New Tip: Mail App Crashing Fix

Is your mail app crashing on 2.0?

This is generally caused after syncing your backup. This has nothing to do with jailbreaking or not. However, the fix for it is simple and is part of a jailbreak. The issue is that after syncing your backup, your mail folder is owned by root and your mail app running as user mobile does not have permissions to access it. You can fix it in SSH. But I also added a button in BossPrefs to solve it.

Step 1:Jailbreak your device
Step 2: Install BossPrefs from Cydia
Step 3: Tap “more”
Step 4: Tap “Fix User Dir Permissions”
Step 5: Sometimes, not always, you will need to load settings and reenter your mail passwords.

Posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 and is filed under iPhone Apps and More, jailbreak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

42 Responses to “New Tip: Mail App Crashing Fix”

1. TaintedWisdom July 26th, 2008, 12:15 am

Thanks BigBoss!
While my mail app is hasn’t crash now I know what to do if it ever does.

-TW

[Reply]
TaintedWisdom Reply:
July 26th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Wow, lack of sleep is similar to being drunk.
I meant to say:
“mail app hasn’t crashed”

-TW

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2. asa July 26th, 2008, 12:37 am

Great! I have noticed if I back up my pictures after a restore to 2.0 my camera stopped working. So I reloaded again and didn’t back up my photos. Has anyone run into this yet?? If so, what is the fix if any before 2.01 comes out.

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3. khayri July 26th, 2008, 12:42 am

hey guys after i jailbreak the 3G do I “restore” my back up save, or will that mess up the jailbreak I just did? Please respond b/c now I have now contacts and whatnot and itunes is asking me to restore to my latest back up

Thanks

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iki Reply:
July 26th, 2008 at 12:54 am
go ahead and restore. it wont mess up the jailbreak

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khayri Reply:
July 26th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Thanks, I just asked this, sorry if Im being a pest, IM a total noob. But, can I now change my background/themes, or do I need something other than the Cydia app?

Thanks!

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BigBoss Reply:
July 26th, 2008 at 1:12 am
You gotta wait for summerboard or freeboard or something equivalent.
4. khayri July 26th, 2008, 1:15 am

ok, cool….so Cydia is just an “app” installer? Im kind of getting familar with everything on site.

Thanks again!

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5. TatesMan July 26th, 2008, 6:13 am

great job BigBos
but the latest update of Bossprefs failed to set iself in double tap home button :(

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6. Whiteboyy July 26th, 2008, 10:01 am

Hey boss just wondering everythings been fine on my 2.0 jailbroken 3g. I did a restore and everything works fine. Should I still use your fix? Or will it mess something up?

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BigBoss Reply:
July 26th, 2008 at 10:20 am
There’s an old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That applies here. If everything is OK, do not do anything. Best case, it stays the same, worst case, it gets worse.

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7. Whiteboyy July 26th, 2008, 10:27 am

Ok man thanks! It’s funny you said that saying because I was about to puss the button to do the fix and that poped into my head! So I figured I would ask!

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8. Whiteboyy July 26th, 2008, 10:27 am

push* LOL

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9. Lenno July 26th, 2008, 5:36 pm

I tried it - still craches when exchange mail is activated :-(

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10. norberto26 July 27th, 2008, 5:27 am

Hi BigBoss, i have installed BossPrefs and in general it works great!! But when Iapplied the double tap to BossPrefs mode - it does not work. Double tapping opens the default - Favorites.

Another question. When I sync, Safari Bookmarks don’t sync - iTunes stops with the message “iphone stopped the sync”. Any suggestions on how to fix this??

Thanks!!!

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11. norberto26 July 27th, 2008, 5:37 am

Hi Bigboss, just to add more info. Am on 1st gen 16 gb iphone - unlocked and jailbreak with Pwnage 2.0.1. My mail does not crash, its fine. Tried using BossPrefs option “Fix User Dir Permissions” to fix Safari Bookmarks non-sync. It didnt work too..

Thanks for your help!!

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12. Snowball July 27th, 2008, 6:10 pm

BigBoss

you’re a star, lost email after update to 2.0, searched all over for fix - even Apples own site have no answer, but BossPrefs did the trick thanks again

[Reply]
13. Fabian July 28th, 2008, 1:58 am

Hi,

I did something terrible with my iphone 1st gen :( … I changed the permissions of the Cydia.app folder to 0777 using WinSCP and now my Cydia crashes when I try to open it :’(

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Honza Reply:
July 29th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I just did this on my 1st gen (2.0fw) and have the same issue. In the /tmp/cydia.log it says cache_.Open():[Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied)]

I guess at the moment, the Cydia app is running as mobile user, and needs to run as root user… i am investigating. I shoulda taken a complete backup with rsync before messing about…

[Reply]
Honza Reply:
July 29th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Update:

ssh into the iphone and type the following stuff inside the quotes:
“apt-get remove cydia”
confirm by typing the sentence
“apt-get clean”
“apt-get install cydia”

Now it should be working. Mine is.

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mjrdp Reply:
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
where do i type it?

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14. mr sparkle July 31st, 2008, 12:32 pm

just to let everyone know
that this website and forum is the single crucial proof that a JAILBROKEN iphone 3g works better than an ORIGINAL FW iphone 3g. i was UNABLE to make calls because my keypad would crash, not to forget to mention that all my other apps crash. but when i did the “fix”. everything works.

BigBOSS, dev team, you r0×0r. nuff said.

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15. Cy August 2nd, 2008, 4:38 am

…had this Dir-Problem… seems to be fixed, but now i’m not able to take access to the mail settings anymore… any ideas?

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CG Reply:
August 4th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hi BigBoss,

i just wanna thank you for your tipps.
One look at your website and :-) i found what i was looking for.
I can read my emails on my iphone again !!!!!!!!

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16. Justin August 8th, 2008, 2:38 pm

Thank you! It worked great!!! Mail is working again on 2.0

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17. Christian August 10th, 2008, 7:14 am

Thank you! Thought I had to restore again and again… Mail works perfectly now

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18. P-chan August 10th, 2008, 10:22 pm

Thanks Big Boss for adding this button to BossPrefs. PITA to go in through SSH just to change a setting like this. After 2.0.1 jailbreak using Winpwn, mail didn’t work, google found this page and of course I already had BossPrefs installed, just had to press the button. Thanks and keep up the great work.

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19. Andy August 11th, 2008, 2:37 pm

You are a legend BigBoss!

:D thanks this fixed my problem

Thanks for all the hard work

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20. KRE8 August 17th, 2008, 1:56 am

I was worried for a sec I’d have to go back to a “square” iphone… Thanks bloggers!!!

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21. John M August 19th, 2008, 1:51 pm

Hello,

I use both iPhones…
iphone: at 2.0.1 but cannot send mail even though it will not crash.
iphone 3g: at 2.0.1: will open for 3 seconds and the close.

:( i phuckeeng hait dis!

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22. Dave August 23rd, 2008, 3:11 am

Hey, I just stumbled onto this, and THANK GOD. Not having my mail was killing me. Big Boss, I love you, and your name if it is indeed a metal gear reference.

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23. tracstarr August 25th, 2008, 10:58 am

i’ve tried this and also changing the permissions/user/group myself, and my mail still crashes as it’s loading the “preview” lines for the emails. getting really frustrated….

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24. tracstarr August 25th, 2008, 11:07 am

FYI - turns out it was actually a specific email that crashed the app. Deleted it and everything is fine. Not sure what that’s all about….

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25. Need help August 25th, 2008, 9:05 pm

I accidentally hid the boss prefs icon along with other ,cydia ,installer and many others, how can I re enable boss prefs,

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26. Need help August 27th, 2008, 1:35 am

I just jailbroke my phone,and since after jailbreaking nonr of my emails will work on anything,(IE) MC,palringo,or even the basic mail that came with phone

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27. monster August 27th, 2008, 1:37 am

I just jailbroke my phone,and since after jailbreaking nonr of my emails will work on anything,(IE) MC,palringo,or even the basic mail that came with phone

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28. iPhone_Fan August 27th, 2008, 10:45 am

bigBoss: THX a lot, it works

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29. Bob August 27th, 2008, 7:19 pm

Thanks!!! This fixed my mail crashing exactly as described!

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30. monster August 29th, 2008, 12:36 am

First of all I have gone to other forums and ask this questions ,and I never got Help, or any response, even after waiting several days.

Problem 1. I went to my local AT&t store to bring a friend to get an iphone 3g, since my iphone was already jailbroken, I didnt want any AT&T employee seeing the contents of my Iphone. and since I have Bossprefs installed, I used the Hide app (solution).

ANSWER (1)
a. I am a total Idiot, I was so excited that my friend was also getting an iphone, and while enroute to AT&T I hid all the cydia apps I had, Including ,Installer,Cydia and Guess what ??? I also Hid the Bossprefs.

I didnt realised until I wanted to pull up my cydia installer that I noticed that I hid everything, I could not restore any app at all, I panicked, holy crap I ruined my iphone.

In the days to come I visited several forums, and posted help of how to restore the bossprefs, and to my bad luck no one gave me a response. My last resort was to Unjailbreak my phone and restore it to normal factory settings. and even after succeding, I could no longer jailbreak my phone back to the way I had it.. I did everything that the instructions said…

I lost total hope, knowing Im just going to a normal AT&T customer, and not be able to show off my beautiful Iphone to others. with this third party applications., Just yesterday My little brother installed a quickpwn for mac, and I ask him to try to jailbreak my Iphone. …..:D He succeded in doing so, I was able to reinstall all my favorite apps including bossprefs,intelliscreen (registered)and many other new apps that came out with the FW 2.02.

MY most needed Answer I need if someone knows is that since my little brother Jailbreak my iphone again I noticed that I re-entered all my emails and the darn iphone would reject them saying something about “IMAP,YAHOO, ERROR” something of that sort. This is bad,, I loved getting emails from my Iphone,, now I cant do it.. What went wrong???

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31. eric September 25th, 2008, 12:27 am

tried a hundreed times and its still not working….? what do i do please help me

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32. eric September 25th, 2008, 12:38 am

running 2.0.1 fw just upgrade and puuff my emails gone?????wth i can send emails but i cant get any emails or view anything i keep getting a message that my account and/or my password is incorrect. i erased my account and reinstalled it over and over again same with the bigboss fix and still doesnt work i am losing all hope… can somebody please help me before i go insane from my face glued to the computer trying to figure out what to do ………….

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33. eric September 25th, 2008, 1:04 am

help

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