Hi guys and gals.
I've been flashing roms for years and I've soft bricked my devices dozens of times and have always been able to recover, except this time.
I was running Cyanogen mod 12.1 and all the problems started happening after a nightly update. Basically, the phone got super laggy and eventually started random rebooting. I thought it was a bad flash or something was wrong with the latest update so I did a clean wipe and flashed another rom, same thing happened. Eventually I Odined back to stock and it ran fine for a few days but the problems came back. Now the phone won't even finish boot anymore. I used NAND erase all in odin and and reflashed again, it seems to be better since it wont reboot its self anymore but I can't get past the T-mobile splash screen. Last night I tried reformating the NAND using a PIT file but I kept getting "Secure check fail : PIT". I was starting to thing the problem is hardware related but it won't RR in download mode and I think its too big of a coincidence that it happened after the Cyanogen update. Any ideas?
My first and always main advice is that if you are unsure about your hardware the first step is to Odin back to stock. The reason is because it is a bit for bit rewrite back to the way the phone was intended to be run as long as you do a factory reset from Stock Android Recovery before it boots. This is how your phone was when it came out of the box and it is a great way to check if it has a hardware issue by looking for bad behavior when using the original drivers.
If you flash back to stock completely clean and your phone is still acting crazy you might have bad blocks on your NAND, you might have issues with your RAM/CPU, or it might just be a loose hardware connection from heat or impact. But you can only truly diagnose those from Touchwiz because the drivers are first-party, not reverse engineered to be compatible. If you can reinstall all your apps and use it normally for a week then your hardware is good and CM was the problem and you should try another AOSP build.
I am on the 09/09 Nightly for CM and I can tell you that I have no lag or issues on my device at the moment for what that is worth. Good luck!
Thanks. I might just send it into samsung and see what happens.
Related
Hello everybody.
I am having serious trouble with my phone and I was hoping some of you might be able to help me out.
I just bought my SGS 3 days ago. It came with android 2.1.1 eclair installed.
I had read that that version was not the best ( the first thing I saw when I opened the phone actually was an error screen, and the lag was horrible) so when I got home I decided to try and upgrade it using the official software for it (Kies).
Unfortunately Kies would simply disconnect my phone when I told it to upgrade, after which it would ask me to upgrade again >.>
So I decided to use Odin to flash one of the newer 2.2.1 versions.
I flashed a 'JS3' version with a repartition to 803 pit , but it crashed after rebooting with the dbdata error (which as I learned later was caused by not flashing a full firmware).
I flashed JPU after which worked great. It was fast and responsive.
However my phone kept crashing. Whether on standby, using apps, or just trying to dial a number, it would freeze, start vibrating, and sometime reset, other times just stay frozen until I force shut down it from the power button.
I flashed JS5 afterwards, with full cache clearing, factory reset etc. Still crashed.
Then I tried flashing Darky's 9.2 Ressurection. Loved it but I couldn't even set up my google account because it crashed constantly.
Then I went back to what I believe is the current official version for my location and carrier (Vodafone Romania), JP9 .
After flashing it didn't crash, but after a while (one night), it started crashing like crazy, even wound up with weird gray lines and a freeze in the morning.
I was hoping someone here might know what is wrong with it. I already sent it back to be serviced but I am thinking maybe I broke it somehow and would like to know how so I don't do it again.
The phone is network locked, which I later learned is usually a bad thing for flashing, unfortunately I didn't know about that when I started.
well first of you want to remove the network lock so try these:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=761045
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=913681
next step is to register on www.samfirmware.com (its free) and here is where you will get all the latest official firmwares from samsung..
what you want to do is download (XWJS5) with all 3 files and PIT and flash that through odin with RE-PARTITION..
Before you do that, put your phone into recovery mode (volume up + Home button + Power button ) and do a factory reset / wipe cache ect...
so when you have done that and flashed the new firmware. let me know what the outcome is..
another thing.. ALWAYS MAKE SURE KIES IS CLOSED.... EVEN IN THE ICON TRAY... AND MAKE SURE DRIVERS ARE UP TO DATE.
other than that you shouldn't have any problems
hi, thanks for the advice.
I already did most of that however. I did a factory reset numerous times, and I also did a full repartition flash more than once, to no avail.
I am waiting to get it back from warranty service now but I am wondering what went wrong.
Was it broken when I bought it or did I damage it somehow by trying to flash it while network locked ?
flashing with network lock wouldnt make everything force close. the worst thing that could happen when flashing with network lock is not picking up a signal and possible IMEI corruption.
i think you may have just flashed the wrong ROM, it happens to us all, but the more you do it the more experienced you become and you soon learn methods to restore things..
dont worry too much it will be fine when it comes back from samsung, just be sure to read up properly if you have any doubts.. or ask a question first you will get a reply quicker than you can Unbrick your phone..
My phone seems to hate the 803 pit file. Lots of force closes when I used it. Try using 512, see if that works any better.
Hello all,
please forgive me first of all because I've had very little sleep due to this issue. And its a long thread, but more detail is better generally I believe.
First, some background, and unfortunately, it starts with my wifes phone.
My wife has a Galaxy S GT-i9000 on Orange in the UK. She has had it, probably about a year maybe at most. She has a few apps that she has downloaded but nothing major and on first looks when I got it nothing I expect would cause this issue, just facebook etc.
My wife came home and said, my phone keeps coming up with a message saying force close. Ahh, I thought, some apps gone nuts, but alas, it appeared to be many apps including Maps, Google Upload (I assume this is a system process), Facebook Katana and many more, probably about 20 Force Close messages pop up one after the other and it lags whilst trying.
Odd, I thought, I also noticed the icon for one of the apps on her homescreen had changed to the default White and Green one with the android on it.
I suspected something had gone wrong (obviously), I asked if she had rebooted it and she said she had. So, I rebooted it again, just incase. Same problem.
I then thought it might need an update, it was running official Kies 2.3.3 (or was it 2.3.4, I forget) so I plugged it into my netbook and ran Kies, had to update that as it didn't have the latest application update. I then started the firmware update, after backing up the phone using Kies.
Halfway through the update, Kies popped up a message saying something went wrong and that I had to unplug the phone, take out the battery and reboot. Odd, I thought as the phone was telling me to not doing anything. I waited a minute, nothing further happened, so I did this. Then I got the Black Screen of Death with the phone, the dots and the computer screen.
Crap!!! I thought, I managed to get into Download mode, and reflash it using what I believe was an official ROM using Odin. I then rebooted, and found that it STILL had the data on it and it STILL was doing the force close. At least I had it back to "working" though so I was mildly happy.
I then did a factory reset using the menu system, erased the USB storage (there is no external SD card in her phone) and rebooted, still force closing but prompting me to setup again. Weird. I went through the setup slowly, as every second or so a force close would popup, then when I completed the setup (which still had the wifi settings, account settings etc in it) the System Setup crashed with Force Close. I then rebooted and got to the Home Screen, but still crashing.
I rebooted and used the recovery screen to clear the cache and factory reset, despite the warnings I will lose everything, nothing was wiped.
I tried to update using Kies again but it tells me that the firmware/device is not supported. I am now trying to see if I can use Odin to install a Kies supported firmware. So that I can then try an update using that again.
Anyone got any suggestions, at present, my thoughts are, I was going well within the realms of warranty up until I reflashed it using Odin to try and get back in as I'd only used Kies to update and the issue "just started happening" without my missus doing anything.
There are no signs of damage on the phone and she tells me it was just sat on her desk all day.
So, my question is, what now? I'm of the opinion based on the above that if I can't reflash a warranty supported Kies update, then maybe a custom ROM will be worth a shot to see if its a hardware failure or if its software. I just have never had an issue like this with my HTC Desire and I've ran many custom ROMs and standard ROMs on it.
I do have the .tmp file of the update Kies downloaded, and I also have a Binary folder which has some file inside a couple more folders but its not a .tar or a .zip because when I try renaming it (after a copy) it won't open.
So, suggestions on a postcard, thanks if you got this far through this nightmare. All help massively appreciated.
Edit: it appears to be the same issue as this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=822238
I'll try some of their suggestions. Today I also did the *2767*3855# today which I found after a bit more searching. Same problem after a reboot. Force close and data still there.
I've tried and tried again to do various solutions for this, I've even ran a logcat using adb to see if I can see the problem. I suspect its a Dalvik Cache issue in that its unable to write to it for some weird reason.
I've downgraded it to Froyo following this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1100906
It now detects in Kies and offers me a firmware upgrade. I suspect it will die again though if I try due to this Dalvik problem.
Wiping cache does not wipe the cache. Everything still appears to be there on reboot as mentioned above.
Here is a copy of the LogCat with Java errors all over it: http://leenukes.co.uk/downloads/logcat1.txt (its quite long)
I guess nobody knows. Today I will speak to Orange to try and get it fixed or replaced.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
We've been told it is beyond repair. We will see what they say when we go back into the shop. Its still in warranty so I don't see why they won't replace it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
I have a friend with a Galaxy S from Orange Romania and suddenly the phone kept showing Force Close on every App. He had 2.2.1 if I remember right. He whent with the phone to an Orange Shop and they only do a factory reset but data was not wiped.
So what i have done for him:
- start the phone in Download Mode
- start Odin with repartition check and XXJVT (2.3.5) firmware with 3 files (code, phone and CSC) + pit file .512
- after reflashing the phone does have all tha data, so i resarted in Recovery Mode and done a Factory Reset and a Cache Wipe
- i flashed Speedmonde Kernel k16.10 and do again from Recovery Mode a Factory Reset, Cache Wipe and Davlick Wipe.
On reboot the phone was CLEAN. No force closes for a week now.
Sorry for my English hope it helps!
ZiDanRO said:
I have a friend with a Galaxy S from Orange Romania and suddenly the phone kept showing Force Close on every App. He had 2.2.1 if I remember right. He whent with the phone to an Orange Shop and they only do a factory reset but data was not wiped.
So what i have done for him:
- start the phone in Download Mode
- start Odin with repartition check and XXJVT (2.3.5) firmware with 3 files (code, phone and CSC) + pit file .512
- after reflashing the phone does have all tha data, so i resarted in Recovery Mode and done a Factory Reset and a Cache Wipe
- i flashed Speedmonde Kernel k16.10 and do again from Recovery Mode a Factory Reset, Cache Wipe and Davlick Wipe.
On reboot the phone was CLEAN. No force closes for a week now.
Sorry for my English hope it helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sound advice there mate, other thing I would have done is in recovery mode before the ODIN flash I would have format sdcard, making sure you have removed BOTH the external sd and the sim card, as it can wipe them as well.Then flash through ODIN as per instructions above.
Using JVT I would flash either speedmod or semaphore 2.1.1 which I personally use.
Happy flashing!!
turns out it was water damage and some parts corroded.
Its going to be claimed for on insurance.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Hello all,
the phone came back from repair yesterday, yay!
the phone now however, doesn't appear to lock onto a mobile signal for very long. Boooo!!!
After sending off for repair using insurance, we got the phone back yesterday but it now appears to be broke in another way. It won't lock on to a mobile signal, wireless is fine but data network and sometimes just mobile signal is patchy and keeps dropping.
I've just reset it to factory defaults, same problem. What I did notice, which is odd is that since it came back from repair, its now unlocked and I can put another networks SIM card in it, same issue there too so I know its the phone now.
I'm going to scour the forums to see if anyone else had/has issues like this, it is running the latest firmware now and a full wipe really did fully wipe it this time, as opposed to last time with its issues due to water damage. One step forward, two steps back?
Its going back to the insurance company. Especially as Orange were suggesting that we pay £70 for a new handset.
Absolute fool I had on support today, yesterday I at least had someone sensible.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
SGS force close problem
Hey guys i m facing a similar solution in my samsung galaxy s. After deleting all the contents and uninstalling the applications, I m getting them back after rebooting and all applications has to be force closed after rebooting.
Please help me to solve this problem
Signal issues
leenukes said:
Hello all,
the phone came back from repair yesterday, yay!
the phone now however, doesn't appear to lock onto a mobile signal for very long. Boooo!!!
After sending off for repair using insurance, we got the phone back yesterday but it now appears to be broke in another way. It won't lock on to a mobile signal, wireless is fine but data network and sometimes just mobile signal is patchy and keeps dropping.
I've just reset it to factory defaults, same problem. What I did notice, which is odd is that since it came back from repair, its now unlocked and I can put another networks SIM card in it, same issue there too so I know its the phone now.
I'm going to scour the forums to see if anyone else had/has issues like this, it is running the latest firmware now and a full wipe really did fully wipe it this time, as opposed to last time with its issues due to water damage. One step forward, two steps back?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like a modem issue, where the techs at Orange put in the wrong modem for your firmware. I did the same thing when I upgraded from Froyo to Gingerbread.
Alternately, it could be a broken external antenna connection as a result of the corrosion from the water damage. Google "no signal fix" and look for a site that ends in .uk
Just a thought for others who come across this problem.
I
Hi guys,
this is gonna be a long story, but I'm at end of my wits.
So my phone (HTC One M7_UL Vodafone DE) got water damaged (it was submerged in water for at least a minute). I tested it again last weekend and it seemed to work in terms of hardware. I managed to test the speakers, the charge jack, the headphones jack, wifi, gsm, both cameras, etc. it all seems to work fine, and it's not about that anyways. I kept getting a "com.htc.htcdialer" issue, saying the process had unexpectedly crashed and then a few minutes later the phone would reboot. I tried finding out what this error was and how to fix it but I couldnt find anything. Also its weird that I got a software error.
So I unlocked the bootloader (via htcdev.com), flashed the latest recovery (I tried both cwm and twrp), which was also fine. I managed to install the latest Android Revolutions HD (53.0) and thats where the problems started again: I would get to the lock screen but as soon as I would swipe up to unlock it I would the white screen with the HTC letters on it. I tried wiiping all the cache and partitions i could find and reinstalled that rom, but the problem remained the same. Tried a different recovery (twrp) repeated all the steps and still no more luck than before.
So I decided to give a different rom a try and just flashed the latest stable cyanogenmod rom on it, and that boots fine, but eventually without error message reboots as well.
Then I tried flashing the latest viper rom, but there I have the same issue as at the beginning, that I get as far as the lock screen and then it just wont let me unlock it.
And that's where Im at the end of my wits. I cant imagine its a hardware related issue, but i might be wrong.
Ideally I would love to get my hands on a nandroid backup to restore the phone to stock, a stock rom ruu, but I cant find any of those either.
I'd really appreciate your help.
Let me know if you need specific details of installations, versions, decide numbers, etc
It happens randomly when using the phone (it doesn't happen when it's locked). The phone just freezes then restarts randomly.
I tried to find a pattern when this is happening, and found there isn't much of a pattern, but it won't let me add a fingerprint lock (crashes after the 3rd / 4th reading).
I've tried to factory reset and clear cache. I'm running out of options and am preparing to flash a stock ROM via Odin. I'd like to avoid this, since it'll trip knox and this is a new phone so I wanted to avoid flashing anything for now.
Any suggestions, ideas?
I'd say this is a kernel related crash, since it doesn't give any error, just goes out. But I hope I'm wrong.
Baseband: N920CXXU2BPD5
Build Number: MMB29K.N920CXXU2BPD6
Knox untripped.
EDIT: This seems to be a rule: it always crashes when I get to 32% of adding a fingerprint lock.
Here's an update:
Tried flashing other stock ROMs for other regions, still the same problem.
Flashed a custom kernel, still the same problem. -> Not a kernel problem
Flashed TWRP and used it for some time (to test if the phone will do the same). No problem whatsoever. I'm convinced that this is a firmware issue then.
Tried flashing every possible combination of everything. Nothing seems to have any effect. This isn't a software problem.
It's probably a faulty motherboard. The rebooting subsided though.
I'd also like to add that the S Pen holding area (the place where the S Pen is kept inside the phone) has a specific electronic smell (kindda like the soldering smell, but not quite). Really weird.
I voided my warranty by flashing stuff, so I'll probably be looking at a motherboard replacement if anyone's wondering.
Do u have xposed install?
Nah.
I've been running the stock rom for 90% of the time.
RexGrammer said:
Nah.
I've been running the stock rom for 90% of the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U solved it already? Mine used to have this problem before but its xposed that cause (in my case :highfive
Still haven't.
I'm almost certain it's a faulty motherboard.
Hey guys, I've encountered a thorny problem on my wife's N910T3, and am running out of ideas about what this could be... so, could really use some help.
Some background: The phone's been working fine for over a year of ownership, mostly on the stock ROM, which gets pretty laggy at times. A few weeks ago I installed a custom ROM (the Acapolypse-X N7 port) to improve performance, and for the past few weeks it's been working perfectly fine on the custom ROM no problem.
Today, when my wife went to check Twitter, the phone crashed and started bootlooping. I had seen a similar issue on my Note 3 before (which turned out to be a specific issue with the kernel I was using), so I figured I would just go into recovery, flash a different kernel or at worst, do a clean install of the ROM.
That's when things started getting weird: The phone would crash while INSIDE recovery during ROM installation (I've never seen a phone crash inside recovery before...) After failing to successfully flash a ROM or, even in cases when it succeeds, fails to boot, I decided to do a full flash back to the latest unmodified stock ROM (since I couldn't find an ODIN-flashable image to download, I used Samsung Kies for this - typically this resolves any kind of left over from previous installations).
On the first attempt, it succeeded - the phone booted into the stock ROM and I was able to start customizing settings. Figuring the issue has been resolved, I went ahead and attempted to root by flashing TWRP through ODIN, and that's when the phone went back to rapidly bootlooping again (it reboots every 2 seconds, I can't even get into recovery when this is occuring). The only way I can return to Recovery is by flashing it again in ODIN (typically this trick will only work once; upon rebooting the phone after that it is prone to start bootlooping again).
Based on the symptoms I suspected the NAND going bad. However, I receive no emmc read/write errors during flashing - all write operations in ODIN results in success and my friend even ran a full storage check via ADB and this phone just doesn't seem to have any bad sectors (I almost wish it were since that would resolve the mystery).
Anyone have any ideas what may be the problem? I have a decent amount of experience installing custom roms on my phones and troubleshooting installation issues, but I've never seen anything like this (crashing/bootlooping directly inside recovery).
I'm sure there are several possibilities that could be software related. However, I've had this issue on a couple of my older phones and it just turned out that the power button was sticking. Just had to pull the phone apart and clean it.
If nothing else seems to work for you, it wouldn't hurt to check this.
PS: I have 4 boys who like to play on the devices with sticky fingers.