Travel Technology - If I knew what this iPhone annoyance was called, yes I'd Google it :)

I have a couple of path-drawing games I'm addicted to on the iPhone.

On both, when holding the phone in landscape mode, if my finger gets near the top edge this little rectangle drops down with 3-4 bars on it and then retreats. Sometimes, though, if I mistakenly linger on that little rectangle (?) a whole screen of alerts (?) takes over my screen. I have to press the home button and the game icon to get back to it and almost always it has messed me up.

What is this silly little come-'n'-go rectangle, how do I kill it for good, how do I stop getting that full screen of alerts?

Notifications - built in iPhone app for new 5.xx -- I think. Go to settings, disable it and it should stop.

Heh thats the notification center. Its pretty nifty actually not sure why anyone would disable it... wat evs.

Notifications - built in iPhone app for new 5.xx -- I think. Go to settings, disable it and it should stop.

Looks like no way to globally disable that I can see.

...not sure why anyone would disable it...

Because

when holding the phone in landscape mode, if my finger gets near the top edge this little rectangle drops down with 3-4 bars on it and then retreats. Sometimes, though, if I mistakenly linger on that little rectangle (?) a whole screen of alerts (?) takes over my screen. I have to press the home button and the game icon to get back to it and almost always it has messed me up.

I have a couple of path-drawing games I'm addicted to on the iPhone.

On both, when holding the phone in landscape mode, if my finger gets near the top edge this little rectangle drops down with 3-4 bars on it and then retreats. Sometimes, though, if I mistakenly linger on that little rectangle (?) a whole screen of alerts (?) takes over my screen. I have to press the home button and the game icon to get back to it and almost always it has messed me up.

What is this silly little come-'n'-go rectangle, how do I kill it for good, how do I stop getting that full screen of alerts?

that's the notification center and you can just slide it back up. there's no need to quit the app.

Sometimes a whole page of alerts suddenly pops up. I really destroys concentration on the game.

If you're jailbroken, there's a tweak on Cydia called DisableNC Switch that automatically disables the notification center in fullscreen applications like games :)

That looks like exactly what I need.

Unfortunately, when I install it it breaks the Map App (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/1325413-map-app-iphone-4-no-longer-works-crashes-everytime.html). :(

Removing mobile substrate, which of course kills the program, re-fixes the Map App.

That looks like exactly what I need.

Unfortunately, when I install it it breaks the Map App (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/1325413-map-app-iphone-4-no-longer-works-crashes-everytime.html). :(

Removing mobile substrate, which of course kills the program, re-fixes the Map App.

Are you certain that Mobile Substrate is the issue? I've personally had it installed on my 5.0.1 4S for several months without any issues at all.

No issues with DisableNC installed either- I'd be pretty annoyed if Mobile Substrate caused issues since so many jailbreak apps rely on it :(

Not certain, but removing it was the only thing that fixed the maps app.

Yes, I'm annoyed. I had several other programs that were nice to have that depended on it.

I don't know if re-jailbreaking would help?

Not certain, but removing it was the only thing that fixed the maps app.

Yes, I'm annoyed. I had several other programs that were nice to have that depended on it.

I don't know if re-jailbreaking would help?

It's worth a shot.

Or you could try installing an older version of mobile substrate:

All the mobilesubstrate .deb files are here ( http://apt.saurik.com/debs/ ) and you can manually install them using iFile. Try an older version and see if it fixes the problem.

It's worth a shot.

Or you could try installing an older version of mobile substrate:

All the mobilesubstrate .deb files are here ( http://apt.saurik.com/debs/ ) and you can manually install them using iFile. Try an older version and see if it fixes the problem.

Thanks.

That's quite a list!

Do you

a) know the name of the mobile substrate file on that page

b) where I should put it in the iPhone

I don't know if re-jailbreaking would help?

I can now answer:

No.

Latest version of redsn0w

No joy. Maps app still crashes if mobile substrate is installed.

Man, that makes a lot of jailbreak apps impossible to use.

Thanks.

That's quite a list!

Do you

a) know the name of the mobile substrate file on that page

b) where I should put it in the iPhone

Sorry for my late reply!

Just use your browser's find function to look for 'mobilesubstrate' (one word)- you should find a whole bunch of Mobile Substrate versions, ranging from 2519 to 3997. Try the newest one, if that doesn't work, then work your way back. If after trying several versions it still doesn't work then there might be something else interfering with Mobile Substrate.

Download the .deb file onto your computer and follow these (http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=5730) instructions. It's a fairly old article but it should still work fine. It requires OpenSSH to be installed- I just took a look at what Cydia apps I have that rely on Mobile Substrate and while it seems as if every single one of my Cydia apps relies on Substrate, it doesn't look like OpenSSH depends on it :)

If you're not using a Mac, a decent Windows alternative is 'WinSCP'. The connect to buttons and such should work similarly.

Your iPhone and computer needs to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network for SSH transfers to work.

Remember to turn auto-lock to OFF before transferring files over SSH.

Rinse and repeat with older versions (after uninstalling Substrate from Cydia first of course). Let me know if this works.

I kept putting off attempting this (but thank you for your help!) and then ScottC pointed out to me that there was finally an untethered jailbreak for 5.1.1. So I upgraded to 5.1.1 and then jailbroke and, as Emily Litella used to say, "Viola!", maps works again even after trepidatiously loading mobile substrate.