Samsung Technical Support Sucks - Galaxy Tab 7.7 General

When I was experiencing a problem of the 7.7 re-booting into downloading mode I rang Samsung technical support and they insisted the only solution was to never re-boot. When I tried to argue that the 7.7 should be able to power down and re-boot without going into downloading mode they cut me off. Not only did they display unbelievable technical ignorance, but were also ill-mannered and disrespectful.
When I was packing my 7.7 for returning I did a factory re-set to erase personal data and discovered that it fixed my re-booting into downloading mode problem. I wish I had thought to try that or that Samsung Technical Support had suggested it before I re-flashed the stock ROM which did not work. Unfortunately, I had already ordered a replacement so I had to continue with the return even though the problem was fixed else I would end up with two 7.7.
I hope my experience will help others who find themselves stuck in a downloading loop, for there is little help on the Web.
PS: You need to re-flash the stock ROM to get out of the download loop before you can do a factory reset.

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Sam issue than others, different behavior HELP please!

Hey guys, i received a Samsung Focus i917 rev 1.3 from a guy who wanted to put that phone back to factory state. Im dont have a lot of experience on windows phones other than the HTC versions. Anyway, i performed a factory reset on the phone but the data didnt deleted at all. Now, i understand as far as i know that those phones need the SD card in order to work fine. That phone didnt have one, but it was working though. Thing is i decided to flash it with stock ATTJK2 and when i flashed it everything went fine. But the phone now stays on the Samsung logo for some minutes and reboots. When i say this case is different is because i can get to download mode as many times as i want, i can perform factory reset using hardware buttons and everything. In fact, i even installed MAGLDR and a custom rom trying to solve this but even though everything went well phone is still stuck on that logo. So my question is, should i insert a working SD for that phone and then flash it? Is it worth the try? Or is this phone just a brick? Cus my guess unbricking it wont solve it since the phone can reach download mode.... Help please and thanks for your help as always
enelyam said:
Hey guys, i received a Samsung Focus i917 rev 1.3 from a guy who wanted to put that phone back to factory state. Im dont have a lot of experience on windows phones other than the HTC versions. Anyway, i performed a factory reset on the phone but the data didnt deleted at all. Now, i understand as far as i know that those phones need the SD card in order to work fine. That phone didnt have one, but it was working though. Thing is i decided to flash it with stock ATTJK2 and when i flashed it everything went fine. But the phone now stays on the Samsung logo for some minutes and reboots. When i say this case is different is because i can get to download mode as many times as i want, i can perform factory reset using hardware buttons and everything. In fact, i even installed MAGLDR and a custom rom trying to solve this but even though everything went well phone is still stuck on that logo. So my question is, should i insert a working SD for that phone and then flash it? Is it worth the try? Or is this phone just a brick? Cus my guess unbricking it wont solve it since the phone can reach download mode.... Help please and thanks for your help as always
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You can definitely try inserting a SD card and see. I'd say it's definitely worth trying. It would be best to match the original SD card it had, if possible. But even so, remember it's not guaranteed it will work.
If you'd search the forum for "stuck in loop" or "stuck at samsung logo" you'd see it's not a rare problem, unfortunately.
I have same problem with two different phones, the one started with be stuck in the loop. No matter what I have tried it will not break the loop, everything flashes fine but never boots. Second one started out working, but factory default wouldn't completely clear data. Very odd...
Well, seems like these phones are not worth a penny then. Its incredible that something like that could happen to a smartphone, So many things that go wrong with them, Im going to put them in the no no list togheter with the Razr. Worst phones to deal with... And yes ive seen its very common to find this issue. Which is why i think theyre worthless
enelyam said:
Well, seems like these phones are not worth a penny then. Its incredible that something like that could happen to a smartphone, So many things that go wrong with them, Im going to put them in the no no list togheter with the Razr. Worst phones to deal with... And yes ive seen its very common to find this issue. Which is why i think theyre worthless
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Click to collapse
I'd say that is your experience and your perspective. Normally, you are NOT supposed to flash custom ROMs and you have been warned that if you do it you RISK bricking your phone. This is a new platform and the process of flashing is not yet 100% understood.
I've warned folks several times about flashing MAGLDR, it seems that only *some* phones have this "stuck" issue and in 99% cases they are related to flashing custom roms. To add more, no one has a fix (not even the guru's), which tells me the issue is most likely unfixable by software (much like an old bios reflash, might require taking out a chip). It might be a later batch of phones that use a specific chip, it might be something else. Point is you're flashing something on your own risk. And saying the phones aren't worth a penny just because you don't want to accept the risk of doing something potentially dangerous is a bit stretchy. And that's my perspective. To add on that, all phones should be looked for the capabilities and what they do, not just for modding. Focus has a replacement for the custom roms, you can achieve the same by installing packages yourself, without unnecessary risks.
Well, im sorry if something was misunderstood. I didnt mean to hurt feelings in here M8. But the thruth is that the phone was completely stock, i just wanted to delete the old data. So decided to flash it with official ATT firmware, it wasnt custom firmware. But since the phone didnt wanted to delete the data after factory reset(which for starters its odd) i tried flashing it and it flashed perfectly according to the flashing software. But it was stock Att, and the phone got stuck in samsung logo after the flash. Never made it further, i mean its not an unusual issue around here so thats why i said that. After that happened is when i tried to install MAGLDR, which installed perfectly also. But when i tried to flash a rom the phone just did the same, stuck in samsing logo also. In fact, i can still flash whatever i want on it, it goes to download mode perfectly, but no matter what i flash on it, it will stay on the samsung logo after that... Anyway, my bad on saying that those phones are not worth it. There maybe more people willing to have a phone which they wont know if it will boot when they turn it off, or maybe not delete their data when they wan to factory reset the phone. Im not one of those thats all. But i do respect your work dont get me wrong, its just that some odd situations like this makes people think twice when buying a phone.
Right mate, I get your point. No harm
If it makes any difference, happened to my wife's phone during normal Zune update, got the logo-loop. Was fixed by reflashing stock rom. Painful, but it worked. In your case it seems something was wrong with the flash, not being able to delete data after factory reset is indeed at least weird. Sorry you had a bad experience, I guess some of those happen every now and then...

[Q] Help with bootloop

Hi folks,
I'm having some issues with my Nexus 7 as it's stuck in a boot loop on KitKat. It's still under warranty and it's unrooted. I'm at the point of sending it back but I just wanted to check if there were any suggestions coming from helpful folks around here. It's only a couple of months old but it's a refurbished device that I got on the cheap.
A factory reset with only the default Google apps on it still initiates the boot loop. However when I manage to restart it in safe mode it seems to be stable. I've read some account of battery connections being the cause but if this was the case then I would think that it would still restart in safe mode.
So if there anything else I can try or should I just go ahead and return it?
Better go for a replacement...
Sent from my SM-N9005

Error Updating to v1.4 on 16 GB Model

I have the 16 GB model. I've previously unlocked the bootloader and rooted it. I've had no problems updating before despite having rooted the device (other than the need to manually re-root after flashing). For some reason the 1.4 update won't flash properly. Instead it gets stuck flashing with the error shown in the attached image. Has anyone else had this problem? I've tried a factory data reset (which reverts the rooting) prior to re-attempting the update, but that didn't work either.
Note that this isn't the same error as that experienced by some 500 GB model users who had their devices bricked due to (according to Nvidia) a physical hardware issue.
That could be a bad download. If you download it again, and have the same issue, please report back.
kdb424 said:
That could be a bad download. If you download it again, and have the same issue, please report back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately I tried a few times, even after a factory data reset, and it still had the same problem. In the end I downloaded the stock v1.4 images from Nvidia's website and flashed those via my PC terminal (and then spent several house reinstalling apps, reacquiring root etc). Hopefully it doesn't happen again with the next update.
I'd suggest mailing nvidia and openeng a ticket. Even if it's fine now, there may be a further problem that we don't know about now. It's better to have a ticket open earlier than later, sa they are more likely going to take you seriously and help quicker if it happens more than once for you. One thing I have learned over the years, is cover your butt. Contact as soon as possible, or they may not listen to you, or worse, blame you. Not Nvidia specifically, but I have been screwed because I didn't open tickets sooner.

Soft brick or hard brick?? /cache mount issues on N7 (2012 grouper, 32gb)

Hey all,
First post here on XDA and I'm hoping someone with more experience than me will be able to give me a hand! Until last week or so, I was running an up-to-date version of Lollipop (5.1.1), when my tablet started randomly freezing up on me, requiring "soft resets" to get it going again, or simply shutting off on me. Thinking it was software related, I tried wiping the cache with no success, so ended up doing a full factory reset. The issues *seemed* to clear up for a day or so, but came back, and so figuring it was Lollipop related, I wiped out the OS and installed CM12.1 (which was my first experience working with ADB and fastboot, and first time installing a non-stock ROM) with a TWRP recovery. A few days later, the freezing and shutting down issues began popping up again, with the shutdowns *usually* happening during sleep, but the freezing happening at anytime from initial "Google" logo to boot animation, to the middle of running an app. I had made a backup on TWRP when I got CM12.1 configured the way I wanted it, so I performed a soft reset when it froze on me, and booted into the bootloader. The tab kept freezing in the TWRP window before I could select a restore, so out of desperation I tried just doing a factory reset from within TWRP. Long story short, something must have happened during that reset, because it kept hanging on the boot screen. I thought I may have unknowingly messed something up, so I tried downloading and flashing a stock KitKat (4.4) ROM from Google's site, but kept encountering bootloader errors during the flashing and ended up only being able to boot to the bootloader screen (apparently got a faulty 4.3 bootloader in that ROM, which gave me a headache until I was able to get straightened out). I have been able to get a stock bootloader (4.23) up and running now, along with a stock recovery (going with Lollipop now, so stock for LMY47V) going, but that's it. I've tried flashing the stock lollipop image via shell script (I'm running a Fedora 23 machine), via individual commands, and via "fastboot update -w factory_image.zip" without success. ADB sideload still works via recovery, but I wasn't able to sideload the OTA packages for 5.1 either. The common errors that pop up seem to indicate an error (corruption? fragmentation?) on the cache partition, but I'm not a dev when it comes to Android, so I'm at a loss here... I keep getting "E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)", and other errors associated with accessing/opening files further down the /cache tree. Would this error be more likely to be a hardware issue, or would it be a software/firmware issue? I've had similar errors before with USB drives, when they would start to bad and partitions begin failing, but have always been able to rebuild them and get my data back. If something like this is happening on my N7 and the cache partition has indeed become somehow corrupted and failed (but not physically....), is it possible at all to rebuild partitions on Android in a similar manner? I've scoured the web, but haven't been able to find anything that can help me out with something like that, so I figured my best bet before condemning the N7 to the junk drawer was to see if any of the pros around here had any words of wisdom that *might* get me back up and running. Thoughts and advice much appreciated!!
Thanks!
(Oh, I apologize for the lengthy post, but I wanted to be sure to provide enough background info..... Sorry for the lengthy read!!)
Honestly that sounds more like a hardware problem than a software problem.
During the early stages of booting, everything that happens is extremely deterministic - meaning that it should be completely repeatable in terms of the order & timing in which activities occur.
So, for it to behave erratically during early boot suggests that it is not software, but marginal hardware. If hardware is barely meeting logic levels or timing requirements, a small amount of random noise (which is always present) can cause a fault to occur at any time - and that sounds approximately like what you are observing.
Further, you replaced your ROM entirely and the problem persists - again suggesting that the problem is hardware, not software.
The most cost effective way of dealing with repair of a $200 tablet is - unfortunately - disposing of it and buying a replacement.
Sorry.
Thanks for the reply!! Shoot, that's what I was leaning towards too. What is the life expectancy of these tablets? I mean, I got 3 good years of use out of it, so I'm not going to complain, but it seems like they should have lasted longer... Would it be worthwhile to maybe grab a cracked screen N7 off eBay for parts and try to get my tab working with those parts maybe? I'm hoping the rumors are true about Google coming out with a new tab this fall, but I'd love to get mine working before then lol...

Soft bricked data recovery

Hey all, been a while since I've been on - longest I've ever had a stock phone for . Hoping somebody can offer some advice as I'm stumped...
NOTE: If possible, I'm trying to avoid a factory reset!
Last night my stock UK Note 4 (SM-N910F) died (possibly during an OTA update but I wasn't using the phone and have been told it didn't so not sure) and when turned back on would just sit at the pulsing Samsung logo with no apparent restarting or anything. Clearing the cache didn't make a difference.
Recovery reported my ROM to be N910FXXS1DQE9 (region BTU). After waiting ages for the download, I first tried BTU-N910FXXU1BOC5 which produced the exact same problem with a different Samsung animation. I then tried BTU-N910FXXU1DQHC which seemed to sort of work - it would now boot but gave me a "Unfortunately, System UI has stopped" error with a black screen. I then flashed BTU-N910FXXU1DQH3 which is what I have running currently but this does the same thing. I did also try wiping cache in combination with the above (is this actually needed after flashing a new ROM?). I have also tried safemode - would let me open the power menu but otherwise did exactly the same thing.
I'm currently downloading the original ROM that wouldn't boot (N910FXXS1DQE9) from samsung-firmware but it's taking ages at ~50KBps. What are the chances of this working compared with the others, I assume probably not much? If likely, I'll pay up for an account and a quick download.
I've also tried flashing TWRP but I have reactivation lock on - does anybody know a way to disable / bypass this without access to the phone (research tells me probably not but there are a lot of smarter people than me here that I hope could tell me otherwise ). I can get into stock recovery but that only gives me ADB in sideload mode and I can also enter download mode fine obviously. Does anyone have any suggestions on recovering data from the phone before I factory reset?
Simply put, have I lost everything on the phone or is there a way I can retrieve some of it?
Also, I do have a load of server space I can offer with decent bandwidth - I have those ROM images above so I can offer these for download at a decent speed without a cost if anybody here on XDA needs - just send me a PM for a link

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