Jailbroken iPhone iTunes DB Whacked?

Do you have a Jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch and you go to plug in the device and you have what I call the ‘orange bar of doom’? Let me guess, you don’t feel like wiping your device and re-jailbreaking it. I had this happen to me this morning. I have figured out how to fix it, and I’ll explain how.

Here are the requirements…

1. Jailbroken iPhone / iPod Touch
2. Have SSH Installed
3. Be familiar with navigating via SFTP.

Ok… here goes…

1. Make sure you enable SSH on your iPhone / iPod touch. If you don’t have it installed, use Installer.app to find and install it.
2. Open the SFTP Program of your choice, or SSH program, either one
3. Navigate to /private/var/root/Media/iTunes_Control/Music/
4. Remove the F00, F01, F02, F03, F04, F05 directory contents, but not the directories themselves. If you do delete these directories, just re-create them. Otherwise your music will not sync.
5. Navigate to /private/var/root/Media/iTunes_Control/Artwork
6. Remove the *.ithmb files. These are the thumbnails for the Artwork embedded in your music
7. Go into iTunes and Click on your iPhone / iPod Touch.
8. Go to the Music tab, and uncheck ‘Sync music’. Hit Apply.
9. Go to the Podcast tab and uncheck ‘Sync Podcasts’. Hit Apply.
10. Just for good measure reboot the iPhone / iPod Touch.
11. Go to the Music tab in iTunes.
12. Click on ‘Sync music’. Hit Apply.
13. Click on the Podcast tab.
14. Click on ‘Sync Podcasts’. Hit Apply.
15. Wait for everything to sync.

All of your music and podcasts should be back along with the album art. If this doesn’t work, or I’m missing something let me know. But I ran in to this problem this morning and I thought I’d post on how I fixed it.

I'm into everything technology related, particularly anything Apple related. I enjoy programming and tend to lean towards server-based technologies over client-based. You can contact me on twitter, via e-mail, or follow me on friendfeed.