I've received scattered reports that iPhones are stuck on the boot logo screen (Apple logo, pineapple or Steve Jobs) after a failed/aborted Cydia package install. The symptom seems to be that you select to install a package in Cydia, the installation routine starts and after some initial progress freezes your device. Once you try to reboot (by holding Home+Power for a while) the iPhone comes up with the boot logo and gets stuck. Even waiting "for hours" does not solve the problem. Multiple reboots don't help.
Common to all reports is that iTunes no longer recognizes the iPhone once plugged into the Mac/PC.
Currently the only solution seems to be to put the iPhone into Device Firmware Update (DFU) mode and completely restore to either Apple's or a custom - pwned - firmware. While I'm not yet aware of the root cause it seems as if the issues occur more often if you've got many official additional applications from App Store installed.
As a preliminary workaround I recommend to install your Cydia applications first, before you restore your App Store applications. So if you're iPhone is currently hanging during boot I recommend to do the following steps:
- Put your device into DFU mode.
- Restore the device to the custom firmware.
- Do not restore a previous back up. Do not sync. This would bring back all of your App Store applications.
- Disconnect your device.
- Install everything you need via Cydia.
- Plug-in your device.
- Let iTunes restore from your previous back up.
- Sync.
The reports I've received where related to first generation iPhones with a pwned Apple 2.0.1 firmware (Pwnage tool 2.0.2).
I've contacted Jay Freeman - Cydia's author - and asked him to kindly look into this issue.