Jailbroken and curious how you can diagnose those annoying springboard crashes that plague jailbreakers? While the benefits of jailbreaking outweigh the annoyances for many users, a crashing springboard can still be beyond frustrating. If your springboard is crashing sporadically, there can be several reasons why. There is also an easier way to fix it than to completely restore your phone. Hit the jump for some helpful tips and tricks on ridding yourself of evil crashing springboards!

Resprings are, of course, a necessary evil when it comes to jailbreaking. While stock apps don't typically have access to lower level parts of the phone, jailbreak apps do. Anytime you install something that changes lower level files, you'll typically have to restart the springboard in order for those changes to take affect. But what happens when your springboard starts resprining on its own? Or if your jailbroken iPhone starts crashing into safe mode? I know it can be frustrating, but there's typically a reason.

An app you installed is not compatible with your version of iOS

I know this is easy to point out, but it's something a lot of beginning jailbreakers overlook. Most jailbreak apps will tell you in the app description if you need to stay away from it based on your version of iOS. They probably mean it. Running an app that doesn't play nice with your iOS version can cause considerable headaches, so heed their warnings. A lot of people had issues related to compatibility on 4.2.1 after the tethered jailbreak was released.

Most apps were not updated for 4.2.1 so if you installed them, the odds your springboard was going to crash or your phone was going to start rebooting randomly was pretty good.

You have certain apps installed that don't play nice together

This one is a bit harder to diagnose. Sometimes the best to do is ask around a jailbreak forum. If your device just recently started producing random crashes, uninstall any apps you've installed recently. If the issue goes away, one of the apps you uninstalled was the issue. I typically start installing them again one by one. When the crashes start occurring again, I know what app is the culprit.

And as a common courtesy, shoot an e-mail to the developer and let them know what apps you have installed, what iOS version your'e on, and what issues you were having. Feedback is crucial when it comes to making good apps. The more a developer knows, the better their apps can be.

It's also worth noting that jailbreak developers typically will list issues with other apps in the release notes. Always read those before updated a jailbroken application. That brings us to our next culprit.

A recent app update is causing the crashes

This isn't typical but sometimes app updates can cause compatibility issues either with your iOS version or with another app. This is far less common but still an issue from time to time. If you recently updated an app and your iPhone starting misbevaving afterwards, uninstall that app completely. If the issue resolves itself, the update was an issue. Again, report the issue to the developer so they can fix it. Most developers (especially jailbreak) are extremely responsive to user feedback.

This is another example of why it is important to read update release notes as well. If the developer knows the update creates an issue with another app, they'll list it. You can save yourself the headache by passing up that update.

You installed a bad app from an untrusted repository

Cydia allows you to add repositories at your own will. For new users or easily gullible users, this can be dangerous. I can not stress this one enough - do not EVER, EVER install an app from a repository that you are not 100% positive is safe. Adding a repository for a beta from a trusted developer is one thing, but don't add random repos on your device unless you either know the person hosting it, or know the app you are downloading is tested and from a trusted developer.

If you do happen to install an app from an untrusted source, immediately remove the app from your phone and delete the repository.

You restored from a backup that was previously jailbroken

This is the big one. And typically the most common cause of crashy springboards. I never recommend jailbroken users to restore from a backup. For example, if you are jailbroken on iOS 4.1 and want to upgrade to 4.2.1 and jailbreak using greenpois0n, you should not restore from a backup.

Never ever restore from a backup that could potentially have bits of an old jailbreak in it. I see this cause issues more than anything. And unfortunately, the only remedy is to completely restore your phone and start over. Not fun for anyone.

If you guys have any other springboard issues and remedies, be sure to share them with us in the comments. We'd love to hear them!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

An Android-based tablet was captured on video running Flash -- or should we say trying to run Flash -- before it crashes:

"Here's a quick and dirty hands-on video review of the Android multi-touch tablet prototype (Android ipad). Yes, it does Adobe flash and air well."

Ironically, you can hear the cameraman boast how he's happy he did not purchase an iPad just as he goes to YouTube and the tablet crashes.

(For the record, after watching this video I am perfectly content with my iPad purchase.)

In fairness, this is beta software on a beta device, and it will no doubt improve as they throw time, money, and hardware at it. Then again, it's 2010 and Apple's had YouTube on the iPhone since 2007, and now have it on the iPad (running cool to the touch with 10 hours of battery life).

Is Adobe proving Steve Jobs right?

Video after the break!

[Daring Fireball]

So today I had a bit of a scare. I went to sync my iPhone 3G with my Macbook and noticed when I'd plug in the phone it would say it is syncing while iTunes simply showed nothing -- no kind of response whatsoever. Yes, everything is up to date on my Macbook so that was not the problem. After a few reboots of the Macbook and iPhone the same behavior still continued like clockwork.

Next step was to do some research online and send off an email to Rene for some more ideas. To our surprise this seems to be a bigger than we thought with many people seeing the same issue. I decided it could not hurt to give Apple a call about this and as I was on hold I figured I'd try one more time and shockingly it worked. I had to do a double take at my screens but it worked. To make sure it was not a fluke I unplugged everything and rebooted both Macbook and iPhone, still worked!

This issue seems to be completely random and Apple claims to be looking into it. So, if this happens to you, keep trying to sync, chances are you may get lucky. I'd say avoid doing a complete restore to your phone because if it does lock up during the restore you will be left with a empty iPhone. That's not good.

Hope Apple updates iTunes fast to prevent this from happening to any of our readers. In the meantime, have any of you had this misfortune?

Let us know!

[Thanks to @Rene for the backup!]

So it's been a day since 2.0.1 was made available and we at TiPb would like to know how it's been running on your iPhone. Did this bug-fixer of an update actually fix any bugs? Or are we all getting suckered into believing that the update has made things snappier? Pains in the update process? Backups faster? Apps Crashing? Or are things just less sucky? Maybe you completely avoided the update..anything and everything, we want to know!

Personally, things have "felt" a little bit smoother. Contacts load noticeably quicker but my SMS is still a good couple of seconds too long. No crashes to report yet but I did have one ginormously big hiccup after updating: the mail app crashed on launch. I had to completely restore and set up my iPhone as a new iPhone which was more than mildly annoying, to put it lightly. So other than that, YAY 2.0.1. Woot.

So TiPb faithful, how is 2.0.1 treating you?

Sounded like a great idea, dinnit? Put up a website where your customers could upgrade to the brand-spanking-new iPhone 3G kit, right? Digg effect, meet iPwnage (no, not the hack, the tidal-wave of traffic Apple's little gadget brings with it). It'll Steve your website right quick -- especially when you offer to hand deliver them on launch day!

Says O2:

"We had invested heavily to add a huge amount of additional capacity, 250 times its normal rate, and back-up systems. We tested this carefully in advance. The massive simultaneous crush exceeded even our worst case assumptions. Demand was at 13,000 orders per second. Frankly, we have to admit we just weren't prepared for this unprecedented level of demand. No Web site is."

Yeah. Just be happy you don't host a Stevenote stream. Traffic aside, though, 13,000 orders per second is staggering, and O2 admits Apple can't meet that demand during a 22 country simultaneous launch. In fact, supplies look tight for the next few week, and nary an iPhone White in sight!

Our sympathies for our United Kingdom friends. If any of you mange to nab an iPhone 3G, please let us know!

Read

We've covered the iPhone Flash saga ad nauseam here, but in an interesting post involving the technology itself, NetNewsWire developer Brent Simmons (via DaringFireball) shares some interesting error/crash logs highlighting the instability-adding benefits of Flash, and the rapid catchup of Microsoft's copycat, Silverlight:

I’ve said it before — one of my favorite things about the iPhone is no Flash. I will now add and no SilverlightPlugin.

As a web developer who uses Flash routinely, I've also come to enjoy its absence on the iPhone (and the absence of like technologies, and even prehistoric kin like animated GIFs), and the amazing increase that absence give to the information over noise ratio. It's led me closer towards "Web 2.0"-style AJaX for interactivity, and away from the proprietary, and often overkill, that is plugin technology.

What do you think?