I signed up so I could post some hard to find information on the gecko tookit.
Download, follow a few steps, and presto, right? well not that easy, but it will eventually work with enough time and persistence.
1st step: I did my homework and research and convinced myself it's a real program, not a scam.
It is for real and it did eventually bypass my disabled iphone. I knew my password (grandkid locked it out), so I didn't use any of the other features, so I can't say whether they work. You have to decide if it's really really worth it to you to pursue this. If so, I hope this saves you a few hours.... or days of frustration.
Your not going to find much information out there on the gecko toolkit program - I couldn't find any information from the original programmer, much less any reasonable or detailed instructions.
But, wherever you are- thank you for writing the program. It is bad business that apple does not provide a legitimate, well distributed fix to this problem for honest owners of their own iphones.
Which leads to the second big problem and one I almost did not overcome - finding a clean download. Well I didn't really overcome it - i just bit the bullet and chose the better of two evils.
You won't find it on any legitimate download site. I searched for hours and hours for a clean download, but none would pass my security scan. All were infected, full of malware, trojans, etc...
So, I finally did something I have never done before - unwilling to lose all of my data from my disabled iphone that had not been backed up, I willingly and knowingly downloaded an infected file and spent the next 8 hours cleaning up the mess.....
registry files, internet explorer hijacked, program files, etc.... 4 separate removal programs and alot of manual deletion to get it all cleaned up, but my computer survived.
Now, the fun has just begun- open the program follow the vague instructions and ..... no go..... problem after problem - read forum after forum extracting small clues and wading through lots of bad information.
I am running windows 7 64 bit with up to date java and i-tunes. My phone is an iphone 4 with 4.something ios. Much reading convinced me it will not work on the 4s or newer, nor will it work on newer versions of ios than 5.something, at least that seemed to be the consensus.
Some places say it won't work with windows 7 64 bit, others say it won't work with xp, some say it won't work on any version of java newer than 7.2, others say java6. update something. Some say it won't work with 64 bit java.
All say it won't work with newer versions of itunes, but none say which exactly it will work with. I tried hours and hours worth of combinations of java 6.update something? through java 8. I ended up with 2 versions of java installed at the same time- a 32 bit java 6 update 30something and a 64 bit java 7 update 2.
I couldn't tell you for sure which one was actually in control or worked. I tried combinations of 32 bit java on my 64 bit computer and 64 bit versions of java.
I ended up with i-tunes 10. It worked. Each of these uninstalls and reinstalls of different versions created their own problems and hours of research to fix them:
For instance, when I installed the 32 bit java, it wanted to install in x86 program files instead of regular program files (because I have 64 bit computer, I assume), but when it did, gecko gave an error code when I ran it- it orphaned the .jar files gecko needed to operate. So then I figure out how to reassign the jar files to java in the x86 location (once I figured out what a jar file was and that it needed java to read it). But, for some reason when you install a 32 bit version of java 6 on my 64 bit computer, and it installs to the x86 program files - it doesn't install the .bin files, just the lib files (and of course, the javaw.exe that gecko needs to read it's internal programming is in the bin files)....
I Finally uninstalled the 32 bit version of java and manually forced it to reinstall the same 32 bit version in the regular program files instead. Then assign .jar files to open with the javaw executable file - Yes it has to be the javaw file, the w isn't a typo - none other will work - hours of research saved for you.
.... and when you uninstall java 6 32 bit, it orphans library files in the x86 folder. Gotta go manually remove them because it gets confused and won't work when you reinstall a different version.
When you uninstall your newer version of itunes, it too will orphan some library.itl files, then when you reinstall the older version, it gets confused and can't read the files. More hours of research and trial and error. Eventually you have to move the files from their original location in itunes to your desktop. Then reinstall the older version so it will make it's own library files (when you are all done and put everything back to normal, don't forget to put these library files back where they belong in your newest version of itunes).
You are going to get all kinds of error messages from the gecko tool when you try to run it, depending on which wrong combination of java and itunes you have and whether you have the .jar files assigned incorrectly.
Messages like "device unsupported ignoring unsupported device- this means wrong java and/or itunes version", or "can't read the .jar file - look for program to open it? - this means you have the wrong java version or wrong path to open the .jar file", or "jsyringe problem with java- this means you have the wrong version of java too".
Once you get past All of this, with the correct version of itunes, java, and windows, it really is as simple as following the vague instructions given in the toolkit.
Pick the right tab, select your ios, bypass, say ok, put phone in dfu mode, say ok, say no, wait a few minutes, and magic- no more disabled. I'm not sure it matters what order you do the dfu mode and bypass, once I had the right versions of everything, it worked first time.
Theres a half dozen ways to put the phone in dfu mode..... 3 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, or 10 sec, 7 sec, or turn off first or don't bother - it doesn't matter - just follow one of the ways easily described in a google search to get into dfu mode.
The program unlocks the phone in a matter of minutes - don't be impatient - it takes longer than a few seconds, but don't sit there for 30 minutes waiting to see if it works either. Something is wrong if it takes more than a few minutes.
In the end, I think that java 7 update 2 in 64 bit for a 64 bit windows 7 or 32 bit for a 32 bit windows with i tunes 10 would save someone hours of trial and error. If you don't have windows 7, I don't know what combo works or if it even will - find someone who does and will let you download a few good trojans on their machine and do it the way I did!!!
If you think you are going to crack your girlfriend's passcode while she's asleep and spy on her text messages, forget it - she will be leaving you in the morning when she finds you with her disabled phone and a computer full of viruses!!! Plan on spending days doing this, possible a visit to the geek squad to recover your crashed computer, and learning more about the internal workings of windows than anyone should have to!
It doesn't have to be this way, you know. Windows, apple, it doesn't matter - your sleeping with the devil either way -and it's all about making money off of you. It is designed to be this complicated and difficult for a reason, but it doesn't have to be.
This isn't meant to be an exact detailed instruction and it would probably take me several hours if I had to do it again even though I just went through all of it. Just know that you are going to have to do a lot of reading, make mistakes, fix mistakes, and try again. Do you want it that bad?
PS just because a download site says it is adware, malware, and virus free, doesn't mean anything - just like the hooker who says she doesn't have any diseases. Every no name download site who had the gecko tookit available failed security scan at download and I got lots of infections. Most want to download their own download tool too - which contains viruses.
If you do it, just know your computer is going to need antibiotics afterwards.
There was one pay site for 9.99 that claimed to be virus and malware free, but I really didn't want to spend 10 bucks and get a virus anyway.
Trustworthy sites like major geeks and file hippo don't have the gecko toolkit. Special thanks to malware bytes, avg, adwcleaner for the cleanup. Thanks apple for putting us through this very unnecessary problem. Thanks windows for a whole different set of problems. Thanks to programmers of all things for not being able to write intelligible, understandable instructions to your programs - this includes java, windows, itunes, all designers of virus scanners and security programs.
