Well, I updated to 2.2 a few weeks ago and I had quite a lot of applications installed. And, as it happened quite a lot of times with 2.1 my SpringBoard preferences became corrupted.
I wrote about reparinig the “Apple screen of death” in this post. Unfortunately I did not have SSH access to my phone this time since the upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 rendered (Cydia OpenSSH server installation not working.
Still, I knew I had to prevent “mobilewatchdog.bundle” to load (read the other post to understand why.) So this time I just deleted the files by connecting via cable. By doing this I managed to get my SpringBoard preferences working again and I quickly installed OpenSSH to get regular Terminal access to the phone and restoring the “mobilewatchdog.bundle” again.
Here are the instructions:
WARNING: If this repair fails you will have a device that will reboot every 10 to 12 minutes – until you restore the full device from scratch. So try this repair as a last chance to recover from a “endless boot” device.
Read all steps before you begin. Step 1 and 2 (and step 3 and 4 later on) have to be completed in a few minutes since your phone will probably reboot after some time.
1.) First connect your phone to the Computer via cable and switch it on. Open up the free application DiskAid and make sure your phone is found. Then quickly change the small selector at the bottom left to “Root Folder”. Use “Copy to folder” to save the folder “mobilewatchdog.bundle” at “/System/Library/SystemConfiguration/” to you Computer. You will need this folder later again!
2.) Now delete the folder “mobilewatchdog.bundle” on the device by using the “Delete from Device” button.
Basically you delete the startup of a system daemon that will check every 2-3 minutes if Springboard could be loaded. If Springboard is not loaded “mobilewatchdog” would reboot your phone. Deleting this process will prevent the system from rebooting every 2-3 minutes. Still, every 10 minutes or so the system will still reboot by another process that cannot be deleted. But this 10 minutes should be enough to get your Springboard preferences restored 
3.) Reboot. Wait. If you get to your SpringBoard again (or to the PIN screen) everything went fine. If your phone reboots again after 10-12 minutes without showing anything except your Apple or Pineapple logo then this repair failed and you have to fully restore your phone. But this never happened to me so far.
4.) Hurry! On SpringBoard you should open up Cydia and install “OpenSSH” as quick as possible! The phone will certainly reboot within 10-12 minutes and you want the installation do be finished by then!
Extra: If you do not see your Cydia logo on SpringBoard but you are sure it is installed – then you quickly go to the “Settings” panel, choose “General”, “Restrictions” and enable them. Then disable them again. This should bring you all your applications back to the SpringBoard!
5.) Installation done? Check if you can login via SSH to your phone.
6.) Reboot again and copy the “mobilewatchdog.bundle” files back to their location (/System/Library/SystemConfiguration/) by using DiskAid again or by using an SFTP client and the SSH login.
7.) Make sure you login via SSH and set the correct permissions of the files! If you do not do so the phone will still reboot every 10-12 minute since “mobilewatchdog.bundle” cannot be loaded at startup of the phone! enter these 3 commands when logged into your phone:
chmod 755 /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/mobilewatchdog.bundle
chmod 755 /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/mobilewatchdog.bundle/mobilewatchdog
chmod 644 /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/mobilewatchdog.bundle/Info.plist
If the files were put on the right location there should be no error message.
8.) Reboot again.
Thats it!
2 Pings to “How to repair “Apple Logo Screen Of Death” (endless boot) without SSH access!”
6 Responses to “How to repair “Apple Logo Screen Of Death” (endless boot) without SSH access!”
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1. twiphone Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:06 pmFunny enough
I just tried t upgrade from 2.2. to 2.2.1 via regular iTunes upgrade and QuickPwn. Since I got more than 100 apps installed and I used “Categories” to sort them – after rebooting the iPhone in 2.2.1 it would not start anymore.I just used my own guide right here and couldnt get it to work… thats wat I thought. BUT… it DOES work! If you got lots of applications installed then really really TRY this here and WAIT!! I just did not wait long enough for the iPhone to sort the Springboard preferences again.
IT DOES WORK
Love my “old” new 2.2.1 iPhone – no restore reqired -
2. s33m0n Says:
March 11th, 2009 at 7:48 pmWOW! you are the man!!!
it works perfectly!!
WOW again!!!
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March 11th, 2009 at 9:50 pmI know
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4. boo Says:
April 29th, 2009 at 1:21 pmIf you messed with com.apple.CommCenter.plist recently – that is the *reason* your phone is stuck rebooting in an endless loop every 2 or 3 minutes.
Restore the original file, or re-enable that daemon by deleting the following 2 lines from the top of the plist file:-
Disabled
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5. ydgluver Says:
April 30th, 2009 at 5:53 pmI followed all your instructions, but my iphone still reboots every 10 min’s or so… Is there anything else I could try???
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6. Automotive Chip Repair Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 10:53 amI’ve been looking for this precise info on this topic for a long time.
December 18th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
[...] Update: If you didn’t have SSH installed/running, follow this guide: How to repair “Apple Logo Screen Of Death” (endless boot) without SSH access! | TwiPhone… [...]
March 17th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
[...] Originally Posted by sadeq_79 hi everyone my iphone is 2g and that is off now. but i can running with AC but only show apple logo and reset…reset. if i connect with usb cable to the computer cant power on excusme i cant very good speak and im waiting for help bye try this How to repair “Apple Logo Screen Of Death” (endless boot) without SSH access! | TwiPhone… [...]