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I may have bought a jailbroken phone and now I can't activate, please help

BONDIE_86

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Hi guys, I need a bit of help/advice.

I bought a used iPhone 4s off ebay and it may have been jailbroken.

I restored to ractory settings and tried to restore using iTunes and was getting error 21 and error 1016 (nout sure on the latter but I think it was 1016).

Anyway, the phone is currently ok without a sim card inserted, the seller said that the phone is on Orange and I have tried inserting about 10 Orange sims and they are all ok in other phones but it just won't activate.

I have no experience in jailbreaking or unlocking iPhones etc.

I have no SHSH blobs or anything and I don't know what I can do to get the phone active with a sim inside again.

Also, I just read somewhere that it could be an unteathered jailbreak because when the battery dies I have to take the battery out and charge it in a universal charger connecting the positive and negative pins to the charger to get the battery going again, I thought it was the battery at first but it could be because it has an unteathered jailbreak?

Any help on my next move would be great because at the moment it is basically an iPod which if you let the battery die you need to take it apart.

Many thanks in advance.
 
Restore the phone while in DFU mode.

Untethered jailbreaks mean that if your device were to be turned off or rebooted, you can fully boot up all aspects of your iOS again without the need of a computer. Taking out the battery is a pain because it's not simply opening up the back cover, pushing down, and removing like Androids and Blackberries.

Jailbroken devices should not affect the ability to activate the device. Might be that the original carrier is actually not Orange. You can check whether it is or not in Settings > General > About. And under Carrier (not Network), you should see the original carrier.
 
Hi, thanks for the reply. So maybe it just has a bad battery? Under carrier it says EE 14.0, so an Orange sim should work shouldn't it? If I turn the phone off I can turn it back on but not if the battery is dead, when the battery dies it will only charge through a wall charger (well it doesn't actually charge because the icon is different on the charging bar in the top right - it basically looks like it is saying "polugged in - not charging" as there is a plugged in icon instead of the lightining icon) and not pc (it just lights up with the apple and then flashes on and off repeatedly). But as I say, at the moment it works ok without a sim as my battery is 63% but once it runs out it will do that ^ again.

So I was guessing either a teathered jailbreak or a bad battery but that doesn't solve the not activating thing which I'm more worried about as I can get a battery for under a fiver.
 
Also I tried restoring while in dfu mode and that is when this started (the not coming on while connecting to pc, and not charging but is coming on through wall charger).

Also, I have updated the phone from 6.0.1 to 6.1.3 via the phone about an hour ago, would this have been possible if it had been jailborken?

I also read that the error 21 can be caused by a bad battery but I don't want to order a battery if I won't be able to use it because of the not activating.
 
That would probably have occurred because you tried updating the device either incompletely or OTA as you've done, which will break the software portion of the jailbreak and would cause screen flickering, boot loops, etc. By default, the plug on the battery icon on the top right signals that your device is plugged in/charging.

iTunes error 21 usually means you're not in DFU mode and iTunes isn't recognizing your device in Recovery.
 
Hi, the plug on the charger icon is completely new to my. It is normally a lightning like it is now, when it had the plug sign it wasn't charging at all. As soon as i pulled the cable out even after it had been plugged in for ages it would turn off but now I've charged the battery externally it charges normally for now with the lightning sign. I have got the battery up to 100%.

How can I go about getting the phone to work because as I say I can't restore/update in dfu or recovery mode. Is there any way to do it with a program through the jailbreak scene software and then I read somewhere that you can also hide cydia afterwards which would be great.

Could the battery be causing the phone to fail to update through iTunes in dfu or recovery mode, or does it sound more likely to be a teathered jailbreak?
 
Hi just saw the bottom bit of your post. The pc recognised that i was in dfu mode, the error 21 was when I was in recovery mode I think, while I try restore in dfu mode it just keeps saying it is trying to verify with Apple and the Apple lights up on the phone over and over, this is while trying to restore in dfu mode. Then after about 7 or 8 mins of trying to verify with Apple it finally gives in. But I also noticed that if I unplug the phone while it is saying trying to verify with Apple the pc and iTunes carry on trying to verify as if the phone is still there
 
If you charged your battery externally, then you're not using an iPhone. The lightning icon is due to a tweak from Cydia or from Winterboard. The only iOS that had a lightning icon when charging by default is iOS 7

Sent from my iPhone via Tapatalk
 
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Hi, this is wrong about the lightning. I am on 6.1.3 on three iphones and when charging normally it displays the lightning icon, i have just realised that it changes to the plugged in sign when it is fully charged but the iphonw im talking wbout was doing this when plugged in to a wall, wouldnt turn on without cable, and wouldnt power on fully with pc. What do you mean if i charged the battery externally im not using an iphone, it was tricky to connect the pins but i did it and it must have jump started the battery or something

Surely there must be a way to active it, it might be worth mentioning that lastnight while trying to activate using several orange sims, breifly it said ee with full signal before telling me i needed to activate where as the other times it says it straight away
 
Thanks for the link Tristan but that is for an earlier iOS?
 
If you were knowledgeable enough to jump the battery externally after removing it from your device, then you'd also know that it would eventually come down to a battery problem. If you leisurely jumpstart batteries as you've done, you could tell the telltale signs of an aged/damaged battery.
 
I got an Iphone 4, seems to be from UK (MC605B/A). Imei is 012423009772716! I can't actvate the Phone, because i need the original Sim-Card (Carrier Lab 14.0). Please can you help me? The Ipone had never been activated before.

ossikar
 
You'd need to hacktivate your device using RedSn0w.
 
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