If you have a jailbroken Apple device such as the iPhone and iPod touch, you probably know what Cydia is. And actually it is the availability of so many apps via Cydia that makes it worthwhile to jailbreak the iPod touch and iPhone.
Therefore it is quite natural that when Cydia crashes you feel despair. But fret not, because resurrecting a Cydia crash is possible!
Generally when the Cydia app crashes once, it does not start up again. Even rebooting your device may not be of much help. The only way then is to use iFile from Cydia which can make the necessary changes in your device and help you regain access to Cydia.
But if you cannot access cydia’s iFile or cannot use it, here are two ways to restore Cydia on your device. Please note that these methods work on iPhone 3.1.3 quite well.
Method 1 to Restore Crashed Cydia App
This method will help you if you have failed to understand why Cydia is crashing and have not made any source changes to your iPhone or iPod since jailbreaking the device. Moreover you will need the terminal app from Cydia.
If you have that app, here’s what you need to do:
- Open the Terminal app and type in ‘su root’.
- Then type in ‘alpine’ followed by ‘apt-get remove Cydia’. Here a warning will come up, which will go away if you press enter.
- Type ‘apt-get install Cydia’ and press enter.
- Type ‘killall SpringBoard’ and press enter.
You should have Cydia up and running after completing the last step. Also remember to press enter after typing in each command for proper command input.
Method 2 to Fix Cydia Crash on iPhone, iPod touch
If you can guess that Cydia is crashing because you have tampered with some sources on the iPhone or iPod and cannot get Terminal because you cannot access Cydia, this method should work well.
- You need a PC with iFile or Total Commander installed.
- Go to etc/apt/sources.list.d/ where all the Cydia sources will be listed.
- Select all the listed sources except one named saurik.list and transfer them to your computer.
- Delete the files you have just transferred, from your i-device.
- Try to restart Cydia and it should open without any problem now.
If you want all the old sources you can either reinstall Community Sources or move the transferred sources from your PC back to the iPhone or iPod.
This will help you access Cydia as before and you can start downloading your favorite apps again.
