Downgrade iPhone Baseband by Saving SHSH Blobs

Downgrade iPhone Baseband by Saving SHSH Blobs
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SHSH blobs is Apple’s attempt to stop iPhone, iPad or iPod users from downgrading their iPhones to previous versions once upgraded to the latest version. An SHSH blob is generally made up of three different TSS keys – device version (iPhone 4 GSM or CDMA), firmware version (eg: 4.3.4) and the unique chip ID referred to as ECID, which is unique for every iPad, iPhone or iPod. When an iPhone is updated to the latest version, this special key called the SHSH blob is inserted into the iPhone along with the firmware to make sure that your iPhone has the latest version.

The process is quite simple. When you try to restore your iPhone to a previous version, it automatically checks the Apple server to make sure that you are using the latest update and it shows a failure message if you are not restoring to the latest version. To get around this, you need to make a request to a different server that should provide a fake update to iTunes telling it that you are using the latest version. DEV Team has been able to provide a method that has allowed several iPhone users to switch back to an older software version. However, Apple Inc. has stopped signing older version SHSH blobs and only allows for the current version.

In this article, I will guide you on how to store your iPhone, iPad or iPod SHSH blobs locally on your computer as well as on Cydia servers. If you have your iPhone’s blobs saved on your computer, you can always downgrade your iPhone to that specific version.

Note: This tutorial is applicable to both Mac and Windows users.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: As a first step, you need to download RedSnow version 0.9.9b7, either for Windows or Mac as it allows you to save SHSH blobs.

RedSnow - Windows

RedSnow - Mac

Step 2: Once RedSnow is downloaded, launch it by double clicking on it. On the RedSnow application main screen, you will find two buttons – Jailbreak and Extras. If you are looking for how to jailbreak your iPhone with iOS 5, you can read the tutorial here.

Click the Extras button to continue. On the next screen, you will find a couple of buttons namely – Fetch, Verify, Submit, Query and Stitch.

save iPhone SHSH blobs using redSnow

Fetch: If you are saving the iPhone blobs for the first time, you will be clicking on this button. This will grab the SHSH blobs from your iPhone and save them directly on the Cydia server.

Verify: Click this button to make sure that the blob you are going to save on the Cydia server is correct.

Submit: If you have already saved your iPhone’s SHSH blobs on your computer, you can click the Submit button and select the required file. Once done, RedSnow will upload the SHSH blobs to the Cydia server.

Query: This button will allow you to see all the available blobs for your iPhone that you saved on the Cydia servers. You will get a popup window when you press this button. Type *(finds all available blobs for your iPhone) and click ok.

Stitch: This is used to personalize an ipsw with the blob. You can also stitch a blob to the ipsw file.

Step 3: Click the Fetch button and RedSnow will now ask you to put your iPhone in DFU mode. Once your iPhone is in DFU mode, it will start fetching the blobs from your iPhone and submit them to the Cydia servers. The progress will be visible in the RedSnow application window.

put your iPhone in DFU mode

submit iPhone blobs to cydia servers

Once completed successfully, you will see a success message.

iphone blobs saved to Cydia

Step 4: Now, the next step is to make sure that your iPhone blobs have been saved on the Cydia servers. To verify the blobs, click on the Query button to continue. In the popup window that appears, type * and press the Ok button. * is used to get all the blobs available on the Cydia servers for your iPhone.

get all blobs from Cydia servers

querying Cydia for available blobs for iPhone

You will now see a list of available blobs for your iPhone.

For added safety, RedSnow saves a copy of your iPhone’s SHSH blobs in a “plist” file located within the RedSnow folder.

Note: You can also use TinyUmbrella to locally save SHSH blobs for your iPhone and then upload them later using RedSnow.

References

  • Images Credit: Images provided by RedSnow.
  • Source: Author’s own knowledge.