Database Develop

The Boot Loop of Death (BLOD)

Hey Guys,
Ever since I first experienced this bug, it seems more and more people are coming forward explaining the same symptoms.
Connection drops, OS becomes unresponsive, freezes, and then you are greeted by the 'X' animation. After the phone reboots, it freezes once again and returns you to the 'X' animation and the process repeats until you pull the battery.
There seems to be no direct trigger as it can occur when on a call, when browsing or even when the phone is idle.
I've read through various threads on different forums in an attempt to reveal some kind of pattern, yet reports are coming from users on different ROMs with different kernels and different apps. I've created this thread in the hope that if people contribute their experiences, we can draw some kind of reasoning behind the development of the bug and offer some hope for resolving the issue in then future.
So guys, what are your experiences of the BLOD? What ROM were you running? What kernel were you running? Do you overclock, underclock or remain at stock? Anything you think may contribute to this annoying bug.
Thanks in advance.....

Reserved for future use

My experience began after updating to Kang-o-Rama 0.6 final (CM 5.0.6) after using Kings Desire Port aswell as using Paul's Desire ROM and Cyanogenmod previously. Originally it happened to me in the gym. While listening to music I recieved an SMS and the phone suddenly crashed and went into the BLOD. I had to pull my battery for it to stop. Since that occasion, I began to suffer the BLOD 3-5 times a day, sometimes when on a call and other times when the phone was idle. I tried wiping and reinstalling countless times, flashed stock Cyanogen and the later versions of K-o-R which would give my phone a slight reprieve ,however eventually the BLOD would hunt me down and return.
Eventually I believed it was a Cyanogenmod specific bug, especially after reading this thread,
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?/topic/43-odd-crash/
Since I thought it was CM specific I went away and flashed Enom's ROM which again gave me a reprieve but only until I charged the phone at night. I awoke in the early house to find my phone rebooting away as I slept. This pattern continued for 3 nights until last night which was my first BLOD free night.
Now i'm not 100% sure as to what cured my looping last night but I flashed a new kernel yesterday (IR .33.5) and also on the advice of this thread,
http://www.google.co.uk/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=2711ea74ef3d9aee&hl=en
I wondered whether the fact that I'd started using the stock alarm clock app could have triggered this so called 'notification bug'. I returned to using Gentle Alarm from the market and cancelled my stock Androdid alarm.
Right now i'm waiting to see how long I go without a BLOD before investigating if it was specifically the new kernel or changing the alarm which got me through the night. Will report back if anything changes.

I'm pretty sure this is a form of a kernel panic. I know Cyanogen had made some type of tweet or post regarding this. I'll try to find it and edit this post when done

wesbalmer said:
I'm pretty sure this is a form of a kernel panic. I know Cyanogen had made some type of tweet or post regarding this. I'll try to find it and edit this post when done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cyanogen posted something regarding it being a system_server crash in the CM thread and that we needed logs of the event occuring before he could draw any conclusions. I managed to dump and adb logcat of the event while it was happening, although it was just a panic loop of which a segment was posted on the Cyanogenmod forum I posted above. Has anyone managed to capture a log of the BLOD as it starts? That would be a great help.

I got my N1 about 4 weeks ago and it worked OK until I flashed the Froyo radio. from that point on I could not get any rom to run in a stable way - my reboots happened 3 - 4 times a day and got to the point where I would get stuck in the boot loop. Pulling the battery did not always solve the problem although I found that if I kept the battery out for several minutes my chances of getting the phone to boot into either the ROM or recovery would be better.
I noticed at the same time that once the boot loop started I could not get into recovery until my phone had at least booted into the ROM successfully once.
Flashing back to the 4.04 radio reduced the random reboots to about once a day - usually at night after I had just plugged my phone in to charge. I was using the stock alarm app as a bedside clock.
After many days of frustration and the help from several people here at XDA, I finally came to conclusion that the problem must be hardware related and am returning my current device to HTC and am getting a new one.

I don't have a boot loop but I definitely experience the initial stages of this problem on a stock (unrooted, locked) N1 (at&t).
50% of the time when the N1 loses the connection (e.g. due to going into a garage) it will not re-acquire the signal. Searching for networks will hang, putting the phone in flight mode and then disabling flight mode will still result in no signal.
The only way to get a cell signal back is rebooting the phone.
Usually, searching for a network and/or enabling and disabling flight mode will result in the phone turning black and then rebooting.

I have the problem, too.
Just a few notes:
didn't have it on stock rom and Cyanogen 5.0.6, nor an Enomther's 1.8.1, started with Enomther's 1.9.2
This is not really a reboot, because a real reboot always helps. Other than a reboot, it starts directly at the X animation, not with the unmoving X before.
Seems to be a kernel panic.
I currently suspect that the panic happens when the RAM is full, especially if there is one single process that uses up massive amounts of RAM (could be in the background, of course).
I yesterday found that Sytrant (periodically sets time using internet time server) has a memory leak, and on closer inspection today found that it queries an ad server every few seconds and thus switches from sleeping to running state every few seconds. Also, it spawns root processes when setting time, which might lead to the system not wanting to kill it.
So, here's my current suspection (I'm not at all sure if that's true!):
The reboot loop only happens when the system runs out of memory.
In this case, Android should normally kick out other programs: First apps that are not running anymore, but are still in memory, second background jobs, and third services.
I guess there's some error in the killing logic in newer Cyanogen kernels and others that use Cyanogen parts (or maybe even in the orginal code from Google).
This somehow leads to a state where the kernel has no memory left and can't kill a process, too. -> Kernel panic
Maybe this is more probable if there is one big memory hog the kernel doesn't want to kill (because it's a service, or maybe because it has children running as root).
So, everyone who has this problem, please get a process monitor or task manager where you can see how much memory an app uses. OSMonitor is a very good one, and it can also sort the processes by memory usage. Start it periodically to find out if a process is constantly growing.
If you found such a process: Is it one that requires root? Does it run as a service? (Unfortunately, OSMonitor can't tell you if a process runs as service, or at least I didn't find it if it can. ES Task Manager can show that information, though, for example.)
Personally, I threw Sytrant off my phone now and will watch if that helps. I had reboot loops every two or three days, so I can't tell yet if it really will make a difference. I really hope so …
Edit: Of course, this theory does not really explain why the network drops before the boot loop starts. It could be, though, that the kernel tries to kill just anything to gain meomry, which might also be a system process that it responsible for the network. As the networks always seems to drop before the loop starts, maybe killing that process is what leads to the panic in the end.
Maybe, could … well, yes, this is just a theory. But at least it sounds good, doesn't it? ;-)

The more I read about this problem here and in other threads, the more I am convinced that my problem is probably not hardware related. My replacement phone arrives today but now I am wondering if I should return my original or not. Argg!
Is there a way we can all band together to try and get to the bottom of this problem? I am more than willing to do whatever testing those that know what to look for tells me to do.
Would one of the Guru's here be willing to guide us through a coordinated troubleshooting excersize?
Maybe we can start by trying to find out what we all have in common?
I have an AT&T/Rogers version of the N1.
I typically have the Facebook, Calendar Widgets on home screen.
Power Widget on 2nd screen
Use gmail but via the standard email client, not the gmail client.
Use the native alarm clock app in the dock at night
16GB ADATA MicroSD card.
I also install:
- ChompSMS (with icon widget on home screen)
- NewsRob (with Widget on home screen)
Did not get the reboots initially running the stock rom but they started the moment I installed paul's version of Froyo. I tried several of the other roms and had the same instability and BLOD's until I reverted back to stock and things stabalized again although I was still getting random reboots once a day or so.

While a hardware issue (especially RAM failure) could cause this issue, I don't think that it is the cause in most of the cases here. The fact that some don't experience it anymore after trying one or another software-related measure makes a hardware failure highly improbable, at least in their cases.
I won't rule that out, but until I tried everything else I can't conclude it must be a hardware faliure.
Please get OSMonitor and watch your processes. If after some days you still can't find a process using more than, say, 65 M, and still get the issue, you can be pretty sure that a memory leak isn't the problem for you.
The memory leak + killing bug guess is a good one and is quite probable. So let's check that first.

I think my FroYo rom problems are the same problems you guys are having. I think it's something with an app or an element of the OS or something.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=703508
I get the exact same issue on a handful of roms. Everything starts to force close, then it goes into boot loop, but, as someone said, doesn't really fully reboot, it just starts at the boot screen.
I've also noticed when things get funky, plugging in the USB cable makes it immediately go into a boot loop.

I start having this problem after I install the Quadrant Standard program, I was using the Kang-o-rama - Froyo when this happened. But after going back to Paul's Froyo everything is working perfectly again.

cmarti said:
I start having this problem after I install the Quadrant Standard program, I was using the Kang-o-rama - Froyo when this happened. But after going back to Paul's Froyo everything is working perfectly again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I deleted quadrant, signed into market and all so it knew i uninstalled it, flashed a baked modaco R17, and it still boot looped on first reboot.

I suspect it is related to the 4.06 radio. My first boot loop started just after I installed the radio and before I updated the ROM itself.

DvTonder said:
I suspect it is related to the 4.06 radio. My first boot loop started just after I installed the radio and before I updated the ROM itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That doesn't explain mine though. I get the boot loop on some roms but not others, with the same radio.

MSigler said:
That doesn't explain mine though. I get the boot loop on some roms but not others, with the same radio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which ROMS are safe for you - I will flash one of them tonight and see if it works on my device as well - maybe we can narrow it down to a specific ROM.
Would also appreciate a list of the apps you use - I am thinking we should set up our phones as close to identical as possible to begin with and then start adding things to see what causes it. Thoughts?

DvTonder said:
Which ROMS are safe for you - I will flash one of them tonight and see if it works on my device as well - maybe we can narrow it down to a specific ROM.
Would also appreciate a list of the apps you use - I am thinking we should set up our phones as close to identical as possible to begin with and then start adding things to see what causes it. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only roms that screw up for me are modded froyo roms. LeoFroyo works fine for some reason, as does the stock FRF50. I'll screenshot my apps in a minute and post them.

I have this on stock 2.1u1 EPE54B

I was getting some pretty random boot loops when running CM 5.0.7.1 and 4.04 radio. Noticed two things could (almost) cause it every time:
1) Not so much a cause, but Google Listen was running almost every time I went into a BLoD.
2) Something that WAS causing it.. I keep my phone on airplane mode at work with WiFi on, since I don't get a reception in the building. Reboot + turn off airplane mode when the phone is to that point = BLoD.
I actually flashed Kang-o-Rama and the 4.06 radio earlier, no problems now.

tjsimmons said:
I actually flashed Kang-o-Rama and the 4.06 radio earlier, no problems now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you flash the Froyo version with SP3?

Trackball constantly flashing

Recently my trackball started flashing constantly. It started around the same time browser started crashing constantly on one of the newer CM7 nightlies. I tried a lot of the nightlies and it still happens so I went back to the RC1 which I knew didn't have this problem.
I have a feeling its not the rom because it happens even when I am installing a new rom. It flashes all different colors and almost seems like its monitoring CPU usage. Any ideas?

chrisoaf said:
Recently my trackball started flashing constantly. It started around the same time browser started crashing constantly on one of the newer CM7 nightlies. I tried a lot of the nightlies and it still happens so I went back to the RC1 which I knew didn't have this problem.
I have a feeling its not the rom because it happens even when I am installing a new rom. It flashes all different colors and almost seems like its monitoring CPU usage. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have a LED app? I know this happened to me when I had an app (forgot the name of it) installed. I also use CM7.

I don't have an led app. I flashed a sense rom and it is still doing it. I downloaded a couple led apps and they weren't able to control it. It is just green now and is even on when the phone is off. Only removing the battery turns it off.

Seems like I have read about a green flashing trackball before. You might want to search on it... but I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem. Ship her off to HTC for repair.

Thanks. That will be my last resort. I'm pretty sure it's not under warranty anymore. It's an annoyance but I don't want to pay to fix it. I wonder how much it would cost to get them to fix this problem and my purple led flash.

[Q] Tried Everything - Touchpad Screen Unresponsive (CM9)

Hi
Looked for this issue on the forum and can find instances of it happening occasioinally, but not with the frequency that i have. Symptomns are that the screen will stop responding to input. I.e the screen stays painted but does not respond to my pokes or pros. Flicking the screen on and off for a split second fixes it. I believe its related to software or resource usage -sometimes i can go for ages without issues, however in the last half an hour this has happened around ten times. please help!
I have tried isolating it down to a particular app with no success, and also changed the CPU governance settings, asgin unsuccessfully. I have no such issues in WebOS.
Thanks.
ps running CM9 alpha 2, but had same issue on 0.6

flash the latest nightly.

screen unresponsive281]flash the latest nightly.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the reply. I may consider doing that, guess that with a Android backup I don't have much to lose. Would like to avoid it if possible as not being as widespread they aren't as proven and I've ironed out all other issues in alpha 2 such as wifi etc ...
Thanks

the latest nightly offers quite a few fixes.....
including vibration from sleep and tons of other stuff. not much can go wrong.

Andysan said:
Thanks for the reply. I may consider doing that, guess that with a Android backup I don't have much to lose. Would like to avoid it if possible as not being as widespread they aren't as proven and I've ironed out all other issues in alpha 2 such as wifi etc ...
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There has been loads of improvements in CM9 wifi has been fixed sound distortion when the screen off is fixed many speed fixes we now have themes working
Do a nandroid backup in CWM then copy that to your pc for safety then wipe system partition DO NOT FACTORY RESET OR WIPE DATA or you will lose you data, then flash latest nightly and latest gapps then wipe dalvik cache/cache partition's then in advanced fix permission's and reboot system

Well.... I dip my hat to you guys.
Went ahead and installed the latest nightly - even if it doesn't fix my issue, I was suprised by how polished it felt compared with Alpha 2. Typically with bleeding edge stuff I'd have expected to have more issues, but alls I had to do was reinstall YouTUbe and flash the gapps-fixer zip for my Calender sync, plus I see lots of lovely new settings to play with.
Will report back if the screen hangs again, here's hoping...

Frustratingly this issue has started happening for me again running 31 May nightly - touch screen has become unresponsive half a dozen times in the last ten minutes.

Maybe trying wiping it and doing a brand new flash from the latest nightly. (I know it sucks to reinstall stuff, but maybe there are some leftover codes that is causing trouble.. )

i agree either to wiping data or up your min cpu speed as it might the amount of apps you have installed that auto start/resume when turn on the screen..

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions &
Read the Forum Rules Ref Posting
Thanks ✟
Moving to Q&A

I only had that problem once. Rebooted by holding home and power never had it again.
Sent from my YP-GI1 using XDA

Had this issue yesterday for the first time since installing cm9 6(?) months ago.
Tried a nightly build as suggested, but given the rarity in the first place, can't be sure it's fixed

This happens to me all the time across all ROMs I have tested.
This happens in OaT's and turning the screen off/on, fixes it temporarily.
This happens in Butta, but turning the screen off/on does nothing. I have to reboot using power/home.
I have also been unable to find a specific app that causes it, but it does seem to occur more often in graphic intensive games.
I can go for days without it happening, then BAM, it stops responding to touch, from that point forward, no about of reboots or full shutdowns seems to fix it for several hours. I'll reboot and sometimes it'll be immediately, sometimes it will be 3-5 minutes, but it will happen again.
Then a few hours later it'll stop happening and I'm good for a few more days.
Do those of you using CM9 find that screen off/on fixes it, or do you need a full reboot?

I am running the night lies and have to say that the only time I experienced this was with the may nightlies. I have not experienced any issues with the 7/04 nightly.
Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2

Interestingly enough I think I found out what causes the screen to stop responding. When the TouchPad is locked in landscape and then I turn it portrait while its still locked, then the screen becomes unresponsive. Does that make sense?
Sent from my Touchpad using xda app-developers app

I take it back. The screen became unresponsive even in landscape mode. There goes my well formed and thoroughly investigated theory.
Sent from my Touchpad using xda app-developers app
---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:22 PM ----------
I've been using Nova Launcher ... I switched back to Trebuchet and it appears to be working normally. Of course I may be spouting this half-cocked like I did before. What launcher are you using?

I run SPB 3D launcher and do not experience any response issues with the latest nightlies. I use my touchpad constantly as a laptop replacement so mine gets a workout every day. To my knowledge, no one was ever able to find any one app that was responsable for this behaviour but it was noted in earlier builds.
,
Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2

I too still have this issue - as per others, fine for days, then it will occur consistently and I keep having to screen off/on and eventually it stops of its own accord. Am sure its a software issue, but someone here says they also had it in WebOS and HP provided a replacement.
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/20740-screen-unresponsive-in-cm9/
For me as simply flapping the screen on/off fixes it and I've never had the issue within WebOS, it has to be software - this started as soon as I first installled CM9.

Bump - still no fix identified for this by anyone with this issue please?

To anyone still following on, followed nevertells advise and completely started again from scratch and it happened after about twenty mins of using the stock browser. I think i've tried not using that app before so am just going to assume that this is either a software bug or a hardware issue that only manifests itaelf within Android

Random crashes and reboots on Thrillseeker 3.1

I installed Thrillseeker 3.1 about 2 weeks ago, and have been noticing a few things. Sometimes the phone stops responding to touches for a while, like its locked up, or lagging, or maybe the wrong CPU governor. I don't know what's going on. Sometimes it randomly resets. One repeatable problem is that if I turn Wifi on, then off, then on again, the phone resets.
I have tried the 1.30Ghz kernel included in 3.1, the 1.38Ghz kernel, the 1.0Ghz "Saver" kernel, and the 3.12 update, but the same reset-on-wifi problem persists.
Is anyone else having similar problems? Simple fix?

I would try reflashing back to stock. Reinstall CWM, then try installing the ROM again.
Beyond that, maybe you should PM the guy who made the rom.

brianosaurus said:
I installed Thrillseeker 3.1 about 2 weeks ago, and have been noticing a few things. Sometimes the phone stops responding to touches for a while, like its locked up, or lagging, or maybe the wrong CPU governor. I don't know what's going on. Sometimes it randomly resets. One repeatable problem is that if I turn Wifi on, then off, then on again, the phone resets.
I have tried the 1.30Ghz kernel included in 3.1, the 1.38Ghz kernel, the 1.0Ghz "Saver" kernel, and the 3.12 update, but the same reset-on-wifi problem persists.
Is anyone else having similar problems? Simple fix?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't had the reboot problems since 3.12 update from 3.11 clean install. Have had lag issue a couple times..for me restarting holo launcher corrected...tried to recreate wifi issue bit is working for me. All three kernels are very similar the saver has 1.3 and 1.2 disabled and the hotplug gov tweaked
Also posting this in my thread might get you more help.. since your running thrill seeker its ok to post problems you are having in that dev thread as others may be having same issues and ill see it quicker and try to help fix it if I can.
Sent from my LG-P925 using xda premium

yeah, i'm a noob
I'll try going back to stock and then reflash the latest thrill seeker. I would have posted in the dev forum, but I don't have 10 posts yet, so I'm restricted from posting in dev. only 8 more to go
3.12 hasn't had a random reset on me, just the wifi reset, but that one "works" every time.
Thanks,
brian

found lag problem and found possible fix
lag problem on thrillseeker 3.11/3.12 appears to be the CPU somehow resetting the Max MHz to 100MHz after the phone sleeps for 10-15 mins. Having Romtoolbox installed, then adjusting the CPU sliders quickly bypasses this issue. Although a true fix is in the coding, this workaround appears to be permanent once preformed. At least we now know it is not a flaw in the Rom as far as an overload or hang-up problem. I have not experienced the Wifi issue yet. If I can get a heads-up on how to induce it, I can look into it. Great work on the Rom!

problems im having
The rom itself is near perfect to me...I give thanks to all that put the hours and hardwork into this
I am a complete noob so any help or answers I will greatly appreciate. The only trouble I have from rom so far is if I'm using the browser while its plugged in.. might be a bad install after all. I really jumbled a few things like not making a nandriod. So I'm kinda stuck with with out a return to stock option...I have been trying to work through this but im a bit unsure how to get a stock Back on here. ..????? Any help....... back to rom I love thrillseeker 3.1....I been testing what I need in a rom and well I couldn't be happier that this rom seems to to do the job and then some....everything works perfect ....like I said the only thingthat seems fuzzy is when I plug in to wall charger and then it gets glichy.....

cpu
I adjusted sliders as well the second one seems to revert back to 100mhz often so its not a permanent fix. It does help....

Yeah. Funny thing. My phone broke (cracked screen), so I did an exchange at best buy and this rom works just fine on the new one. I guess my old one was kind of janky on the inside.
Sent from my LG-P925 using xda app-developers app

[Q] Random Bluescreen (lines) Issue

Hi all,
I have a 32GB TP that has been doing fine (save for some battery issues) up until recently.
Now, at random, it flashes a full screen of blue lines. This lasts for about 1 - 2 seconds. Anything running appears to freeze while it happens, and if audio is playing, the TP will just BOOOOOOOOP while the blue lines appear.
Some times it will go an hour. Other times it does it every 20 seconds or so. Even just scrolling through the apps list. Does it both while plugged in and not.
I was running CM9 and thought that maybe it was a corrupt ROM or something. So, I did a full wipe (system, caches, etc) and installed CM10.x/4.2.2. Still doing it.
Anybody have ANY idea what might be causing this? Im guessing its a hardware issue now. Ive seen similar issue mentioned but never with any resolution.
Except for this issue and the occasional not wanting to turn on, the TP has been great. So...Im hoping its something fixable.
I'm not OC'd. Running pjsports CM build with non-system apps restored with TBU. Nothing funky (performance enhancing, monitoring, tweaking, av apps) installed.
Thanks.

Ahhk said:
Hi all,
I have a 32GB TP that has been doing fine (save for some battery issues) up until recently.
Now, at random, it flashes a full screen of blue lines. This lasts for about 1 - 2 seconds. Anything running appears to freeze while it happens, and if audio is playing, the TP will just BOOOOOOOOP while the blue lines appear.
Some times it will go an hour. Other times it does it every 20 seconds or so. Even just scrolling through the apps list. Does it both while plugged in and not.
I was running CM9 and thought that maybe it was a corrupt ROM or something. So, I did a full wipe (system, caches, etc) and installed CM10.x/4.2.2. Still doing it.
Anybody have ANY idea what might be causing this? Im guessing its a hardware issue now. Ive seen similar issue mentioned but never with any resolution.
Except for this issue and the occasional not wanting to turn on, the TP has been great. So...Im hoping its something fixable.
I'm not OC'd. Running pjsports CM build with non-system apps restored with TBU. Nothing funky (performance enhancing, monitoring, tweaking, av apps) installed.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got this whenever I tried to change to a rom that was not supported with the current partition layout or needing an SE version or a data/media on a non data/media version....
I held home and power at same time till it re-booted and went into CWM recovery and re-flashed the original rom. (I bet you could use your NANDroid as well)

SteveoSupremo said:
I got this whenever I tried to change to a rom that was not supported with the current partition layout or needing an SE version or a data/media on a non data/media version....
I held home and power at same time till it re-booted and went into CWM recovery and re-flashed the original rom. (I bet you could use your NANDroid as well)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but as I said, this was originally happening with the lastest stable build of CM9 (Sept '12?) - which was fine for about a year. So, since I had to reinstall to try and eliminate the issue, I went with the latest build 4.2.2 ROM that DIDNT require the new partition layout.