Shsh blobs...what are they and how do you save em?

[Tinman]

okay ~ so bear with me.

Before one JB they should save their blobs with TU? And we do that.......because?

We do it so we can always run the firmware for which there is already a jailbreak. When 3.2.2 came out, which killed the then-available jailbreak for 3.2.1, Apple quickly stopped signing 3.2.1. So if you were even thinking of jailbreaking but had already updated to 3.2.2, perhaps not even intentionally but by mistake, you were out of luck as far as jailbreaking was concerned. But if you had saved the SHSH blobs for 3.2.1 before Apple stopped signing it you could have easily downgraded to 3.2.1 and happily jailbroke. After-all, all 3.2.2 did was plug the PDF exploit that allowed the 3.2.1 jailbreak to occur (and there is a jailbreak app that plugs it under 3.2.1).

Now of course we do have a jailbreak for 3.2.2... and it is not tethered.

But what if you are jailbroken on 3.2.2 but wanted to try out 4.2.1 to give it a try? Well if you have your SHSH blobs save you can easily go back down to 3.2.2. But if your 3.2.2 blobs are not saved.... you are stuck on 4.2.1... which means if you want to jailbreak it must be tethered.

Clear?



Michael

 

[Tinman]

It seems with 4.2, you will not be able to progress to an untethered jb if you don't save.plus,if things go bunk,you can restore to previous versions.
Am I correct or will I stand corrected?

You are close.

Whether or not the jailbreak is tethered or not has nothing to do with saving the SHSH blobs. I am jailbroken now and it is of course tethered.

But if a new untethered jb came out tomorrow I could easily restore my iPad to a factory fresh 4.2.1 and then apply the new untethered jb.

Here is where the blobs COULD come in: if Apple releases another update, which is not able to be jailbroken yet AND have stopped signing 4.2.1 I would not be able to ever try a restore--to try a new jailbreak or for any other reason. If I was to restore it would have to be the current firmware. UNLESS my SHSH blobs are saved for the firmware I wish to restore to.




Michael

 

[f4780y]

Seems to be lots of confusion on the forum. The devteam suggested at launch of the 4.2.1 JB that 4.1 blobs might be required to enable an untethered 4.2.1 jailbreak. That means iPad owners might (I stress might) be SOL as 4.1 has never been on our device and 3.2.2 is unlikely to cut it.
We won't really know the score until details are forthcoming from a reliable source. We just need to hope they will find an exploit which does not rely on 4.1.
Regardless, it is good practice to save all your blobs. You never know when or why you might want to downgrade...

 

[SweetPoison]

okay ~ so bear with me.

Before one JB they should save their blobs with TU? And we do that.......because?

We do it so we can always run the firmware for which there is already a jailbreak. When 3.2.2 came out, which killed the then-available jailbreak for 3.2.1, Apple quickly stopped signing 3.2.1. So if you were even thinking of jailbreaking but had already updated to 3.2.2, perhaps not even intentionally but by mistake, you were out of luck as far as jailbreaking was concerned. But if you had saved the SHSH blobs for 3.2.1 before Apple stopped signing it you could have easily downgraded to 3.2.1 and happily jailbroke. After-all, all 3.2.2 did was plug the PDF exploit that allowed the 3.2.1 jailbreak to occur (and there is a jailbreak app that plugs it under 3.2.1).

Now of course we do have a jailbreak for 3.2.2... and it is not tethered.

But what if you are jailbroken on 3.2.2 but wanted to try out 4.2.1 to give it a try? Well if you have your SHSH blobs save you can easily go back down to 3.2.2. But if your 3.2.2 blobs are not saved.... you are stuck on 4.2.1... which means if you want to jailbreak it must be tethered.

Clear?



Michael

Actually, yes. Very clear! Thank You!

 

[Tinman]

Seems to be lots of confusion on the forum. The devteam suggested at launch of the 4.2.1 JB that 4.1 blobs might be required to enable an untethered 4.2.1 jailbreak. That means iPad owners might (I stress might) be SOL as 4.1 has never been on our device and 3.2.2 is unlikely to cut it.
We won't really know the score until details are forthcoming from a reliable source. We just need to hope they will find an exploit which does not rely on 4.1.
Regardless, it is good practice to save all your blobs. You never know when or why you might want to downgrade...

The reason you would need 4.1 blobs for that jb is because it would almost certainly need you to actually be running 4.1. So, as usual, the blobs are needed for downgrading. And of course we can never load 4.1 on our iPads.

We have had at least one other jailbreak like this... I believe it was back in 2.x days--maybe even 1.x. Basically there was something patched on the old firmware that survived an update--not a complete restore. This left an exploit in place on the newer firmware. The second phase of the jailbreak used that exploit to finish the job. It was a PITA way to jb IIRC.

Now whether that can be made to work with 3.2.2 on the iPad I cannot say. But obviously there is no way we can load the iPhone's 4.1. Not much has been said on the iPad as most work seems to be for the iPhone at the present time.

Regardless saving the blobs is always so we can downgrade when Apple stops signing the firmware version we are trying to downgrade to. Even if you don't jailbreak you should save those blobs because you might change your mind after hearing about a new gee-whiz jailbreak app that you just HAVE to have.



Michael

 

[SweetPoison]

And of course we can never load 4.1 on our iPads.


Michael

How come?

 

[iPadCharlie]

It was never released for the iPad, only the iPod (and maybe the iPhone? I don't have an iPhone so I don't know about that one). For "normal" users (not developers), they went straight from 3.2.2 to 4.2.1.

 

[Tinman]

It was never released for the iPad, only the iPod (and maybe the iPhone? I don't have an iPhone so I don't know about that one). For "normal" users (not developers), they went straight from 3.2.2 to 4.2.1.

Yes it was released for iPhone immediately... It had more "new" features for the iPhone than for the iPod Touch--if you can call lame new SMS tones a "feature" lol.

Moreover, since there is still no untethered jailbreak for 4.1 those of who need a jailbreak, but who will not go tethered on our phones, are still running 4.1. It's not that ancient.



Michael

 

[Tinman]

And of course we can never load 4.1 on our iPads.


Michael

How come?

As stated it was never an iPad firmware.

Prior to iOS 4.2.x the OS was maintained differently, and kind of separately by Apple, for the iPad Vs. iPhone/Touch. So they were not easily interchangeable and why we never got 4.0/4.1.

It was all brought together for iOS 4.2. So now we have peace and harmony. OK just harmony. Kinda. Hopefully. Possibly.



Michael

 

[Dr.Gee]

So the old firmware resides on the device?Get it by resetting to factory default?If so it would seem you wouldn't need blobs.

 

[Tinman]

So the old firmware resides on the device?Get it by resetting to factory default?If so it would seem you wouldn't need blobs.

Noooooo.... "resetting to factory default" just means a complete restore to whatever is the most current firmware. If you have SHSH blobs saved, you are not limited to the most current firmware. But in no case is any old firmware stored on the device.

Now I have had devices that worked like that. My old Treo did for instance. It basically had the firmware stored, compressed, right on the device. When you did a hard reset it wiped out everything, uncompressed that stored firmware, and you had a completely reset device--with nothing on it. Worse, my Treo used to to this occasionally all by itself! Ugh! Fortunately it had a SD slot. So on the SD card that was always there I had a backup program, which ran nightly and saved to the SD card. So if the worst happened--and it did repeatedly--I could fire up the backup program and restore my data and apps back to the device. What a PAIN that was. <<shudder>>



Michael

 

[Dr.Gee]

so where does the old firmware reside?
I thought these blobs were just Id fakers. They don't contain the firmware,do they?

 

[Tinman]

so where does the old firmware reside?
I thought these blobs were just Id fakers. They don't contain the firmware,do they?

The firmware you have to download. The firmware files come from Apple. I always keep my firmware files for quite a while in case I need them again. But there is usually some place on the net to download older firmware.

The blobs are are in fact a little more detailed than just an ID faker--although that critical piece of data is in there. And "blobs" are all in one large plist file. They are merely different data sections in that XML file. There are quite a few items in that plist, including some of the firmware files (the battery charging images, the apple logo, etc.). These files will be unique to your device.

If there was a tool to update the firmware outside of iTunes we could use that instead of iTunes. The iPad itself doesn't need all of what is contained in the blobs too--iTunes does though or it won't restore.

But no need to really get into that here... the Thought Police might be watching . Suffice to say you need the blobs in order to do an iTunes restore of firmware no longer being signed by Apple. They prolly think saving the blobs is "ungood."



Michael

 

[Dr.Gee]

So i just reformatted my hd yesterday and downloaded a new copy of itures. All my old firmware is gone then.What folder do they save to?

 

[Tinman]

So i just reformatted my hd yesterday and downloaded a new copy of itures. All my old firmware is gone then.What folder do they save to?

Are you Windows or Mac?

On Windows:
Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates

On Mac:
~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

They go there if iTunes downloads the firmware for you. If you download from Apple directly you can put them anywhere you want. But you can use the above locations. No biggie.