IOS updates NEVER work for me - Why?

[dragon499]

Maybe this belongs in the "hacking" section, as I am always jailbroken when I try to upgrade:

When I try to upgrade to the latest IOS, either via wifi or via iTunes on my PC, it never works - I don't remember the error messages, but the iPad always ends up in "recovery mode," which forces me to restore to factory settings, then get the latest IOS on, then restore from a backup. This isn't much more work than the upgrade itself and I really don't mind. I'm just really curious - why do the upgrades always fail. Do IOS upgrades fail more often with jailbroken devices?

 

[willerz2]

Particularly with Evasi0n, yes. There are failsafe mechanisms implemented in Evasi0n that would kick up if you're trying to restore/update it. Now, it's not to say that you can't update, but if you do, one, you'd have at least 500 MB of your storage taken up because all of the Cydia tweaks and/or settings will be reallocated into a dummy directory, two, your tweaks/settings will still attempt to execute, meaning you'll experience a huge battery drain, and three, updating/upgrading via OTA or even via iTunes (not restoring) nets a lot of users more problems and a bigger headache than if they were to restore the device, particularly if your device is jailbroken prior to the upgrade.

I'd create a backup of your device first. Then remove all the jailbreak-related contents that does not modify the basic system plists from the backup. Then restore your device, and restore the modified backup back onto your device so that you won't have executing tweaks attempting to run in the background.