Will not restore or upgrade

[gordol]

iPad 2, iOS 5.1.1, jailbroke. Win7x64, iTunes 11.0.1.12.

After getting an iPhone 5 with iOS 6.1 on it, not jailbroke, I've decided that I really do not need jailbreak on my iPad anymore and I'd prefer to upgrade it to iOS6 so I can install some apps that require the current OS. Prevailing wisdom, as I understand it, says that to un-jailbreak all you need to do is plug it into iTunes via USB and tell it to "restore".

It does not restore.

I get an error that says "Cannot restore this iPad due to an unknown error".

I've tried doing a straight upgrade, a straight restore, and via DFU (hold power and home while plugged in until the iPad says to connect to iTunes). In every attempt, iTunes says "unknown error" and does not proceed. I also tried uninstalling all of the Cydia apps I've previously installed.

I did do a restore and re-jailbreak at some point last year, and the only significant change I can think of since then is some "critical updates" for Cydia the other day, that came out after Evasi0n was released.

The good news is, I do not (yet) appear to have lost anything off the iPad. What is my next step? Using the on-board "erase all content and settings" and try again? Or something else? I certainly cannot take it to Apple as it currently is due to the current jailbreak.

 

[Laelipoo]

iPad 2, iOS 5.1.1, jailbroke. Win7x64, iTunes 11.0.1.12.

After getting an iPhone 5 with iOS 6.1 on it, not jailbroke, I've decided that I really do not need jailbreak on my iPad anymore and I'd prefer to upgrade it to iOS6 so I can install some apps that require the current OS. Prevailing wisdom, as I understand it, says that to un-jailbreak all you need to do is plug it into iTunes via USB and tell it to "restore".

It does not restore.

I get an error that says "Cannot restore this iPad due to an unknown error".

I've tried doing a straight upgrade, a straight restore, and via DFU (hold power and home while plugged in until the iPad says to connect to iTunes). In every attempt, iTunes says "unknown error" and does not proceed. I also tried uninstalling all of the Cydia apps I've previously installed.

I did do a restore and re-jailbreak at some point last year, and the only significant change I can think of since then is some "critical updates" for Cydia the other day, that came out after Evasi0n was released.

The good news is, I do not (yet) appear to have lost anything off the iPad. What is my next step? Using the on-board "erase all content and settings" and try again? Or something else? I certainly cannot take it to Apple as it currently is due to the current jailbreak.

Do not hit "erase all content and settings" as that will send you into a boot loop. Try rebooting your computer, and make sure your host file is pointing at iTunes, not Cydia. If you have Tiny Umbrella installed, open it and make sure the "set hosts to Cydia on exit" box is unchecked.

 

[gordol]

Do not hit "erase all content and settings" as that will send you into a boot loop. Try rebooting your computer, and make sure your host file is pointing at iTunes, not Cydia. If you have Tiny Umbrella installed, open it and make sure the "set hosts to Cydia on exit" box is unchecked.

TinyUmbrella is installed, in my now abandoned plan to jailbreak the iPhone, so firing it up, it gives me the following messages:







and then on the Advanced tab in TinyUmbrella I see what is captured in Tiny4.




As you can see, "Set Hosts to Cydia..." is unchecked and grayed out.

I unset "Request SHSH from Cydia" and restarted TinyUmbrella, and now I get the message in Tiny3. If that's referring to Windows, then PID4 is my Windows system kernel! If it's referring to PID4 on the iPad, how do I find out what it is and kill it as requested?

On the off chance that a reboot may do something useful, I'll do that now but I doubt it'll help. I'll followup again with the results.

 

[gordol]

As expected, the reboot did nothing useful. I even tried TinyUmbrella again BEFORE starting iTunes, both with and without the iPad plugged in.

 

[Laelipoo]

Can you try on a different computer? If you can restore from a different computer and get your stuff from backup, maybe you'll be ok.

 

[gordol]

Can you try on a different computer? If you can restore from a different computer and get your stuff from backup, maybe you'll be ok.

Not easily. I only have one computer. I may be able to "borrow" my brother's Mac. Is there no other way?

 

[gordol]

Found the problem. This should probably go into a sticky somewhere, maybe in the "unjailbreak" instructions.

My hosts file (C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) was redirecting gs.apple.com to Cydia on a static IP assignment.

This was probably done BY TinyUmbrella, and since TinyUmbrella appears to be completely borked and unusable on my computer, it was unable to fix it within its own settings.

I found this by googling the error, and came across several references to setting TinyUmbrella to not redirect to Cydia and verifying that the hosts file has localhost properly configured.

Once I removed that line and restarted iTunes, I was able to proceed with the Restore of my iPad, and it is now on 6.1 with my last backup being restored onto the device.

 

[Laelipoo]

Found the problem. This should probably go into a sticky somewhere, maybe in the "unjailbreak" instructions.

My hosts file (C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) was redirecting gs.apple.com to Cydia on a static IP assignment.

This was probably done BY TinyUmbrella, and since TinyUmbrella appears to be completely borked and unusable on my computer, it was unable to fix it within its own settings.

I found this by googling the error, and came across several references to setting TinyUmbrella to not redirect to Cydia and verifying that the hosts file has localhost properly configured.

Once I removed that line and restarted iTunes, I was able to proceed with the Restore of my iPad, and it is now on 6.1 with my last backup being restored onto the device.

I am glad you got it figured out. Usually tiny umbrella is able to fix that but I am glad you were able to do it manually.