Soft-Bricked Moto G (2014) won't move beyond Fastboot - G 2014 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey guys!
So I've got an issue I'm struggling with on the Moto G (2014). First I'll tell you as much as I can about the phone: I bought it from the Motorola website, so I think it's running whatever the stock firmware is. Also, it's the 8 GB US model and isn't tied to any carrier. (I have it on T-Mobile, but got it directly from Motorola. I was trying to figure out what the firmware is but the closest I've been able to get is by running the Motorola Device Manager app while the phone is in fastboot mode. It says there are no available updates for: 21.11.17.titan_retuaws.retuaws.en.us The bootloader is locked and the phone is not rooted. It's pure stock, though it might have automatically gotten an OTA update to the latest official release, I can't be sure because I bought it for someone else.
Okay, so the problem. I'd bought the phone for my dad and set it up and it worked fine for about two months. Yesterday, he came by my place and asked if I could take a look at it because it was stuck on one screen and since there was no removable battery, he didn't know how to reset it. The screen it was stuck on is the boot screen where the Motorola logo is supposed to come up. It was up, but the bottom half of the logo was stretched to the side and pixelated so my first reaction was "crap, he hit it against something and there's damage to the screen." But there was no visible damage to the screen anywhere (neither from a hard hit or from pressure) and he's got the flip case for it and he said it hadn't been hit or anything.
I tried to power it down by holding down the power button, but as soon as it went off, it tried to start up again. A bootloop that always froze on that messed up Motorola boot screen. I set it on the charger for a bit and let it run through the loop a few times and at one point it got as far as the "world" screen where it shows a cartoon planet. This extended down past where the weird stretch happened on the motorola graphic and it was perfectly clear so I realized there was no damage to the screen, just some sort of boot error.
So then I tried booting into fastboot (hold both volume buttons down along with the power button for a few seconds, release) and I was able to get into fastboot. I tried scrolling down to recovery and then hitting the volume up key to select it but the second I hit the volume up key (the selection key in this mode) it reboots the phone. It doesn't go into the recovery screen, just turns off the phone. I tried this for the "Factory" (reset) option, for the "Normal Powerup" option, and the others. Instead of getting anything different, selecting any of them turns the phone off and nothing happens. The computer is recognizing that there's a device connected to it when I have the phone plugged in via usb in fastboot to my Windows 8 laptop. It also appears that I can enter commands in fastboot. (Though I'm not sure what to put in to fix this so I'm turning to you guys.)
So I can't figure out what's wrong. I've got some experience in flashing roms, both manually and with some of the tools, but haven't had to deal with what I'm assuming is a soft brick before.
Can anyone offer any help?
Thanks very much.

Watch this video and try again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf2sOPoE2b4

Roldorf said:
Watch this video and try again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf2sOPoE2b4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately that didn't work. I was able to click the "restore to factory" part and it seemed to do that but I tried it again with the "wipe cache partition" and it just reset. I tried to restart normally and nothing happened. I will start boot and go to the Motorola logo but will always fail there, no matter what I try.

I'm still stuck with the soft-bricked phone. Any help going from Fastboot to somehow getting it to work?
(As I stated in the OP, the recovery options don't work. It seems only the Fastboot area is working.)

try to reflash the rom via fastboot, using the commands on 4.2 on this thread
if you have fastboot working they must work and re-flash the stock rom and everything back to stock...
to have the XML zip of yours rom search in here and download the file regards yours model and OS version that you wanna...
download, very slow download, unzip, to the some folder of mfastboot and give the commands a try... :good:

This is how to solve *ANY* softbrick on the Moto G 2014 (2nd Gen Moto G)
Try unlocking your bootloader with the given instructions on Motorola's website. You can flash a recovery like TWRP or CWM using mfastboot-v2. After flashing the recovery you can reinstall a custom ROM or stock ROM to fix the soft brick. ADB is only available if you enabled USB debugging although it will allow few commands. Using mfastboot-v2 after unlocking the bootloader will play the main factor in resolving the soft brick.:laugh::good:

eyhajee said:
Try unlocking your bootloader with the given instructions on Motorola's website. You can flash a recovery like TWRP or CWM using mfastboot-v2. After flashing the recovery you can reinstall a custom ROM or stock ROM to fix the soft brick. ADB is only available if you enabled USB debugging although it will allow few commands. Using mfastboot-v2 after unlocking the bootloader will play the main factor in resolving the soft brick.:laugh::good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hello eyhajee.
My Moto G 2014 xt1068, running on Android 5.0.2 has some softbrick issue.
I have unlocked its bootloader, rooted it, unrooted it and while I was trying to lock its bootoader, I forgot to enable USB debugging and now it's stuck on fastboot mode.
So I wanna ask that can flashing a custom ROM turn my phone on??

I think so. If you are able to run some basic commands you should be able to flash it to emergency mode.

Related

[Q] Urgent: Nexus failing to boot

Hi all,
I have had my N1 for 1year and two weeks now (yes, warranty just expired). I was charging the device and it seemed to overheat and reboot. I unplugged it, took the battery out, let it rest for a bit and tried to boot it again. The phone now gets stuck on the X logo (not moving) and never boots.
I'm currently abroad (in the UK) and can't have it sent back for repair (I'd have to pay the repair too).
Will rooting the phone and installing an alternate OS fix my phone?
Is there any way to get HTC to honor the warranty after two weeks of expiration (I've been getting this problem for a while now, but that was only an issue if I made extensive use of the device while charging, which I almost never do so I didn't bother.)
Is there any way to fix this issue without messing with rooting? I'm abroad right now and all I want is my phone to work.
Any suggestions are welcome.
Try booting into bootloader from power off (vol- pwr) if that doesn't work then try the 3 figure salute (pwr vol- tb) your phone should boot into fastboot then just select bootloader.
If either of these work the your good you can get the static x fixed all you need to do is passimg (search wiki if you don't know what it is) as for the charging problem passimg will factory reset the phone so if that doesn't fix it then no you'll need to try rooting or it might be hardware.
Yes, I'm able to go into the bootloader.
I tried clearing the storage, choosing fastboot, etc. The phone seems to be working, just won't boot past the static X.
From your last reply, you're saying passimg has good chances to fix my phone. What does that involve? Do you have a link to a how-to that I could follow (it would really be a bad time for me to brick my phone, a good how-to would be really appreciated).
Cheers!
Yes passimg is used for many things it just reflashes a shipment ROM to the phone through bootloader. Like I said you can visit the wiki to have a how to here is a link http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Nexus_One/Guides_%26_Tutorials scroll down to "Unroot / Restore your Nexus" then follow the instructions. This should restore you to frg33 then you just need to update back to 2.3.4.
NOTE: this will wipe your data.
Ahh there's a way to unroot the nexus one now!
I had no idea! This is good to know (last time I checked was in December I think).
I will give that passimg a try as soon as I get home.
Can anyone confirm that this ("Attention: Latest stock ROMs don't flash using PASSIMG.ZIP method. Use the provided latest Froyo PASSIMG, and upgrade it after flashing.") means I can still reflash using this if I have the latest ROM (2.3.4) but will simply have to update again after (which I might not do given the issues I'm facing).
Cheers!
Confirmed - Dude is giving you good info... xD
Just to verify, unrooting is not the same as relocking. If you unlocked your bootloader (have a little lock symbol under the X screen), there is no way to relock it.
But the passimg is a good option. It will take you back to an older version of Android, and then you just let the system update itself.
Since you are out of your warranty, I can highly suggest looking into custom firmwares. These give you a lot more features and in many cases, perform better. CyanogenMod is probably the most popular one. These will fully replace your Android OS. CyanogenMod really doesn't even differ in look from stock all that much. Most people probably wouldn't even have a clue they are running something different, except for the stability and performance increases.
You can read up about this stuff in the wiki as well.
Oh, I see, thanks for the info.
I'm actually trying to get the FRG83 passimg file but the link is dead. Does anyone have an alternate one?
Use the FRG33 image
Alright,
I unlocked the device, used fastboot to write the recovery "Amon_Ra's Recovery".
Then I rebooted, went to the bootloader (trackball + power), went to "recovery" but the phone still gets stucked on the X (with the unlocked padlock logo).
Any advices?
Try the passimg, but it's possible that you are looking at hardware failure...
ldiamond2 said:
Alright,
I unlocked the device, used fastboot to write the recovery "Amon_Ra's Recovery".
Then I rebooted, went to the bootloader (trackball + power), went to "recovery" but the phone still gets stucked on the X (with the unlocked padlock logo).
Any advices?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are still running stock Android, you can't reboot between installing the recovery and getting into it. Stock Android will replace it. Try to go back to the bootloader and select recovery then, or fastboot to load the recovery, and then use fastboot to boot off of it.
Code:
fastboot flash recovery "c:\location to\recovery.img"
fastboot boot recovery "c:\location to\recovery.img"
Hopefully this will get you into Amon_RA so you can try again.
But the passimg method is used in the bootloader, not in recovery. You don't need a custom recovery to use the passimg method.
Amazing, thanks for pointing out my mistake, that give me a little bit of hope now . (I was at the point where I'd open the thing and look for a broken solder joint.)
I will try this as soon as I get home!
**Edit** I actually am not sure if I really rebooted or went straight to recovery. I'll update this thread tonight.
According to some other people, this would be a common issue with the internal memory dieing.
Is there a utility I can use to check the state of the memory?
None that I know of. Our phone internal memory uses the yaffs2 (Yet Another Flash File System v2) file system. I haven't heard of any programs that can check it.
Same situation
Hello, all. I haven't signed in on here in ages just because I've been so happy with how my Nexus has been running.
I ran into the same problem as OP stated.
I think I have some sort of hardware issue because my phone used to randomly freeze and couldn't be restarted unless I pulled the battery. Now it's at the point where I can't even turn it on because nothing happens when I press the power button or if I try to boot into recovery. This is really frustrating.
Is there any way to check for hardware damage? My warranty is over as well so I'd have to pay for any repairs to my phone if I sent it in.
If it's running, you can try to pull a log, and see what error reports you get?
andythefan said:
Now it's at the point where I can't even turn it on because nothing happens when I press the power button or if I try to boot into recovery. This is really frustrating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your power button might just be dead. Try having the phone plugged into a power source and removing and reinserting the battery. While you are doing that, hold the Volume Down button. This will get you into the bootloader which would allow a passimg to be performed. Hopefully your reboots aren't a hardware problem.
So , after pulling my battery, pulling the sim and the sd card, it finally turned on and went to recovery without freezing. I was able to wipe and reflash cyan 7. It's working well for now, but I'm really afraid this is going to happen again because this isn't the first time that it's just froze repeatedly.
Does anyone know what the problem could be?
Alright,
I did "fastboot flash recovery MYIMG" then "fastboot boot MYIMG", didn't work.
Then I tried "fastboot flash recovery MYIMG" then go to bootloader (without rebooting) and selected recovery.
Still no luck.
It always freezes on the static X logo. What else can I do? Will using passimg be any different (I don't have any way to put the file on the micro SD card but I can manage to do it if it's worth the shot).
Thanks

Corrupted Bootloader....!!!

Just today i flashed CyanogenMod Lollipop 12.1 on the phone. Everything ran smoothly and stuff. I didn't like the boot animation very much so though id flash the default Android L boot animation. Here was my error.
In a hurry i followed the instructions from here not realising this is for the Moto G...!!!
I have philz recovery installed but after flashing the zip i rebooted the phone and it just displays some artifacts during bootup and then the screen goes blank ...!!!! it boots up normal and connecting the phone to the PC shows up the device and sd card. I know the phones working fine coz it unlocks and places calls (randoms touches here and there did that)
Also a major blunder was i FORGOT TO ENABLE USB DEBUGGING...!!!
So now im locked out with no display and no way of enabling USB Debugging.... ANY tips or ideas... I know i have to reinstall recovery.
is there any way of enabling adb without the display...??? PLEASE HELP....!!!!
Why can't you just rsdlite to stock, root, install recovery and start your way from there again.
rsdlite flashing is handled be the bootloader, and if it is actually corrupted then it would be pretty hard to flash back to stock. My suggestion is to see if you can access the boot menu by holding down both volume buttons along with the power button. From there, select AP Fastboot and connect it to your computer.

Moto X (2013) XT 1058 soft brick (?) [HELP]

Hi guys.
I have a moto X 1058 which I bought to someone about 3 months ago, it's an used phone so I can't rely on warranty.
I received the phone with Android 5.0, no root, bootloader locked, perfect conditions.
I installed Android 5.1 through an OTA update. Soon after the update, the phone began to boot suddenly every now and then with no apparent reason. Because of this I decided to downgrade to Kitkat 4.4.4 (The rom I downloaded is called: RETAIL-BR_4.4.4_KXA21.12-L1.26_52_cid12_CFC_1FF) (I am from Colombia and the firmware of the phone is from Brazil). I used RSD lite, unlocked the bootloader, USB debug, etc. However the installing took way too long so I booted the phone while it was still installing (If i didn't do this, the installing would have probably taken 8 hours or so, because the system.img file was too big to download to the phone which is why i guess it took RSD so long). Anyways, I don't know why this happened, I just decided to boot it and see what happened. It went in a boot loop. I no longer have access to the bootloader screen. After two boots I can press POWER+VOLUME UP to get access to the screen "Android system recovery". Where the only options are:
reboot system now (takes me to the boot loop again)
apply update from sdcard (does nothing really)
aply update from ADB (My pc won't recognize my device anymore, RSD litle doesn't recognize my device either, I tried with mfastboot manually but it says "waiting for device" and does nothing)
wipe data/factory reset (tried this option as well, but nothing)
wipe cache partition (nope).
What can I do? I think this means my phone is soft bricked. How can I fix this? How can I get the bootloader screen back? I can't even turn off my phone, it's stuck in this bootloop. The only thing i can do is to stay in the system recovery screen, but i don't know what to do next. I don't handle Android systems at all, everything I did was based on youtube tutorials, so I'm a little slow to understand the basic concepts. Can someone explain me?
Thank you very much.
You don't downgrade Motorola phones!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Is your device fixed now?
mlspot said:
Hi guys.
I have a moto X 1058 which I bought to someone about 3 months ago, it's an used phone so I can't rely on warranty.
I received the phone with Android 5.0, no root, bootloader locked, perfect conditions.
I installed Android 5.1 through an OTA update. Soon after the update, the phone began to boot suddenly every now and then with no apparent reason. Because of this I decided to downgrade to Kitkat 4.4.4 (The rom I downloaded is called: RETAIL-BR_4.4.4_KXA21.12-L1.26_52_cid12_CFC_1FF) (I am from Colombia and the firmware of the phone is from Brazil). I used RSD lite, unlocked the bootloader, USB debug, etc. However the installing took way too long so I booted the phone while it was still installing (If i didn't do this, the installing would have probably taken 8 hours or so, because the system.img file was too big to download to the phone which is why i guess it took RSD so long). Anyways, I don't know why this happened, I just decided to boot it and see what happened. It went in a boot loop. I no longer have access to the bootloader screen. After two boots I can press POWER+VOLUME UP to get access to the screen "Android system recovery". Where the only options are:
reboot system now (takes me to the boot loop again)
apply update from sdcard (does nothing really)
aply update from ADB (My pc won't recognize my device anymore, RSD litle doesn't recognize my device either, I tried with mfastboot manually but it says "waiting for device" and does nothing)
wipe data/factory reset (tried this option as well, but nothing)
wipe cache partition (nope).
What can I do? I think this means my phone is soft bricked. How can I fix this? How can I get the bootloader screen back? I can't even turn off my phone, it's stuck in this bootloop. The only thing i can do is to stay in the system recovery screen, but i don't know what to do next. I don't handle Android systems at all, everything I did was based on youtube tutorials, so I'm a little slow to understand the basic concepts. Can someone explain me?
Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Moto X (2013) Stuck in FastBoot

First of all, I've looked around for answers, and I seem to find the same solution everywhere, which is OK. It just doesn't work for me.
Here's the drill. My Moto X was sitting in a drawer for a year or two. I took it out a while ago to update it and see how 5.1 worked on it. I put it back in the drawer as an emergency phone. Last weekend I took it out, to find that it's stuck in Fastboot. the up volume key scrolls, and down volume key does nothing (originally down scrolls, up chooses) and the power button reboots.
Long story short, I was able to get my computer to recognize my phone (tried for hours until I realized it was the cable, use the right cable and voila!) I unlocked the bootloader via Motorola, and after hours of trying was able to flash everything I thought was necessary (boot, recovery, motoboot, system, and so on). However, in every thread and video, the "fastboot reboot" command makes the phone reboot into the actual OS, whereas mine just keeps rebooting into fastboot, regardless of what I flash.
I don't notice anything off, so hence why I recur to everyone in here to give me some advice on what I could be doing wrong. I've downloaded stock roms so far. I get a partition error with .zip files so always have to flash the images individually.
Please let me know if I'm missing any details, and/or what other information I should provide.
Thank you!!
SantiagoEB24 said:
First of all, I've looked around for answers, and I seem to find the same solution everywhere, which is OK. It just doesn't work for me.
Here's the drill. My Moto X was sitting in a drawer for a year or two. I took it out a while ago to update it and see how 5.1 worked on it. I put it back in the drawer as an emergency phone. Last weekend I took it out, to find that it's stuck in Fastboot. the up volume key scrolls, and down volume key does nothing (originally down scrolls, up chooses) and the power button reboots.
Long story short, I was able to get my computer to recognize my phone (tried for hours until I realized it was the cable, use the right cable and voila!) I unlocked the bootloader via Motorola, and after hours of trying was able to flash everything I thought was necessary (boot, recovery, motoboot, system, and so on). However, in every thread and video, the "fastboot reboot" command makes the phone reboot into the actual OS, whereas mine just keeps rebooting into fastboot, regardless of what I flash.
I don't notice anything off, so hence why I recur to everyone in here to give me some advice on what I could be doing wrong. I've downloaded stock roms so far. I get a partition error with .zip files so always have to flash the images individually.
Please let me know if I'm missing any details, and/or what other information I should provide.
Thank you!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash system.img and boot.img then flash twrp.img and boot into twrp and flash your stock ROM for your device

Please help me to unbrick my G5S Plus

Hi guys,
I got a G5S+, which got stuck the other day.
It was booting, showing the blue Motorola screen but ended up with a lying down android with a red questionmark and saying 'no command'.
I read through a couple of threads and finally decided, I need to flash stock again.
I did not have switched on USB debugging and so on, as the phone was quite new to me.
I decided to run with that tutorial here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/g5-plus/how-to/solution-to-flash-stock-romfactory-t3691396
Which seemed to be the right one.
Said so, booted into bootloader, installed the driver on my Win10 PC and ran through the steps.
I gut stuck on 'fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.3' (15mins waiting..... after the steps before required about 12 Sec each) and needed to disconnect and connect the phone again.
Started with the same command and it worked.
Anyway when I got to the command 'fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.5' I realized in the Potter Retail, there is no such file (neither there is 6 or 7).
I skipped the commands and continued.
When it came to rebooting the phone disconnected and thats it.
Since then I am not able to turn my phone back on.
Sometimes there seems to be a small notofication led showing up when trying to turn on the phone.
And you can hear the USB connect sound when I connect it to my computer.
Did anyone of you guys experience the same issue or has an idea what to do?
I have no idea what I shall so.
Best regards,
Matt
Which stock ROM did you flash? I'm hoping that following that guide, you flashed a stock ROM for sanders (i.e. the codename for Moto G5S Plus) and not for potter (codename for G5 Plus), which appear to be not compatible with each other.
Your original issue appears to be your device is booting into the stock recovery (which the start of is the 'no recovery' screen).
Do you know what model number or retail software channel, or the software build you had on your device before it failed? If so, we may be able to flash the correct sanders stock ROM to your device and get it going again. Another user appears to have gotten their device working when they incorrectly flashed the potter stock ROM and not sanders. https://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-g5s-plus/help/bricked-moto-g5s-plus-t3747064 Ideally you will want to flash the correct stock ROM for your device.
Oha damn you are right.
I am an idiot and tried to flash Potter to a G5S Plus.
Oh boy. I should not flash a cellphone after a long day at work.
I had the latest safety update installed and the latest release.
I am not sure though which software that used to be.
Unbelievable.....
Anyway, so my screen does not show anything anymore.
I guess the display driver dows not work or something like that.
The cellphone is still working I think, as the USB sound still appears.
Does anyone have an idea what to do if the screen stays black.
I still cannot believe it.....
Thanks though for your help!
EDIT: fastboot still reckognizes the phone. I guess this is good.
But the command 'fastboot oem fb_mode_set' runs into an error.
Edit2:
I skipped the first command and everything ran through (with some error messages though).
I hope it works now.
Device is currently rebooting and showing the blue motorola screen.
Lucky me.....
Okay, at least your device is booting now (ish)... I saw your other post and was wondering if you were able to boot from the bootloader.
1)Boot to fastboot (probably easiest by powering off your device, then hold down power and volume down keys until your device boots).
2)Once in the fastboot menu (with details about your device, like bootloader version), check that 'Start' is selected, and press the Power button to select. If 'Start' is not showing, use the volume keys to scroll through the options until 'Start' appears. Sometimes, this booting via fastboot bypasses an auto-boot to recovery mode.
Failing that, if you're on the 'no command' screen, then hold down the power button and tap the volume up key. Release both and it should let you into the recovery menu. Then, you can try to reboot to system.
Hi there,
I ran through all the steps you said.
But I ended up having the same issue. I always get back to the broken droid.
Is there a way to flash a completely new ROM to the device in its current condition?
I don't mind having a customrom, but I want to get it working again.
Thanks!
Matt
I solved my problem:
It was the SD card. I cannot believe it.
I got myself another G5S Plus and swapped everything:
Same issue.
So I removed the memory card and all good again.
I am quite sad though not having figured that out earlier, becoz all my data is lost now....
Thanks for your help though!

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