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Cydia Crashes on 3.0 – Here is the fix!

by Mathew on July 19, 2009

in iPod Touch/ iPhone Guides

Buffer

Yesterday I tried opening Cydia but was unable to because it kept crashing. I rebooted, resprung but nothing could cause it to open. I looked around for a fix and found one. Here is  a fix for all the people out there on 3.0 and their Cydia is crashing.

The fix involves you moving some files around in your iPhone/iPod Touch’s filesystem so you either need iFile from Cydia or use this guide to access your iPhone/iPod Touch files on your computer.

Method 1: This is if you haven’t added any extra sources or messed around with the sources on your iPhone/iPod Touch:

  1. This method only works if you have already downloaded Terminal from Cydia. If not, try the next method.
  2. Open it and type in su root (hit enter)
  3. Then type alpine (hit enter)
  4. Type apt-get remove Cydia (hit enter). A warning will come up. Click enter.
  5. Type apt-get install Cydia (hit enter)
  6. Type killall SpringBoard (hit enter)
  7. Cydia should now open.

Method 2: This is if you have added sources or messed around with sources of Cydia. Or if you get this error when you do the above method:

/private/var/lib/apt/lists$ apt-get remove
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/rep.sources.co.il_._Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
Reading package lists…

  1. Open up iFile or Total Commander on your computer
  2. Go to etc/apt/sources.list.d/ where you will find all your sources for Cydia.
  3. Select all of them EXCEPT SAURIK.list and move them over to your computer. Delete the versions that are on your iPhone/iPod Touch.
  4. Cydia should now open up.
  5. To get all your old sources back reinstall Community Sources (this didn’t work for me but it did for some. If this doesn’t work with you can simply move those files back to where they were. Cydia should still boot up.)

Hope it helps!

EDIT: Here are two more tips from the BigBoss’s website on how to fix this issue.

Windows users: Download: ClearCydiaListCache (8925) (.NET required) and unzip the files to a handy location. Run the enclosed executable and connect your device to your PC. Click the button to start the fix. A confirmation screen will appear shortly when it has finished.

Mac or Windows users: This document (PDF) describes how to fix Cydia using DiskAid for Mac or Windows.


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Tagged as: Crashes, cydia, fix, iPhone, iPod Touch, Jailbreak, sources

← Older Comments
  • http://yahoo.com tony

    My cydia doesn’t load any of the changes or updates in my sources. I already re-installed it but it still doesn’t work. I am running 3.0.1 and it didn’t even ask me to shsh. I am really frustrated.

  • http://yahoo.com tony

    ok cydia works for me but now I have kept it on for days and it still is downloading packages and releases. is this normal and if noto then what should I do?

  • http://www.infohpreet.com Harpreet Singh

    Hi,

    I am unable to open Cydia on my iPhone 3GS 3.1 OS?

    It is getting crashed just after clicking the icon.

    Can someone help me how I can fix this problem as I need to unlock my phone using Ultrasn0w.

    Or is there any other way to unlock iPhone without using Cydia?

    Thanks in advance1

    Harpreet Singh

  • Shigyoketa

    Same problem with my 3G 3.1.2 ….They say its one of the last sources you did install in Cydia…..but….. I did delete all my sources thru File or SSH programs and just still not working….for me start happening after installing “AllSourcess” from Cydia so… don´t do it like I did…I may Restore and Re Jailb. and re free my iPhone and Re install sourcess and thems….Crap

  • Spiderman

    Windows

    download iphonebrowser ( http://code.google.com/p/iphonebrowser/ )

    Install and run iphonebrowser.

    Delete all the files in /root/private/var/lib/apt/lists/ except for the partial subfolder.

    Restart Iphone. Try Cydia. Still doesnt work?

    Open Iphonebrowser

    Delete all the files in /root/var/lib/dpkg/updates

    Restart iphone. Cydia should work.

    • Shmaya

      Worked, Thanks!

    • Noman Khan

      Thanks it worked for me.

    • serpico

      I’ve been trying to fix my phone for so long, and this worked!! thanks so much!

    • clanggedin

      Cydia crashed while installing Metasploit. The second option fixed it for me. Thanks.

      • Taco

        MetaSploit also crashed cydia for me. I just SSHed in to my phone and ran “dpkg –configure -a”. I’m sure mobile terminal would work too. Then the next time I ran cydia it opened just fine and warned me of a partial install and gave me the option to delete the partially installed files. I clicked clear these files and its all back to normal. Now I just need to figure out how to install MetaSploit.

        • blacktR

          Do you have a solution how to install metasploit? I installed it manually but it alsways crashes the springboard if I try to start it…

    • http://alltechrelated sameer

      thank u so much spiderman ur gr8 bro. i was messed up totally but u came as saviour thanku so much bravo!!!!

    • http://ATR Ann

      Fabulous.. Worked as described Thanks so much

    • Ephone

      Thanks Spidey! This is the only set of instructions that I found online that works!

    • GCP42

      Thank you SO much. After a month of trying to solve this problem my Cydia is up again! The second suggestion solved the problem!

    • Se1man

      Thank you so much Spiderman, the second suggestion worked for me, I have tried many different ways all the day and finally your second suggestion worked, I used diskaid to reach the iphone files and folders bytheway.

      • Aruizmart

        how to do this on my mac?? help  ////

    • Korymcfadden

      dude the update files hooked me up thanks man i was like wtf why wont it work after the leaving of the partial file it was annoying lol

    • thak you man

      I love you man!!! Thanks a lot!!!!

    • Dr-sunil08

      thank U very much Spiderman.

    • Ksdjhf

      I love you man!! i tried everything and it would still crash! thats the only trick that did it!

      THANK YOU!!

    • Bob

      Spiderman has done it again

    • http://twitter.com/knaren121 Naren

      woww . . it worked really gr8

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Naren-Kocharlakota/595525883 Naren Kocharlakota

      thanks spide . . . it really worked fine :)

  • JAWOW

    Thank so much man!!!!! I used method 1 and it work 100%. It was to easy!! I hope everyone with this type of problem follows YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!! ;-)

  • Noman Khan

    Yes, it worked for me…million thanks to you!!!

  • jeff

    hi.. my cydia wont open everytime iclick it.. it will open but no display then it will go back to home screen.. can you help me to fix it.. jailbroken by spirit.. iphone 3gs ver 3.1.3 user here

  • John Pace

    where can I get get-apt from??

    Does anyone have a link?

  • John Pace

    sorry….previous post should have read \:
    Where can I get apt-get? :)

    • psp2468

      Apt-get is a command you write into the Mobile Terminal application on your iDevice.

  • pablon

    man thank you so much i greatly thank you i was so close to giving up and restoring my ipod touch but when i tried that it didnt let me haha so i kepted looking hopeing for an answer and found youi recommend posting this on youtube since your were my only option that succeeded

  • Josh

    I tried the 1st method through terminal and it went fine untill reinstalling cydia. It had an error and now I have no cydia, do I have to re jailbreak my touch?

    • psp2468

      Try rebooting but if that doesn’t make it appear, do steps 5-7 once again.

  • Josh

    I rebooted and did the steps over but got the error when trying to install cydia

    E: could not preform immediate configuration on ‘essential’. Please see man 5 apt.conf under APT:: Immediate-Configuation for details

  • mark

    hi
    having great problems with cydia crashing, i have the 3g 3.13 jailbroken but i have no ifile,ssh or anything like that on it how do i get into my root on iphone and get cydia working again..

    help pleeese ;-((

  • http://None RDUBS

    I’m on a 2G iPhone with 3.1.4 fw.
    Cydial works but stalls when loading. If I cancelled the downloading packages it still works….but can only download some packages from from zodtt.

    It tells me there was a problem with rep smxy and some other stuff.

    I can’t ssh my phone but do have mobile terminal on my phone. (don’t really know what to do with it)

    oh I’m jailbroken using pwnage tool

    any help would be great.
    Then I can work on getting YouTube to work

    : (

    Anyone got a good solution

  • PandaChey

    My cydia is completly off my iPod and it’s still jailbroken. How do I get cydia to go back on? And why did it dissapear? Is it because I was ignoring the updates it had? Please someone help!!

    • psp2468

      So what happened? You just rebooted and it was gone? Do you have MobileTerminal installed?

  • CNG

    I have iPhoneBrowser, but I can’t seem to locate /var/lib/apt/lists. I would appreciate anyone that can provide the exact steps for me to access that. Thanks

    • psp2468

      They could also be located in private/var/lib/apt/lists

  • Pepe

    thanks man.. it’s working again.. great tip

  • Tiarra

    It doesn’t work. Terminal keeps saying not found or something like that

  • http://blog.alltechrelated.com/ psp2468

    Try rebooting your iPhone.

  • Athwe

    Thank you very much. Your method No. 2 worked like charm :)

  • M_fitz_g

    deleting the files cydia will run for a few minutes but then crashes again any ideas

  • Jem Starr

    Matthew, you’re a genius!!!!!! I tried all of the other tricks, nothing worked. You rock!

  • Vic

    My dear if i would see you personality i would kiss you on the mouth!!!! Been stuck in this thing for 6 days and tried every solutions on the net … some of then people should restrain to give hints when they dont know what they re doing … i had to jail brake 6 times over again with Redsn0w!!!!! I have a 3g 3.0.1, 6.15.00 … But thank you Thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!! You re the best!!!!!!

  • Linz Mathew

    Thank you buddy. It worked.

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