[Q] Phone Randomly Rebooting after flash - Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot

I flashed Stock(ish)v05, played with it for a while, and thought I'd try TriForce5.4. I flashed it, and I really liked the starting from scratch, as I've had my phone for a year or so, and it has a lot of crap on it -- probably good to start fresh.
I installed the essentials, email accounts, facebook, tweetcaster, solitaire megapack and hungry shark evolution.
I think I kind of screwed up installing hungry shark. I had originally installed it on Amazon, and reinstalled it with the play store. No biggie, right? I noticed mainly because the opening animation is different, slightly.
I installed the new google now launcher, and put the games in a folder.
When I played hungry shark - I was surprised to see that it had my app data (I wiped/formatted system/etc) -- I was close to getting a great white, so that was cool. A couple days later -- hungry shark was not in the folder. I went to the play store and it was uninstalled. hmmm. I reinstalled it, and no data -- back to Maco shark. A couple days later -- it wasn't there again. I tried to install it with amazon, but it locked up and wouldn't show it.
I then decided maybe I'd go back to Stock(ish)v05. I went back and proceeded to reinstall stuff. The phone started rebooting randomly. It might seem like a memory error, as it usually happens when installing something. I noticed Stock(ish)v06 was up, so I did a full wipe and went to V06. It had the same problem. After some searching -- I thought maybe there was a modem problem. I odin'd a fresh MK2. Same problem. Any advice? I'm not really a noob, but sometimes have no idea what I'm doing.

CtDMonet said:
I flashed Stock(ish)v05, played with it for a while, and thought I'd try TriForce5.4. I flashed it, and I really liked the starting from scratch, as I've had my phone for a year or so, and it has a lot of crap on it -- probably good to start fresh.
I installed the essentials, email accounts, facebook, tweetcaster, solitaire megapack and hungry shark evolution.
I think I kind of screwed up installing hungry shark. I had originally installed it on Amazon, and reinstalled it with the play store. No biggie, right? I noticed mainly because the opening animation is different, slightly.
I installed the new google now launcher, and put the games in a folder.
When I played hungry shark - I was surprised to see that it had my app data (I wiped/formatted system/etc) -- I was close to getting a great white, so that was cool. A couple days later -- hungry shark was not in the folder. I went to the play store and it was uninstalled. hmmm. I reinstalled it, and no data -- back to Maco shark. A couple days later -- it wasn't there again. I tried to install it with amazon, but it locked up and wouldn't show it.
I then decided maybe I'd go back to Stock(ish)v05. I went back and proceeded to reinstall stuff. The phone started rebooting randomly. It might seem like a memory error, as it usually happens when installing something. I noticed Stock(ish)v06 was up, so I did a full wipe and went to V06. It had the same problem. After some searching -- I thought maybe there was a modem problem. I odin'd a fresh MK2. Same problem. Any advice? I'm not really a noob, but sometimes have no idea what I'm doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Best bet to clean all the nasties is a complete Odin wipe - grab the full MK2 .tar and flash that. It'll wipe all your partitions and set things right. The tar is here in the forums search a little.
Run Titanium if you want to back up some app data but don't restore any system data.

Fresh MJ2 rom? Stock with root, I assume (no knox) -- which one?

No the super clean tar will have Knox and all bloatware. And no root. You will have to reroot which takes 30 seconds.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

daniel4653 said:
No the super clean tar will have Knox and all bloatware. And no root. You will have to reroot which takes 30 seconds.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I odin'd a stock tar (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=49213024), and now I'm stuck in the "android is upgrading" screen. I tried a hard reset, data wipe and it still goes to the "android is upgrading..." screen, "starting apps"
Does it make a difference that I was never on a stock MK2? I never updated, I was rooted stock with a bootloader and kept getting the annoying "update downloaded" icon, but never processed it - just ignored it (an occasionally deleted it in file explorer, but it would eventually download again). Help?

CtDMonet said:
I odin'd a stock tar (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=49213024), and now I'm stuck in the "android is upgrading" screen. I tried a hard reset, data wipe and it still goes to the "android is upgrading..." screen, "starting apps"
Does it make a difference that I was never on a stock MK2? I never updated, I was rooted stock with a bootloader and kept getting the annoying "update downloaded" icon, but never processed it - just ignored it (an occasionally deleted it in file explorer, but it would eventually download again). Help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You didn't brick your device. It turns on and starts to boot it's not dead.
Please go back to here and read through the ENTIRE thread.
Also when you are Odin'ng use version 3.09 (search for it it's here) AND run as administrator.
Power off the phone completely, then go to download mode. Start Odin on your PC then connect your phone to it.
Run Odin.
Many people have used this method to get them back to 'zero' - stock MK2 ROM. You will have to root again - you can use CF-Autoroot or Saferoot; both are here too.
Slow down take your time and do some reading too.
Good luck

leaderbuilder said:
You didn't brick your device. It turns on and starts to boot it's not dead.
Please go back to here and read through the ENTIRE thread.
Also when you are Odin'ng use version 3.09 (search for it it's here) AND run as administrator.
Power off the phone completely, then go to download mode. Start Odin on your PC then connect your phone to it.
Run Odin.
Many people have used this method to get them back to 'zero' - stock MK2 ROM. You will have to root again - you can use CF-Autoroot or Saferoot; both are here too.
Slow down take your time and do some reading too.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've done that with odin 3.07 and 3.09 several times. I've downloaded the file several times, wiped-hard reset several times, and still get stuck on boot (sometimes on the pulsing SAMSUNG, sometimes on the Android is updating screen... still no work.
I've seen something about PIT files? Before initiating this process I was having problems with memory which probably initiated trying something new (flash something without bloat -- only install the stuff you use...yadayadayada). I might have had a problem with something there. I keep copying files onto my SD card, and it might have a problem. I'm currently backing up my photos from it to reformat it, and see if that's why I can't copy a ROM to it. Is there a new partition file I can flash? I tried checking that box in odin once, and it errored out.

CtDMonet said:
I've done that with odin 3.07 and 3.09 several times. I've downloaded the file several times, wiped-hard reset several times, and still get stuck on boot (sometimes on the pulsing SAMSUNG, sometimes on the Android is updating screen... still no work.
I've seen something about PIT files? Before initiating this process I was having problems with memory which probably initiated trying something new (flash something without bloat -- only install the stuff you use...yadayadayada). I might have had a problem with something there. I keep copying files onto my SD card, and it might have a problem. I'm currently backing up my photos from it to reformat it, and see if that's why I can't copy a ROM to it. Is there a new partition file I can flash? I tried checking that box in odin once, and it errored out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do not go the pit route. You'll surely destroy your phone.
Boot to stock recovery and try a factory reset
Sent from my SPH-L720 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

leaderbuilder said:
Do not go the pit route. You'll surely destroy your phone.
Boot to stock recovery and try a factory reset
Sent from my SPH-L720 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help....I'm generally pretty handy searching the forums, but this hasn't responded like it should (always hangs - even after factory reset). I found an old TWRP backup, and restored it. It didn't work, as I had already flashed the (unsuccessful) stock MK2, that had already updraded to MK2 (and the old backup was from MF9, I think?). From there I didn't have data, but I could wifi and download the Stock NAE with root (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2650706.
I'm dealing with 4 month old text messages and expired passwords, but it is working.....:victory:

Related

Lets nail down the cause of JI6 soft bricks

Hey folks, I've read through all the JI6 OTA threads here and on the TMo forums and while I've seen a few people guess as to the cause of soft bricks, dosen't seem like anyone has nailed down the actual cause. I'm going to assume I'm not the only person out there with no access to a windows box to run ODIN so knowing what if anything can be done to prep my phone before accepting the OTA (that is sitting in my notification bar as we speak) would be immensely helpful.
So far the two best guesses I've seen are the existence of other update.zip files on SD and removal of bloatware, specifically Media Hub and possibly edited startup/shutdown screens.
Since I've got all these going on, I guess I'm staring down the barrel of a brick. But obviously one of these is easily rectified while the others, not so much.
Aside from those claiming bricks on vigin phones. Can we hear from those who have made mods to their rooted devices and either did or did not experience an OTA brick? I think this info will be helpful to many in sorting out what exactly is going on here.
I have black bar mod, I have naked swype, removed most t-mob app except media hub no change to start up or shut downtried to update. 50 % through it said update failed. Then rebooted fine. But I had an extra update.zip on my sd so maybe that's why. But no firmware now? Maybe I'm sol.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Mine wouldn't complete the update Rooted, most of the bloat removed, had an update on the sd. Was able to get into clockwork after the failed update and am performing a nandroid restore now.
this is great, thank you. beginning to look more like an issue with extra update.zip files than media hub. any successful OTA's with media hub removed prior to accepting the update?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I never uninstalled Media Hub. I have seen a correlation of about 5 people who had ROM manager installed and used that to install Recovery. Whether it be the installation of Recovery or a possible permissions issue with how it generates the update.zip that may have caused my issue.
just a question, why do people remove media hub? Does the application make the phone slow?
iynfynity said:
just a question, why do people remove media hub? Does the application make the phone slow?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because up until now, it was a non-functional app. I didn't remove it, I use LauncherPro so I just removed it from my drawer. I'm still not touching this update. I got my Vibrant used so I would be out of luck if it jacked my phone up and I hate using ODIN. Too much hassle when my phone runs great on Bionix 1.4 as it is.
Wife's phone was toasted by OTA. Stuck at Vibrant screen. Rooted, unlocked, she did have an update.zip, if that turns out to be the culprit. Also had some apps removed, replacement startup animations, and removed shutdown junk.
She was set for always-on WiFi, too.
My rooted Vibrant soft bricked yesterday and I had to flash stock with Odin. I had the (what seems to be infamous) update.zip, removed Kindle, Mobi TV, Avatar Icon, Gogo. I had RyanZAOneClickLagFixV1+ installed but removed it. I also had the EXT2 Tools installed. @ the time of the update I was @ work and had a full charge on the phone. I flashed back to stock last night after work, and I haven't recieved the update notificaiton again...maybe TMo crossed me off some type of "update list"?
There are also different possible symptoms.
In my case the update appeared to have completed its cycle, except the tail end of the download of the new update wnt really fast then the system rebooted. System came back up into the Black Vibrant screen. I could start 'adb logcat' and the system had SurfaceFlinger repeatedly crashing.
Attempts in Recovery Mode after this to reinstall files didn't resolve the issue, reboots would still lead to a crashing SurfaceFlinger.
2 separate users in a thread, 1 had removed Boot Animations + Sounds, I only had removed Sounds.
Quite a few people had Stock Roms + Root, but some with Root didn't have any issues. Only correlation was with Titanium + Rom Manager, which a lot of people would have installed since it's listed in the Tips and Tricks thread. Titanium shouldn't do anything to the system unless you generate a backup Update.zip or install LZO support busybox.
One guess is that ROM Manager and Titanium can create a update.zip file that doesn't have the proper permissions. An OTA update that attempts to overwrite this file may get confused. Simply removing the file in advance may alleviate this issue. Another issue is ROM Manager installs ROM Recovery, which may change how the OTA perceives the phone.
Bionix 1.4...
I was running Bionix 1.4 KK OC/UV yesterday morning... Was a little dumbfounded when I received the update message from Tmo. Figured it wouldn't show w/ modded handset. Delayed install until I could read everything on here about it. Tried installing over Bionix last night just to see, and had no joy. I had removed all crapware, mediahub included. Hit 50%, said flash failed, rebooted and was back to my homescreen in no time. No ill effects to phone except being denied upgrade.
So I Odined back to Stock JFD FW (and wiped device for S&G), rooted, and updated from JI6 tar posted. Flashed perfectly, no ill effects as I've noticed. Reception is improved (for me anyway), and GPS functions similar to Bionix... No real incentive for update, but was curious.
I see Bionix 1.7 updated so it was all for nothing.
Now to play with other stuff...
Cheers
My girl friends phone bricked the other night from the OTA, it's rooted(update.zip) and has the bloatware uninstalled, nothing else like lagfix/roms on it etc.
T-Moible is sending her a replacement phone, which im pretty surprised about. Now since we have to send the old phone back so they can check for damage or anything that would void the warrenty.
We get to keep the external SD card(Avatar), now im sure there is a pretty good chance they will find that its been rooted. So we would have to pay $400 they said if its voided.
Now I can't get this phone to boot into download mode or even mount it, so what should I do? I know about ODIN but have never used it, can it mount the phone?
I got the soft brick and had to flash back to stock via Odin and then I flashed the JI6 tar file from the forum. All is working fine now.
I had root but no update.zip file on the sdcard root, had removed startup an shutdown sounds, had used both ROM Manager and Titanium (with LZO compression turned on), and had removed bloatware including the non-functioning Media Hub.
Next time I'll flash back to stock before doing an OTA update.
I am rooted have Titanium backup, ROM Manager, and clockwork mod. I also had an update.zip but I think it was from OCLF not from another source. My update went fine and I'm running without any problems on the new update.
PepeLasNoches said:
My girl friends phone bricked the other night from the OTA, it's rooted(update.zip) and has the bloatware uninstalled, nothing else like lagfix/roms on it etc.
T-Moible is sending her a replacement phone, which im pretty surprised about. Now since we have to send the old phone back so they can check for damage or anything that would void the warrenty.
We get to keep the external SD card(Avatar), now im sure there is a pretty good chance they will find that its been rooted. So we would have to pay $400 they said if its voided.
Now I can't get this phone to boot into download mode or even mount it, so what should I do? I know about ODIN but have never used it, can it mount the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Woo, got it unbricked! finally got into download mode and ODIN saved the day.
this video was helpful for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnY7P14JSWQ
^ODIN walkthrough
paxton said:
I'm going to assume I'm not the only person out there with no access to a windows box to run ODIN
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is a cross platform tool being developed called 'Heimdall'. It is currently a command line tool and is in beta. however people are successfully flashing their phones using it. It is obviously not a 'one click' solution, so you will have to go find the proper files and type out the command.
It can be found here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=755265#
If you are the type of person with access to both a windows machine and a linux machine, I suggest you check this out. Testers are needed. Of course you can test if you don't have windows, but it's nice to have Odin as a back up. ;-) just incase....
-p
I had a failed update twice using Odin. It wasn't until I went back to stock T959JFD for the second time and deleted update.zip and all clockwork back ups that it finally worked. Runs perfect with no issues.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Was rooted with OCLF, Captive camera, gps fix, rom manager, titanium backup and add removal. Removed the OCLF and unrooted, ran the update, looked like it got to 100% (not sure cause I looked away and then back at it right before reboot) but said update failed. Got stuck at the vibrant screen blah blah. I'm pretty sure I had an update.zip on the sd, but not 100% on that. After pushing the update with ODIN I have noticed my phone lagging quite a bit.... Thoughts?
Sent from my Rooted Samsung Vibrant using XDA App

dun bricked myself good this time..

borked up the fascinate whilst trying to update to the devs 2.2.
i know exactly what i did wrong. i was running voodoo5, and i clicked to disable lag fix, but i forgot to restart to let it *actually* disable before trying to load the new stuff. STUPID!
when that happened, it hung on samsung screen, then after battery pull all the phone will do is boot loop.. samsung screen, then goes to robot and screen says says "wiping cache, data, ect.." and then back to samsung screen to reboot and reboot.
i have literally 30 tabs open with articles from here and other forums, nothing seems to be working. here is what i have tried.
1. tried booting back to red cwm and playing with the lagfix (enable and disable again) to see if it would work, no go. i ended up losing red cwm - had to ODIN red back.. i cant get green to flash.
2. tried flashing DL09 both the full package and each individual part via ODIN
3. tried flashing the stocki500system.md5 (from the board) and kernel via ODIN, and nothing.. same boot loop. everything i have flashed via ODIN still gives me a boot loop..
4. tried to connect via ADB but it wont let me access the phone.. NOTE: i just downloaded ADB as a last resort and know nothing about it..
the only thing i can seem to do is get to red cwm. i have several backups in the restore section, but none of them seem to work - either i get a "no file found" even though i can see the file(s), or i get an error after it does load that says ".android_secure.img not found. skipping restore of /sdcard/.android_secure"
any ideas?
Okay follow these steps. Make sure you follow them step by step. Even though you have the lagfix installed this removed it for me.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=782204
Place the PIT file where it belongs. Then ODIN the system, kernel, and recovery in that order. Don't restart the process every time. Just ODIN them one after another.
thank you very much for taking a moment to answer. i did follow that thread, however
i managed to get the stocki500 recovery but the other files (recovery, PIT) are all 404 not found errors.
ive tried that stock md5 and it still boot loops. i actually have that tab open from when i tried that route..
any other ideas and thanks again
Thats why its not working. Try this restore by adrynalyne. The file is there and everything is in one. Just ODIN in the PDA section. This should work.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=867648
I got myself into a bit of pickle too. Kept getting errors on the new_cwm file. After numerous attempts. I figured out the file hadn't downloaded correctly and the archive was damaged. Folks who havent installed Froyo yet, do yourself a favor and check the files before you save it to your sd card.
BSayre18 said:
Thats why its not working. Try this restore by adrynalyne. The file is there and everything is in one. Just ODIN in the PDA section. This should work.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=867648
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
downloading now.. thanks for the point to this file.. i hadnt found that one yet
no problem. it should work out good.
mailaliasgar said:
I got myself into a bit of pickle too. Kept getting errors on the new_cwm file. After numerous attempts. I figured out the file hadn't downloaded correctly and the archive was damaged. Folks who havent installed Froyo yet, do yourself a favor and check the files before you save it to your sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i soft bricked doing that with a corrupt file before.. however that time i was able to restore using my backup.
this time, every time i try a method, it kicks me back to boot loop. if the file that im downloading now doesnt work, i will have to try and figure out ADB as a last resort..
thanks much for the help!
BSayre18 said:
no problem. it should work out good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
problem
thank you for all your help
mrjake1970 said:
problem
thank you for all your help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So this worked for you? You just re-rooted as normal?
def
Thank you all for your help. i applied all the info i got here, and one of them worked it finally took the ODIN flash to stock and i recovered into FROYO from there.
seriously thank you all.. its great that the community is so supportive
I did the exact same thing a couple of days ago, and recovered a similar way, odin back to D101, flashed DL09 & superclean, then restored a backup, then disabled voodoo and finally flashed DL30. I've got a couple of questions.
1: Is voodoo completely off my phone or is it just disabled (is there a difference)? When I apply update.zip from the blue recovery I get green cwm.
2: Each time I backup, restore, flash a different rom I apply update.zip, then from green recovery I flash "new_cwm.zip". Is this necessary?
Joe T said:
I did the exact same thing a couple of days ago, and recovered a similar way, odin back to D101, flashed DL09 & superclean, then restored a backup, then disabled voodoo and finally flashed DL30. I've got a couple of questions.
1: Is voodoo completely off my phone or is it just disabled (is there a difference)? When I apply update.zip from the blue recovery I get green cwm.
2: Each time I backup, restore, flash a different rom I apply update.zip, then from green recovery I flash "new_cwm.zip". Is this necessary?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i followed all the hints i got, and i think that the one i got about formatting helped me get out of the boot loop from hell.. it finally took my flash from ODIN, it wouldn't until i did the format(s)..
mind you i am NOT an expert, however from what i read and talked about offline, voodoo is still resident on your phone but disabled (check to see if you have the voodoo file still on your card).. if DL30 is running fine, you are ok..
from what i have read, yes.. the new cwm is required in order to get it to mesh properly with 2.2 leak.. i havent had any issues and i loaded that as well.. from one of the posts i read, if you are a serial flasher, then you need to make sure that not only you download the new cwm zip, but also should have deleted the entire clockworkmod folder from your card for best results..
I love this threadd.... I did the same damn thingg...
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
You guys are not alone. I'm just glad the peeps that know what's going on have the patience to put up with us.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
adrynalyne's di01 odin package covers a multitude of sins.
upsidedownaaron said:
adrynalyne's di01 odin package covers a multitude of sins.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will literally bring any phone back from the dead as long as its a software issue. I recommend keeping the di01 package, samsung drivers and Odin 1.3 on your computer at all times...
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
godihatework said:
It will literally bring any phone back from the dead as long as its a software issue. I recommend keeping the di01 package, samsung drivers and Odin 1.3 on your computer at all times...
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ABSOLUTELY!! I have those on my computer at all times, adrynalynes d101 brought me back a few times.
Sent from my stock 2.1
unrooted, fully bloated (for now) Fascinate

help(resolved)

Hey I just seriously screwed my self over bassicly I tried to get miui to boot from the samsung fascinate however when I installed it in cmr it spassed out then powered of then went to the bootloader and I get a red error message saying can't mount data or something so then I tried to reinstall Eco 3 Odin using Odin and it worked it booted but it says I have zero data on my phone and I can't install anything. I also tried the oneclick soft unbricker but it fails saying adb divers are not installed when they are. I'm doing this on my phones browser witch is the only thing that seems to be working right now I also tried a band restore but I got the same data error message.
Have you tried restoring to DL17 and then re-upgrading to 2.2?
And how about a good old odin flash?
In worst case, I would ask imnuts for the full odin package, or use a fascinate full odin package to get you off your feet, then reflash the modem, and recovery, then wipe In recovery cyan cwm... Then flash ec03
Sent from my SCH-I400 using XDA Premium App
wait wait, is this on a Continuum or Fascinate?
Nuckin said:
wait wait, is this on a Continuum or Fascinate?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He is on a Continuum, but you can use a fascinate Odin package to reformat partitions if they get messed up, then just reflash recovery and start fresh if you can get in then... That wasn't a really good thing though to suggest to a newcomer necessarily, so thank you for pointing that out
okay heres what happened firts i wanted to see if i could get the miui rom for the samsung fascinate to boot on the continuum there pretty much the same phone minus the ticker and screen size so i went into clockwork mod and wiped everything then went to install zip from sd card and clicked on the miui rom witch was the process we always used on the hero. then after i clicked on it, it started to install then my screen started shacking and my phone turned off. when i turned it back on it when to the bootloader and a red error message poped up saying
e:cant mount /dev/blockstill(invalid argument
and when i go to recovery it says the same thing when i try to wipe/restore nand it says the same thing. so at that point i powered off and went to download mode and reinstalled eco3 odin using pda mode on odin and it worked then it rebooted and i got to the set up screen and i got 2 force closes daily brefeing and something else i went ahead and skipped all that stuff and it loaded fine after that. however now for some reason it says i have zero system memory so i cant install any apps or save data however it does recognize my sd card but i cant install to sd card. so bassicly the phone functions just no internal memory. at this point i honestly dont know what to do everything on the hero was simple and straight forward and we never ran into these kind of problems. ive also tried to restore my nands and reinstall clockwork mod but still no dice. what i need to do now i guess is get the necessary files to go completely stock and see if that helps. and if someone could point me in the direction to those files i would really aprechiate it. oh and i tried the one click unbricker it sayed success but didnt really do anything.
oh and i know trying to install miui was stupid but i was just wanting to see if it would boot lol.
Download the PIT file in the Development forum, as well as the DL17 Odin package from the FAQ of the EC03 post I made. Flash the DL17 in PDA, with the PIT, and re-partition selected. After that, you should be back on DL17, and can do whatever you want from there.
huzzza!!!
thank god that worked thank yall so much i still cant believe that just happened but restoring the stock odin image worked and all is well. so i guess tommorow i can reroot and restore my nand.
once again thank yall for the help.

Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Recovery Post Mortem

A story you might find some useful morsels in . If you are impatient, yes, a happy ending.
Monday night I opened the case on my tablet and it was booting. I figured that was strange and after a few minutes realized it was just stuck booting. So I rebooted it. Came up... and then suddenly during the everything loading up phase, rebooted. This repeated several more times.
Uh oh. Working quickly between boots I unset the default on Apex launcher (since it updates frequently) and turned off the live wallpaper. I also shut off Wifi. No effect.
Next stop recovery. Cleared caches, etc. Nope. I had a fairly recent backup but took another one and it worked (whew). Decided that I would do a data wipe from recovery. Uh oh. Any attempt to format /data causes a crash.
I go to Odin to see if I can repartition flash. I can't find a PIT file for the P5113 but did find one for a 16K 7 inch model. Odin repartitioned it but still no joy. Wiping data causes a reboot. So does trying to restore a backup to /data.
Next stop Kies. You can tell it to reload firmware but you need your serial number which is written on the back of your tab (yes it is, it is about the height of a carbon atom). However, it asks you to enter "recovery" mode by pressing buttons that aren't on the tablet. I tried Odin mode but it couldn't connect. Using CWM recovery didn't work either.
So I decided I needed stock recovery. I could not find a P5113 stock recovery that wasn't bundled with an entire update package. So I unpacked an update package to get recovery.img. Flash_image didn't work (seems like it never works on this tablet, and now that I think about it, I think I wrote a thread on how to do it with dd that I forgot about last night! Duh: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31293383&postcount=32). Instead, I repacked just recovery.img with tar. Odin was able to flash this and I was back in the ugly stock recovery.
I never did try Kies though because I asked the stock recovery to reformat /data and it worked! Back to Odin to reflash CWM and then the backup I made Monday night rolled back on and I was back in business.
Restore my screen saver, redefault (is that a word?) Apex, and turn Wifi back on. Oh yeah, and run Triangle Away
So I'm not sure what to make of all this. Open questions:
1) Did I need to repartition? What's the right PIT file to use? I sure wish Odin could dump a clean image, but if it can, I don't know how.
2) What mode does Kies want? This could have been a VirtualBox problem but I got it to work before I got Kies installed on my wife's real Windows box (man Kies is slow!).
3) Why could stock recovery reformat /data but CWM could not?
4) Would it have been sufficient to just reflash the stock recovery, do the data wipe? I suspect so, but don't know.
Anyway.... things are back to normal. Love the tab, but sure wish these big companies wouldn't assume we don't know how to fix our own stuff and muck things up with "simplified" tools. By the way, this is the "touch" CWM that seemed to fail to fix /data. I did not try the normal one.
wd5gnr said:
A story you might find some useful morsels in . If you are impatient, yes, a happy ending.
Monday night I opened the case on my tablet and it was booting. I figured that was strange and after a few minutes realized it was just stuck booting. So I rebooted it. Came up... and then suddenly during the everything loading up phase, rebooted. This repeated several more times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here we go again. Same problem but I'm not even getting into the boot. Does anyone know how to actually reformat and rescan flash for bad blocks? I have a feeling I have a bad flash block that is doing something evil.
Sigh.
Tried a different approach this time.
Booted to recovery and did an fsck on /data since it seemed to have the problem.
It did a lot of clean up and now I'm back up. Not sure what got damaged if anything though. Time will tell.
Good to hear that it is a happy ending, bro!
Sent from my AT1S0 using xda app-developers app

Trying to Reload Stock Backup. Something's Not Right.

I installed CM10.1.3 using Odin and TWRP. Well, I didn't have my contacts so I'm trying to restore it to the backup I made so I can save those to the SD card and reload CM. Therein lies the problem. I cleared the caches, restored the backup and all went well until I tried to reboot. My phone has been stuck on the Sprint screen for over half an hour and won't boot. I know the first boot takes longer but not 30+ minutes right?! What's going on?
JL-KA said:
I installed CM10.1.3 using Odin and TWRP. Well, I didn't have my contacts so I'm trying to restore it to the backup I made so I can save those to the SD card and reload CM. Therein lies the problem. I cleared the caches, restored the backup and all went well until I tried to reboot. My phone has been stuck on the Sprint screen for over half an hour and won't boot. I know the first boot takes longer but not 30+ minutes right?! What's going on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a battery pull and start from scratch.
El Shaddai's Wrath said:
Try a battery pull and start from scratch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Start from scratch as in reload the backup? Or just try to power on?
Trying both. Pulled battery and tried to turn it on with the same result. Stuck on the Sprint screen. I'll try restoring the backup again and report back.
Not looking good. Restored the backup again and clicked Reboot. 10+ minutes on the Sprint screen so far.
Didn't work. Gonna try reinstalling cyanomod. Hopefully I can end up with at least something that will fully boot.
Nothing is working. I can't even figure out how to get cyanogenmod back on the divice. Last time I downloaded that from the phone.
JL-KA said:
Nothing is working. I can't even figure out how to get cyanogenmod back on the divice. Last time I downloaded that from the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which build are you on? MDC, MDL,MF9, MJA? Just curious?
GS4 Stock Rooted MJA 4.3,Philz Touch CWM,HotSpot Mod,Transparent Weather Widget,8SMS(Stock Messaging,KitKat)
Simply try a factory reset in your recovery.
I would also recommend a factory reset, either through recovery or from ODIN. Worth noting that, if you back your contacts up to your Google account, you can import them from there when you reload, without having to reflash, export to SD, flash again. This could also work for you in the unfortunate incident that you have to factory reset without a functioning backup (like now).
Also, Titanium will of course back up contacts and MMS/SMS, for future use once you get through the soft brick.
Hey Bud, just got your PM. One thing I Noticed with the S4 is that restoring nandroids can be a real pain. I struggled with mine for hours before I came up with a way to get it done AND get root back, which was my problem.
Granted, I'm on US Cellular, but it should work the same way
The first thing you need to do is make sure you're using Odin 3.07 As Administrator
Get into D/L mode (Power + Vol Down, then hit Vol up when the screen appears - works better if you're not connected to your computer yet)
Connect your phone and open up Odin, then check Reboot, PDA and flash the stock ROM for your phone.
I THINK the .tar file is in THIS Thread
Click start, once it loads into Odin, which could take a minute so don't freak if you get Odin (Not Responding)
If it boots back up into stock, you're golden. Then you can try and re-root as normal.
Now, the problem I had, was getting Root back. It just wouldn't take, even though it showed Success, using CF Auto-Root, Klingo, etc. All of them. SU got installed, but binaries would not install, SO, here's the procedure to get Root back.
You'll need the Chainfire SuperSU Update on your SDCard and you'll need the .Tar file for either CWM (I recommend) or TWRP for the Sprint S4. Not sure where to find those but someone will know on here
Put the SU Update on your sdcard
Boot to Recovery (Power +Volume Up)
Do a Factory Reset then reboot. Skip over the setup
Power down then reboot to Download Mode
In Odin, Use PDA to browse to the CWM.tar and run it - Now you have Custom Recovery
After Phone boots up, power down and reboot to recovery.
Flash the Chainfire SU Update
Done! Just like that.
Power up and check root
Hope this helps, neighbor
All good guys. Thanks for the help.

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