How to Jailbreak iPhone 4S Using Absinthe For Mac [iOS 5.0.1 / iOS 5]

BY Jason

Published 20 Jan 2012

greenpois0n absinthe

Chronic Dev team has just released greenpois0n Absinthe to jailbreak iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

In this guide, we will take you through the step by step procedure to jailbreak iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0.1 or iOS 5 using Absinthe.

Here are some important points to note before you proceed.

  • This guide is meant for iPhone 4S users. iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS users can checkout this guide, iPod touch users can checkout this guide and iPad 1 users can checkout this guide. We’ll publish a guide for iPad 2 users shortly.
  • This guide is meant for Mac users. Windows users can refer to this step-by-step guide.
  • Absinthe performs an untethered jailbreak.
  • Please note that jailbreaking your iPhone may void your warranty and hence proceed with caution and at your own risk.
  • Please do not forget to backup your iPhone before you proceed. You can refer to this post for instructions on how to backup your iPhone.
  • Please ensure you’ve updated iTunes to the latest version (iTunes 10.5.3).

Step 1: Download Absinthe from this link (Update: no longer available) and save the application in a folder named “Absinthe” on your desktop.

Step 2: Double click the Absinthe zip file and extract the application to the Absinthe folder. Navigate back to the Absinthe folder and launch the Absinthe application.

Step 3: After launching Absinthe, click on the Jailbreak button.

After clicking on the Jailbreak button the tool will give a progress update on the various stages of the jailbreak process such as:

“Beginning jailbreak” (note this can really take sometime – in our case this step took more than 10 minutes on our iPad 2, though it was lot quicker on iPhone 4S)

“Sending initial data” at this time you will notice that “Restoring in Progress” message on your iPhone 4S (this can also take a long time – in our case this step took more than 15 mins)

“Waiting for reboot”

“Waiting for device to finish rebooting” as your iPhone 4S is rebooting.

“Preparing jailbreak data”

“Sending payload data” (this can also take a long time – in our case this step took more than 15 mins)

Step 4: In the end you’ll be prompted with the message informing you that the jailbreak is “Almost done – just unlock the screen if necessary, then tap “Jailbreak” icon to finish.

Step 5: Unlock your iPhone. The icon you should look for is the Absinthe icon and not “Jailbreak”, it may not be on the first home screen page so you’re better off just searching for it using Spotlight.

Step 6: Launch the Absinthe app. It should load the greenpois0n site and reboot your iPhone 4S. After it is rebooted, you should see the Cydia icon.

That’s it, your iPhone 4S is successfully jailbroken.

Troubleshooting tips:

Here are some troubleshooting tips if you hit an issue while jailbreaking your iPhone 4S with Absinthe:

1. A number of readers have reported that they’re getting “Error establishing a database connection” error message while loading the site or are seeing a white screen when they launch the Absinthe app. If you get that error message or white screen when you launch the Absinthe app, the following trick seems to work:

  • Launch the Settings app.
  • Then tap on General, followed by Network and then tap on VPN, here you will get “A configuration error occurred” message.
  • However after a minute, your iPhone 4S will reboot and you should be able to see Cydia icon your iPhone 4S home screen.
2. If it still doesn’t help, just reboot your iPhone 4S and start the process all over again. It may also be a good idea to disable your passcode when you try again as the tool gives a warning request that jailbreaking is most likely to fail if passcode is enabled (don’t forget to enable it though after your iPhone 4S is successfully jailbroken).
3. Ensure you’ve updated iTunes to the latest version (iTunes 10.5.3).
4. If you think it is taking a long time (or get the feeling that Absinthe isn’t doing anything) then be patient, it took more than 45 minutes to jailbreak our iPad 2 using Absinthe. Check out the timings mentioned by us above for some of the steps.
5. If troubleshooting tips 1 and 2 don’t help then iPhone Dev team has advised restoring your iPhone 4S if you don’t care about unlocking. Restoring is not ideal so our advise would be to try again after sometime as it could be very well be due to the load on the servers.
6. If you’ve subscribed to iTunes Match, but having problems playing music after jailbreaking using Absinthe then try to disable iTunes Match (via Settings -> Music -> iTunes Match -> On/Off toggle) and enable iTunes Match again. It seems to have resolved the issue for some users.
7. Fix for grey Jailbreak button:
A number of readers have reported that their iPad 2 isn’t recognised after launching Absinthe and the Jailbreak button stays grey. Reader R Wass has a tip to fix this issue. He writes:
If you are having the problem where you cannot click jailbreak on absinthe with your device plugged in, start your mac in safe mode.  You do this by turning it off and starting it back up while holding the shift key, then launch absinthe after it starts in safe mode. You should now be able to click jailbreak when you plug in your device. it worked for me.
Thanks Wass for the tip!
8. If you think App Store is not working after jailbreaking using Absinthe, please be patient, it has taken a long time for some users, but it eventually loads fine. You can also try to reboot tour iPhone to see if it helps.
If you’re still having issues head over to IRC, pod2g and the Chronic Dev team are providing support on #greenpois0n on irc.chronic-dev.org. Please don’t forget to drop us a line in the comments to tell us how your issue was fixed for your benefit of your fellow readers.
After the jailbreaking process is complete, do not forget to checkout our article on tips to keep your iPhone secure.

If you’re new to the jailbreaking world and wondering what to do after jailbreaking your iPhone, checkout our jailbreak apps category page to find out the apps you can install on your iPhone using the Cydia app. Please note that some of the jailbreak apps and tweaks are still not compatible with iOS 5/iOS 5.0.1 so please be cautious while installing them.

Updated 1:

Added the time it can take for the some of the time consuming stages and also some more troubleshooting tips.

Update 2:

Chronic Dev team has updated Absinthe to address load issue, so we’ve updated the download link with the latest version.

Update 3:

Chronic Dev team has updated Absinthe for Mac to address the VPN and white icons issues, so we’ve updated the download link with the latest version.

Update 4:

Absinthe for Windows is now available. Check out this post for all the details.

Update 5 (1/2/2012):

We’ve updated the download links as jailbreak dream team released an updated version of Absinthe jailbreak (v0.4) for iPhone 4S and iPad 2, which includes some bug fixes and adds support for Mac OS X 10.5.

Hope this helped. Please don’t forget to let us know how it goes in the comments and drop us a line if you hit any issues and don’t forget to give a donation to the jailbreak dream team for all their hard work.