If the latest Chrome update crashes your jailbroken iPhone, the fix is to enable crash reporting

Sigh. @googlechrome added untested jailbreak-specific code on iOS; if you have "send crash reports" off, it crashes. https://t.co/HyJnDmqezg

— Jay Freeman (saurik) (@saurik) March 5, 2013

We heard reports that yesterday’s Chrome browser update is crashing on Jailbroken iPhones. It appears there was some code that detected jailbreaks in the browser and assumed that crash-reporting was enabled. The fix is unsurprisingly enabling crash reporting.

Google said a fix will be in the next update, but it doesn’t have a timeframe on that.

We have found a bug that affects jailbroken devices with crash reporting and metrics *disabled*. The fix will be in our next release (we can’t say when that will be, please don’t ask).

One workaround is to enable crash reporting. Open “Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Local State” and change the “reporting_enabled” flag to “true”. That will enable reporting without needing to reinstall the app. Mind you, we haven’t tested this ourselves. :-) If you do not wish to do this, or are not comfortable doing this, you’ll need to wait for the next release. The other workaround is to uninstall and re-install and enable crash reporting, but you might lose data if you don’t use sync.

For those who are hitting crashes with 3rd-party add-ons, this workaround is not sufficient and you will need to contact the 3rd-party developer directly and have them update their add-on to work with Chrome M25.

@googlechrome Your jailbreak detection code has a scheduling issue. Bet it's fun explaining to Apple why you need a fast update.

— phoenixdev (@phoenixdev) March 5, 2013

To fix via SSH:

apt-get install vim nano findutils grep

cd ~/Applications
cd “$(find -iname ‘Chrome’ | grep Application\ Support)”
vim “Local State” # or nano

If vim: /reporting
If nano: ^W reporting

Replace false with true

If vim: :x
If nano: ^X y

killall -9 Chrome

Run the app.

If it still crashes, get rid of Easy Refresh for Chrome: apt-get remove com.w00tylab.chrome1 (and re-spring). Chromizer is still compatible with this new version :)