In case, you missed it, saurik has released couple of updates for Cydia Installer. Cydia 1.1.25 now moves the jailbreak content to the user partition from the system partition.

So if you were wondering why “Preparing Filesystem” was so quick when you launched Cydia for the first time after Pangu iOS 9 jailbreak, then it was because it did not move the jailbreak content to the user partition from the system partition.

Cydia 1.1.25 release notes

When Pangu and I were discussing the jailbreak release for iOS 9, there was originally a limitation of the jailbreak (due to Apple’s mitigations in iOS 9 being “actually effective”) that made it impossible to free disk soace by moving /Applications from the system partition to the user partition. After doing a bunch of testing without moving this folder, we ran into a similar issue with another folder that Cydia was still stashing. After contemplating just not stashing almost anything, we made a painful “executive decision” to make a wider sandbox carve-out than normal and allow for these folders to be moved, but that Pangu would spend time attempting to fix this somehow. It was not clear to me in which direction they would “fix” the issue, and so I’ve been concerned about pushing an update that stashes /Applications. However, as of last night, Pangu has told me that they will not be pushing a change to break this feature. Also, Apple just released iOS 9.1, so I’m pushing this Cydia update now in order to minimize the number of people who run into some problem with a “late stash” after the signing window closes, which will happen very very soon.

saurik released Cydia 1.1.26 shortly after releasing 1.1.25 to fix an issue with disappearing app icons with the previous update.

Cydia 1.1.26 release notes

I wrote this stash logic in 2008, and have made minimal modifications to it since (with only one even remotely major change, last year, to deal with data protection flags). This code has been used to stash /Applications on every jailbreak since then (including jailbreaks where the stash step was executed on the data extracted in an IPSW file on a computer, such as PwnageTool). I could easily imagine it has been used one billion times, which is why I generally like to trust this code. However, people are now relying on it to do a “late stash” of a key folder (Applications), and thereby are more likely to be doing other things while this happens without realizing that this is about to be really important, and I’m seeing a couple reports of some application icons disappearing. This is all the more likely due to Cydia iself being something the user was just using to upgrade Cydia, and then the user relauches it right after the upgrade. I have thereby reorganized the end of the stashing feature to have a much much much much shorter window of opportunity during which anything can go wrong and am hastily pushing an update :/.

It means that after you install the Cydia 1.1.26 update, it will perform a “Preparing Filesystem” to move the jailbreak content to the user partition from the system partition.

saurik has also confirmed that he is working on Cydia Impactor for iOS 9, the jailbreak tool that lets you unjailbreak your iOS device.

(Meanwhile, I’ve been spending most of my time for days working on updating the Eraser feature of Cydia Impactor to support iOS 9, as Pangu is now doing something more complex that I previously was not setup to “undo”, in addition to Apple making some changes to the OTA format. I managed to get this done just in time, though I also ended up managing to do it without having to actually restore my device a eve once.)

Since iOS 9.1 has patched two Pangu iOS 9 jailbreak vulnerabilities, Cydia Impactor can come in very handy, as it allows you to remove the data and all your personal data without having to restore your device. Since restoring your device would mean installing the latest iOS software update, Cydia Impactor gives you the option to remain at the iOS software update that can be jailbroken, which can be very valuable.

Please note that avoid installing the update for Cydia Installer with the update for Pangu 9.0.x Untether package as we’ve heard that it causes issues.

Let us know how it goes in the comments.