Database Users

Howto: Unbrick Semi-Bricked X10 (red flashing led)

It was just a matter of time for me to brick me new phone. It took me 8 days this time but it can be fixed fairly easy.
If you've got a red flashing led (flashing ca. once per second) while charging and flashing three times after pressing the power button, you can try the following.
I had an error like that and fixed it.
After leaving the phone at the charger for about half an hour it turned on at random but was stuck at the Sony Ericsson bootscreen. I think it has something to do with wiping battery stats, so be careful with this option in XRecovery.
This is how I got it working again:
First of all ensure your battery is not damaged. Try it in a different phone or try a different battery.
If it works, ensure your usb-port is working.
Afterwards do the following:
1. Boot up a windows computer
2. Download and install Sony Ericsson Update Service (SEUS) - you will find it easily with the search machine of your choice
3. Get some adhesive tape, press the back button and tape it down (be sure it is pressed all the time)
4. Connect the phone to your Computer, you should see the flashing LED again, don't panic
5. Start SEUS and chose the X10
6. Wait(!)
7. Get a cup of coffee and wait again
8. The LED will turn green at some time, windows will recognize the device. Complete the update of system software (even if it says your phone is up to date)
9. You will have to reboot the phone. Your LED will be flashing red again. Don't panic, your almost done. Leave the phone charging for another hour or two. It should be booting by itself.
After this steps my phone was working fine again. No dead battery, no dead usb-port as mentioned in other forums or other threads.
Just try it, if you flashed a custom rom you have got nothing to lose.

USB port disabled - factory wipe
dawn2k said:
First of all ensure your battery is not damaged. Try it in a different phone or try
After this steps my phone was working fine again. No dead battery, no dead usb-port as mentioned in other forums or other threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this thread. I've seen many similar issues and was just hit with this RED LED of death - 3 blinks then nothing...
Messing with chargemon and charger in /system/bin/ - has certainly not been good, but I'm not convinced it was the entire problem, at least in my case I was running a version of Wolfbreak CM 6.5 v5 and let the battery get below 5% charge.
I should have turned it off, waited until I could charge again but I didn't! When I tried to recharge, the phone initially was giving green led's so it might have been possible to salvage easily.. I made a terrible mistake of going to xRecovery and waiting until the battery was so dead, there was really no way of recovering from this state and totally drained out the battery.
So I purchased a new BST-41 battery for AU $25. Maybe that was expensive for a clone, others are available for $4 on ebay but hey, have a look at this thread regarding Original VS. Fake BST-41 Battery - quite interesting!
This got my X10 working again... BUT I am unable to get into SEUS, Flashtool or make the charger work. The USB port appears to have been disabled and am unsure about the best way to reset to an operational state.
Will update this thread when I have found more
EDIT 1: It's all in the above post...
5. Start SEUS and chose the X10
6. Wait(!)
7. Get a cup of coffee and wait again
8. The LED will turn green at some time, windows will recognize the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the exception of maybe having to mess around with this a bit, it will eventually work. I didn't tape the button down because you need to release it but I've just seen green flashes.. I'm very close to getting this phone working again with SEUS and the back key..
EDIT 2: xRecovery > Factory Reset > Full wipe - you will be warned of loosing all user data - The moment you wipe the user data, the phone will recognise the charger and turn to a green LED. From this point let it reboot, it will go silly and you may even get a WLOD - White LED of death.
If you have got USB to connect, follow the standard method of using SEUS to restore a factory ROM and take it from there. TRY to remember not to let the battery go below 5% without a charger and invest in some spare battery's from eBay - cheap after all
Connect via WiFi is only possible with LT15 (Arc) - SO-01c (Arc) - Neo (MT15) - Play (R800) - USB must be enabled for a connection to happen to the PC and this is where I'm still stuck..
EDIT 3: Turns out the problem is - USB Port needs to be re-soldered, it is broken contact and is intermittently connecting to the USB port.

This is what happened to my phone too. I ended up sending it away for repair because the USB port was broken. The phone would say it was charging but it actually wasnt. Im still waiting to get my phone back.

I thought it wasn't possible to brick an xperia x10, forgive me if I'm ring?
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI using XDA App

shakeyabooti said:
I thought it wasn't possible to brick an xperia x10, forgive me if I'm ring?
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wasn't bricked, it was faulty connection in the USB port not allowing their phone accept a charge. The red LED is from an uncharged battery.
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App

Thanks OP, this worked perfectly. I'm glad I risked it with an amazing deal on craigslist. Kudos.

shakeyabooti said:
I thought it wasn't possible to brick an xperia x10, forgive me if I'm ring?
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only if you have access to the bootloader.

Ok.. i think i bricked my x10.
My x10 always gave me problem at startup. I had to remove battery wait 5sec. Then again try booting. After few attempts it would boot. So i decided to reinstall 2.1. Downloaded seus. Installation till 90%. And unknown error window.
Service Center won't take it as its from different country.
When i try to boot it. It blinks green led and that's it.
Any suggestions?

vu2ikl said:
Ok.. i think i bricked my x10.
My x10 always gave me problem at startup. I had to remove battery wait 5sec. Then again try booting. After few attempts it would boot. So i decided to reinstall 2.1. Downloaded seus. Installation till 90%. And unknown error window.
Service Center won't take it as its from different country.
When i try to boot it. It blinks green led and that's it.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you get in flashmode?
If so then try and flash with FlashTool

@arkedk thanks for the quick reply.
I m total noob. Can u please point me to the "how to" flash x10?
EDIT: i found this thread which discuss the flash at length.. will try and get back.

red led flashing three times
arkedk said:
Can you get in flashmode?
If so then try and flash with FlashTool
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes. i could successfully flash the phone with 2.1.B.0.1 version just now. without error. but now i when i try to start the phone, it doesn't. instead, i get the red led flashing three times.
i put it for charging. the green led lights up showing it has started charging. but after roughly 15-20 seconds the green led fades off.
1. flashing was successful which means usb is not broken right?
2. have i bricked my phone?
3. How can i get my lovely x10 back to life?

Have you flashed with SEUS or flashtool?
Try reflashing the rom as a first step.
If flashing with flashtool, does the sw detect your phone? Could you post the output to the screen as flashtool tries to flash? That would help!
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI-IRIS using XDA App

acmbc said:
Have you flashed with SEUS or flashtool?
Try reflashing the rom as a first step.
If flashing with flashtool, does the sw detect your phone? Could you post the output to the screen as flashtool tries to flash? That would help!
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI-IRIS using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the flashtool, as SEUS was the only culprit who made my x10 to hibernate (i am still trying to wake it up )
sorry, i donno how to attach photo.. here is the link where i have uploaded that.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5771350239/

vu2ikl said:
I used the flashtool, as SEUS was the only culprit who made my x10 to hibernate (i am still trying to wake it up )
sorry, i donno how to attach photo.. here is the link where i have uploaded that.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5771350239/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like you had a successful flash. How much battery did you have when you flashed?

If the battery had drained dry flashtool wouldn't have finished flashing, would it though?
Can you have you tried to reflash?
Sent from my X10 TripNMiUI-IRIS using XDA App

arkedk said:
Looks like you had a successful flash. How much battery did you have when you flashed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
battery was very very low. but the phone is connected to laptop while flashing..wouldn't that be enough?
@acmbc: should i reflash?
when i kept x10 for charging, the green charging led lights up for 10-15 seconds and then goes off.. still kept it charging for couple of hours. and then tried rebooting. this time green led flashed. phone vibrated but nothing.
ok..i gotta confess. i tried the crazy solution mentioned on talk.sonyericsson which asked to keep battery in freezer for an hour and then try charging it. i did that. and when i put x10 for charging. for 20 seconds the green light was on.. but then it went berserk.. vibrating continuously. at once i took out the battery. and now i am scared as it is repeating this cycle when i charge it. green light->off->vibrate continuously.

vu2ikl said:
battery was very very low. but the phone is connected to laptop while flashing..wouldn't that be enough?
@acmbc: should i reflash?
when i kept x10 for charging, the green charging led lights up for 10-15 seconds and then goes off.. still kept it charging for couple of hours. and then tried rebooting. this time green led flashed. phone vibrated but nothing.
ok..i gotta confess. i tried the crazy solution mentioned on talk.sonyericsson which asked to keep battery in freezer for an hour and then try charging it. i did that. and when i put x10 for charging. for 20 seconds the green light was on.. but then it went berserk.. vibrating continuously. at once i took out the battery. and now i am scared as it is repeating this cycle when i charge it. green light->off->vibrate continuously.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's your problem. You must never flash with low battery. always flash with at least 50% or more. And no you're not getting power from the computer in flashmode only the battery is supplying that power.
If the flash was successful you could try and hook the phone up to the charger (wall charger) and let it sit there for a while. This might get it back to life.

how do i charge my half bricked phone
arkedk said:
There's your problem. You must never flash with low battery. always flash with at least 50% or more. And no you're not getting power from the computer in flashmode only the battery is supplying that power.
If the flash was successful you could try and hook the phone up to the charger (wall charger) and let it sit there for a while. This might get it back to life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok.. thanks. i thought phone would get the power from computer.
but now i have one more question in front of me.
How do i charge my phone.
coz. when i connect x10 to wall charger it shows green light for some time and then starts vibrating untill i get the battery out.
if i connect x10 to the computer which i am doing now, it is flashing red light every 5 seconds.

vu2ikl said:
ok.. thanks. i thought phone would get the power from computer.
but now i have one more question in front of me.
How do i charge my phone.
coz. when i connect x10 to wall charger it shows green light for some time and then starts vibrating untill i get the battery out.
if i connect x10 to the computer which i am doing now, it is flashing red light every 5 seconds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like you had an unsuccessful flash then. If you got any other means of getting the battery charged then try that and see if you can flash it again.
If not, I'm afraid you'll have to take it to the service center.

I read the post from the op..
If the battery gets severely drained it may look like the phone is dead.
Just plug it in and sometime up to a hour later it will power up.

Red Light of Death during overnight charging

I will acknowledge from the get-go that this is probably my fault entirely. I was quite tired and fell asleep but in the mean time, I was doing a nandroid backup of my phone - which at the time was running stock rom and stock kernel. I actually had just done the factory reset on the phone too. But my phone is rooted and has the unlocked bootloader. Anyways, I left it on my table while it was backing up, I saw the progress bar and everything was working fine and dandy but this is when I fell asleep. It was on an ac wall charger overnight and I woke up to find it flashing the red light when plugged in only.
So from looking around, some people have said it is the case where the phone is completely discharged and to have it charging for a while, but I'm not sure if this applies to me since I already had it on charge the whole night? What's my situation here?
In any case, I'll be going out to buy my tools, would it just be the T5 Torx screwdriver?
Edit: When the phone is plugged into any charger the red flashing light is persistent, however I did notice that when I plugged it in via usb and my computer, I first got a glimpse at the white battery charging screen for a moment, then the phone would return back to its red flashing

Anyone?
Just from playing around it more I realized that, ONLY when plugged via usb to my computer, I will get that initial solid red light, then the screen with the battery and lightning bolt.
****I realized that if I held the power button on that battery screen, the phone appears to boot up, and I get the black page with "Google", for a short moment then it shuts off and resumes flashing the red light.
Is it because theres not enough charge to fully boot the phone? I already had it plugged in overnight so this really didn't make sense to me.
And I don't know if it the phone actually charges when I have it plugged in and the red light is flashing.

Take the back off and unplug, replug the battery
Sent from my Nexus 4 @1.728 GHz on Stock 4.2.2

omgwtfitsp said:
Anyone?
Just from playing around it more I realized that, ONLY when plugged via usb to my computer, I will get that initial solid red light, then the screen with the battery and lightning bolt.
****I realized that if I held the power button on that battery screen, the phone appears to boot up, and I get the black page with "Google", for a short moment then it shuts off and resumes flashing the red light.
Is it because theres not enough charge to fully boot the phone? I already had it plugged in overnight so this really didn't make sense to me.
And I don't know if it the phone actually charges when I have it plugged in and the red light is flashing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Instead of trying to boot the phone up, try to get into recovery. Most people that had this type of issue managed to get into recovery and from there reboot..
If that doesn't work, and you manage to get into the recovery, do your wipes, or flash another rom.
If i were you i'd try all those lil tricks, if nothing works, then i'd be thinking about taking the back plate off and unpluging the battery.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

rayiskon said:
Instead of trying to boot the phone up, try to get into recovery. Most people that had this type of issue managed to get into recovery and from there reboot..
If that doesn't work, and you manage to get into the recovery, do your wipes, or flash another rom.
If i were you i'd try all those lil tricks, if nothing works, then i'd be thinking about taking the back plate off and unpluging the battery.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How would I get into recovery? Do you mean by holding the power and volume down? I was sure I tried all other ways of holding the power but the most it will give me is the google screen.

omgwtfitsp said:
How would I get into recovery? Do you mean by holding the power and volume down? I was sure I tried all other ways of holding the power but the most it will give me is the google screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you said that at the battery screen holding power will get you to the google logo, but if you tried holding power+vol down and it's not working, then i guess u don't have much options here..
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

Help please, GT-I9505 wont boot!!!

Hi everyone, I have a big problem and I dont know how to fix it
A couple of weeks ago I installed via Odin the Test Firmware 4.3 for my GT-I9505 and it worked fine so far.
Today I rebooted my phone normaly and for my surprise it wont boot..
It vibrates when I press power button but nothing happens, screen keeps black with no image at all.
Dont let me enter download mode or recovery mode.
I already tried to pull the battery off for 10 minutos and put it back in and nothing happens. just vibrates.
The LED turns RED if I plug the phone to the charger but still no charging image or anything
I dont have any custom recovery or anything.
Can someone please help me?
PS: sorry for my bad english

Suggest obtaining a new battery. Look at your battery has it grown in size? Try turning it on with the charger plugged in.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

nikzDHD said:
Suggest obtaining a new battery. Look at your battery has it grown in size? Try turning it on with the charger plugged in.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thank you for your reply, the battery looks perfectly fine in size and shape, and i had 80% charged before this happened.
When I plug the charger and try to power it on, it vibrates as usual but still no imagem at all and after a few seconds vibrates again, the RED LED lights ON and after a while it turns green that I beleive its because its full charged. I really dont know what to do

re: Download Mode
Gh0s7_Hun73r said:
Hi, thank you for your reply, the battery looks perfectly fine in size and shape, and i had 80% charged before this happened.
When I plug the charger and try to power it on, it vibrates as usual but still no imagem at all and after a few seconds vibrates again, the RED LED lights ON and after a while it turns green that I beleive its because its full charged. I really dont know what to do
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I would do is go to either ebay or some online merchant and purchase
a "USB JIG", they usually cost less than $3-4 bucks including shipping.
Once you have one all you do is put the battery in the phone and
plug the USB JIG into the usb port of the phone and wait 5 secs.
Then you will see the "download mode" and you will be able to odin flash the stock rom..
The jig don't work 100% of the time, it all depends on why your phone failed but it does
work over 90% of the time unless your phone get messed up in such a way that it's bricked.
Good luck!
Remember it's faster to click the "THANKS" button than it takes to type "thank you".

Hello again I dont know why but when I went to sleep I left the battery out of the phone for the entire night. When I woke up I inserted it on the phone and it turned ON normaly Im sending this reply from my phone lol. I dont know what happened I didnt do anything. Thank you for your help anyway
Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

my device has just quit workin all together

my att g2 4.2 rooted stock rom worked normally last night, this morning I plugged it into the car charger and it displayed it was charging with 2% charge present. I pressed the power button the boot animation began I set it down and when I picked it back up a few minutes later to use it...well nothing...the charging indicator led wasn't lit and when I pressed the power button LG appeared for only a split second then went black. when I plug it in same thing, LG logo for a brief second then disappears. I haven't done anything recently except xposed modules, no flashing of anything. any ideas? thank you guys

It happened to me (on other devices) when I let them discharged too far. Just allow it to charge awhile then try to hold the power button
for 10-20secs ... The NookHD+ were the worst in this situation (it won't charge sometimes, I had to plug/unplug a few times to initiate a charge, I was almost about to RMA one of them).

something else that's odd
when I plugged my device into my laptop the laptop acted like I just plugged in 12 different things that all needed to have their disk formatted. what is going on? wierd

pollutedmuse said:
when I plugged my device into my laptop the laptop acted like I just plugged in 12 different things that all needed to have their disk formatted. what is going on? wierd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try charging the device in offline mode ( turn it off and let it charrge for a while) and then turn it on . mind wouldnt turn on because of very low charge yesterday. doing this helped

update
I let it charge for several hours, nothing...it appears to be in some kind of boot loop. I can't turn it off all the way, I hold the powwer button for tensec or so and the LG will appear for a second then disapear and then the back light stays on. oh ya, when I plugged it in a few hours ago it wouldn't turn on but the red LED was flashing. I'm not sure how long it stayed on, but it was off when i got back to it several hours later. thank you for your time fellas!

If you can get to recovery at all, leaving it on charge in there. Has saved me in a similar situation.

shriom_manerker said:
try charging the device in offline mode ( turn it off and let it charrge for a while) and then turn it on . mind wouldnt turn on because of very low charge yesterday. doing this helped
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could have been the power switch that makes the phone short circuit and goes off anytime.
Sent from my LG-D801 using xda app-developers app

Thank you sirs, unfortunately still no good

it sounds like you had the same thing as everyone else yesterday that had twrp installed and the carrier automatically updated the system.
I could not get my phone recognized by the laptop and had to use pdanet drivers, which finally worked, but I still had to dig for the device. then had to flash back to stock. There is a pretty good thread on this topic, already. Search for it in the developer section. Do not skip any steps, such as setting the date back to jan2012 and turning off the internet. go slow and methodically, or you will miss a step and get frustrated.

[Q] Nexus 7 (2012) dead. Just flickers

My Nexus 7(2012) 16 gb appears dead. Was on CM11 with TWRP recovery.
Here's what happened :
I was using my N7, the screen froze for a second while scrolling on the browser.
After that a dead black line appeared permanently in the middle of the screen(horizontal).
I figured it might just be the case of dead pixels.
I continued using it like that only.
After a few weeks of usage, now the device won't power up at all.
When i connect to the wall charger, i just get a back light. No display. Nothing.
I tried booting into recovery, but nothing appears on the screen.
I kept it charging for few hours, but no luck.
It only flickers when connected to charger. Disconnecting the charger causes no activity what so ever on the device.
Nothing happens if i connect it to computer via usb.
Any solutions i can try?

Press & Hold the power button for at least 10 seconds while plugged into a power source. If no signs of life after completing the above step my first thought would be a faulty board..

Its just a black blank screen.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Free mobile app

Well, I would hate to be the bearer of bad news but it appears your device had a critical failure and is now dead... Obvious answer right? HaHa
RIP Nexus :crying:

You can always try and leave it to charger for a day and see if you get some life to your nexus. I had similiar thing with my nexus, I was actually booting new ROM and then it did some flickering and got blacked out. After connecting to charger nothing happened, just random flickering. I was able to recover and get it back in bussiness when I woke up next morning (it had been charging over night). This was almost a year ago and atm I'm writing this with the same particular device. So give it a shot again, you might still get it back to work. Also you could try to boot the device to fastboot mode by pressing power+volume buttons at the same time for a while. Good luck, let me know if you were able to get it boot&work again!

You could also try popping the back off and make sure the ribbon cables for the display are seated properly. While your there check the battery cable.