Database Develop

[Q] Phone stuck when booting - how to fix?

Hi All,
Suddenly my phone gets stuck during booting at the S logo and it vibrates sometimes similar to FC-ing.
I have the feeling that some process keeps crasing in an infinite loop.
I havent touched the ROM for at least a month.
It was upgraded to JPY via KIES with reg hacking and it has worked fine until today.
Yesterday before going to sleep I shut it down and when this morning I turned it on it could not get past the logo it just vibrates and front leds are lit.
Battery is fully charged, screen showing fully green battery when charging.
I can enter both Recovery and Dowload modes, nothing unusual is displayed there.
Battery out-in did not help.
No lagfix, phone was rooted with modified kernel (chainfire afair) more than 1 month ago.
No problems like this whatsoever.
Last successful boot was yesterday evening, no signs of any problem.
I have not done factory reset yet as my last Titanium Backup was quite a long ago.
Questions:
- is there any kind of "safe mode" boot like in windows?
- I can not access its internal SD card from PC (USB), is there a trick to make the pc recognize it?
- any other suggestion before FR?
It is International Galaxy S, JPY, unbranded
Thanks in advance!

if you have CWM recovery then i think there is an option to mount the sd card so its visible on your pc,
another thing. there is a safe mode i accidentally entered it a few months ago, what you need to do is boot up the phone and whilst it is booting press the left key (menu) until the keys light turns off, (or keep pressing the menu key) and then the phone should come up in safe mode..
i havent tried it with a boot loop and i dont know if anyone else has so it may not work..
and finally if you do have CWM you can do a nandroid backup thru that, then do a factory reset and re-apply the nandroid backup.

Unfortunately I do not have CWM.
I tried safe mode the way you wrote but it did not work for me, neither worked the other Menu + Home + Power combination mentioned elsewhere, probably the problem comes earlier than that.
Is there a chance to install CWM in this limited mode of my phone?
the problem is that int sd does not seem accessible.
does update.zip work only from internal sd?

im afraid so yes its not possible to do it from the external sd unless you have a steam kernel.
looks like your only option would be to do a factory reset in recover or re-flash through odin.. but you will lose your data..
your best bet is to just write down as many apps as you can remember you had, and maybe re download them after the flash 1 by one.
but all the stuff on your internal sd card WILL STAY INTACT. e.g pictures music movies ect
EDIT::: you can now access the market on-line so perhaps you check that to see if your apps show on there before you do the reset... I've not checked it out yet...

My market on web looks good so that should not be a problem.
I was just told that I could have CWM by flashing a kernel that contains it.
If that is true I can do what you said earlier: do a nandroid backup + FR + restore
I except this to save my Angry Brids achievements that are in not on the int sd card but only in the app data.
Does this make sense?

jasahu said:
My market on web looks good so that should not be a problem.
I was just told that I could have CWM by flashing a kernel that contains it.
If that is true I can do what you said earlier: do a nandroid backup + FR + restore
I except this to save my Angry Brids achievements that are in not on the int sd card but only in the app data.
Does this make sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replying to myself: It made sense.
I flashed a SpeedMod kernel to have CWM
- tried booting, but no success (as expected)
and then from CWM
- I mounted USB storage to back up SD card
- did Nandroid backup as well to make backup of the rest
Then Factory Reset -> phone could boot again
tried to only 'Restore data' from nandroid backup -> failed to boot
ok, FR again and get back the most from my 1 month old titanium backup
My is guess that some program with root rights corrupted something which made me unable to boot
What I learned -> backup frequently !
Now what remained is to get back my Angry Birds progress from nandroid backup
Thanks for help!

[Q] EXTERNAL SD card failure! Phone dead?

Well it finally died. I got the infamous SD card failure message. For the past few days It was getting slower and slower and I was getting odd Force Closes everywhere. Then the red exclamation mark and a message about the SD card.
The very weird thing is that the failure was about the EXTERNAL SD card. Cannot find mount point... cannot read... Not the ususal INTERNAL SD card message.
Sure enough, if I try to read the Transcend 16Gb MicroSD on my pc or laptop, it appears completely fried. (Cr*p, that's were my backup was!).
But the phone wont boot on wihout the external card! Why? All I can get to is the Download mode. No boot and no recovery.
I'm in Montreal so it appears easy to get it fixed... but should I try flashing it first?

davidke said:
Well it finally died. I got the infamous SD card failure message. For the past few days It was getting slower and slower and I was getting odd Force Closes everywhere. Then the red exclamation mark and a message about the SD card.
The very weird thing is that the failure was about the EXTERNAL SD card. Cannot find mount point... cannot read... Not the ususal INTERNAL SD card message.
Sure enough, if I try to read the Transcend 16Gb MicroSD on my pc or laptop, it appears completely fried. (Cr*p, that's were my backup was!).
But the phone wont boot on wihout the external card! Why? All I can get to is the Download mode. No boot and no recovery.
I'm in Montreal so it appears easy to get it fixed... but should I try flashing it first?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sound you have some data corruption (or suffering the Bell BUG http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=883820)
First try to retreive the data from your external Sdcard with your PC, using the tool "testdisk 6.11". Maybe you'll be lucky enough to retreive all your data with it (repairing your FAT).
If the repair is a succes, then backup the data on your PC and do a low format of the ext sdcard to start clean.
When it's done, try to clean everything on your phone (if you can boot it in recovery), clean the Dalvik, clean the cache, do a factory reset, disable all extra tweaks (if you use a custome kernel already: lagfix etc).
If all process is ok, now you ready to flash a stock and clean rom with the usual tools (no external or sim card in it during the flash and first boot).
Report back when it's done.
GL.

TestDisk is now hard at work. Thanks for that. There's hope for the data!
Phone wont go into recovery. I had 3BR but it's not working now.
Download mode is all I have. I could theoretically try reflashing with ODIN. Repartitioning might not be a bad option considering the state the phone is in. Should I try?

davidke said:
TestDisk is now hard at work. Thanks for that. There's hope for the data!
Phone wont go into recovery. I had 3BR but it's not working now.
Download mode is all I have. I could theoretically try reflashing with ODIN. Repartitioning might not be a bad option considering the state the phone is in. Should I try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you can try that, but be sure to flash a stock rom first (go for a 2.1).
GL .

All data recovered thanks to TestDisk!!!
As for the phone...
It flashes with Odin no problem. (used JH2, which is what I had on there anyway)
But still wont boot. The problem appears to be in the boot partition.
Should I try "Phone Bootloader Update"? (I'm a bit afraid of that because I might lose my 3BR fix)
What does "Phone EFS Clear" do?
Additional symtom: Cant recharge it either (no problem I have external charger so I can always have a full batt for this process). It starts to display the battery charge graphic and then just boot cycles.

davidke said:
All data recovered thanks to TestDisk!!!
As for the phone...
It flashes with Odin no problem. (used JH2, which is what I had on there anyway)
But still wont boot. The problem appears to be in the boot partition.
Should I try "Phone Bootloader Update"? (I'm a bit afraid of that because I might lose my 3BR fix)
What does "Phone EFS Clear" do?
Additional symtom: Cant recharge it either (no problem I have external charger so I can always have a full batt for this process). It starts to display the battery charge graphic and then just boot cycles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good news for your data!
No doubt if you do a bootloader update with a stock one, you'll lose the 3BCombo (or maybe flash a stock bootloader with the 3BC enabled, not sure if it exist btw??). Try to reflash the 3BC fix only first and see how it work.
Anything that involve EFS is a: DO NOT TOUCH IT =), hope you did a backup of it btw (your EMEI is stored in that folder: No EMEI = No network).
Waiting your feedback.

ttf said:
No doubt if you do a bootloader update with a stock one, you'll lose the 3BCombo (or maybe flash a stock bootloader with the 3BC enabled, not sure if it exist btw??). Try to reflash the 3BC fix only first and see how it work.
Waiting your feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried a couple of things...
A) Updated bootloader with 3BR fix only: No change, Galaxy-S logo then Off.
B) Flashed JL2 (bootloader not checked): Slight change, now it boot cycles.
C) Flashed JL2 + bootloader: Slight change, now it just hangs and the Galaxy-S logo (waited 60 minutes, phone was getting pretty hot so I stopped it).
At all steps I can get back to Download mode but not recovery.
At this point I assume it's hopeless?

davidke said:
Tried a couple of things...
A) Updated bootloader with 3BR fix only: No change, Galaxy-S logo then Off.
B) Flashed JL2 (bootloader not checked): Slight change, now it boot cycles.
C) Flashed JL2 + bootloader: Slight change, now it just hangs and the Galaxy-S logo (waited 60 minutes, phone was getting pretty hot so I stopped it).
At all steps I can get back to Download mode but not recovery.
At this point I assume it's hopeless?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure but really sound like a defect internal SD/or more.
Last hope?: repartition + pit 512 + bootloader and Stock 2.1

That killed it for good. Now it's a paperweight!
No nothing. It's like the on#off button was unplugged!
Oh well. It's really nice to have gotten back the data.

davidke said:
That killed it for good. Now it's a paperweight!
No nothing. It's like the on#off button was unplugged!
Oh well. It's really nice to have gotten back the data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that's a bad news, maybe pulling out the battery during one or two hours will help to revive it.
Otherwise if it's really the internal sd issue you might check that thread about internal SD bug (if not done yet) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=902724 and RMA it.
Don't worry they'll change it with a brand new one. Ring samsung directly if you can.

No worries. I am five minutes away from the service center. Mobo replaced for tomorrow morning they said.
Had I come in before 3PM they left we with the impression they would have changed it while I wait!
Having followed all these threads, I was well aware of the issue long before it actually happened to me. The only thing that surprised me was that it broke the fat table on my external SD.
I was holding back because of the instabilities; with a better unit in hand I'll pop in a fancy rom.

External SD card causes reboot loop
I think I have a similar problem as yours. Just yesterday when I did a restart on my SGS, it suddenly went haywire. The boot loop was continuing for almost 30 mins until it suddenly became stable and reboot as normal.
However, something didn't work out right. I can't view all my pics and videos from gallery, and even my mp3s are not detected inside the music player.
But the very same files are still readable from My Files when I manually dig into these folders.
Same thing happened again just now when I was on my way to work in the subway. I finally had the sense to remove my external sd card and voila, my phone reboots smoothly without a hiccup.
So the question here is, is it that my external sd card is failing or is it that the phone's external sd card reader is failing.
Could anyone with the similar problem share with me their findings?

[Q] almost everything force close

Hi i have a bell galaxy s i just flash ugkc1 firmware but when the phone boots i get force close message for almost every app.
i think the internal sd might be corrupted tried to format it but all files are still there
any idea ??
thank you

your SD card usually nothing to do with application force close, those files which you see after formatting on SD card should be there so do not worry about them.
if you want to find the reason explain about your previous rom and kernel. did you do a factory reset or wipe before and after rom installation?

Here is two simalar topics. I also have that problem and cannot solve it yet.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1076101
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1069867
When i looked in internet i found sth similar for HTC, but devs corrected it. They parted some files from working devices and pushed it to system with adb.
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/6433-solved-messed-up-partitions-on-internal-storage/
Maybe sth like that will also solve our problem but we need help.
If you find any sollution please infrom us. Maybe it will be useful for us too.
Regards

thanks for your replies
all this strated when i updated to 2.3 with kies using spooffw upgrade went fine but phone didn't boot it was stuck on the first boot screen,
so i flashed back to 2.2 and here i am ..

Did you try booting twice or did you jump the gun flashing back? My phone appeared to be stuck during the first boot screen on the first time starting 2.3.3.

garbz said:
Did you try booting twice or did you jump the gun flashing back? My phone appeared to be stuck during the first boot screen on the first time starting 2.3.3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i tried booting twice it ddn't work recovry mode didn't work either
now im back on froyo i still can use the phone but only as a phone all apps fail to start and i get force close message

flashed my phote to 2.3 (jvk) ans i installed speed mod... still the same
im pretty sure its an internal sd failure. is there any way to fix this ? i bought my phone some guy on kijiji so i don't think i have any warranty..
thank you

biscuit26 said:
flashed my phote to 2.3 (jvk) ans i installed speed mod... still the same
im pretty sure its an internal sd failure. is there any way to fix this ? i bought my phone some guy on kijiji so i don't think i have any warranty..
thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt it is an SD problem. Go to recovery, clear cache and dalvik and fix permissions. If the problem persists to a factory reset and reinstall your apps from the market.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

thanks again for tryin to help i already tried this but didnt work
Edit :
flashed back to stock 2.2.. now i get ''blank internal sd'' on the notification bar. phone doesn't seem to detect internal sd card is this a hardware or software problem ?
thanks

now i flashed sppedmode kernel phone seems to be running a little better ( less force closes messages) but i still can't delete files or format my sd card
any idea ?

I tried to flash darky 9.2 (odin version). Then i reach with ADB to the internal when it is in CWM. I pushed there some custom roms and flashed with CWM. But it did not help either.

isn't there any way to fix a corrupted sd card ?

[Q] i9000 galaxy s stuck on start up loop, factory reset, wipe cache, still loops

i've tried everything on the net, it still keeps continuously looping. It would initially go the home screen and start doing the memory scan and i'd have access to the screen and then all of a sudden restart.
then i did a factory reset by going into the recovery mode, now it loads up and asks me to fill in my details like a new phone, when it reboots again.
what else is left to try, i cant even access my data on the internal sd card as the stupid thing wont stay on long enough to copy my data over through usb. As it keeps booting within 10seconds of loading the home screen.
i can access recovery mode and download mode.
please help
P.S. is this problem with just the galaxy s or all android phones, as it frankly is ******** me off to the point i'm thinking of going back to my candy bar Nokia phones, instead of dealing with this pile of **** every few months.
P.P.S. i am on android gingerbread with voodoo kernal, both of which have been fine for the last few months.

articoceanic said:
i've tried everything on the net, it still keeps continuously looping. It would initially go the home screen and start doing the memory scan and i'd have access to the screen and then all of a sudden restart.
then i did a factory reset by going into the recovery mode, now it loads up and asks me to fill in my details like a new phone, when it reboots again.
what else is left to try, i cant even access my data on the internal sd card as the stupid thing wont stay on long enough to copy my data over through usb. As it keeps booting within 10seconds of loading the home screen.
i can access recovery mode and download mode.
please help
P.S. is this problem with just the galaxy s or all android phones, as it frankly is ******** me off to the point i'm thinking of going back to my candy bar Nokia phones, instead of dealing with this pile of **** every few months.
P.P.S. i am on android gingerbread with voodoo kernal, both of which have been fine for the last few months.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what rom r u on
---------- Post added at 03:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:26 AM ----------
TIGER 123 said:
what rom r u on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this might help you go to darkyrom forum,flash 10,2 re,
this saved me a couple of times,you have to do it through odin theres a guide on the forum or checkout puggeruk on youtube"ref unbrick my sgs" hope it helps

articoceanic said:
i've tried everything on the net, it still keeps continuously looping. It would initially go the home screen and start doing the memory scan and i'd have access to the screen and then all of a sudden restart.
then i did a factory reset by going into the recovery mode, now it loads up and asks me to fill in my details like a new phone, when it reboots again.
what else is left to try, i cant even access my data on the internal sd card as the stupid thing wont stay on long enough to copy my data over through usb. As it keeps booting within 10seconds of loading the home screen.
i can access recovery mode and download mode.
please help
P.S. is this problem with just the galaxy s or all android phones, as it frankly is ******** me off to the point i'm thinking of going back to my candy bar Nokia phones, instead of dealing with this pile of **** every few months.
P.P.S. i am on android gingerbread with voodoo kernal, both of which have been fine for the last few months.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have important data on your internal card:
goto recovery mode, then mounts and storage,
connect your usb cable, choose mount usb storage in the recovery (dont choose the unmount usbcard!!).
Now you can access your internal storage.
Also you can try to flash the semaphore kernel from the development section.
After that do a wipe data/factory reset from the recovery.

articoceanic said:
what else is left to try, i cant even access my data on the internal sd card as the stupid thing wont stay on long enough to copy my data over through usb. As it keeps booting within 10seconds of loading the home screen.
i can access recovery mode and download mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to recovery>mount option> mount usb option and get your data ..
As fas as rom is concerned try to flash a stock de-odexed rom using odin . Might help

having tried flashing 2.1 (eclair) rom? with pit files
hope this works
cheers

Have you tried recovery/backup and restore and made a backup? Then I would remove external sd and simcard, back to recovery/storage and format the sd card. (this will wipe the internal card AND the external if it is in!!) Then remove battery, boot to download and flash a stock rom using odin, boot the phone, remove batt flash a kernel then flash your custom rom.

thanks guys, didn't know about the mount usb storage thing in recovery mode, at least my stuff is safe.
Did 4-5 factory resets and every time it would stay on for longer before falling into the boot loop. as of last dozen hours or so it is working fine. (hope its not a hardware failure, but merely software, phones nearly out of warranty)
But if it keeps happening again, will take your advice, mount my phone, copy my stuff over and install another ROM.
happy and relieved chap for the moment.

well the boot loop is back, but some more info, this time it seems that whenever i try to turn on wifi or use wifi the boot loop starts. So long as wifi is disabled its fine.
From what i've read it seems to be specific to the three network rom.
anyone know of a stable rom, preferably the most stablest rom without any problems out there, that they can recommend?
or even better, if better the stock default unbranded goodle rom for this phone without any network changes, that wont give me any problems?
all i wanted was a simple fast phone without any problems, might be forced to go to the dark side and buy an apple if this continues.

imei and baseband restored

maybe it could help someone here
before it happens i was on pure vanila v5 by ikaster
but i installed this rom about a month ago so i wonder
why it happenned.
ive done nothing on phone exept playing some mild games
but somehow it suddenly lost its baseband and imei.
i have read in some forum that i need to restore efs folder
so that my baseband and imei would return
i dont have any backup
i tried rebooting - this one did nothing
i tried rebooting without sd and sim then insert sim again
and still same problem
and then i tried the twrp.
first i backup everything for the first time (very stupid of me)
then i wipe from advance and select all except extsdcard
once again except extsdcard
then i rebooted but nothing happens just stuck on logo
because again how stupid am i, it doesnt have any os
i then go back to twrp and wipe everything except extsdcard and
then install back pure vanila by ikaster and to my surprise
it booted normally and this time with network signal
and of course baseband and my imei is back