A Very Odd Phone I Just Recieved - what do i try now? - Galaxy S III Mini Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So ive just recieved an s3 8190 mini not an n or l model labled as sapres repairs, i have some experiecne flashing phones including a s3 mini-n so thought i'd grab this one to fix it and sell on...boy was i wrong
many hours later of various flash attmepts and reading troublshooting methods on the problems this phone does little else but restart a lot!
it wont accept anything ive flashed, i cant boot into recovery or root it sucessfully, however it will boot into download mode (a ray of hope perhaps?) after flashing various recoveries and trying to boot into it the bottom leds flash and it restarts again and it just wants to boot up normally no matter what, ive tried the 3 buttons then releasing only the power after i see the logo as ireads that worked for a few
the phone requires a pin to be entered at start which was in the box on a piece of paper, once in the time i get varies before it resets again and any settings i changed are restored things like wifi mode etc are all back...wtf is this? also apps cant be uninstalled!! and more importanly i cant factory reset, i press the first few buttons and then the final one does nothing....there is a missed call dated last year some time that shows up in the notifications area...
im currently flashing official firmware via link on this site that matches the baseband so hoping that might do something, but that seems like bind mans hope in hell, ive tried a few things from this site like a flash that makes the 3 buttons "work" which it did for some, thought not done anyhting with adb/fastboot being new to it, the phone wasnt recognised the few times i tried it.
where now then just what is wrong wiht this phone and can i get it up & running?

Related

G1 possibly bricked; stuck in recovery console [researched]

i will try to be as detailed as possible. im coming from the kaiser community so go easy on me
when i had recieved the phone it would turn on go past the tmobile g1 screen and go into the recovery console. the console read. JF 1.41.
after reading around the best option i got was reverting everything back to factory settings.....and so i did. i installed the factory spl went back to rc29....then updated to rc 30 and installed the new cupcake.
everything was fine except for i couldnt get the phone activated given im an AT&T user.
this morning i finally recieved the unlock code from tmobile and when i turn the phone on with the att simcard, it gave me the triangle with the exclamation screen.
so i hit alt +l then alt w and after a reboot it would bring me back to the same screen. Also this recovery screen is diff from the jf 1.41 (im guessing this is the factory console).
now im out of ideas as to how to get this phone back in order. i would love flashing the DREAIMG.NBH but sadly my phone refuses to go in bootloader.
ive been trying to hold camera+ power and its jsut loads up the tmobile g1 screen.
any and all advice/helps are appreciated.
-thank you
so this is totally weird. i leave the phone unplugged with the battery out for about 3 hours. came back to work on it....turned it on and well it loaded and got me to the home screen ( no sim card ).
so i powered off the phone and inserted the AT&T simcard turn it on and it shows me the same screen again with the triangle and exclamation point.
how do u explain that ?!
pressed power for 3 seconds and then let go and held down the back key. it flashed the bootloader tricolor screen and then said ""everything will be reset to factory defaults .press send to reset"" and when i did that there was no change........nothing happened. ended up pulling the battery out..
Same problem..
I have very similar problem.. but mine takes much more than 3 hrs to come back.. and even then , the task manger keeps popping up from time to time in the home screen ,, so i guessed my home button was stuck or something...
After i found your "problem Sovled" post in another theread on 11th oct ..i thought i better take your suggestion before taking phone apart..
I was on 1.5 version and 2.22.19.26I radio. also i do not know whether i'm in RC29,30,33 ..
i'm really confused about all this radio,firmware ,recovery things....
Please Guide me ..
well first you need to get in your ph to find out if u have rc29. if you are able to get to home screen just hit menu - setting - about phone - all the way down it'll tell you what you are running.
i followed this guide to help me flash it to the cyanogenmod rom
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=563679
hopefully it helps. but if you are able to get into bootloader unlike me then jsut flash the rc29 hopefully it will solve your problem.
my home key acted like it was stuck but now everything is working fine.
Thanks for Replying so quickly ..
I managed to go to the bootloader screen(tricolor) ..actually it went without even pressing the camera button(any idea why??) after leaving the phone without battery for about 5 hours.. and i flashed the Dreaimg-RC29 file .
Since then i'm Stuck in recovery mode again.. but this time the recovery utility is different (yellow letters)..i.e hopefully RC29 is succefully installed.
I wanted to complete doing your suggested guide before asking any more questions, but now i unable to so what shud i do now?
IS the task manger popping up involuntarily sometimes for you in the cM builds?
Can it be that you had a hardware button issue, which somehow rectified itself when going to Cyanogen..
I really appreciate your taking time to answer my questions ..
well sounds like jsut what had happened to me.
make sure you have tmobile simcard on you with a dataplan.
you're going to have to leave your phone off without the battery or just turned off for a while. from here on out it was trial and error. i kept trying to turn the phone on hoping it would go past the recovery screen once it did i activated the phone and finally completed the root process.
as for the cyanogen mod rom i think you are right. though on my initial flash i had a bunch of force closing apps but it all fixed itself upon a restart. ever since then i haven't seen the recovery mode every time i boot it.
PS: that reocvery mode that you see is the stock recovery meaning yes u have flashed RC29 sucessfully.
so i jsut flashed to CM 4.2.3.1. and well im back to square one. im booting into the recovery by default. obviously confirming my doubts about the hardware problem.
im going to try and leave the phone off for a while and see if i can get it to load up. usually that solves my problem.
Oh..
Thats depressing.. Anyways... Lets do it together then I have kept my phone unsed for about 16hrs now.. hope it works ..
Have you tried the HTC Diagonistic program for g1 (DREADIAG.nbh) ?.. I am yet to try it out as i cannot go to the bootloader..
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7NRX7H40
which version of cyanogen were you using before this happened?
i have not tried diagnostic. iw as going to use ADB to push the recovery on there but it went into bootloader.
i was using cyanogenmod rom 4.1.9999. now i have updated to 4.2.3.1.
actually iw as working on it last night. i re did that whole guide except for downloaded the new rom and flashed it.
so as of now once again that hardware flaw is gone and the phone is working fine.
mtkhalid said:
i have not tried diagnostic. iw as going to use ADB to push the recovery on there but it went into bootloader.
i was using cyanogenmod rom 4.1.9999. now i have updated to 4.2.3.1.
actually iw as working on it last night. i re did that whole guide except for downloaded the new rom and flashed it.
so as of now once again that hardware flaw is gone and the phone is working fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you update from 4.1.9999 straight into 4.2.3.1? If so, that's the problem (maybe).. I suggest you install the HTC 1.6 ADP Rom (link in the cyanogen 4.2.3.1 post) then upgrade to 4.2.3.1. Make sure everything is updated.... rom, recovery & spl (before you upgrade SPL make sure you have the most recent radio version first! or you'll brick the phone). then give it a try and see what happens...
you are right. the first time i just flashed the new rom. the second time around i followed the guide except for i flashed the latest cyanogen rom.
I'm not able to make it go to the home screen even after so many attempts..
i could only manage to go to the bootloader screen once and flashed the RC29 and i'm stuck there
Can you elaborate on how you got to the Home screen , like how long you keep it off or press which buttons to start ?
I'm not in the US , and have bought this phone from Ebay (new, never used) from a seller with good feedback for G1 (wanted this phone very badly). I was using the phone for barely 3 days when i did a factory reset from the phone and this problem started occurring .
IS there anything else i can do..?
Thanks for Helping..
Still waiting for your answer
SaiSantoshD said:
I'm not able to make it go to the home screen even after so many attempts..
i could only manage to go to the bootloader screen once and flashed the RC29 and i'm stuck there
Can you elaborate on how you got to the Home screen , like how long you keep it off or press which buttons to start ?
I'm not in the US , and have bought this phone from Ebay (new, never used) from a seller with good feedback for G1 (wanted this phone very badly). I was using the phone for barely 3 days when i did a factory reset from the phone and this problem started occurring .
IS there anything else i can do..?
Thanks for Helping..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did you flash the RC29? after pressing the power button
did it give you any errors? once its flashed, reboot by pressing home and back (or w/e the SPL tells you to)
it should boot into the rom
Home button problem (repaired/solved)
Firstly, thanks for responding ..
I had flashed RC29 when it had gone to the tricolor bootloader screen on its own
but after that it would not go anywhere other than recovery(exclamantion mark)
Now good news
4 hours back i opened the phone again(third time) , and took a safety pin and started scraping(gently) the non shiny parts of the connector ( daughter board to main board) .
I think it was previously shorted near that area , so by scraping removed the shorted metal joints .. and now the phone booted up to RC29 (just like that) and i even installed the cyanogen mod ..
Many thanks to u all .. hope this Comes UP in google search for people with similar problems(and there are many)...
KEYwords: Home button stuck on recovery no booting
Ah wow didnt think of that lol.. glad to see you got it to work

[Q] How to unbrick my I9000

Hi,
Unfortunatelly I started playing with my I9000 without reading enough and bricked my phone completely (?). If anyone can help please do so.
Description:
1. I tried to flash with Odin new firmware but after flasing and rebooting got message "unable to update media ...." (or something like that) When powering on I got only welcoem screen with phone name
2. I wanted to repeat flashing but Odin could not start reflashing (I still could go into Download mode)
3. I found at xda forum [STOCK ROM] Odin3 One-Click Downloader,
but I didn't notice that it was for Captivate (I thought it is just another name for I9000,now I don't know why)
4. I reflashed my i9000 and after reflashing got only At&t screen turning on and off, without possibility to enter into download mode.
Actually I'm stuck with this situation I feel really stupid, but by mistake I did what I did.
Is there any chance to help ?
Thanx in advance.
according to some users, you might get lucky, and might be able to recover
let your phone stay on on that loop, wait until it turns itself off
then try the 3 button combo again
if all else fail, contact samsung tech support, which will simply send you back to your cell phone place
I'll try but I'm not very optimistic
Waiting doesn't help - I tiried all possible 3 or 2 button configurations unsuccesfully.
Anyone has any other idea if antyhing can be done with the issue ?
The exact same thing happened to me. There is nothing you can do except to bring it back to Samsung. I brought mine back and they have to replace the whole motherboard
what did you tell them? is it going to cost you?
diehard2222 said:
what did you tell them? is it going to cost you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I told them my phone cannot boot. Can they help to reflash the FW and see if it helps. They did and said phone still cannot boot after reflashing. Hence they have to change the motherboard. I asked and they say it's under warranty...
The shop where I had bought my I9000 sent it to Samsung - I will see what they do with it.
I have flashed a vibrant with a i9000S software but the radio did not work quite well. Since the two have different keys, now i cant get it to boot mode. i was able to get into recovery mode via ADB but all i can do is use vol to go up or down and not select an option. the device wont even get out of recovery mode.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Same
I did the exact same thing and couldnt get it to go past the AT&T logo i took mine to the samsung authorised repair centre and after 3 days and 49 dollars they fixed it. I dont know how they did it because i couldnt get USB to reconginise or download mode or anything just stuck on white screen but they managed to get it up and running.
So even though it cost 49 dollars to fix it via software method it is better then spending 800 on a new phone or 300 for a new chip which they originaly qouted me. So there is hope with proffessional services
now, the magic usb plug is avaliable in ebay, it can turn your bricked phone into download mode in a few seconds. really good!!!
Hehe... ...the magic is one usb connector an 301 kohm resistor
Br:25011
h***://factoidz.com/how-to-unbrick-your-samsung-vibrant-galaxy-s/

[Q] Random reboot into bootloop- cannot access recovery. Please help!

a few days ago my fiance was complaining her basically stock Nexus was rebooting into a bootloop - where it displays the loading X and vibrates and then reboots and repeats every few moments (a few days after her doing the system update)- if I remove the battery for a few minutes then put battery back and reboot it will boot into the OS where it will stay sometimes for a few minutes othertimes an hour or more before going into the bootloop- so I told her I would attempt to flash a new rom. after many hours of messing with the phone and attempting to access the recovery it just will not work- the phone just goes into the bootloop - exactly as mentioned above. I have used fastboot to flash new images (userdata, system, boot, recovery etc) numerous times and it still does the same thing- crashes and reboots into the bootloop from the OS randomly and bootloop when trying to access recovery. I am pretty sure it is a hardware issue (the phone is only 3 months old) but the company i bought the phone from is stating it is a software issue and not covered by tehir warranty.
Problem is I unlocked the bootloader while messing with the rom's yesterday and am now concerned they wont honour the warranty anyway- does anyone have any suggestions as to anything else I can try? As far as I can tell as I cannot access recovery I cannot install any other roms..
Please help- otherwise I will be posting a yourtube video of me destroying a basically brand new nexus one- I really am that frustrated....
a bit more info- it was rooted but still had locked bootloader when this started- rooted using onclickroot or something- which after the update it wasn't rooted anymore- I am wondering if this has caused some low level conflict somehow- I have rooted again using superoneclick - and as stated have unlocked the bootloader.
is there any way to flash a rom using fastboot or adb on this thing- I would hazard surely there is but amongst all the information floating around for this phone I cannot find out how- I am thinking maybe I try and load cyanogen 6 or something if I could work out how to flash a rom using adb (because njo matter how many times I try to flash different recovery images it wont boot into recovery- I can access fastboot etc but as soon as i select recovery I get the bootloop...
and before I get flamed I have spent three days searching and reading and attempting everything short of voodoo witch magic. I thought my X10 was a P.I.A. to root and flash etc but really it was simple compared to the trouble this phone has given me..
I am wondeirng if some of the rom's are incompatible with some hardware- and I don't quite understand the whole radio thing either... can someone explain that?
BTW Im not a total noob- I have been around for a while without an account - then have had this account for a while but mostly just read the forums as I have no real input and knowledge to give...
...help!
Can no one help?
I have managed to get into recovery (by putting the phone in the freezer for ten minutes at a time to reduce the temperature and stabilise it enough to run for 15-20 minutes at a time)...
Have flashed different kernels this way and nothing is stable- it still bootloops because of heat....
I contacted HTC Hong Kong (it was purchased from a Hong Kong company) and they have told me there is a $350 fee to repair it as its a UK phone. Now the phone is exactly 55 days old not three months and I am really really frustrated.
Does anyone know if its worth contacting HTC UK?
I have friends in the UK I can have them send it in and recieve it from repair....
Someone please help- even if its just a comment of "just smash the damn thing..."
Thanks guys sorry about the long self centred posts but I am ready to destroy this phone- it doesnt have a mark on it either- any ideas what its worth for spare parts?

[Q] Bricked Milestone, stuck at Motorola logo

Hi,
I managed to brick my Milestone, terminally I'm afraid, but the symptoms are different than what I see around the forum so they might interest someone else.
So, I first backed up everything with GOT Nandroid and Titanium Backup then modded CyanogenMod 7 RC4 0.08-11.04.05 (Android 2.3.3) successfully, except that the SIM was locked and would not unlock, although it works in another phone. This was a bug supposedly fixed in version 6 of Cyanogen...
Browsing the forums, the only thing that made a bit of sense was that maybe the GSM frequency was set to the wrong value. There is a Nandroid mod (but not GOT) that allows you to change that so I entered GOT Nandroid again. Since it had no such option, I Rebooted. Then, the fun begun.
The phone got stuck on the Motorola logo and no button, not even Power, worked anymore. After waiting for many minutes with no progress, I took out the battery - that made a change , the phone shut down. I then put it back - the phone immediatelly, no, instantly, cause there's no delay as when you were powering it up, lights up with the same Motorola logo. Tried several times, always the same behavior.
I left it booting (but also connected to the charger) for a whole night, no change.
The phone is not seen by the PC when connected to USB. It won't reboot, normally or to recovery. Buttons won't work at all. Yeah, tried with or without the SIM and the sdcard, no change. Tried to start without battery, just the charger, doesn't work.
Useless to say, I am getting bored of that Motorola logo
I suspect that the bootloader in the internal memory got corrupted. Can this be flashed even if the device is not seen by the PC (I mean by the RDSLite installed on it)?
Cheers
When the charger is connected to the phone try at the same timeull out and pull in the battery while holding the buttons who will get you in the OR
Yup, it worked. So first I got the battery with a question mark. Then I put in the battery and I got a battery at 60%. Since I was holding Power+Camera, it continued to the Recovery mode and now I have a working Milestone with Cyanogen mod!!
Thank you a lot, Mikicishte.
I still have to see about the initial locked SIM problem... but that will be mostly fun.
florinadrian said:
I still have to see about the initial locked SIM problem... but that will be mostly fun.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried to factory reset the Milestone, to see if after that the SIM is accessible again ?
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/14099-sim-card-not-detected-after-factory-reset/
You could try also to install a logger application catlog for example (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nolanlawson.logcat&feature=search_result ) to see in the logs if you can find out more details to help you with the investigations...
I did the factory reset as part of installing the mod.
Even if the post quoted reports the wipe as the source of the problem and not as a solution, I just wiped again with no good result.
Will try catlog.
florinadrian said:
I did the factory reset as part of installing the mod.
Even if the post quoted reports the wipe as the source of the problem and not as a solution, I just wiped again with no good result.
Will try catlog.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or maybe you could try to use an unlock tool to see what error is reporting
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.droidgram.bladeunlock&feature=search_result

[Q] Galaxy S stuck in boot-loop

Hi guys,
Gone through about 100 threads these last couple of days, but nothing helps, so have to start a new one.
What happened was that the other day my phone started ringing.
The screen however was black, so I could neither see who was calling nor answer the call.
I let it ring out, then I held the power button so it would shutdown.
Tried to restart it, and that's when the fun started.
The phone got stuck in a boot-loop, only showing the Galaxy S logo (not getting to the animated one).
Left it in this loop for several hours, since I've had problems recently with the phone needing to do this cycle 5-10 times before booting up.
This time it wouldn't boot, however.
I've tried putting the phone in a bag of rice for 18 hours, in case of any moisture inside, not helping.
Then I tried recovery-mode, formatting the whole thing, but I got the following error:
"E:format_volume: rfs format failed on /dev/block/mmcblk0p2"
Found this thread to try to fix the format error.
Got into download mode, but Odin does not recognize the phone, and I started believing all hope for fixing it without sending it in was gone.
I've also tried applying a couple of update.zip's from the SD-card, just to have tried it, but every package got Signature verifcation-error.
Anyway, when I headed to bed last night I left the phone in the boot-loop, and to my surprice, 8 hours later it had booted into first-time configuration.
YES!!!
Configured the phone with language etc., then all of a sudden the animated Galaxy S logo appeared...
And it appeared again, and again, and again for about 15 min., until I unplugged the battery.
And now I'm back at square one, stuck in the boot-loop (not getting to the animated logo)...
I have the latest versjon of KIES, not that it probably matters.
Does anyone have an idea of what the problem might be?
What rom were you using? stock or custom? Maybe it has something to do with lagfix if it was activated... im guesing, im not dev just normal user... Maybe try to reinstal usb drivers.
Just use odin 1.3 reflash official rom , everything would be OK.
Not sure about the ROM, bought the phone used... But pretty sure it's stock..
Since Odin didn't recognize the phone, reflashing it with official ROM would be hard...
However, as for the Odin problem, that was caused by a faulty USB-cable...
Used another one, and Odin worked like a charm.
The phone won't start after running through the steps in the thread I mentioned before, but I will try to reflash it with offical ROM now and see how that works.
mortenlm said:
Not sure about the ROM, bought the phone used... But pretty sure it's stock..
Since Odin didn't recognize the phone, reflashing it with official ROM would be hard...
However, as for the Odin problem, that was caused by a faulty USB-cable...
Used another one, and Odin worked like a charm.
The phone won't start after running through the steps in the thread I mentioned before, but I will try to reflash it with offical ROM now and see how that works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure about used phone, But if I bought the phone used, I would reflash rom first. Because I do not even know what they done before , reflash offical rom would be fix some problem.
porkapple said:
Not sure about used phone, But if I bought the phone used, I would reflash rom first. Because I do not even know what they done before , reflash offical rom would be fix some problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I would have if I knew... But stupid me thought that a phone was a phone.
How wrong was I?
Anyway, a little update here (the problem is kind of solved now):
Flashed the phone with 2.3.3 Gingerbread I found on dkszone, after running the steps in the previous mentioned thread.
And the phone started like a charm.
But after a few hours of configuring etc, I managed to insert the SD-card again, and all hell broke loose again...
Come to think about it, thats what I did yesterday too, so I've come to the conclusion that the SD-card is the main problem...
However, now the phone is slow... REAL slow... Kind of like my 1.5 year old HTC Touch Diamond 2 with WP6.5...
It takes up to 2 seconds to open menu items, keyboard etc.
Is there any way to fix that?
Or should I flash it with another ROM?
You mean the external sdcard? Maybe try to format it...
OK, so this is what I've now figured out:
The phone is damaged...
It seems that the internal SD has gone AWAL, and internal storage has somehow created itself on the external SD-card, thus the phone crashed when I switched cards...
When trying to format the USB-storage, I receive error: SD-card has been removed
So I guess I have to ship the phone off to Samsung ASAP...

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