Database Users

[Q] Boot hangs at Android sign.

Simply put, this is what happens when a rooting newbie discovers custom bootloaders and ROMs.
Current State:
A full stock ROM installed (no root) with the Skrillax V8 bootloader plopped on top of it. (which of course means the recovery-from-boot.p file still exists and that I don't have CWM.) The tablet will show the Acer logo then the Android logo and will give the appearance of booting. Then the icon flashes. It does this intermittently and forever.
What I want:
CM 10+ running with Skrillax and TWRP stably. I'd go with Flexreaper for next choice. Maybe I'll try to compile a KitKat version for it someday. Who knows.
How I managed to get my tablet in this crappy state:
Rooted tab a long while ago with a probably far outdated method.
Looked all over the internet later on how to unlock the bootloader and settled on the manual method in this excellent thread.
I flashed V8 and TWRP without a hitch using nvflash.
I wiped and installed Flexreaper.
I liked it but wanted a higher prize. I make a nandroid backup of it onto the external_sd and wiped and installed CM 10.1 from this thread.
This is where everything started going sour. It told me the install was invalid halfway. Disappointed, I wiped again and tried to restore my nandroid backup. It seemed to restore properly, but then Skrillax hung forever loading the kernel.
I wiped again and installed Flexreaper fresh. This time it booted. I downloaded the newest unofficial version of CM they mention on their wiki.
Booted to recovery and installed CM 10. It ran fine and I was impressed with the new OS. Then I noticed the apparent lack of Gapps.
I flashed the Gapps Jellybean package and rebooted. Skrillax hung.
Wiped everything I could fine in the TWRP menu and installed Flexreaper. Got past the primary kernel loading but the android icon would work for a bit then flash, starting all over again.
At this point I flashed several other recoveries, hoping it was my recovery. No such luck. I tried all of them included in V8.
Then finally, I downloaded full stock ICS and flashed it. I rebooted and noticed the same Android flashing thing.
Finally, I flashed V8 again, being the newbie I was, and then suddenly remembered while trying to boot to recovery that the Full install probably rewrote the recovery-from-boot.p.
And here I am.
Tl;dr version:
Went click-happy with ROMs, wiping, and recovery flashing until I was left with a stock OS that wouldn't boot with a Skrillax bootloader but no recovery.
The good news is, I still have cpuid+sbk, it still boots to APX (no idea how I didn't screw that up too.), and I have a nandroid backup on my external_sd which is probably untouched, since I was careful to not wipe it in TWRP.
Please help me fix this. I don't want an excuse to waste money on a flashy new Nexus or Asus Transformer tablet, I already have too many for my wallet's comfort.

I quess you renamed stock rom to update.zip and than flashed it? If you havent do it, put it on sd card and pres power+vol down (if nuttin happens than vol up). That shld trigger flashing proces
poslato sa elmag radija

uglyjohny said:
I quess you renamed stock rom to update.zip and than flashed it? If you havent do it, put it on sd card and pres power+vol down (if nuttin happens than vol up). That shld trigger flashing proces
poslato sa elmag radija
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have access to a micro sd card reader if the file must be placed on the micro SD card. I already have flashed the stock rom supposedly via TWRP, so I shouldn't have to flash it again, I wouldn't think. If I do, I guess I'll have to get a reader.

Yes. Micro sd. Rename it. You have guodes gere on xda. Im hoping it will help you.
poslato sa elmag radija

It didn't work. Still in same state as before.

I also have access to fastboot if that would help.

m27frogy said:
Simply put, this is what happens when a rooting newbie discovers custom bootloaders and ROMs.
Current State:
A full stock ROM installed (no root) with the Skrillax V8 bootloader plopped on top of it. (which of course means the recovery-from-boot.p file still exists and that I don't have CWM.) The tablet will show the Acer logo then the Android logo and will give the appearance of booting. Then the icon flashes. It does this intermittently and forever.
What I want:
CM 10+ running with Skrillax and TWRP stably. I'd go with Flexreaper for next choice. Maybe I'll try to compile a KitKat version for it someday. Who knows.
How I managed to get my tablet in this crappy state:
Rooted tab a long while ago with a probably far outdated method.
Looked all over the internet later on how to unlock the bootloader and settled on the manual method in this excellent thread.
I flashed V8 and TWRP without a hitch using nvflash.
I wiped and installed Flexreaper.
I liked it but wanted a higher prize. I make a nandroid backup of it onto the external_sd and wiped and installed CM 10.1 from this thread.
This is where everything started going sour. It told me the install was invalid halfway. Disappointed, I wiped again and tried to restore my nandroid backup. It seemed to restore properly, but then Skrillax hung forever loading the kernel.
I wiped again and installed Flexreaper fresh. This time it booted. I downloaded the newest unofficial version of CM they mention on their wiki.
Booted to recovery and installed CM 10. It ran fine and I was impressed with the new OS. Then I noticed the apparent lack of Gapps.
I flashed the Gapps Jellybean package and rebooted. Skrillax hung.
Wiped everything I could fine in the TWRP menu and installed Flexreaper. Got past the primary kernel loading but the android icon would work for a bit then flash, starting all over again.
At this point I flashed several other recoveries, hoping it was my recovery. No such luck. I tried all of them included in V8.
Then finally, I downloaded full stock ICS and flashed it. I rebooted and noticed the same Android flashing thing.
Finally, I flashed V8 again, being the newbie I was, and then suddenly remembered while trying to boot to recovery that the Full install probably rewrote the recovery-from-boot.p.
And here I am.
Tl;dr version:
Went click-happy with ROMs, wiping, and recovery flashing until I was left with a stock OS that wouldn't boot with a Skrillax bootloader but no recovery.
The good news is, I still have cpuid+sbk, it still boots to APX (no idea how I didn't screw that up too.), and I have a nandroid backup on my external_sd which is probably untouched, since I was careful to not wipe it in TWRP.
Please help me fix this. I don't want an excuse to waste money on a flashy new Nexus or Asus Transformer tablet, I already have too many for my wallet's comfort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Babsector should still work - you would need t do a search for it

It seems to have worked properly, sort of. Flashing FLEXReaper results in an "Encryption failed." prompt at boot, which the button, of course, does not work. Wiping everything works except that the prompt notes "E:format_volume: make_extf4fs failed on /dev/block/mmcblk0p4" Trying to reflash V8 with TWRP with the V8.bat file fails at format. More help?

My tablet is still displaying "Encryption failed", the button still doesn't work, and I still love my a500. Help?
Anyone?

I guess I'm screwed, then.

In the end, I think my data partition failed. Formatting or wiping data fails and when installing FlexReaper, it reports /data size as -1. Unless anyone knows how to fix flash memory, I think I'm stuck.

[Q] Can't seem to flash or update from fastboot or recovery. HELP

I've never had problems like this and I've been flashing custom roms and recovery since HTC G1 days. Maybe you chaps can enlighten me a bit.
I can boot into all partitions of my device just fine, regular system, recovery, bootloader all okay. My daily rom (Vanir), however, has been getting a little bogged down lately so I'm trying to do an update.
I transferred my rom and gapps files to the sdcard and boot into twrp 2.6.3.1 to update, but lo and behold, the files are now missing. All my other files are there, just not the rom or the gapps. Not too worried yet, I'll just use the sideload method instead.
Start up sideload and watch it transfer over the new rom (MIUI at this point, and I factory reset before hand). From the cmd line I can see it going over just fine and the device seems to be accepting it as well. It gets to 100% and starts a quick error free install on the device, but when I reboot, nothing has been changed and I'm back in Vanir. Okay...I'll update the recovery and see if a new one works.
So I boot into the fastboot to update the recovery.
Code:
fastboot flash recovery openrecovery-twrp-2.7.0.0-grouper.img
Looks good, no error messages, cmd line shows it has been written, so I reboot into my new recovery, only its not new, its still twrp 2.6.3.1 and everything still doesn't work.
Long story long, I also tried installing CWM instead of TWRP -- didn't work, using adb push to move the files and that didn't work, and every time I seem to just lose the zip files after a reboot or update attempt. In fact, when I boot back into Vanir, all my regular files are there, but even though I haven't removed them none of the rom or gapps zips are anywhere. I am sure they have successfully transferred multiple times, but they never seem to make it through a boot sequence.
At this point I'm stuck, and wondering about my boot partitions being messed up. Any help you can provide is much appreciated.

Update, with new information.
I tried to do a complete wipe a la the guide that's stickied in this forum, and it's led me to a bit of new information. It seems that my bootloader is repeatedly failing to update from version 3.23 every time giving either the "InvalidState" error, or when I use older bootloaders that are supposed to work like the JWR66V bootloader mention in this post, it doesn't say "InvalidState" but still fails just the same with a blank where it would say "InvalidState".
I've also realized that none of my changes to my tablet are persisting through a boot sequence. If I download a new app, it is gone upon restarting. In fact, every time I power it up, it downloads the same 3 app updates to the device. Perhaps that can help narrow the problem down a little bit? Sounds like a data wipe is happening every time, but only for changes since I began to try to update the tablet a few days ago, all my files from before the update attempt are never removed or altered at all.
Lastly, according to Rom Manager, I have both TWRP and ClockworkMod as recovery. Actually, that makes me think it might be a boot.img issue. If anyone has any ideas at all, I am open to try any of them at this point. Thanks for reading and for your suggestions in advance!

[Q] How do I restore device after failed OTA 5.0.1 update on rooted N4?

Hi folks,
I recently rooted by N4. It was running Android 5.0.
I also have MultiROM installed, with CyanogenMod installed as a secondary ROM.
I didn't realise I couldn't apply the OTA updates to the stock Android system (my oversight), and I allowed the device to download and (attempt an) the recent 5.0.1 update from Google.
When the update attempted to reboot the device, I could see in the terminal data that popped up, that it failed.
After that device now gets stuck in the booting stage with the little coloured balls drifting around.
I continued to use my phone with the secondary ROM (Cyanogen) for some days until I had time to sort this out.
MY ATTEMPTED RECOVERY
I read that ordinarily on a rooted device one would manually apply the various image files from the full 5.0.1 package.
So, following instructions found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/general/guide-flash-factory-images-nexus-6shamu-t2954008
Using method two (long method).
... In fastboot mode I flashed the system, boot, recovery, cache (after clearing cache), radio images from the 5.0.1 stock image.
At first I didn't flash the bootloader (as I wanted to maintain the multiboot loader I had installed) nor the user.img (I don't want to lose my user data). I read this should work. But it didn't.
When it came to booting into recovery mode to finish the process, an android icon with a ! warning on it would appear, and I could not do the recovery.
So, I have since flashed the bootloader also. That didn't change much, except that my dual-boot boot loader is now gone, and the device is still not recoverable.
Is there something I am not doing correctly? How can I recover this device so that it has 5.0.1, my existing user data, and my existing dual boot bootloader?
Cheers,...

May have solved it...
I'll post another update in a moment. Posting this just in case someone starts responding to my question in the interim.
After further fiddling around, I may have resolved this issue. I've managed to get it into recovery menu, rebooted from there, and device is now in "Android is updating" mode. Looking good.
Will post new message soon as to whether this was successful or not.

Issues continue
So, after the device booted a screen appeared for a fraction of a second, that appeared to be the screen for selecting system language (as per what happens when a device is first run after a clean install). But the screen almost instantly goes black except for the little network icon and battery icon and time in the top right of the screen.
If I use the power button to lock the screen and again to activate it, the screen very briefly flashed up the language selector, then goes blank again.
So... it seems something odd is happening after applying the 5.0.1 file.
Any suggestions?

Flash the 5.0.1 factory image with fastboot
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app

jd1639 said:
Flash the 5.0.1 factory image with fastboot
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this is what I resorted to doing. And it worked. Phone started and was as new. Of course, I lost my user data which is a ****. I did pull the SDCARD content over ADB, but am not sure how I'd go about pushing it all back on, into right locations, etc.
BUT—and it's a BIG BUT—when I re-rooted it and applied SuperSu, it couldn't be put into recovery mode any more. It would keep running through the SuperSu install process each time I'd attempt to go into Recovery.
I ended up ignoring this, and installing Busybox (with Play) and SuperSu.apk (via Play). But the SuperSU apk would keep saying its files needed to be installed/updated.
I forget the exact mess that unfolded, but eventually (after installing MultiROM) I could boot the phone as it would ALWAYS go into (custom) recovery.
So I starter the whole process again, with another clean install of 5.0.1, and yet now it is stuck at the bootloader (the little swirling balls screen).

AndroidWelcome said:
Well, this is what I resorted to doing. And it worked. Phone started and was as new. Of course, I lost my user data which is a ****. I did pull the SDCARD content over ADB, but am not sure how I'd go about pushing it all back on, into right locations, etc.
BUT—and it's a BIG BUT—when I re-rooted it and applied SuperSu, it couldn't be put into recovery mode any more. It would keep running through the SuperSu install process each time I'd attempt to go into Recovery.
I ended up ignoring this, and installing Busybox (with Play) and SuperSu.apk (via Play). But the SuperSU apk would keep saying its files needed to be installed/updated.
I forget the exact mess that unfolded, but eventually (after installing MultiROM) I could boot the phone as it would ALWAYS go into (custom) recovery.
So I starter the whole process again, with another clean install of 5.0.1, and yet now it is stuck at the bootloader (the little swirling balls screen).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a full wipe from Factory Recovery, and see if it will fix the bootloop.

Bootloop no more...
ariesgodofwar said:
Try a full wipe from Factory Recovery, and see if it will fix the bootloop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
(wiping the sweat from his brow...)
After many tedious hours of messing around with this beast... there is life beyond the bootloop.
Back to a stock install.
So, now I am wondering why the SuperSu/Root process didn't work on my last round on this.
The SuperSu installer would kick in EVERY time I went into Recovery mode, and would then reboot the phone. This made it impossible to do things with ADP because I essentially couldn't get into recovery mode. I wanted to push through some of the stuff I pulled using ADP before I wiped the phone previously.
I installed MultiROM (which includes TWRP [is that what it's called] recovery system. BUT then go stuck in a Recovery loop.
Not wishing to repeat that fiasco... does anyone more knowledgeable than I (not a difficult status to achieve) have any suggestions to what might have caused those issues?

Galaxy S5: Stuck "Flashing File 1 of 1" When Installing CM

CM Installation Problems
I posted this last night on the CM forums and have had one responder but thought this might reach a wider audience. I'm copying and pasting the OP and I'll try to include as much info as possible.
Hi,
I'm fairly new to flashing etc. New as in this was the first time I tried it. I'm fairly tech savvy, I just haven't flashed a custom rom before.
I followed all the instructions on the CM wiki for the S5 (AU).
Long story short, every step in those instructions worked perfectly once I accounted for my own errors or misunderstandings. Flashed the TWRP recovery just fine. There were problems with ADB not working when the phone was in recovery mode (discovered it's something to do with win 8 and above) so I just rebooted into stock rom (where ADB worked) and used adb push to copy the files to sdcard. Everything went swimmingly until the actual CM installation. I followed the instructions and did the factory reset, went to install and the installation took something like 10 mins before I started to wonder how long it was meant to take. Little bit of googling got me more worried, after about 20 I pulled the battery, back into recovery and went into Wipe again. Cleared Dalvik, cache, system all manually and then did the factory reset option on top of that just to be thorough. Installation is still taking forever. It's currently been around 20 minutes. Some posts I've read say rooting is required but that installation article specifically says rooting is neither required nor recommended. I've no idea where to turn now. I can't use ADB to copy a stock firmware back on as it doesn't work in recovery mode, nor can I try the klte or kltedev versions (don't think they're meant for this model anyway). It's just stuck on "flashing file 1 of 1" - the last thing in the log is "Patching system image unconditionally..." I'm running windows 10, not that that should make any difference.
Any help would be hugely appreciated.
Update: After about 40 mins I pulled battery again and thought I'd try booting normally and seeing what it does. Just sits at "Samsung Galaxy S5" splash screen.
TL;DR/Extra info:
Galaxy S5 G900I (AU) Vodafone
Was running Lollipop 5.0 as per Vodafone OTA update
Using instructions on the CM wiki page for the GS5 (AU) I flashed TWRP using Heimdall with no errors. ADB would not work in download/recovery (couldn't see device) so booted phone into stock ROM and used ADB push to copy the CM file to sdcard root. Note: I don't have an sd card, it's internal storage. Rebooted into recovery, tried to flash CM, it sat on installation screen for about 20 mins. Tried 3 times, leaving it for 40 mins, still nothing. Stock OS has been wiped so I can't get back into that, and because ADB doesn't work I can't reflash recovery from scratch, can't copy a new download of CM on, can't copy the stock ROM to flash. ADB Sideload just tries to run and fails. Currently trying to get ADB working. Running Win 10, device stopped showing up in device manager or Zadig at this point. Restarted PC, ran Zadig again, it saw device, reinstalled driver, now shows up in device manager under USB Devices as MSM8960 (so not under Portable Devices as it once did). Note: the safely remove icon in system tray showed "Galaxy S5 (Phone name)" before I ran Zadig again, now it shows MSM8960.
Help

Reflashed TWRP with Heimdall. Didn't change a thing.
After the biggest headache of my life I got ADB working in TWRP. Had to modify the .inf of the google usb driver that the SDK installs and add the hardware ID of the device in recovery mode. Apparently the ID changes when in recovery so the driver doesn't recognise it anymore. Success!
I downloaded the nightly from 30/09, renamed it update.zip so the filename was simpler, pushed it with ADB to sdcard and am now trying to install it. So far same issue, but at least I can push files to the phone now. It definitely seems to be an issue with the install process.
Update: Still same issue. New zip, new build, reflashed recovery and still hangs on install. Would trying ClockWorkMod be worth it rather than TWRP?

When sideloading the ROM and viewing command prompt on the PC everything works fine until it hits 90% and then it stops suddenly and stays there. During the TWRP factory reset it also says unable to mount system several times if that's any help

I've now tried flashing Philz Touch and given that a go. Factory reset/wiping seemed to run with less of a hitch but still exactly the same deal, gets to "patching system unconditionally" when installing CM and just sits there, progress bar doesn't even fill up a bit. I'm stumped.

no bootloader(/fastboot) menu, rooted stock rom lolipop. cannot install custom rom

Hello,
I am having some problems since today i flashed the su binaries over my completely new lineageos install. (a14.4, fully wiped before).
it was stuck during boot at the android logo(let it boot for half an hour, multiple times, no progress). so naturally i wanted to boot to recovery, though it would not boot into recovery with any imaginable key combo.
so i went into bootloader mode (which, in my case, is jsut download mode, no fastboot whatsoever, and yes, i checked fastboot devices, (also adb), nothing to be found there)
next, knowing i had no other choide at that moment, i flashed a stock rom, via download mode. worked so far.
stock rom was running (ics), bootloader was still download mode only, and recovery was now stock android rec.
my next step was flashing a custom rom, since this was the most important thing to get to working then.
via adb sideload i fashed lineageos, once again. was working fine, so recovery next. but nothing worked.
included with lineageos is root access, so i enabled all the stuff, incl. adb, on my phone. but adb sideload always spit out errors (code 7 or 255) on rec install (twrp 2.8.something touch.zip) [some error about /tmp/update.zip] trying cwm resulted in the same thing, like did flashing gapps.
pushing the files to the internal memory (/sdcard) did not help, since 'flash from sdcard' resulted in an empty sdcard folder with no files to install (in recovery. in the file explorer while running the os, the files where there)
then i tried rashr (not sure exactly which app it was) to install rec. it said everything worked fine, trying to install cwm. so i rebooted
and nothing worked. the rom would not boot anymore (again, stuck at android logo) since the stock recovery only allows for adb access in form of sideload, no push whatsoever, and sideload did not let me install the os via zip, it was back to flashing a stock rom once again.
so i did that again (this time lolipop)
this is where i am now:
the rom boots perfectly, like does the kinda stock recovery, but again: no files in the sdcard path within the rec menu, though i pushed them there, and they appear there in the file manager.
i installed root, for those neat apps, that maybe one would work, but they need root and the stock rom does not know how to give those rights to apps, no option found for this whatsoever.
also, download mode is gone. (still no fastboot)
when i try to boot the bootloader, i just goes on to usual os boot (key combo and adb reboot bootloader result in the same thing)
recovery is still working, but pretty useless still. when i try to sideload a file, it quits with failed verification of the file. which is no surprise to me, since it shows the message halfway through the send process (observed from the adb terminal on my pc, never gets even close to 100% before the message appears on the phone which also cuts the connection therefore the file send process.)
i have absolutely no idea what the hell will get this working again. i dont really care about the download mode, but what i really need is a custom recovery to finally work, so i can install all of my stuff again.
does anyone have any idea on what i could try next?
hopefully yours,
azyrael

SOLVED
so i noticed for root apps i need to install supersu (or something like this) to give root access to apps if there is no native way within the rom to do this stuff.
install supersu and found out i somehow had no root access at all. tried ioroot etc, did not work
so i installed a stock jb android rom, rooted the device via ioroot, install recovery via autorec, and it finally worked!
this took me only two days.
thx xda for providing all of the tools i needed for this <3

kinda unsolved
so, it got recovery to work. installation of lineageos also worked perfectly., though this bricks my device.
no matter what i wipe, installing a custom rom will stop it from booting. this could only be fixed by installing a stock rom again, which also reverses root and install a stock recovery. since i only need root and the rec for installing a custom rom, which does not work anymore, i wont bother with this anymore. i have abosutely no idea whatsoever, and tried everything even barely coming to my mind.
still open for suggestions, but the stock rom will have to suffice for now.