I finally decided to attempt to load a custom ROM on my Samsung Fascinate after a couple of months of owning it. Before I started anything, I backed up my current ROM twice using ROM Manager, then used ROM Manager to do the new ROM download and install.
Things didn't go well. At all.
Once the new ROM was installed, my phone restarted, got back to the puzzle screen (thinking I was in business!) and as soon as I unlocked the screen the force closes just kept on coming. One right after another. Pretty much anything and everything force closes, so much so that it is the only thing you can do on the phone now. I have tried force closing things for as much as 5 minutes thinking I might get to the end of it, but no luck.
So now I have 2 backups on my SD card. I went into my Android System Recovery (+, - volume and power button), selected apply sdcard:update.zip which gets me to ClockworkMod Recovery v. 2.5.1.0. From there I go into Backup and Restore, select Restore and then my restore file. After some time the restore process is complete and the phone asks to reboot. I do the reboot and low and behold nothing seems to have changed in the phone. I still have the custom ROM with all of the force closes.
Am I missing something with this CWM restore process? I have read what seems like dozens of forum entries and nobody else seems to have problems with the restoration.It seems like it is pretty straight forward but I am not having any luck with it at all.
Any help is appreciated!
Try This and see if it helps:
http://forum.androidcentral.com/fascinate-roms-hacks/38029-how-escape-force-close-loop-hell.html
Perfect! I am back in business thanks to you. Sure appreciate your help!
Did you wipe first?
I can't begin to describe how frustrated this phone has made me. I am not an Android "n00b" by any stretch. I have had 4 different Android phones, have flashed at LEAST 100 different roms, made complete rom themes, and even glued together one of the first complete Gingerbread roms to flash from recovery for the Motorola Droid (not from source, but first posted rom with working camera, Gapps, and all from standard recovery - not nandroid). With that being said, this phone is next to impossible for me to use. I've lost track of all of the problems I have had with this thing. Everything from CWM not being able to restore any backups, horrible battery life, boot loops galore, the phone freezing anytime it is plugged into the computer or wall (not the car charger, oddly enough), boot loops, tried the Yellow Clockwork (and everything failed that could on that), flashing roms that would work great until you reboot the first time, and so on and so forth. WHEN the phone works, it's great. However, that is starting to become quite rare. Most recently I have been stuck on trying to get either Evil Fascinate to work or MIUIWiz with no luck for either. EF works great...until I restore my apps. Once I reboot, it's all over. EVERYTHING force closes and it becomes completely unusable. Doesn't matter what kernel I use, it always happens. And this is now happening with both 3.5.1 and 3.6.0. Plus I could just watch the battery life plummet as I was using it. I even tried the EC01 radio with it, as it was suggested that might be better. So, I decided to try MIUIWiz. Followed the directions perfectly. Wiped everything, flashed a JT Kernel from 4/15, flashed rom, and...guess what? Boot loops. I am on ClockworkMod 3.0.2.7. I am familiar with how to wipe data/cache/dalvik. There were no voltage settings to wipe. I did check to see if Voodoo was enabled before booting. I just don't know what else to do. This isn't exactly rocket science and I really feel it can't just be user error at this stage with all of the different issues I have ran across. I'm pretty much at the stage that I am gonna return it to stock and sell it, but would really like to enjoy it for a little while longer... Thoughts?
Just for laughs, I downloaded Community Rom 1.3. Was on EF 3.6 (with nothing restored, just signed into Google). Rebooted to Recovery, wiped everything, installed Comm Rom and never got past the Samsung screen. *sigh* Seems odds since they are based on the same base, but yea, that's how it's been going for me.
I think since you are so god awfully experienced that you are looking over something that probably seems useless to you, ive NEVER experienced any of your problems and I can tell you its not the phone.. I would read up about your specific problems or ask a specific question and you might get the help you need.
Edit:Bootloops are user error nearly every time. Unless you have a corrupt download or something.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
As much as your sarcasm warrants a rude response, I'll choose not to stoop to that level. The point of the post was that there is not a "specific" problem. Hence the title, "Nothing works as it should..." Not every phone is the same, and just because you have experienced any of these problems does not determine whether my issues are phone related or not. Battery life issues are very common place, which is evident in many threads. The phone lagging when plugged in is most CERTAINLY a phone issue and has nothing to do with rom flashing. It appears this is a firmware issue and is not likely to be fixed at all. Also, I pointed out the steps used to flash the rom, which are posted in the thread, and still have problems with boot loops. So, I guess every rom I download is corrupted? Even though on different networks and computers? That's some luck I have...
Are you referring to "download" mode when you said yellow cwm? If so then maybe reinstall the samsung drivers and give it a clean flash including the pit with voodoo disabled. If you have bad problems like you are having that fixes anything I encounter.
Edit: if you use odin, try heimdall
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
The newest imnuts kernel installs a yellow CWM, and nothing worked right at all on that. Every verification failed. SO I ODINed back to stock and retried everything anew. Anytime I restore my apps with Titanium, the next reboot fails. I even just went back to stock again, flashed CWM Red 3.0.2.8ti and the stock kernel with recovery fix, restored apps again and rebooted and it did the same thing. I didn't have any issues with Titanium restoring stuff before, having successfully used it on EF 3.5.1 and ComRom 1.3 but not those don't work for me either anymore. I've tried restoring just the apps with no data and that doesn't seem to make a difference either.
EDIT - It must have something to do with Titanium. Gonna try an older version and see if that works. It looks like they updated it recently and maybe it is just not playing nice with anything for my phone.
When you restore try not restoring system data, that is check the box for user applications only. That might be the issue.
yea, I'm going to say Ti backup is the problem because you mention ti every time you have a problem. personally I don't use ti cause its never played nice for me, but did you try manually reinstalling a couple of apps reboot and see if the same problem happened? that would really narrow it down almost completely to ti.
Fascinate 2.2 1.2GHz(uv)
download the imnuts peanut butta jellytime kernel of choice and put it on your sdcard. Odin back to the stock rom of your choice (i recommended eb01 as other odin packages cause bad music quality.), and let the phone boot up.
Next, pull the battery and go back into download mode. Odin one of times_infinity's cwm packages. Then replace the battery and boot straight into CWM. Wipe data, cache, and dalbik and then flash community rom 1.3. IMMEDIATELY AFTER (meaning in the same cwm as when you flashed comm rom 1.3) flash the imnuts kernel that you put on your sdcard. Phone should boot up fine and be fully functional. As mentioned earlier by someone, dont restore system data with titanium backup.
It's not just the system data that is causing issues, as I have tried it both ways, and of course, only restoring system data that is labeled green when attempting to do so. And, it did work previously on EF 3.5.1 but no longer does. I'll give it another shot using thefunkbot's directions. Still confused as to why EF is the only rom that boots normally.
Alright, so that did get Com Rom running. I had actually tried that method before, but it took so long on the Samsung screen that I was sure that it was froze. I just let it go this time, and after about 5 minutes it finally started. None on the other roms I tried took that long, but whatever works...
that's probably due to voodoo, which takes about that time to install/initiate.
Yea, you can hear the creepy robot lady telling you what's going on, but it took a couple of minutes after that even. Also, I skipped Titanium and restored the apps manually. Some were from my SD card and some from the Market, and only about half of them worked after rebooting. Meh
Flash com rom, then flash the otb kernel. Comrom will boot and you will enjoy your phone.
I got Com Rom to boot, but alot of the apps won't reinstall without force closing after rebooting. Not being able to use Titanium is a major PITA to me. But it's not just Com Rom, it's EF, and even the stock rom. Just never had an issue with it before now. But even installing apps through the Market or from the SD card also created issues, so I dunno what is going on.
If you're getting a **** ton of FCs, try fixing permissions via Terminal Emulator. Run 'fxpms' and it *should* solve some FC issues. Also, the phone generally takes much longer than a couple minutes to boot up after doing a full wipe, because the dalvik cache has to be rebuilt. Guarantee that if you had just left the phone alone the first time it was stuck on the Samsung screen, it would've booted just fine.
There are many guides that should help if you run into problems. First odin back to stock update to get new modem (doesn't have to be the newest but might a well), use the pit as well. Second odin cwm. Then flash kern and rom with a voodoo conversion if desired.
At first don't restore any backups. Don't use any themes. Or make any other changes until you see how out runs. Also don't play with the under volting until you've used it a while.
After running it awhile "stock" a it were then start making your changes one by one. This way at least you will know what its causing the trouble.
That happened to me as well when flashed com rom. I took 3 batt pulls before I just let it go to find it was working all along just took its sweet time on first boot. Was not voodoo here. I also agree with your charger problem, but for me its reversed, only happens on the car charger. And I hate to say it but no froyo rom, stock or otherwise, plays nice with my fascinate. I get all kinds of weird bugs. And battery life got worse. Since I have come to the realization that no fascinate aosp or cm rom will ever have bluetooth headset support, I finally threw in the towel and spent an hour on the phone with verizon to get an upgrade. Sad but after all this time it was time to give up.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Wiping Davlik causes unusually long boot times on Froyo ROMs on the Fascinate. If you just wait it out (if it's more than 15 minutes, though, something's wrong) you should be golden. By the way, PBJ 5/23 is literally a non-starter, so I would suggest nemesis2all's OTB kernel until imnuts updates.
Another Fascinating post by my XDA app...
Thanks for all the help and advice everyone. After trying five different roms, I finally found one that works for me. Blackhole. I set it up just like the others, the difference being that Titanium and everything else works. Still have to test battery life, but just having all my apps and no force closes or boot loops is enough for now...
es0tericcha0s said:
Thanks for all the help and advice everyone. After trying five different roms, I finally found one that works for me. Blackhole. I set it up just like the others, the difference being that Titanium and everything else works. Still have to test battery life, but just having all my apps and no force closes or boot loops is enough for now...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blackhole 4.4? Or an earlier version? I miss SonOfSkywalker's work since he added the Thunderbolt to his arsenal (he also devs for the Vibrant)
Another Fascinating post by my XDA app...
4.4. Haven't had any issues with it so far. Battery life is probably not the best so far it seems, however I don't even care at this stage as long as everything works. I also have not run it down and reset the battery or played with many settings yet so not ready to say it is the rom or anything of the sort. Everyone has their deal breakers with their phone, and not having Titanium work is one of my biggest things. I love that app. I didn't donate for it to not use it, you know? I'm a themer, and I have a lot of themed apps saved with it that makes the Market pretty much useless to reinstall stuff for me. Plus it is an easy way to uninstall system apps without screwing anything else up.
Sometime last night, my AT&T G2 (D800) decided to go from being powered on and idling, to going into TWRP recovery mode. All by itself. I saw this, unplugged it from USB, and tried to reboot into system mode. But it simply won't do anything except boot into recovery. Powering off, trying to get to the bootloader, none of that works.
This is not a custom ROM, it's 4.2.2 stock from LG. I only rooted the phone, which was several weeks ago, and haven't had any problems, aside from TWRP not wanting to back up anything. I've been using Android since the original TMO G1 with JesusFreke's ROM, so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing, hopefully.
The only recent changes I've made are:
I updated busybox about 3 days ago (but have rebooted fine since)
I grabbed several legit apps from the market last night
Last night I also DL'ed, but did not apply, a ~50MB OTA update that has been pending. I don't think that would install without explicit permission anyway, which I didn't give it?
This phone was encrypted from the start. Maybe that;'s what prevents TWRP backups,, but right now I'm seeing TWRP errors/logs saying something like "Unable to mount \data". And yet I can browse to other folders, and see filenames in \etc for example. However, I don't see any files at all in \boot.
Since this phone has no external memory, and it's customized and has numerous configured apps, I really really don't want to have to wipe it. Although at this point, that may not even fix the problem? Even if it did, since I haven't been able to make backup images, it would be a Bad Thing™ either way. (Yes, I do have a secondary plan with Titanium, with backups going to cloud storage, but these are tedious and now a few weeks old. And wouldn't restore the ROM & system en masse.)
Please help.
Solved?
I'm not sure what caused this to occur, but I found somewhat of a solution after digging deep into my Google-fu.
I followed the instructions in this XDA thread and it actually worked. I didn't have adb access, but I was able to use dd successfully. It allowed me to boot into the device, unencrypt it, then arrive at the lock screen.
However, when I put in the lock code, it went apesh!t and played multiple notification sounds, with a blue circular wait symbol. It also flashed the LED from green to blue, as it normally only does during boot. Once I pressed the power button, I was back back into TWRP.
So then I followed Step 2 again, and once in the phone, I used terminal to run the dd command from inside the OS. This might be what it ultimately needs, because the prior attempt in TWRP had an error to the effect of "no space left on device".
I can't call it Solved yet, but it looks good to at least be able to get in and use the phone. I'm backing up with Titanium before I do anything else and will reboot and test its permanency later.
I'm gonna close this thread now that I think I have a handle on what is going on. The fix does survive a reboot, so I believe it's possible to repair the issue permanently per the instructions above. I also ran the phone for 3 hours with heavy app usage and no problems.
I believe what may have happened is my OTA decided to override my choice to NOT update the ROM, as some have reported in this Reddit thread. There's a lot of good info in that one, including how to stop getting nagged by turning the OTA notifications off, or to freeze it entirely with Titanium Backup if rooted.
Anyway, what apparently happens is that when the OTA/upgrade goes to reboot, and encounters a custom recovery, it gets confused... when you try to power cycle or reboot again, it sees the stock recovery still hasn't run whatever it wanted, so it starts recovery again Lather, rinse, repeat.
Fun times.