[Q] Phone refuses to boot - sometimes. - Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've run into a problem with my S4. I'm rooted, and running Hyperdrive 15.
My phone refuses to boot quite often. Sometimes it will boot up perfectly fine and run for a day - day and a half, or it'll lockup and then refuse to boot up again, OR it will just not boot at all. My power button seems to be unresponsive, and the only way that I can get some action out of the phone is by reseating the battery in the well.
What I think it is, could be 1 of a few things, or a combination of them - i'm not sure.
Scenario 1: While playing with the Hyperdrive tweaks, my phone was hung after running the Zipalign tool for over 20 minutes and I had to pull the battery.
Scenario 2: I'm deployed on a ship currently, and I have my phone in a high-salt enviornment and I'm afraid that there might be salt corrosion inside of the power switch or the USB connection - shorting it out. I took my phone apart tonight and cleaned both items with isopropyl alcohol ( the switch itself on the main board ) but that didn't seem to produce any new results.
Scenario 3: I was recently rooting a Kindle Fire HD 7" for a friend out here, and I was dumb and didn't realize that I was pushing boot loader files that were designed for the Kindle Fire and not for my Galaxy S4. I have since tried to enter recovery, but with little avail. Download mode is also out.
A description of what my phone does when I reseat the battery: My phone will vibrate, the Galaxy S4 logo will show for 1.5 to 2 seconds ( same for download mode ) and if I hold the appropriate button, ' Recovery Booting.... ' will display as well. At that point, my phone will shutoff and the power button will become unresponsive.
If anyone can give me a bit of guidance on how to proceed to repairing my phone, I'd be super grateful.

Scenario 3: I was recently rooting a Kindle Fire HD 7" for a friend out here, and I was dumb and didn't realize that I was pushing boot loader files that were designed for the Kindle Fire and not for my Galaxy S4. I have since tried to enter recovery, but with little avail. Download mode is also out.
This sounds like the most plausible reason.
You will need something like JTAG to really fix it.

Lennyz1988, thanks for the quick reply. Internet out here is slow at best, and sometimes unusable.
As far as your JTAG option, I believe that would work, except that I dont have access to that kind of hardware right now. Sending my phone out at this point entails a month of transit time on each side of the turnaround time required for someone to re-flash my phone, and I wholly believe that I can do this.
As an update to my phone, it will not charge the battery anymore. I'll use someone elses phone to charge my battery soon. If anyone can give me a direction to go as far as how to completely reflash my phone IF it turns on, i'd be grateful beyond belief. I dont want to believe that if I can get it to start up again, that it is a total brick and completely useless - if it turns on again, i need someway to push new boot loader files to it. Really hoping someone can help.
Thanks again in advance.

Related

Nook -completely- unresponsive/truebrick,full battery,unrelated to Rooted Forever scr

Hello all, I'm curious to hear your thoughts and advice.
My nook is completely unresponsive. It is not stuck at rooted forever.
In fact this has nothing with a root attempt/reset/restore/power on.
I had done a a fresh reset/root with touchnooter about four months ago and was happily and smoothly reading for about two months. I then got busy and put the nook down, did not touch or use for about another two months. I tried to use it about a week ago but found that it had run out of battery in sleep after the two months of disuse (not surprising). I put it on charge overnight and everything booted right and functioned well once it turned on, except that the battery indicator in the statusbar showed a "?" and the battery info in system info showed 100% "unknown". After alot of fruitless research I put it down with the intention of reset/restore/root when I had the time.
I just picked it up this morning and was faced with the expected "Press then button below to wake up your NOOK" screen. But when I pressed the "n" button nothing happened. Obviously holding the "n" did nothing as well.
I tried to power it off and on- nothing
holding power for 20- nothing
power for 30- nothing
8 failed boots- nothing
left right- nothing
left right power-nothing
random pushing and holding of power- nothing
all these with mem card in and out- nothing
all these plugged usb- nothing
all these pugged ac- nothing
I let it charge some more- nothing
None of the buttons do anything, the screen stays inevitably at the " press the n button to wake" screen. no activity whatsoever except that when It is plugged in, the green light shows. NO ORANGE LIGHT... it is fully charged by both usb and ac.
It is not detected at all by windows anywhere.
In Linux- lsusb, bklid, and df -h yield nothing. My nook might as well be the invisible stupid ereader.
I did not drop it, sumbmerge it, perform magic around it... It has been sitting on a shelf doing nothing.
To repeat, the only thing my nook does is light up green when plugged.
It is unchangeably stuck on poe's face...
If this isn't true brick, I don't know what is.
I'm exhausted. Any ideas? I appreciate the help.
Best,
Thomas
i don't know. i just know my dog ate mine and i'm now in the market for a new screen, so if you don't get it working sell me the unit and get some money for yourself to purchase a new one =D
or you could google the disassembly instructions and try unplugging the battery, not very hard to do. could be of .. some help perhaps?
I would definitely take you up on your offer, but i'm still under warranty.
However, I would still like to have my original, and figure out what is going on and why it happened.
Ideas?
Thank you.
similar problem were solved
Hi! I might have read about similar problem solved on USB host mode here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23475998&postcount=131
That's it, thanks so much.
if it help
if it helps let them know in the tread that you had same problem. they are wondering whether it is due to host mode
[N2E]: After automatic update to 1.1, Nook Touch Screen absolutely DEAD--Nothing Work
THIS WAS A POST FROM ANOTHER SITE AS TO MY PROBLEM:
I was reading on my N2E last night. I put it down for about 30 minutes and when I came back it was displaying the default "Authors" screensaver (I had switched to the Nature photos) and asking to slide to unlock. I thought, "Oh, the new software update must have downloaded and installed. I'll check it out." To my shock, the touch screen was completely unresponsive--no amount of swiping would unlock from the screen saver. I let it set for a while longer thinking perhaps the softare update was not yet finished. No such luck.
As a result of the new update, my NOOK is now completly DEAD! I tried powering off, but couldn't do that because you are asked to confirm power off on the touchscreen, which no longer works. So, I looked online and tried the soft reset/reboot by holding down the "Home" or "n" button and then pressing the power button for several seconds. Great--it started rebooting...and came right back to the "authors" screen saver and asking to swipe to unlock. I tried this rebooting process several times, always with the same result: back to screeensaver mode with completely unresponsive touchscreen.
So, looked at the online technical troubleshooting discussion and helps and decided to try a downloaded manual install of the software update. Plugged my NOOK into my computer and it recognized it. So, I downloaded the manualo software update and dragged and dropped it onto the NOOK as directed and sure enough, it started to reboot itself. I thought, "whew, maybe this will fix it". NOPE--came right back to the locked screensaver, with no mention of attempting to update software, and the touchscreen is still dead. (By the way, all of this was done initially with the NOOK showing about 94% charged, so it was not a battery issue.)
Reconnected the NOOK to my computer and the software update file was gone from its home directory, which implies it did something with it. So, I tried repeatedly to install the software update manually, always with the same result: NOOK comes back to locked default "authors" screensaver wtih a dead touchscreen.
Looked online for B&N technical support again saw that others had this problem (though only found a couple references). Found the instructions to do a factory reset and reluctantly tried that, desparate to make my NOOK work again, but frustrated that if it did I would have to rebuild everyting on it and download my 400+ B&N book library all over again. But, guess what, factory reset just comes up to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen (sounds like progress), BUT the touchscreen is STILL dead, so I can't hit the "Next" button onscreen to proceed with setting up my factory-reset NOOK. Tried rebooting again (as this seems to be the only solution offered in the online tech support) and now it just keeps coming back to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with a dead touchscreen keeping me from doing anything.
So, now I am taking it back to my local B&N store in hopes they will exchange it for a new NOOK.
I really want to see a feature to disable automatic updates in the future. I specifically didn't download and manually install when the update came out, figuring I'd wait for the automatic download to give time to B&N to work out the bugs and perhaps issue a patch (as they have done in the past for the N1E). Instead I get no warning about the automatic download (happens while I am reading and set the NOOK aside for 30 minutes), and then the update KILLS my NOOK.
I am not a satisfied NOOK customer at this point.
MY POST: (from the that site)
Not Sure how to do this post or whatever, but I was happy until the update and everything that happened to you is the same with me. This is the first post that describes what happened to me. I'm out of warranty and refuse (and can't) to buy another one of these. If their updates can do this, I'm not sure I want to sink another $100 into the shareholders pockets. I'd really like to know if anyone knows what may be wrong with it.
In addition to what was already mentioned, I took the battery out several times(which seems intimidating but very easy but voids the warranty) and took it completely apart cleaning the screen very well with water and another time a glass cleaner. I tried rooting also. Not sure of what to do now. It seems software related due to working fine until the update. Still at the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with unresponsive screen. I wasn't sure if the last sentence from B&N was a personal message to me welcoming me to the "new" state of the my nook.
Thanks for any help from anyone.
Thanks.
Identical problem.... and no fix..
It is a shame you got no solution for this. and the worst, you are not the only one... it happened exactly the same with my Nook ST....
Hopeless...
Machiavelli_The_Man said:
THIS WAS A POST FROM ANOTHER SITE AS TO MY PROBLEM:
I was reading on my N2E last night. I put it down for about 30 minutes and when I came back it was displaying the default "Authors" screensaver (I had switched to the Nature photos) and asking to slide to unlock. I thought, "Oh, the new software update must have downloaded and installed. I'll check it out." To my shock, the touch screen was completely unresponsive--no amount of swiping would unlock from the screen saver. I let it set for a while longer thinking perhaps the softare update was not yet finished. No such luck.
As a result of the new update, my NOOK is now completly DEAD! I tried powering off, but couldn't do that because you are asked to confirm power off on the touchscreen, which no longer works. So, I looked online and tried the soft reset/reboot by holding down the "Home" or "n" button and then pressing the power button for several seconds. Great--it started rebooting...and came right back to the "authors" screen saver and asking to swipe to unlock. I tried this rebooting process several times, always with the same result: back to screeensaver mode with completely unresponsive touchscreen.
So, looked at the online technical troubleshooting discussion and helps and decided to try a downloaded manual install of the software update. Plugged my NOOK into my computer and it recognized it. So, I downloaded the manualo software update and dragged and dropped it onto the NOOK as directed and sure enough, it started to reboot itself. I thought, "whew, maybe this will fix it". NOPE--came right back to the locked screensaver, with no mention of attempting to update software, and the touchscreen is still dead. (By the way, all of this was done initially with the NOOK showing about 94% charged, so it was not a battery issue.)
Reconnected the NOOK to my computer and the software update file was gone from its home directory, which implies it did something with it. So, I tried repeatedly to install the software update manually, always with the same result: NOOK comes back to locked default "authors" screensaver wtih a dead touchscreen.
Looked online for B&N technical support again saw that others had this problem (though only found a couple references). Found the instructions to do a factory reset and reluctantly tried that, desparate to make my NOOK work again, but frustrated that if it did I would have to rebuild everyting on it and download my 400+ B&N book library all over again. But, guess what, factory reset just comes up to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen (sounds like progress), BUT the touchscreen is STILL dead, so I can't hit the "Next" button onscreen to proceed with setting up my factory-reset NOOK. Tried rebooting again (as this seems to be the only solution offered in the online tech support) and now it just keeps coming back to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with a dead touchscreen keeping me from doing anything.
So, now I am taking it back to my local B&N store in hopes they will exchange it for a new NOOK.
I really want to see a feature to disable automatic updates in the future. I specifically didn't download and manually install when the update came out, figuring I'd wait for the automatic download to give time to B&N to work out the bugs and perhaps issue a patch (as they have done in the past for the N1E). Instead I get no warning about the automatic download (happens while I am reading and set the NOOK aside for 30 minutes), and then the update KILLS my NOOK.
I am not a satisfied NOOK customer at this point.
MY POST: (from the that site)
Not Sure how to do this post or whatever, but I was happy until the update and everything that happened to you is the same with me. This is the first post that describes what happened to me. I'm out of warranty and refuse (and can't) to buy another one of these. If their updates can do this, I'm not sure I want to sink another $100 into the shareholders pockets. I'd really like to know if anyone knows what may be wrong with it.
In addition to what was already mentioned, I took the battery out several times(which seems intimidating but very easy but voids the warranty) and took it completely apart cleaning the screen very well with water and another time a glass cleaner. I tried rooting also. Not sure of what to do now. It seems software related due to working fine until the update. Still at the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with unresponsive screen. I wasn't sure if the last sentence from B&N was a personal message to me welcoming me to the "new" state of the my nook.
Thanks for any help from anyone.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The factory restore does not actually fix every possible problem with your Nook.
If your Nook responds at all, try to boot it up on an SD card like ClockworkMod or noogie.
At least that way you can see what is happening.
The partitioning might have become corrupted which the "factory restore" does not touch.
If no response with anything, try disconnecting the battery.
You might also try booting over USB using the techniques in rooting the new white glow.
Hello I was wondering if I'm just screwed I bought 2 nook simple touch, one for me and one for a present to my mother for her birthday on march 16. I bought them at best buy for $40 a piece on January 30. I used mine and was perfect but when I tried to set up my mom it wouldn't load the license agreement, always got stuck or reboot or something, so I loaded cwm on an sd card just to play around, tested on my nook and was fine, then put it on my moms nook booted once then I didn't press anything and turn it off then I load the image but when I tried to boot again it got stuck on the load screen and wont do anything, no reset sequence will work with the sd card on or off the other nook boots with this sd card. at the end I exchanged with my mom she is happy with her nook an I have a useless unit do you think they will exchange it I didn't rooted it or did anything to it but has the n cwm splash on screen forever. I'm in Costa Rica right now and wont return home until May do you think I'll might be able to exchange it or should I just try to repair it.
I'm glad that your mother got the working one!
You say that that one will boot on your CWM SD card, but yours won't?
It may be hard to get your unit exchanged with a conspicuous screen on it, even if it's not your fault.
When you plug it into your desktop is there any indication of a new USB device found?
If it's charged and no amount of the power button gets a reaction, I'd open it up.
any news???
Hi endor43, same problem here, have been able to find any solution?
endor43 said:
Hello all, I'm curious to hear your thoughts and advice.
My nook is completely unresponsive. It is not stuck at rooted forever.
In fact this has nothing with a root attempt/reset/restore/power on.
I had done a a fresh reset/root with touchnooter about four months ago and was happily and smoothly reading for about two months. I then got busy and put the nook down, did not touch or use for about another two months. I tried to use it about a week ago but found that it had run out of battery in sleep after the two months of disuse (not surprising). I put it on charge overnight and everything booted right and functioned well once it turned on, except that the battery indicator in the statusbar showed a "?" and the battery info in system info showed 100% "unknown". After alot of fruitless research I put it down with the intention of reset/restore/root when I had the time.
I just picked it up this morning and was faced with the expected "Press then button below to wake up your NOOK" screen. But when I pressed the "n" button nothing happened. Obviously holding the "n" did nothing as well.
I tried to power it off and on- nothing
holding power for 20- nothing
power for 30- nothing
8 failed boots- nothing
left right- nothing
left right power-nothing
random pushing and holding of power- nothing
all these with mem card in and out- nothing
all these plugged usb- nothing
all these pugged ac- nothing
I let it charge some more- nothing
None of the buttons do anything, the screen stays inevitably at the " press the n button to wake" screen. no activity whatsoever except that when It is plugged in, the green light shows. NO ORANGE LIGHT... it is fully charged by both usb and ac.
It is not detected at all by windows anywhere.
In Linux- lsusb, bklid, and df -h yield nothing. My nook might as well be the invisible stupid ereader.
I did not drop it, sumbmerge it, perform magic around it... It has been sitting on a shelf doing nothing.
To repeat, the only thing my nook does is light up green when plugged.
It is unchangeably stuck on poe's face...
If this isn't true brick, I don't know what is.
I'm exhausted. Any ideas? I appreciate the help.
Best,
Thomas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are times when a Nook gets in a mode where it won't accept a charge.
Opening it up and disconnecting the battery for a minute might fix this.
endor43 said:
That's it, thanks so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When this worked for you did the light turn orange right when you plugged the battery back in? I just took the battery out, plugged the nook into a charger, and with it plugged in plugged the battery back in and the light stays green the whole time yet I'm not able to use the nook at all.
My nook second generation is not responding to my touch I tried everything to get it to work and I eventually got it to completely power of what if it does not work when I turn it on what should I do
It could be power/battery problems.
Check to see if it makes itself known when the USB is plugged in.
If it reacts at all, that's an indication of life.

[Q] Continuous reboot into "No Command"

Hey everyone I really hope you can help me out here. Last night my completely stock Nexus 7 2012 locked up during normal use. It had KitKat 4.4.4 on it not rooted or unlocked. I THINK usb debug was enabled but don't honestly remember. After the lock up I forced it to power off. When it started up again, it was stuck with the 4 circles going round and round. After a long wait I went into recovery and tried to wipe the cache. This went on for almost 10 min but never completed. I forced it to power off again (and here is where I panic and things get fuzzy. I tried to get back into recovery and just restore it but I can not get it to do anything except boot to the dead android picture and a message that says NO COMMAND. I've tried to use the VOL UP and Power button sequence to get the menu and it won't come up. It stays on that screen for a few seconds and then it acts like its restarts but I never see the google logo just this dead android flashing on and off with the no command error. I've read several threads, tried the WUG toolkit as well as skipsoft toolkit but with the device stuck in this loop nothing can communicate with it. I removed the cover and unplugged the battery which gets the machine to shut down but when it powers back on even with key sequences I can't get anything but this dead android. I can use power and VOL up to get into APX mode but that is my only other option. Please give me some more suggestions!
Well things have gotten worse now I can no longer get past the black and white google screen. I'm guess this thing is just toast.
How old is it? If it's under a year, you can RMA it back to ASUS and they'll fix it for free. Since you haven't rooted it nor unlocked it (although I don't think that would be an issue anyway), they shouldn't have any issue with repairing it. Just be sure you didn't leave any signs that you opened it or else, that will void the warranty and they won't repair it for free.
Its exactly 2 years old today. It was a birthday present. funny how it chose today to die.
Okay just so I can have some closure here,
The tablet will not shut off when I hold power button it shuts off and comes right back on to the google logo.
I can NOT get into boot loader or recovery at all. No key sequences work what so ever. I've been into recover and boot loader before on this device so its not that don't know how.
The only time it gets detected by my PC when plugged in via usb is if its int APX mode which as far as I can read is useless to me.
So is there any other secret or is it just trash now?
Thank you.
My wife's was doing this when it failed an OTA. Hold the power button long enough the screen will go dark for a couple seconds.when it's dark, hold all three buttons down and wait.it will go into fastboot.use nexus root toolkit to flash stock+ unroot and select bootloop .
---------- Post added at 09:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 PM ----------
Ps it did this because she accepted an OTA not knowing I had TWRP on there.
KANDL said:
Okay just so I can have some closure here,
The tablet will not shut off when I hold power button it shuts off and comes right back on to the google logo.
I can NOT get into boot loader or recovery at all. No key sequences work what so ever. I've been into recover and boot loader before on this device so its not that don't know how.
The only time it gets detected by my PC when plugged in via usb is if its int APX mode which as far as I can read is useless to me.
So is there any other secret or is it just trash now?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"The tablet will not shut off..." <<---- This suggests that you are seeing or observing something happening. But based on your previous posts I can not tell exactly what you are now observing - the black & white Google logo?
I would start first with trying to determine if the battery is capable of being charged. The last thing you want to be doing is fooling around with this stuff with a nearly dead battery.
If you put it on a 2A wall charger (*not* a PC USB port), does the tablet warm up a little after 20-30 minutes? If so, leave it on the charger for at least 2 hours. (Heck, even if it doesn't warm up, same advice - put it on the wall charger for at least 2 hours)
OK, next item for you to consider. In Android devices, there is usually a nonvolatile storage area (maybe in the "misc" partition?) called the BCB (Boot Communication Block). The bootloader will always look at that area first, and if there are no boot instructions in there, by default the bootloader will attempt to load & jump to the entry point of the contents of the LNX partition (Linux boot partition). This would cause a "normal" Android boot to occur by default when turning the power on. The other two common instructions in the BCB are for a reboot into the recovery, or instructions for the bootloader to stay resident but drop into it's fastboot mode.
Why am I telling you this? Because there are certain pathological situations that can develop into loops without apparent escapes. Imagine that the tablet was sitting in custom recovery mode, and the dummy behind the PC keyboard flashes some random garbage to the recovery partition, and then uses the touch interface to reboot into recovery. What happens is that "boot to recovery" instructions are placed in the BCB, and a soft-reset of the device occurs... which (when the hardware finishes resetting) loads up the bootloader.**
Now the bootloader sees the "boot to recovery" instruction in the BCB, and attempts to load the garbage in the recovery partition. Eventually - either due to a watchdog timer reset, or a illegal instruction trap, the device will soft-reset again... WITHOUT EVER CLEARING THE CONTENTS OF THE BCB.
In this example, the bootloader is intact and operational, but the looping behavior continues until the battery drains. You don't get an opportunity to communicate with it in fastboot mode because it is always trying to load the bad recovery. Either there is a way to break out of this death spiral... or their isn't.
Now, one more thing - I lied slightly right around the ** annotation.
On the Tegra3 SOC, there is a kind of micro-kernel inside the Tegra3 that is responsible for loading the bootloader. Simpler processors of old would simply load a memory page at a specific hardware memory address when they reset, but this is far more sophisticated: the little micro-kernel in the Tegra3 can evaluate the bootloader to see if it has the correct cryptographic signature and so forth.
If that micro-kernel doesn't like what it finds, the Tegra3 will put the USB port into APX mode. This is important because it is diagnostic: if your tablet always goes into APX mode, for instance after disconnecting/reconnecting the (charged) battery and then powering up the device, then you are probably out of luck; but if it doesn't go into APX mode, that suggests that the bootloader is actually healthy, but perhaps thrashing in one of those nasty boot-loop cycles.
OK, still with me?
Have you looked at this thread carefully?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2133986
It suggests that possibly you can get the bootloader to ignore the contents of the BCB by a carefully-timed press of the Vol-Down button - which, if it works - should let you escape to fastboot mode. This is documented in the above thread as "bootloader interrupt".
So, questions for you:
1) Are you sure the battery is well charged? (Not easy to tell without a voltmeter or heating of the tablet during charging - the temperature of the tablet will drop after it finishes charging. One way to be sure of things is to disconnect the battery, reconnect it, and then put it on the wall charger. That way you can be sure that the tablet is not on, so any heat would be due to battery charging, not other components running. FWIW, a discharged battery will be about 3.5v, and charged about 4.15v.)
2) Does the tablet always go into APX mode when it starts up, even if you only press the power button?
3) Once the battery is charged, what are you seeing on the screen during start-up? After you have disconnected the battery and reconnected it, do you see anything on screen when you put the tablet on the charger?
bftb0, Thank you for attempting to help me out, I really appreciate it. I understand 99% of what you wrote, and that gives me a little bit of hope! Let me begin by answering your questions.
1. I am certain the battery WAS charged. as I had just pulled it off the charger when this happened. Also I'm certain the battery IS charging when I plug it in. It does get warm after a while. The battery did drain down now since my last post, but I have removed the cover and unplugged the battery to get it to power off. Now it is currently charging back up as I'm typing this. I can see the battery charge indicator on the screen while its laying here.
2 and 3. The tablet does NOT go into APX mode by its self. It only does that when I hold power and VOL+. It now currently powers on with a press of the power button goes to the black screen with with the white google logo and stops. After that I can no longer get it to power off without manually disconnecting the battery. I can get it to reboot and go right back to the same google logo. Prior to it doing that it would go to the android on its back and just say no command. That screen would flash on and off like it was contentiously rebooting. However after trying all day to get some sort of menu to come up and different key sequences it now only goes to the google logo and stops.
I have it currently charging and will let it charge to full capacity while waiting for you to reply. I tried and tried to get the boot interrupt to work from the thread you posted in your reply and it wither does not work or I'm simply not doing it right but I'm willing to try some more if it will save this thing and I don't have to go buy a new one.
Thank you again for your help!
Well, because you have a pure stock tablet and the problem occurred spontaneously and under innocuous operating conditions, the most likely explanation is some type of hardware failure affecting the eMMC NAND chip.
Even if that is the case ... AND you successfully are able to get to fastboot mode ... it still might not be repairable. It could be a modest failure (e.g. something affecting the cache partition only, which could knock offline both the normal boot as well as the recovery boot), or it could be an enormous fraction of NAND.
eMMC NAND is supposed to be able to degrade gracefully, so there is a small chance that erasure and formatting of partitions will release blocks that have failed. But it could also be that the failure is extremely severe and no recovery is possible even if the bootloader is still intact.
I imagine you've already tried it, but since it will be your only possible means of rescue I would try the bootloader interrupt trick (Vol-Down approximately when the b&w Google logo appears - hold it down for 3-4 seconds)
Since the tablet gets stuck in a hardware reset loop, you should probably unplug the battery after every failed attempt, start it up normally (power button only), and then press and hold Vol-Down as soon as you see the Google b&w logo. Perhaps with the use of a stopwatch, you could experiment with slightly different timings, possibly even try the button press a second or two before you expect the logo to appear. I am not aware of any other way to get to fastboot (without having a booted kernel as in the recovery or normal os); and it may also be that the only time that the Vol-Down button has any effect is under the "default" (empty) BBC contents. If that is the case you are probably SOL.
The objective is to try and get the tablet into fastboot mode by any means possible.
If it were happening to me, and I was able to get that to happen, the next thing I would do would be to erase the entire tablet (except the bootloader) using fastboot, and then follow that up with an installation of a stock recovery (and formatting of cache, system, and userdata in that order), and then follow that up with a "factory reset" using the stock recovery.
If you can get just the recovery and (bootloader) fastboot mode working again, there is an outside chance that the tablet could be put back into service.
A little bit of explanation is in order here for me to explain why I am suggesting this. Sometime after I got my tablet, I spent a bunch of time dumping *all* the device partitions (things like MISC, USP, PERS, etc in addition to the "normal" Android partitions) before/after certain fastboot operations. What I noticed - by accident - was that I was seeing data that belonged in a certain partition showing up in other partitions. And always in block-sized offsets.
I think that what I was observing was an artifact of the eMMC wear leveling / block remapping that is part of the device's FTL (Flash Transition Layer). Literally, blocks were being shuffled around - even across partition boundaries - when they were in an unused/erased state.
In addition, if you look at the Google instructions for flashing a factory image, you will note that sequence is
erase p1
erase p2
...
erase pN
(followed by)
format p1
flash p2
format p3
...
That is, **as much as possible is erased before anything is put back into service**
It is my presumption that this happens to give the wear leveling and bad block remapping process of the eMMC chip maximum flexibility (as most everything in the device is marked as not in service it should be easy to remap based on block write counts as individual partitions are put back in service via via flash and format operations). Can't prove that though.
It looks like you did your reading about APX mode - there is a risky and fairly complicated procedure available to rooters that allows them to capture some custom (unique per tablet) file blobs that allow re-installation of a bootloader from APX mode, but is a procedure that has to be performed ahead of time. (And because the file blobs are unique per tablet - encrypted & signed with a unique hardware identifier, you can't get someone else to generate them for you) So APX mode is of no value to you afaik. It's barely of value to rooters as well. (I will say that I haven't kept up over the last year, so there is always the chance that someone discovered something new wrt the Tegra3 and APX mode that I don't know about - but that's the way it was a year ago or so)
Well, good luck with your tablet - I suspect you are going to need a bit of good fortune.
Thanks you so much for your help. I will continue to try the boot interrupt and see if I can get it to go. Failing that I guess I'll be shopping for a new one. I really appreciate your time in trying to help me.

[Q] Galaxy S4 just died out of nowhere?

So, long story short, my GS4 just froze up and shut off on me this morning while checking out Facebook on the phone, and now it won't turn on no matter what I do.
Removing the battery and holding the power button for a few minutes partly resolves my issue, as I am then able to actually power on the phone, but then it just gets stuck on the GS4 logo and doesn't boot into the actual system. I was also able to get into Download mode at one point, but I wasn't sure about flashing new firmware from there since my phone is rooted and has a custom recovery installed, and maybe that will interfere with the installation.
Anybody got some input on this? I am kinda freaking out here, would really love it if I could fix this thing without taking it to an overpriced shop, who maybe wouldn't even accept it due to it's 'modified firmware'.
BamBamBam. said:
So, long story short, my GS4 just froze up and shut off on me this morning while checking out Facebook on the phone, and now it won't turn on no matter what I do.
Removing the battery and holding the power button for a few minutes partly resolves my issue, as I am then able to actually power on the phone, but then it just gets stuck on the GS4 logo and doesn't boot into the actual system. I was also able to get into Download mode at one point, but I wasn't sure about flashing new firmware from there since my phone is rooted and has a custom recovery installed, and maybe that will interfere with the installation.
Anybody got some input on this? I am kinda freaking out here, would really love it if I could fix this thing without taking it to an overpriced shop, who maybe wouldn't even accept it due to it's 'modified firmware'.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if it boot into recovery, factory reset your phone and wipe cache, it's a painful solution but it's functional.., I've had the same issue on another Samsung phone and that fixed it, also I don't think flashing stock rom would interfere with anything, you can try that as well.

Phone Won't Boot

Hello,
So my Nexus 6P turned off randomly and then would not turn back on. It would come on and show Google and sometimes even let me enter my pin to start the phone. But it constantly would freeze during start up and just shut down. I got into the recovery and factory reset my phone and now it won't even turn on. I hold the power and it doesn't do anything. I've tried the boot loader and such but it won't turn on at all. Any ideas on what I could do? Thanks!
edlovereze said:
Hello,
So my Nexus 6P turned off randomly and then would not turn back on. It would come on and show Google and sometimes even let me enter my pin to start the phone. But it constantly would freeze during start up and just shut down. I got into the recovery and factory reset my phone and now it won't even turn on. I hold the power and it doesn't do anything. I've tried the boot loader and such but it won't turn on at all. Any ideas on what I could do? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you may have more than one problem, but many have been able to get a dead phone to start by holding the power button down for a very long time, sometimes 2 minutes or more. If it doesn't start, fully charge it and try the power button again. Assuming you are stock with a locked boot loader.... you didn't mention.
My phone is stock with a locked boot loader. I held the button for over 5 minutes and got nothing. I'm wondering if Google would be willing to help me out. Unless anyone has other ideas
It's hopeless. Don't waste your time trying to revive. Contact Huawei regardless of date of purchase.
If it won't power on it's either not charged, a bad power button, or something with pcm. Which is on Motherboard.
Most common scenario is a bad power button because it's most used breakable part. That won't allow the board to receive power or not enough power if it's shorted.
Dunno if you've poked around the interwebs some more regarding this, but I've been slammed with the N6P bootloop error (which appears might be part of your problem) and I found a stop-gap solution. If you feel like you've got nothing to lose, you can try what I've done: Make sure the phone has a little charge, hold it with a hot mitt from your kitchen, and blast the back of your N6P in the region between the camera lens and the fingerprint sensor with a hairdryer. Doing so will trip the big cluster off, which is the source of the bootloop problem. If you can get it to boot to the Google logo, applying the heat for the right amount of time (maybe not too long.. 2-4 minutes tops) may cause it to make it to the spinning color graphics and beyond.
I've been able to resurrect my phone doing this, but only to back it up and do very simple tasks. The moment I do something processor-intensive (Waze, YouTube, etc) it immediately crashes and bootloops again. The only solution beyond this is to unlock your bootloader, download EX Kernel manager and use it to completely disable the big cluster. Then your phone will likely be reliable, but extremely hobbled.
I bought from Best Buy about 16 months ago, so both Google and Huawei have been utterly useless, which is infuriating. Shenanigans like this are criminal. This is my 3rd Nexus phone and I'm considering abandoning Android altogether after this experience.

Anyway to retrieve data from a *dead* LeEco Le Pro3 (x727)

I am unable to boot up the device. I tried all (power + Vol Up) key combos, not working. Is there anyway to pull data out from the device?
easyxpress said:
I am unable to boot up the device. I tried all (power + Vol Up) key combos, not working. Is there anyway to pull data out from the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No fastboot or custom recovery ?
Then no theirs nothing really to do
Maybe a battery replacement would boot it up
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6010 using Tapatalk
No fastboot or custom recovery. I'm wondering if the *storage* can be pulled out like a hard drive?
easyxpress said:
No fastboot or custom recovery. I'm wondering if the *storage* can be pulled out like a hard drive?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope it's just a chip on a circuit board
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6010 using Tapatalk
easyxpress said:
I am unable to boot up the device. I tried all (power + Vol Up) key combos, not working. Is there anyway to pull data out from the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not enough information. What did you do prior to your phone failing to boot? Was there a software mod you installed? What were the symptoms the phone showed the last time it was on? Any problems before it failed to boot like an old battery, misbehaving ROM, poor charging?
Basically, you need to identify (help us identify) the cause of your phone not booting. We cannot find the solution to a problem we don't know the cause of. The problem must first be defined and then we work from there.
All the best.
twistyplain said:
Not enough information. What did you do prior to your phone failing to boot? Was there a software mod you installed? What were the symptoms the phone showed the last time it was on? Any problems before it failed to boot like an old battery, misbehaving ROM, poor charging?
Basically, you need to identify (help us identify) the cause of your phone not booting. We cannot find the solution to a problem we don't know the cause of. The problem must first be defined and then we work from there.
All the best.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Prior to the phone failing to boot, the phone kept crashing. I saw the screen turning into *mess* and then the phone shut off by itself. Initially, I was able to boot up the phone after the crash, however the screen would get mess up and shut off again after a few minutes. Eventually, It got harder and harder to turn on the phone until it finally failed to boot (die). At this point, the phone seems dead. When I plug in the charger, there is no response of any kind, just black screen.
At one time, when the phone was on its last legs, I was able to boot into the Recovery mode, the phone seems to stay in that mode without the crash. Unfortunately, I didn't stay long enough in the Recovery mode to confirm this.
The phone was running on Lineage of Android 8. I have been using the phone for two years, the battery is surely weakened but can still last an hour or two for continual Youtube watching. I didn't do any software update after the Lineage Android 8's last nightly build.
Hope you can help and give some pointers. Thanks.
-- Joseph
easyxpress said:
Prior to the phone failing to boot, the phone kept crashing. I saw the screen turning into *mess* and then the phone shut off by itself. Initially, I was able to boot up the phone after the crash, however the screen would get mess up and shut off again after a few minutes. Eventually, It got harder and harder to turn on the phone until it finally failed to boot (die). At this point, the phone seems dead. When I plug in the charger, there is no response of any kind, just black screen.
At one time, when the phone was on its last legs, I was able to boot into the Recovery mode, the phone seems to stay in that mode without the crash. Unfortunately, I didn't stay long enough in the Recovery mode to confirm this.
The phone was running on Lineage of Android 8. I have been using the phone for two years, the battery is surely weakened but can still last an hour or two for continual Youtube watching. I didn't do any software update after the Lineage Android 8's last nightly build.
Hope you can help and give some pointers. Thanks.
-- Joseph
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This appears to be hardware failure. The SoC is most probably dead. You should have recovered your data when it was still able to boot. Right now I think it's too late.
twistyplain said:
This appears to be hardware failure. The SoC is most probably dead. You should have recovered your data when it was still able to boot. Right now I think it's too late.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just plugged in the phone. Miraculously, after few minutes, it did come up with the boot screen (with some messy lines), see the attached picture. However, It didn't go beyond the boot screen and recycle again for 2 or 3 times and then no more. I was able to duplicate this recycling situation several times after plugging it to the charger. Also, I was able to push it into the Recovery mode, but it only stay at the boot screen (with lines) and shut off again after few seconds.
What do the messy lines on the boot screen suggest? Is it the battery totally dead? Or, is the charging system faulty that somehow it doesn't have any enough juice to push thru beyond the boot screen and hence shut off?
-- Joseph
easyxpress said:
I just plugged in the phone. Miraculously, after few minutes, it did come up with the boot screen (with some messy lines), see the attached picture. However, It didn't go beyond the boot screen and recycle again for 2 or 3 times and then no more. I was able to duplicate this recycling situation several times after plugging it to the charger. Also, I was able to push it into the Recovery mode, but it only stay at the boot screen (with lines) and shut off again after few seconds.
What do the messy lines on the boot screen suggest? Is it the battery totally dead? Or, is the charging system faulty that somehow it doesn't have any enough juice to push thru beyond the boot screen and hence shut off?
-- Joseph
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what happened to TWRP ? thats stock recovery
will it enter fastboot mode ? if you can get into TWRP their is a chance of off loading your userdata to a PC
easyxpress said:
I just plugged in the phone. Miraculously, after few minutes, it did come up with the boot screen (with some messy lines), see the attached picture. However, It didn't go beyond the boot screen and recycle again for 2 or 3 times and then no more. I was able to duplicate this recycling situation several times after plugging it to the charger. Also, I was able to push it into the Recovery mode, but it only stay at the boot screen (with lines) and shut off again after few seconds.
What do the messy lines on the boot screen suggest? Is it the battery totally dead? Or, is the charging system faulty that somehow it doesn't have any enough juice to push thru beyond the boot screen and hence shut off?
-- Joseph
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup...This phone is dead. I have seen a similar le pro 3 posted here on XDA with the same streaks along the display. It's definitely a hard brick. No way to get around it that I know of. I'd like to rope @tsongming in on this. He has seen a few dead pro 3's so this is within his expertise.
Sent from my LeMobile Le X526 using XDA Labs
twistyplain said:
Yup...This phone is dead. I have seen a similar le pro 3 posted here on XDA with the same streaks along the display. It's definitely a hard brick. No way to get around it that I know of. I'd like to rope @tsongming in on this. He has seen a few dead pro 3's so this is within his expertise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry bad news.
As twistyplain said, your phone is absolutely fried, and there is no solution.
It's definitely no brick, that is a hardware issue... Most likely shorted solder connections. The same thing happened to two of our X727s, we have one left that still works.
I highly recommend buying a seemingly unbrickable Xiaomi phone. Their budget models are awesome and of course their flagships are awesome. Everyone in my family has Migrated to Xiaomi . I currently have Android 10 working flawlessly.
Thanks for the info. I made a mistake of not backing up the photos from the phone. I'm still hoping for a slim chance and searching that some of the repair shops (in China?) are somehow able to boot up the phone and retrieve the photos for me. Meanwhile, I'll check into Xiaomi.
-- Joseph
easyxpress said:
Thanks for the info. I made a mistake of not backing up the photos from the phone. I'm still hoping for a slim chance and searching that some of the repair shops (in China?) are somehow able to boot up the phone and retrieve the photos for me. Meanwhile, I'll check into Xiaomi.
-- Joseph
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are in China and located in a large city or tech industrial area you should have plenty of shops that repair at the component level.
Your phone could very likely be repaired by a shop that has a hot air rework soldering station with an electron microscope.
We used to have these types of places in the US but they have all gone out business, replaced by board swappers, who charge a lot. I would suspect that you could get it repaired in China for 100 yuan or less.
I worked in Beijing for 3 months, about 18 years ago and these types of places were everywhere.

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