So when I boot my phone up, it get a myriad of interesting popups. I get the Galaxy Note logo, and it says "Custom" with an unlocked icon, and then I get a few lines, first - "Set Warranty Bit - Kernal" and then "Secure Fail - Kernal" with a white box. At one point I got a screen that told me "System software not authorized by AT&T" But I've not gotten to that screen since the one time it popped up.
Phone is not, nor has it ever been, rooted or modified. It had a screen freeze last time I looked at it, and I had to pull the battery to get it to respond again, and the phone hasn't worked since.
Thoughts? The repair store is about 300 miles for me, so I'd rather not make that drive...
Edit: Thought I'd try this out myself. Found the thread about NC2 recovery, followed all the instructions. Now I can't get into recovery, (Stuck on loading bootloader) and I bootloop on the Note 3 logo. Can still load download mode.
Prior to this, I was on the most current OTA. I feel like I'm majorly screwed. Knox tripped itself, and so I don't think I can get it fixed by ATT
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2703006
Please report back on the failure or success of this.
graydiggy said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2703006
Please report back on the failure or success of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually been trying that all night. I was able to flash it, (Properly, as far as I could tell) with and without the PIT file. After either attempt, it tried to reboot and load into recovery mode. ODIN would say "Reboot" and the phone would say "Loading recovery mode" and stick there permanently. I found a trick where you could get it past that by loading DL mode and selecting cancel. At that point, it boot looped on the Note 3 screen, and also boot looped trying to load recovery.
Currently, after 4-5 battery pulls, it's back to the original problem. Secure Fail: Kernel on regular boot, and Secure Fail: Recovery on recovery boot. Here's a picture of what it looks like, but on a note 3. (Can't take pictures, phone is my only camera. Lol)
Did my NAND fail? It's just so weird that my problem changes after reboots.
And **** me, I just rebooted it and it loaded the Samsung animation, no special text, and it got to the ATT logo... and then rebooted. Boot looped at note 3 screen 4-5 times, and now... (Each dash is a reboot)
Android is upgrading-Optimizing Apps screen-Note 3 Logo-Optimising-ATT Ready to go App (Froze)-Note 3 Logo-Note 3 Logo-Att Logo-Note 3 Logo-Att Logo-Samsung Logo-Att Logo. 20 more reboots now, not a single got past the Note 3 Logo
I can kind of load Recovery now though. It shows the little Android guy, and a loading bar. It usually resets at some point during the loading bar. I've yet to get into the recovery menu, but I've had results that range from loading recovery for 1 second and forced rebooting, to a 5 min loading bar, which I gave up on and pulled battery.
Looks like an EMMC failure. You are going to have to call AT&T or Samsung to get your device replaced.
graydiggy said:
Looks like an EMMC failure. You are going to have to call AT&T or Samsung to get your device replaced.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Knox tripped itself as well. Am I screwed? Haha.
Thanks for the help, BTW.
Not entirely.
Just to be clear.
In download you should see 2 Knox related flags
One that is kernel
One that is warranty
If either on says 0x0
Knox is not tripped.
Some people see anything related to Knox and think it's tripped.
Sup, I got sick of waiting for OEM Unlock (at 13 days now on BRI CSC from never-msrp) and decided to try flashing another region.
Clearly, region is stuck with what you started with regardless of the firmware you flash.
Alright, so let's just erase efs (yeah, that little checkbox in Odin that's usually safe on every other device, or an empty or unsigned efs.img in the tar) then and pull SIM out and maybe it won't know what I started with and default to XEU.
Yeah, no, dm-verity errors from then on. Device completely unrecognizable by Kies & Smart Switch.
It gets into Download mode, it flashes, but it fails the Installing screen @ around 32% on the next boot and falls back to recovery showing dm-verity error.
So, any suggestions? I'm sure someone has experience here with wiped EFS on the S8 or Note 8.
By the way, this device, as you can tell by the first sentence, is in OEM LOCKED mode.
UPDATE: SEE LAST POST https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75879640&postcount=20
That (32%) is the normal stop point for the binaries error at boot after flashing unofficial firmware, I'd try flashing the full smash, BL, CP, CSC, AP from a stock firmware all at once in Odin, it got me out of it.
Have you tried flashing the factory binary for N950F? I had almost the same, not flashing situation, and the factory binary allowed me to restore my phone following the steps I found for restoring EFS. Although I paid 10 dollars to be able to download the factory binary from a website. It is called COMBINATION file.
i23u8 said:
Have you tried flashing the factory binary for N950F? I had almost the same, not flashing situation, and the factory binary allowed me to restore my phone following the steps I found for restoring EFS. Although I paid 10 dollars to be able to download the factory binary from a website. It is called COMBINATION file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, I found one for AQH9. I'll see what I can do with it! Thanks!
krabman said:
That (32%) is the normal stop point for the binaries error at boot after flashing unofficial firmware, I'd try flashing the full smash, BL, CP, CSC, AP from a stock firmware all at once in Odin, it got me out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is actually the first thing I tried.
jcadduono said:
Sup, I got sick of waiting for OEM Unlock (at 13 days now on BRI CSC from never-msrp) and decided to try flashing another region.
Clearly, region is stuck with what you started with regardless of the firmware you flash.
Alright, so let's just erase efs then and pull SIM out and maybe it won't know what I started with and default to XEU.
Yeah, no, dm-verity errors from then on. Device completely unrecognizable by Kies & Smart Switch.
It gets into Download mode, it flashes, but it fails the Installing screen @ around 32% on the next boot and falls back to recovery showing dm-verity error.
So, any suggestions? I'm sure someone has experience here with wiped EFS on the S8 or Note 8.
By the way, this device, as you can tell by the first sentence, is in OEM LOCKED mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome to the N8 group. Can you specify What exactly is giving a dm-verity error? You say its able to get to recovery. Have you tried flashing your CSC?
EDIT: Other than that if you can find the Combo files for your model(you cannot use the n950U ones) then you could boot into the device using a similar method to the snapdragon root(using the abl.elf,devcfg,boot.img and recovery.img in a tar file flash with comsey odin and dm-verity on system should get disabled. That will allow you to at least boot. but since you wiped efs probably dont have service.
No success with factory binaries, they don't boot past the FACTORY BINARY >>>>>>>>> loading screen.
I think the modem is panicking early in boot process due to empty efs partition.
So if you try to flash efs.img unsigned with Odin, it will erase efs and then refuse to flash new one. I guess I'm screwed unless I can somehow find a signed efs.img to flash.
jcadduono said:
No success with factory binaries, they don't boot past the FACTORY BINARY >>>>>>>>> loading screen.
I think the modem is panicking early in boot process due to empty efs partition.
So if you try to flash efs.img unsigned with Odin, it will erase efs and then refuse to flash new one. I guess I'm screwed unless I can somehow find a signed efs.img to flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try installing all stock FW then create a new tar with the files i mentioned above. See what happens then. You SHOULD also have adb on boot when using the combo files like that.
me2151 said:
Try installing all stock FW then create a new tar with the files i mentioned above. See what happens then. You SHOULD also have adb on boot when using the combo files like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, adb is unauthorized though so what's the point of it
also, i did try this, no success getting past samsung screen, which is the same case as factory binary system, just stuck on the logo forever with adb unauthorized
jcadduono said:
yes, adb is unauthorized though so what's the point of it
also, i did try this, no success getting past samsung screen, which is the same case as factory binary system, just stuck on the logo forever with adb unauthorized
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. Is your efs image sparse or regular img? According to a guy i know on S8 efs isnt secure boot checked and is flashable no issue in odin. just needs to be a sparse image and named efs.img.ext4
me2151 said:
Ok. Is your efs image sparse or regular img? According to a guy i know on S8 efs isnt secure boot checked and is flashable no issue in odin. just needs to be a sparse image and named efs.img.ext4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it is secure boot checked, i flashed a sparse ext4 efs.img (efs.img is what the partition layout says it should be named), it failed with the error that you can't flash unsigned files to this partition (on DL mode screen)
it also left the efs partition completely empty, so it zeros it out before even checking if the image sent is signed
the guy who said it wasn't secure boot checked probably had an OEM unlocked device
my sparse ext4.img file was an empty filesystem, it would have at least mounted if the flash worked
jcadduono said:
it is secure boot checked, i flashed a sparse ext4 efs.img (efs.img is what the partition layout says it should be named), it failed with the error that you can't flash unsigned files to this partition (on DL mode screen)
it also left the efs partition completely empty, so it zeros it out before even checking if the image sent is signed
the guy who said it wasn't secure boot checked probably had an OEM unlocked device
my sparse ext4.img file was an empty filesystem, it would have at least mounted if the flash worked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Crap. Forgot you were Exynos. Your Secure boot stuff is different. We are Snapdragon. Sorry.
Was looking into Octoplus or z3x as a solution, but unfortunately both require a rooted working phone, it seems the only way to possibly get past this error is to get EFS formatted somehow, or flash a signed sparse EFS in Odin. Maybe if engineering binary doesn't have verity on system it could be possible to replace an early system service with a shell script to format efs, and that might bring the device far enough to boot, but even then I would never have service until I bought some kind of Samsung EFS certificate and installed it with a z3x/octoplus.
This is way beyond me, so either I have to desperately plea with never-msrp, or Samsung Taiwan, or find someone in Taiwan willing to RMA the Note8 for me then ship the fixed one back to me
ebay and paypal say buyer's fault and won't let me open a case (told them it failed during firmware upgrade)
argued that the seller did not mention anywhere in ad that the phone was from a region that did not speak English and offered no manufacturer warranty (at least a UK or UAE Exynos phone can be RMA'd then forwarded by a friend, Taiwan cannot)
got nowhere
eBay says: The moment you accept a firmware upgrade on a smartphone, even if it is official/from the manufacturer, you forfeit your 30 day money back guarantee. This is because any modification done to an item after receiving it counts as altering the product and breaks the guarantee.
Me: Well, in that case just setting it up breaks the guarantee!
i can probably get $250 for it being sold for parts which is pretty painful when it's brand new without a single scratch and knox 0x0
if it were possible to purchase a motherboard for the phone i would do that, but that probably won't be possible for at least 2 years
update: never-msrp is trying to see if they can help me get it into taiwan rma through them
i tihnk i can fix inbox me
I once had a note 4 that where bricked and nothing I did could bring it back and no one on XDA was able to help so I thought it was dead beat.
I refused to give up as back then the phone was only a few months old and I paid full price on release date so I got online and started downloading stock Rom after stock Rom all from different countries and after a week of downloading and flashing I got it working.
Right after I got it working I flashed BTU stock and then I was a happy dude.
I don't know what caused the issue and I don't know how it was fixed other then the longest week of my life of downloading and flashing that got it working. Would maybe have taken half the time if the samfirmware downloading speeds wernt so damn slow.
I know ur issue is different and furthermore u understand what u r doing more then I ever will but maybe with a bit of luck and persistently trying it might work again.
jcadduono said:
No success with factory binaries, they don't boot past the FACTORY BINARY >>>>>>>>> loading screen.
I think the modem is panicking early in boot process due to empty efs partition.
So if you try to flash efs.img unsigned with Odin, it will erase efs and then refuse to flash new one. I guess I'm screwed unless I can somehow find a signed efs.img to flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which version of Factory you flashed?
Someone who's hard brick try this. I msg guy and he said they haven't had chance to try with Note 8 yet. He has thousands of reviews and high stars. Dealt with him in the past.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/121826357738
Feel for ya hope you get it sorted
Sent from my SM-N950F using XDA-Developers Legacy app
Try the s8plus csc of rom.
Hey guys, so one day I came upon something in my facebook feed regarding G955F being "world first" /efs mount fail fixed.
This gave me some hella hope, so I contacted the guy who posted it.
He charged $75 USD via PayPal (I paid with "goods and services" option in PayPal to his email using my VISA)
Installed TeamViewerQS and Flexihub.
He logged in, and was able to use some tool from his side with Flexihub while my N950F/DS was in download mode and it somehow convinced the phone to recreate its EFS partition.
Once the EFS was back to life, I was FINALLY able to boot a factory binary, and this fixed the remainder of my phone.
He then flashed stock and it booted up and made it to setup wizard.
(there was about an hour or so during this that system was not flashing, and I had to switch PCs to get a USB 2.0 port. Apparently USB 3.1 was too fast for download mode to work correctly)
He says that my DRK is probably still corrupt so rebooting the phone will boot loop, but if I OEM Unlock it then I will be able to bypass DRK error.
Update: My phone reboots fine and is perfectly working! yay!
I have LTE and both of my IMEI are proper.
As for as I can tell everything is working perfectly and the device is still OEM ON FRP OFF and Official status.
I have not tried rebooting.
I cannot OEM Unlock my phone probably for another 2 weeks after adding my Samsung account, so gotta be careful not to let the battery die. :/
If you want his services, you can message him on his facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/baselalzoupi
Good luck!
So I have this phone (SM-N920P) that a few days ago just went black in the midst of operation... the power button alone would not turn it back on... eventually the power and volume down did power it back up (if it was ever really even off) but at that point it stuck at the boot screen.
So I have went though what I think is every possible option... but I willing to see if there is anything else..
I have used Odin to load various flavors of stock ROMS (it was stock when it went into this condition so it was locked down before it "died:
no developer tools and FRP lock is on.... I tried some Roms that said they could bypass the FRP lock and allow some custom Rom.. thinking that would help but at this point I am not sure that would even matter considering where I am with this unit, regardless they would not load.. or get past the FRP lock..
there are tons of files out there and some seem to come from questionable repositories.. this is my first foray into android issues.. but no one makes it really easy or "safe" feeling..
Anyway the last thing I tried was loading one of the frp unlock roms which fail and cause the phone to boot to a bad load blue screen... then I unpacked an md5 file and took just the recovery.img out... renamed as tar and loaded that...
At that point the phone does boot past the bad load, but I am right back to just that splash screen.. and no matter what I cannot get it to go to an Android screen to use the recovery.img I believe I just loaded.
I loaded fastboot and adb but at this point they do not see a device.. so something beyond Odin.. or some "special" file may be the only hope? Or it is just shot? seems like it should be able to be fixed though... I have spent like 12 hours trying different things so far.
I did get one ROM to load that showed some android output at the top of the boot screen.. and when I did the normal vol up, power, home.. it did go into another screen.. which looked like Recovery... but it just said turn off auto reboot and the Hard Reset the device...
but I could not do anything but reset the device using vol down and power...
The power alone still never does anything... those are the 2 keys.. power alone does nothing... and I cannot get into the android recovery screen.. any help would be great.. thanks.:good:
Hold the power + home + vol down buttons for 7-10 seconds until screen goes off. Then boot into download mode and flash TWRP which you'll then use to flash a working ROM.
Blocked by FRP Lock
duckynawal said:
Hold the power + home + vol down buttons for 7-10 seconds until screen goes off. Then boot into download mode and flash TWRP which you'll then use to flash a working ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can get to that point... but load fails with the Custom Binary(Recovery) Blocked by FRP Lock.. I tried every version of twrp available..
and since the phone cannot get to anything except the download and boot screen I cannot alter any normal usb debug or OEM setting...
MagicNote said:
I can get to that point... but load fails with the Custom Binary(Recovery) Blocked by FRP Lock.. I tried every version of twrp available..
and since the phone cannot get to anything except the download and boot screen I cannot alter any normal usb debug or OEM setting...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since you can boot into download mode, flash TWRP using Odin, then boot into recovery.
Hope this brings some clarity to your current predicament. Wish I had good news.
I've ran into this problem twice now either using .img to .tar tool that isn't set up properly with an incompatable version of stock rom or a corrupt dump of a stock rom or even using a proper stock rom. Or if you just so happen to accidently turn off O..E.M unlock... and your phone died or you restarted it.... Download mode spits out some red code usually or fails or even can complete but not in any case I've ever seen and boot sucessfully.... usually if you try to many times with odin you'll end up with a blue screen that comes up stating something went wrong during update process and to use Samsung's smart switch program on a pc. Only problem is at this point you've already tripped Knox and your warranty is now void so downloading smart switch and typing in your serial and one I will only give you another error stating that your phone is not comparable with smart switch due to Knox being tripped at 0x1......
At that point there are a couple options claim insurance if you have it, $200 or if you don't have insurance. Samsung will give you a spill about how your 1yr warranty is over and even if it isn't when they get your phone they will see your Knox status of 0x1 and tell you sorry your warranty is void due to end user tampering. So they offer a reflash for a cool $80 without warranty and that will reset your phone back to O.E.M specs with a Knox of 0x0 fix it for a mere $80. Smartswitch won't reflash firmware do to Knox being tripped. Sorry. You are more than welcome to try....
COLOR="red"]NEVER, I REPEAT, NEVER TURN OFF O.E.M. UNLOCK UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES IF YOU HAVE ROOTED YOUR PHONE, OR PUT A CUSTOM KERNEL OR FLASH A CUSTOM RECOVERY OR YOUR FAIL TO BOOT.[/COLOR]If you turned off O.E.M unlocking. Basically O.E.M unlocking is telling your phone it's okay that Knox is tripped. O.E.M unlock allows the skipping verified samsung signature checks on the first rom based bootloade rduring the boot sequence alowing it to bypass into the secondary bootloader and kernel.
O.E.M. stands for "Original Equipment Manafacturer" i.e. being Samsung in this case so when you have not done anything to your phone when it comes brand new out of the package. Developer mode is hidden and unacessable for a reason.... O.E.M unlock means that in download mode you can flash unofficial code, i.e. C.W.M., TWRP, Other unsigned code from various developers. With no hassle due to Samsung being so kind to us developers and allowing us the option to manually unlock our bootloaders.
Usually what happens specifically is Samsung has a secure bootloader which uses digital certificates to ensure that the software loaded before the operating system is trusted to boot the linux kernel shell we all know and love as android OS when you load a custom bootloader such as anything not signed by Samsung it fails to pass the signature checks and that's exactly what turning off O.E.M unlock did.
But with us all being blessed with the option to manually unlock our Bootloaders through O.E.M unlock now so many options are open to us so as but not limited to.: Roms, MODS, Hacks, Busybox, Root, Xposed, Various Root Applications, Magisk, Kingoroot, GeoHots stuff, HashCodes stuff, even have the oppourtunity to create and test various of our own creations.
Once upon a time Bootloaders were locked, meaning, No Roms, No kernels, etc, etc... Very, Very difficult to even root phone's. The reason I go into all of that is Because with great power comes great responsibility. Always back up your eds partition, and always always if you root and like to run custom rom Roms and all the development for this scene that only continues to grow and evolve Make sure you do one thing if nothing else and that is to read, read, read and know your phone inside and out. I am a developer and I work with software as much as I do hardware. I can afford to make mistakes as these aren't my daily drivers. I suggest if you like to unlock the full potential of your devices then please heed my warning about reading and knowing all the dos and dont's for what your devices is capable of and what will turn it into a very expensive paper weight. I'm not being a **** I'm trying to help. Because you have now tripped your Knox counter meaning it is permanently stuck in the state of your phone now having a void warranty and there is no going back.
Once you turn O.E.M mode off you lock your bootloader and if you've already tripped Knox you can't flash a stock bootloader or Rom because your phone's hardware is preventing anything unauthorized from making it past the kernel checks..... clear some things up for You? I don't care the people say they have work around forCOLOR="red"]"custom binary frp lock"[/COLOR]because I have yet to see a phone recover. P.S. word to the wise that is one error you never, and I mean never want to see on your boot screen...
I came back from it once with a zeroed out serial number and a null one I. Once and that's a whole nother ball of wax. Claim warranty, play stupid if still covered if not Sammy will know so just shell out the $80 send it to them. They will reflash it and that's the end of that.
P.S. MODS, Why can't I just indent the first letter or word of my paragraphs? It's really bothering me. I tried for like 20 minutes. Everything from highlighting my whole paragraph, to highlighting the first word or letter. Even went as far as editing the hypertext php to no avail...COLOR="red"]What Am I Doing Wrong?[/COLOR]
---------- Post added at 03:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:29 AM ----------
[/COLOR]
MagicNote said:
So I have this phone (SM-N920P) that a few days ago just went black in the midst of operation... the power button alone would not turn it back on... eventually the power and volume down did power it back up (if it was ever really even off) but at that point it stuck at the boot screen.
So I have went though what I think is every possible option... but I willing to see if there is anything else..
I have used Odin to load various flavors of stock ROMS (it was stock when it went into this condition so it was locked down before it "died:
no developer tools and FRP lock is on.... I tried some Roms that said they could bypass the FRP lock and allow some custom Rom.. thinking that would help but at this point I am not sure that would even matter considering where I am with this unit, regardless they would not load.. or get past the FRP lock..
there are tons of files out there and some seem to come from questionable repositories.. this is my first foray into android issues.. but no one makes it really easy or "safe" feeling..
Anyway the last thing I tried was loading one of the frp unlock roms which fail and cause the phone to boot to a bad load blue screen... then I unpacked an md5 file and took just the recovery.img out... renamed as tar and loaded that...
At that point the phone does boot past the bad load, but I am right back to just that splash screen.. and no matter what I cannot get it to go to an Android screen to use the recovery.img I believe I just loaded.
I loaded fastboot and adb but at this point they do not see a device.. so something beyond Odin.. or some "special" file may be the only hope? Or it is just shot? seems like it should be able to be fixed though... I have spent like 12 hours trying different things so far.
I did get one ROM to load that showed some android output at the top of the boot screen.. and when I did the normal vol up, power, home.. it did go into another screen.. which looked like Recovery... but it just said turn off auto reboot and the Hard Reset the device...
but I could not do anything but reset the device using vol down and power...
The power alone still never does anything... those are the 2 keys.. power alone does nothing... and I cannot get into the android recovery screen.. any help would be great.. thanks.:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made the mistake of flashing the wrong version of TWRP using Heimdall, causing the device to get caught in a boot loop. Initially, I couldn't enter recovery or download mode to re-flash the firmware, but after disconnecting the battery to shutdown I was able to get back into download mode and flash a stock ROM (downloaded from SamFirm).
After flashing the ROM (now using Odin) and auto rebooting, I get the installing software update screen with a loading symbol (for a few seconds), followed by a boot loop (Samsung screen -> Knox warning -> reboot -> repeat).
- Power cycling the device boots back into recovery mode.
- "Reboot device" option from recovery mode enters the boot loop.
- "Reboot to bootloader" option reboots into download mode (I'm not sure why)
- Wiping the cache / factory reset between reboots seems to have no result
The phone is an unlocked SM-A305G/DS from Amazon, so I'm not confident I have the carrier version correct. The only record of the CSC version I had before was the .pit file I extracted through Heimdall before flashing the wrong firmware. It contained the string "TPA", so that's my current best guess. I have tried firmwares for TPA, CHE, and CHO but with the same results.
Any ideas what might be wrong? I imagine the device isn't hard bricked, so I don't know what else could have went wrong. Kind of a newbie when it comes to android firmware, but I have some technical background, so let me know if there's some more things I can try or if more information might be needed to debug this issue.
Some more specific questions:
1. Does the carrier code matching the device matter? If so, is there a way to find the original CSC from IMEI on an unlocked/no warranty phone? The few websites I tried don't appear to be able to get that info.
2. Is there any way to access the logs from the last normal boot attempt? (Recovery mode only appears to keep logs for itself, not normal boot)
3. Could tripping Knox somehow be the problem? I didn't think it had any repercussions except voiding the warranty (which the device didn't come with)....
4. Can Samsung support somehow help me find my CSC/correct firmware even if I don't have a warranty?
Solved
Posting solution here just in case someone makes the same mistake,
I realized that I neglected to post the information displayed in download mode, most importantly:
`KG State: Prenormal`
Googling that, I found that this might be caused because of a mismatch between my SIM card region and the installed firmware region. So I removed my SIM card, re-flashed the latest stock firmware again, and it booted :laugh:
Also, download mode displayed the correct CSC code regardless of installed firmware (I installed CHE firmware and it still displayed TPA), though I'm not sure if that's consistent across devices.