How to come out of recovery loop on iPhone while downgrading? [iOS 5]

Apple unveiled iOS 5 about a week before and we have been helping people about Activating iOS 5 without a developer account, how to setup iCloud on your iDevice, how to sync your contacts with iCloud and many more of this kind.

Many users did not want to stay with iOS 5 due to various bugs and downgraded it to iOS 4.3.3 but ended up getting into recovery loop. This tutorial will tell you how to kick your iPhone out of recovery loop.

What is recovery mode?

A recovery mode is a failsafe state that enables the device to reflash the ROM and install a new OS onto the device.

Why does my device stuck in there?

The iDevice can enter a recovery loop due to various reasons. Some of the reasons may be due to damaged firmware file (IPSW), incompatible baseband, unrecognized IMEI, etc.

How do I get my iPhone out of recovery loop?

This is simple. If your device gets stuck into Recovery loop, just don’t panic. If this occurs after you upgrade your iDevice, your device has the upgraded firmware files but just got into recovery loop due to some reason. You can get out of the recovery loop with the newly installed firmware.

What do I do next?
Using Recboot (Mac Only):
If you are on Mac, use a tool called Recboot, that will kick your phone out of the recovery loop. Download Recboot. You will find 3 files in it.

One is the readme.txt file. And the other two files are important. The Recboot helps your iDevice to enter into recovery mode. The RecbootExitOnly will help you kick your iDevice out of recovery mode. Recboot is a Mac only utility and so is not available for Windows.

Using TinyUmbrella (Windows and Mac):
TinyUmbrella is a utility that is used to Save your SHSH blobs to Saurik’s Cydia servers rather than Apple’s servers. This is done since Apple stops signing the digital certificates for older iOS firmwares, forcing the users to stay on the recently released iOS firmware from Apple. Tinyumbrella also has an option to kick your iDevice out of the recovery loop, Enter into recovery mode and also Fix the recovery loop.

Tinyumbrella also helps you in downgrading the iOS. If is always safe to save your SHSH blobs using this tool before upgrading your firmware.

I don’t need all these tools, Show me the code.

Actually speaking, all these tools just provide the UI to the script that sets the boot flag to 1. Here’s the script. Just fireup your Terminal and key in the following commands. You will be out of recovery loop:

> setenv auto-boot true
> saveenv
> reboot

Hope this helps! 🙂