waste a lot of time re-doing things. Instead, RTFM. That error is to be expected, use the Recovery Fix option in Redsn0w to get your phone to boot properly in the now installed 5.1.1.

* There are two versions of 5.1.1 out there. 5.1.1b is the latest version, and you should get that if you have the SHSH blob for it.

* If you don't have your SHSH blob files than you are SOL when it comes to downgrading. If you were Jailbroken in 5.1.1 and used Cydia at all, chances are your SHSH blobs are on the Cydia server because they turned that feature on again. Redsn0w has the option of pulling the SHSH blob from the Cydia server. In the future, I highly suggest anyone interested in keeping their downgradability in iOS to download and run TinyUmbrella with each new iOS version so that you can have a backup of all of Apple's SHSH blobs that are for your devices for each version of iOS. You don't need to be jailbroken to use TinyUmbrella, and there are plenty of non-JB reasons to want to downgrade. For instance you might have heard that some folks aren't too happy with the new Apple Maps. Also, some versions have really killed the performance or battery life of some devices. I consider SHSH blob backups as important as iTunes backups.

Oh, and the new version of iPhoto is only compatible with 6.0+, apparently. Isn't that a kick in the pants?

I think I can recover an old version off of my TimeMachine backup to use.

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Quite a bit of useful information, thanks! I have an iPhone 4 running on 5.0.1, I want to do the opposite and upgrade to 5.1.1b and I have saved blobs on Cydia for 5.0.1 upto 5.1.1b, I verified this with TinyUmbrella.

How do I take the next step and upgrade? Will I have to rejailbreak with redsn0w?

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Lots of helpful info, Kicking myself that I don't have any blobs saved, im stuck on 5.01 at the moment, seems signing has stopped for 5.11, looking forward to JB for ios6

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Quite a bit of useful information, thanks! I have an iPhone 4 running on 5.0.1, I want to do the opposite and upgrade to 5.1.1b and I have saved blobs on Cydia for 5.0.1 upto 5.1.1b, I verified this with TinyUmbrella.

How do I take the next step and upgrade? Will I have to rejailbreak with redsn0w?

Since you can't do a simple upgrade in iTunes anymore (Apple will force v6 down your throat), you will have to basically follow the same procedure that someone would follow downgrading to 5.1.1b. I'll try to summarize the steps below:

1. Find and download the 5.1.1b firmware

2. Download the latest version of Redsn0w

3. (recommended) Make sure your iPhone runs an iTunes backup. You might also want to check and see if your apps have any kind of backup features within them. For instance, I always run the backup on my Momento app because that is really the only app data I care about, everything syncs to cloud services so not so important if my backup doesn't work quite right...

4. Load up Redsn0w and goto (this is from memory) Extras->SHSH stuff->Stitch SHSH to IPSW.

5. Browse to the 5.1.1b .ipsw firmware and select it

6. Under the SHSH blob option choose the "Cydia" option (note: your phone will need to be plugged in via USB for this option to be available)

7. Wait for the new .ipsw file to be created (it takes a few minutes). It will be saved with a new file name that has your device UDID as the prefix.

8. Place your iPhone in DFU mode. There is even an option in RedSn0w to boot to DFU mode for custom IPSW or something. Be sure to put your iPhone in DFU mode and not Recovery mode (iTunes refers to them both as Recovery Mode but there is a difference). An example of what NOT TO DO (because I did this): if you were to try and load the new custom firmware in iTunes w/o your iPhone being in DFU mode, iTunes would attempt place your iPhone in Recovery mode attempt to load some stuff and then throw you an error with your iPhone stuck in Recovery mode. For some reason once you are in Recovery mode it is difficult to get the device back into DFU mode following the normal procedure...... just start in DFU mode and you will be fine. DFU mode is the one where you have to hold the power down for 3 seconds, then while holding the power press the home button and hold for 10 seconds, then release the power button but continue holding the home button for like 5 seconds or w/e (follow real directions like the ones in Redsn0w, not my directions here).

9. iTunes will detect that an iPhone is connected in DFU mode (it will call it "Recovery mode") and ask you if you want to restore to the latest version, cancel out of that dialog box.

10. On the iPhone page, hold down Option (I think it is ALT on Windows) and click "Restore". A dialog box will open up for you to select your SHSH blob stitched firmware file.

11. Wait for iTunes to finish its stuff. It will end with some Unknown -1 error. That is to be expected. If you were paying attention you would notice that the progress bar on the iPhone goes to complete and then this unknown error pops up. It takes time to load the firmware. If you immediately get an error then you probably did something wrong.

12. Click through the error. You will notice that your iPhone boots into a recovery mode (it has the cable to iTunes screen on it).

13. Goto Redsn0w and under the Extras select "Recovery Mode Fix" (or something like that). You need to follow the steps to kick it back into DFU mode. It runs a bunch of stuff on the iPhone that looks like it is jailbreaking it but it is not (it is just fixing it so it isn't in recovery mode). When this is done, you should be able to boot and be in 5.1.1.

14. Restore your iTunes backup

15. Re-jailbreak your iPhone using Redsn0w

16. Re-install and configure your jailbroken apps from Cydia.

Good luck!

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Lots of helpful info, Kicking myself that I don't have any blobs saved, im stuck on 5.01 at the moment, seems signing has stopped for 5.11, looking forward to JB for ios6

Are you currently jailbroken? Chances are, Cydia got your 5.1.1 blob for you. Open Cydia, look at the top of the screen and see if 5.1.1 is listed. The first time you open Cydia it asks you if you want it to save your SHSH blobs to it so hopefully you said "yes" and not "no".

I highly recommend downloading TinyUmbrella and familiarizing yourself with how to save all your current blobs to your local disk drive. There have been times when Cydia hasn't been saving SHSH blobs for whatever reason (bandwidth or who knows). So Cydia isn't always 100% reliable. TinyUmbrella has an option to download saved SHSH blobs that are stored on Cydia so you can have your own local copies of those. They just land as .shsh text files that contain a bunch of garbled text (to the human reader).

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Are you currently jailbroken? Chances are, Cydia got your 5.1.1 blob for you. Open Cydia, look at the top of the screen and see if 5.1.1 is listed. The first time you open Cydia it asks you if you want it to save your SHSH blobs to it so hopefully you said "yes" and not "no".

I highly recommend downloading TinyUmbrella and familiarizing yourself with how to save all your current blobs to your local disk drive. There have been times when Cydia hasn't been saving SHSH blobs for whatever reason (bandwidth or who knows). So Cydia isn't always 100% reliable. TinyUmbrella has an option to download saved SHSH blobs that are stored on Cydia so you can have your own local copies of those. They just land as .shsh text files that contain a bunch of garbled text (to the human reader).

No that was the problem, was not jailbroken and sitting back on 5.01 >.< Its all good hopefully they'll JB 6 soon and i can resume the original plan to slap XBMC on that bad boy.

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  • 3 weeks later...

One feature lost that I did not anticipate is Messages in Mountain Lion and ipad ios 6 stopped receiving iMessages that were delivered via my phone number. Can't get that feature to turn back on. Ios 6 must be installed on iPhone for it to work I guess.

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