Hi,

I bought a 3GS in the beginning of the year with a pre-installed FW version 3.1.2. Carrier was chosen, never had a contract with them. I used blackra1n right from the beginning and it worked like a charm. I believe in February 2010 the RC3 was already out.

However, about a month ago I got problems in synchronizing die iPhone with my Outlook at work and at home I couldn't get WLAN to work any more. When resetting the network settings the phone rebooted and I thought 'OK, let it rain again...'. However, the always working blackra1n stopped working. I tried it first at home where I have a Mac with OS X 10.6.3 running. blackra1n started to work, GeoHots portrait appeared on the phone and the message about the easiest jailbreak... came too. However, after quite a while waiting for the reboot the screen of the phone turned black and instead of showing me something successful, the Apple logo appeared and shortly after the iTunes connecting screen.

A bit later I realized that I had updated iTunes to version 9.1.1.12. Searching the net I found that I should better downgrade to an older version of iTunes and did so to one of the 8 series. The result was that I could not retrieve any information about the music I have on my Mac because the music library was created by a newer version of iTunes (surprise, surprise) and blackra1n was still not working. iTunes came with error 1619, that the 'iPod' was not properly recognized.

Now I'm sitting in front of my work pc (win xp sp3) where as well iTunes 9.1.1.12 is installed. The iPhone is in recovery mode and is recognized by iTunes. I close iTunes and start blackra1n. It complains about several .dll files which it can't find and here I had to stop because icuuc36.dll I couldn't find anywhere.

So I was downloading blackbreeze to fix this problem... blackbreeze is asking where to find my balckra1n application and where to store the fixed version. Afterwards it tells me that I am good to go! But blackbreeze does sh... At the location where the fixed version should have been stored appears to be nothing!

Second try: I was downloading Blackra1n_for_iTunes_9.1.exe and it runs. I do get GeoHots portrait, the message to donate and as usual blackra1n tells me to wait for reboot. It takes quite a while and then the Apple loge appears and the iTunes connecting screen - back to recovery mode!!!

I was also trying to restore the iPhone with iPhone2,1_3.1.2_7D11_Restore.ipsw. While confirming the restore process with the Apple server I get the message 'The iPhone could not be restored. This device isn't eligible for the requested build.'

Thank you very much!!!

I'm getting totally nuts with this. After telling you all I tried, maybe you can come to the right conclusion on what to do, because I am running out of possibilities.

Your help is very much appreciated!

Thanks, Tom

Try using a boot application like iboot, Irecovery, etc.

In the past users have reported that leaving blackrain running with idevice connected for a long period does the trick.

Hi Leon2607,

I tried iRecovery, took a video tutorial from youtube (YouTube - How to fix ReoveryMode Loop on restart, iPhone, iPod Touch) but it is still in the RecoveryMode loop. I did it only once and it didn't do the job.

Comparing the output on the guys terminal in the video and mine... after the line
[FTL:MSG] YAFTL Register [OK] I'm getting
yaFTL::YAFTL_Open(l:2630): CXT is not valid. Performing full NAND R/O restore...
[FTL:MSG] FTL_Open [OK]
Boot Failure Count: 8 Panic Fail Count: 0
Delaying boot for 0 seconds. Hit enter to break into the command prompt...
HFSInitPartition: 0x4fb6dd00
Kernelcache image not valid

blackra1n is only running until the iphone jumps again from the GeoHot portrait into the recovery mode....

Tom

This problem usually occurs when icuuc36.dll is missing from your system.
Missing icuuc36.dll file can be downloaded from here.

Moderator edit: removed link to copyrighted binary file

Download it and then extract the downloaded zip file to the Windows System32 folder, which is located in Windows Drive.

Note: Windows drive is the drive in which your windows is installed.

(that is located in your main drive which contains the installed windows)

Originally Posted by tomdk

I bought a 3GS in the beginning of the year with a pre-installed FW version 3.1.2. Carrier was chosen, never had a contract with them. I used blackra1n right from the beginning and it worked like a charm. I believe in February 2010 the RC3 was already out.

However, about a month ago I got problems in synchronizing die iPhone with my Outlook at work and at home I couldn't get WLAN to work any more. When resetting the network settings the phone rebooted and I thought 'OK, let it rain again...'. However, the always working blackra1n stopped working. I tried it first at home where I have a Mac with OS X 10.6.3 running. blackra1n started to work, GeoHots portrait appeared on the phone and the message about the easiest jailbreak... came too. However, after quite a while waiting for the reboot the screen of the phone turned black and instead of showing me something successful, the Apple logo appeared and shortly after the iTunes connecting screen.

A bit later I realized that I had updated iTunes to version 9.1.1.12. Searching the net I found that I should better downgrade to an older version of iTunes and did so to one of the 8 series. The result was that I could not retrieve any information about the music I have on my Mac because the music library was created by a newer version of iTunes (surprise, surprise) and blackra1n was still not working. iTunes came with error 1619, that the 'iPod' was not properly recognized.

So problem #1 is you have a bootloop after tethered booting with blackra1n? This is a common/known issue if you used the blacksn0w unlock.
Problem #2 is that you inadvertantly updated to a new version of iTunes (I was pretty sure that blackra1n on OS X doesn't break like the windows one does when iTunes is updated)

Originally Posted by tomdk

Now I'm sitting in front of my work pc (win xp sp3) where as well iTunes 9.1.1.12 is installed. The iPhone is in recovery mode and is recognized by iTunes. I close iTunes and start blackra1n. It complains about several .dll files which it can't find and here I had to stop because icuuc36.dll I couldn't find anywhere.

So I was downloading blackbreeze to fix this problem... blackbreeze is asking where to find my balckra1n application and where to store the fixed version. Afterwards it tells me that I am good to go! But blackbreeze does sh... At the location where the fixed version should have been stored appears to be nothing!

Second try: I was downloading Blackra1n_for_iTunes_9.1.exe and it runs. I do get GeoHots portrait, the message to donate and as usual blackra1n tells me to wait for reboot. It takes quite a while and then the Apple loge appears and the iTunes connecting screen - back to recovery mode!!!

On windows, you just need to MOVE the blackra1n executable into the same directory as some iTunes components. That avoids using another tool like blackbreeze.

You still have the bootloop issue to deal with.

Originally Posted by tomdk

I was also trying to restore the iPhone with iPhone2,1_3.1.2_7D11_Restore.ipsw. While confirming the restore process with the Apple server I get the message 'The iPhone could not be restored. This device isn't eligible for the requested build.'

Normal behaviour if you didn't save your SHSH or read up on how to save your SHSH.

Originally Posted by Leon2607

In the past users have reported that leaving blackrain running with idevice connected for a long period does the trick.

This is good advice - it can often work.

Other solutions for blacksn0w bootloops are documented in a sticky thread.

Originally Posted by molliegooch82

This problem usually occurs when icuuc36.dll is missing from your system.

Can you provide more explanation why a DLL related to unicode could in any way fix a blackra1n issue?
Yes it's possible that the installation of iTunes is borked, but generally manually downloading/copying untrusted/unverified DLLs is NOT a good troubleshooting technique.
Better to completely remove iTunes (and all supporting components) and reinstall.