Database Users

[Q] Need help with semi/soft brick!

So my Vibrant has been turning off randomly. I think its because of the loose battery or maybe it's just over-heating. But a few days ago, after turning it on there is only a black screen and lit capacitive buttons at the bottom.
It boots up normal, with the vibrant name, t-mobile animation, and the Galaxy S boot animation, then black screen! This started to happen after a few reboots, and now it won't rebbot properly, just black screen. It seems like I have to restore my phone, but the problem is I cannot get the phone into recovery or download mode! Please advise.
Samsung Vibrant, Eugene Eclair v6 custom rom with lag fix

First of all, there's no such thing as semi brick, there's brick or not. Try installing your Rom again..

Dan0zone don't be rude man,.backup your apps, enter recovery more delete all user data, if after that you have the same problem restore, or keep trying to enter download mode, try different methods
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

iwillkillyou said:
Dan0zone don't be rude man,.backup your apps, enter recovery more delete all user data, if after that you have the same problem restore, or keep trying to enter download mode, try different methods
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dude, he cant back up if he cant access the homescreen. neither can he use rom manager..
cant use the hardware buttons to get into dl or recovery either... read op guys...
2010ngojo said:
[Q] Need help with semi/soft brick!
So my Vibrant has been turning off randomly. I think its because of the loose battery or maybe it's just over-heating. But a few days ago, after turning it on there is only a black screen and lit capacitive buttons at the bottom.
It boots up normal, with the vibrant name, t-mobile animation, and the Galaxy S boot animation, then black screen! This started to happen after a few reboots, and now it won't rebbot properly, just black screen. It seems like I have to restore my phone, but the problem is I cannot get the phone into recovery or download mode! Please advise.
Samsung Vibrant, Eugene Eclair v6 custom rom with lag fix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do this bro... just tested it myself, works fine...
get adb installed on your computer, should already have it if your rooting but if not get it, youll find it in the stickied thread for informative links in the development section.
get a cmd prompt open on your computer and type in
>adb devices
let it start up deamon and it will tell you device not found, its ok.
now type and have ready...
>adb reboot recovery (do NOT press enter yet)
start your phone like normal. before its even finished with the boot up tmobile animation and the galaxy s (but after the plain vibrant text/picture) logo press enter. if it says error: device not found then wait all the way till galaxy s only you did it too early...
screen will go black and reboot into standard recovery... hope to goodness you had a working clockwork recovery installed and nandroid ready for this next part...
go down using your volume keys and select reinstall packages using the power key
now in clockwork recovery go down to nandroid
now go to restore
go to your earliest back up and restore it.
there you go.
I would start fresh get odin set up and reinstall the original rom at this point as something may still be corrupted, reroot, install latest clockworkmod, latest vibrant 9 rom (im using and see no bugs and runs better then the vibrant 6 rom i had) and DONT install the lag fix until the newest "TRUE" lag fix comes out with the new file system and kernel that JAC is working on and has almost ready.
good luck and pm me if any of these steps need further explanation.

Pypanys thanks for that post, I learn something new but he said its bootsup normally, but it goes to a black screen after the boot logo he can enter recovery mode, same thing happen to me. I was opening maps and it crashed, it frooze the phone, to I restarted the phone and enter recovery amd deleted user apps, and it did the fix,
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

iwillkillyou said:
Dan0zone don't be rude man,.backup your apps, enter recovery more delete all user data, if after that you have the same problem restore, or keep trying to enter download mode, try different methods
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iwillkillyou said:
Pypanys thanks for that post, I learn something new but he said its bootsup normally, but it goes to a black screen after the boot logo he can enter recovery mode, same thing happen to me. I was opening maps and it crashed, it frooze the phone, to I restarted the phone and enter recovery amd deleted user apps, and it did the fix,
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hes just stated man that he cant even get into recovery, my guess is hes locked out using the volume up/down keys like many new phones are (which btw is a known defect, spend 10min on the phone with tmobile doing thier trouble shooting to show them it doesnt work and they send you a replacement..) sooooo I gave him a way to get into recovery without the buttons and not having to wait till he gets to a black screen where possibly its frozen and he cant use adb commands.
I was just making mention to you also that he cant even back stuff up NOW (hopefully he already archived all his apps and data) and hes better off starting fresh since hes getting problems using his current rom/lagfix....

Thanks for the quick reply p()()pypants, but i will have to try your method later. It's late and I have class (college) tomorrow, but i will post my results soon. Thank you again.
Edit 1:
Btw, is there a way to back up my current rom? Like the way rom manager back up roms? I know my current rom works before so that's why I want to back it up.
Edit 2:
Actually i did not use adb to root my phone, just used the one click method. So can you please give me more detailed instructions on how to install/use adb?

Okay, I typed in "adb reboot recovery" and press enter as my phone booted up during the t-mobile animation and at the Galaxy S boot animation. Neither time work. Then I reentered it again after the black screen. That did not work either. CMD keeps on returning "error: device not found" and the phone stays on with the black screen.

2010ngojo said:
Okay, I typed in "adb reboot recovery" and press enter as my phone booted up during the t-mobile animation and at the Galaxy S boot animation. Neither time work. Then I reentered it again after the black screen. That did not work either. CMD keeps on returning "error: device not found" and the phone stays on with the black screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have the right drivers installed? You can check here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=728929
Another very stupid question, just to cover all bases - your phone is plugged into the computer, correct? When you install the new drivers, try plugging the phone into a different USB port on the computer than you've been using, so it will hopefully pick up the new drivers without much extra effort.
If that doesn't help, just keep trying the command while the phone boots up. Maybe you'll get lucky and it will work. Sorry I don't have any real solution for you :\

I'm fairly sure I have the right drivers, otherwise I wouldn't be able to root in the first place. Yes, the phone is plugged in also. I'll try a different USB port and see what happens...
Update: Trying different USB ports does not help.

[q] bricked thread again

Hello Guys,
I opened dolphin browser last night then it hanged. I held the power button and down button to shutdown the device which it did. It tried to boot up to the Google screen(the one with the lock/unlock symbol) but it took a while so I powered it down again by holding the power button. And now, it doesn't boot anymore. I tried connecting it to my pc but it isn't being recognized, only the apx can be recognized.
Help help.
I'm on stock ROM, rooted and unlocked. I tried the button combos to no avail.

wow thats impossible... or a rare thing i guess...
Stock ROM stock Kernel,
just rooted and unlocked?
I think the device was dying from start...
try booting to recovery...

There is a decent amount of info on your problem of the N7 suddenly going into apx mode. Search Google for nexus 7 apx mode and maybe you'll find your way outta here. Wish I had a little better advice but I haven't experience it first hand... Good luck...
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

[Q] Hard Bricked Nexus 7. PLEASE HELP!

Recently I have had a major issue with my nexus 7. About 2 weeks ago, it died (ran out of battery) while I was using it. When I attempted to turn it on after charging it, I would get the screen that says google, with unlocked lock icon. The tablet would be frozen at this screen. I left it running until it died again. I was running the latest stable release of cyanogenmod 10 with clockworkmod recovery with no problems before when this happened.
By now I had realized that the nexus may have been bricked. I did some googling and found that this is an issue other users have been having when their battery died on android 4.2.2. I attempted to restore the nexus. At this time I was able to access bootloader on the device by holding down all of the buttons at the same time. I think I selected the recovery option. However, I decided not to restore the nexus, and wait until a time where I would be able to turn all of my attention to the problem, and powered the device off, it may have been in recovery mode at that time but I do not remember.
But now, I can't access the bootloader! When I reboot the device by holding down power, I see the google screen for about 4 seconds, then I get a black screen (I can tell the device is still on because the screen is an illuminated black screen). Black screen remains there indefinitely. Any button combo (voldown+power, volup+power, all 3, volup+voldown (this one doesn't do anything), hard reset combo, etc) doesn't do anything except reboot the device and give me the same behavior.
I connected it to my pc (running windows 8) and used the nexus root toolkit by wugfresh to install some drivers. I could install the first driver the toolkit told me to but not the second because the device wouldn't reboot into bootloader. In device manager I see "Galaxy Nexus ADB Driver", hardware ids are USB\VID_18D1&PID_D001&REV_9999 and USB\Vid_18D1&PID_D001, so that tells me custom recovery. Running "adb devices" tells me the device is in recovery mode, but I just see a black screen. Doing adb reboot bootloader or fastboot reboot bootloader hangs and gives waiting for device respectively. Similarly wug's toolkit hangs when trying to reboot the device into bootloader.
I've opened up the back and done a literal battery pull many times. Battery connector is in place after this. I also accidentally broke off one of those tiny copper tabs next to the battery, but that's not relevant to this problem and I believe is minor, broke that after I got this problem. After I do battery pull and plug back in, I either:
a) get a battery lightning icon in the center of the screen, which begins to fill up after a few moments. Rebooting device gets me back into google then black screen mentioned above
b) get a screen with static/snow on it. There is also a hissing/humming noise coming from the back of it. Rebooting gets me to google screen again. This screen also can appear rarely with no discernable pattern to when it appears.
c) same google screen followed by illuminated black screen.
I've left the device charged in, unplugged it, let battery die, and tried many combos of buttons, but can't get anything except the three screens stated above.
I know the saying "Nexus devices are almost impossible to brick" but if I can't access the bootloader and just get black screen then I don't know if I can fix this.
I've posted a thread similar to this one before, so if your username is bftb0 then you've seen this problem already. I'm trying to repost with more information to see if any other ideas are there. Other thread is http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=39522179#post39522179.
So these are my theories to what the problem is:
-corrupted bootloader
-bug/corrupted clockworkmod recovery
-bad battery/power/overheating
-corrupted memory
So how can I solve this?
I know there is NVFlash but there isn't a version for nexus 7. Almost all of the things I've found involve using bootloader. Any suggestions for things I haven't tried yet?
I have obtained an RMA from Asus but I don't want to send the device in because the bootloader is unlocked, so they would probably not cover this under warranty.
Does anybody know of a way to erase evidence of having a bootloader? Or a way to convince Asus to fix the device even with bootloader unlock? What's the price of the repair if not covered under warranty? I'm a poorish student with not much money, so I hope it's not that much and that's why I'm reluctant to pay for repairs.
Also I haven't done anything stupid like fastboot erase bootloader, in fact I hadn't connected the device to pc in a week.
I think this might be a bug with android 4.2. I love android and nexus, but if this is google's fault then I might be done with Android.
Thanks so much.

if it's still bricked i would be interested in buying it for the screen (even screen only,and you keep everything else) cause mine broke today!

komakos96 said:
if it's still bricked i would be interested in buying it for the screen (even screen only,and you keep everything else) cause mine broke today!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps. I'll try to see if I can RMA it under warranty, probably wouldn't be covered though. I'll consider it.
Anyone else, have ideas for how to fix?

Had that problem before:
I had fixed it by opening the nexus 7 and unplugging the battery,
then I hooked it up to the charger(its screen turned on to a black one with the hissing speaker) and used the power button hard reset it,
The nexus 7 reset and gave me a really glitchy/teary black screen.
Then I unplugged it and replugged the battery and put the whole thing back together (mines tape-fixed BTW) and turned it on
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

STLset said:
Had that problem before:
I had fixed it by opening the nexus 7 and unplugging the battery,
then I hooked it up to the charger(its screen turned on to a black one with the hissing speaker) and used the power button hard reset it,
The nexus 7 reset and gave me a really glitchy/teary black screen.
Then I unplugged it and replugged the battery and put the whole thing back together (mines tape-fixed BTW) and turned it on
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still no luck... It just gave me the black screen as before. Thanks though

Hi, can you access bootloader mode???
If you not your Nexus has its /boot partition broken or formatted. That is a "Super brick" is irreversible.
Good luck!
Regards.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

/boot is kernel. It has nothing to do with his problem. He can't access bootloader.
Flowed from my HTC branded muffin...

No chance to get a free repair out of Asus right? Know of any way to get them/trick them to repair it for free?
If no, what's the price they'll charge?

Hi stereo8.
/boot is not just the kernel, is the boot loader too, and if he can't boot on boot loader mode we have the problem.
Regards.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

MlucianoEze said:
Hi stereo8.
/boot is not just the kernel, is the boot loader too, and if he can't boot on boot loader mode we have the problem.
Regards.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excuse me, but stereo8 is right. You should probably read a bit more about the internal structure / partitions of the Nexus7.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Update:
I think my device may just be stuck in recovery. I think I may have accidentally hit the recover button when I was able to access the bootloader. I was running clockworkmod recovery 10. Perhaps it has been corrupted.
How do I get out of the recovery using adb?

Why do you have 2 threads open for this ?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

patil215 said:
Update:
I think my device may just be stuck in recovery. I think I may have accidentally hit the recover button when I was able to access the bootloader. I was running clockworkmod recovery 10. Perhaps it has been corrupted.
How do I get out of the recovery using adb?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Connect to the usb to pc and use the adb command" adb reboot bootloader "
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using xda premium

heavy_metal_man said:
Connect to the usb to pc and use the adb command" adb reboot bootloader "
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've already posted that I've tried that. The device just powers off and doesn't power on again. Turning it on with any combination of buttons puts me back in the google screen then black screen.

patil215 said:
I've already posted that I've tried that. The device just powers off and doesn't power on again. Turning it on with any combination of buttons puts me back in the google screen then black screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, while the device is registered as "recovery" open a cmd and cd to your adb set up.
Try using the commands
Adb shell
#wipe data
This should wipe all user data from the tablet, maybe even the sdcard/internal memory as well. I am looking to see if you can use and to flash a bootloader for you, but it would carry heavy risks.
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e using xda premium

HELP! Bricked Nexus 7, cannot boot into boot loader

Hello everyone, I'm new in this forum and have just bricked my Nexus 7 .
I was not very happy with my Nexus 7 with JB version 4.2.1, it lagged and took long time to load apps etc. I used the Nexus 7 toolkit to unlock my bootloader, flash recovery and then tried a few custom roms. I eventually flash the official 4.1.2 firmware from google but the constant notification for firmware update annoyed me and I decided to root and get rid of the firmware update notifications by installing fotakill.apk.
But when I tried to root using the Nexus 7 toolkit, I chose the option to sideload the zip files for rooting automatically. It asked to flash my boot loader to a lower version (3.34, mine was 3.41) and afterwards it rebooted the device and eventually got stuck at a screen with these lines:
now send the package you want to apply
to the device with adb sideload <filename>
after a long time without anything happening, I suspected that things went wrong and pressed the power button for a few seconds and the device turned off. Now I cannot turn it back on, when plugged in it doesn't show the charging battery, also I cannot boot into fastboot mode by holding Volume down + Power button. The screen stays black the whole time.
I even tried to open the back power and pull the battery out and in again and try to turn on the tablet, nothing happens. I remember the battery level was like roughly 90% the last time the tablet was working, so I don't know what went wrong .

Hold power + vol down button about 30 seconds
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

semeru said:
Hold power + vol down button about 30 seconds
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that but nothing happened .

Press all buttons on the side simultaniously untill fastboot/bootloader mode appears. This should work, no matter if your device is booted or not, or soft bricked or whatever. Then: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1907796 .
If it doesn't work however (like after 30-60 seconds), then connect your nexus 7 to your PC. Go to device manager and identify your device. Does it say apx-mode or something like that? Then your device is possibly hard bricked and you might find some answers here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1879228 .
Your should not have used rootkits. Most of these topics appear after people using toolkit. Learn to use fastboot. It's the only program you'll need for the nexus 7. Yes, it's a command line tool but at least it forces you to think before flashing. For example, it was not necessary to downgrade your bootloader. I really don't get why you did that. Also, if you want to run a stable 4.1.2 without the annoying update messages, you can, for example, flash cyanogenmod 10. It's stable, very smooth, and way better than stock.

Westervoort said:
Press all buttons on the side simultaniously untill fastboot/bootloader mode appears. This should work, no matter if your device is booted or not, or soft bricked or whatever. Then: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1907796 .
If it doesn't work however (like after 30-60 seconds), then connect your nexus 7 to your PC. Go to device manager and identify your device. Does it say apx-mode or something like that? Then your device is possibly hard bricked and you might find some answers here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1879228 .
Your should not have used rootkits. Most of these topics appear after people using toolkit. Learn to use fastboot. It's the only program you'll need for the nexus 7. Yes, it's a command line tool but at least it forces you to think before flashing. For example, it was not necessary to downgrade your bootloader. I really don't get why you did that. Also, if you want to run a stable 4.1.2 without the annoying update messages, you can, for example, flash cyanogenmod 10. It's stable, very smooth, and way better than stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I did a search and finally found an answer. I was running fine on my N7 with PACMan and suddenly it got stuck booting up. So I booted into recovery and reflashed the ROM, and wiped dalvik and cache. When I rebooted it went to "Android is upgrading" like usual after wiping dalvik, then it got stuck there. So I rebooted again and nothing. Just a blank screen. Your suggestion of holding all the buttons down for 30-60 seconds awoke my Nexus. I'm going to wipe everything and start over.

Black screen, only vibration

hi,
I had this phone bought with a black screen problem.
The phone is always black, it has LED activity, when charging, also it vibrates and BACK and MENU lights comes up.
the device boots up because I can hear the music when booting, and also it respond when I touch it, but the sound comes with static and when a SIM card is on, no calls goes by it.
The device was OK but a guy tried to root it with CASUAL root and TWPR recovery and bricked the device.
Any suggestion?
This seems like a software issue to me, because it was made only by flashing some files with odin.

FIRMWARE
ellokomen said:
hi,
I had this phone bought with a black screen problem.
The phone is always black, it has LED activity, when charging, also it vibrates and BACK and MENU lights comes up.
the device boots up because I can hear the music when booting, and also it respond when I touch it, but the sound comes with static and when a SIM card is on, no calls goes by it.
The device was OK but a guy tried to root it with CASUAL root and TWPR recovery and bricked the device.
Any suggestion?
This seems like a software issue to me, because it was made only by flashing some files with odin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well is pretty hard to help u if u don't know which firmware it was on before? Here from RockRatt thread when he released modem/baseband base on ATT MODEM THAT WAS RELEASED ......hope this help u figure it out around when this phone bought and release with what kinda firmware it was install before........but u can always ODIN to STOCK from this thread......... MDB/MDL..........MF3 & MK2.........Hope this help u .....goodluck.....PM me if u need more help......:good:
ATT MK2 @ 11-28-2013
ATT MJ9 @ 11-14-2013
.
ATT MJ6 @ 10-24-2013
ATT MF3 @ 7-9-2013
ATT MDL @ MAY? 2013
ATT MDB @ APRIL? 2013 Came with Release of phone

Sounds like a hardware issue...
I broke the LCD on mine, but still had everything working with no visible screen. None of the stuff you described corresponds to a brick and cannot cause this issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I think it must by a software issue, I have seen this same behavior on other thread but the person with the solution always sent a PM to anyone in need of help and the solution was never released to the public.
Now the person doesn't appear to be active on the forum, that's why I posted this.
This is the thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2324965
Same behavior: Black screen, LED flashing and vibrating and connectivity on the PC ( I can even use KIES and MTP )
If someone has the solution or suggestion please I would really appreciate it, this phone is mint and just bought.

If you can use Kies, try to use the emergency recovery. It may fail. But worth a shot. If that fails, grab the MF3 Odin files and try those, if this fail, go get the MK2 update.zip. That will likely work if the other 2 options fail. But, that has to be flashed in the stock recovery... It would not be hard to do if someone can post the exact button presses needed to flash it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I tried KIES recovery, that was my first option, KIES sees everything OK, it even updated to the last version of AT&T (lol) but still the same symptoms.
Now I'm trying all kind of stuffs with odin, the guy that bricked it told me he ticked "NAND ERASE ALL" in Odin because it was needed to root the device according to him.
I can get to download mode with battery Pulled, VOL DOwn Pressed while inserting battery, 5 sec after first vibration I pres Vol UP and then the PC grabs it and it appears in ODIN.
But when I press Vol Down to go to Recovery to try to get ADB working (because it is not enabled in the developer debugging) , the recovery fails and the device restarts, So I guess the recovery is broken no matter what ROM or recovery I put (tried with Stock and MJ6 recovery, no success so far)

That is a hardware issue then. If nothing is coming up on the screen in recovery or download mode, it is not software related.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Do you see knox warranty counter in download mode? If yes then you are on mf3 or later. If that's the case then follow the thread with mf3-emergency-parts 1 and 2. I'm thinking it's a software issue based on what caused the soft brick. Good luck
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda app-developers app

Yeah, I tried everything so far and nothing seems to work (I could put it on recovery but no screen whatsoever)
Tomorrow I'm going to take it to repair service, it seems to me something deep is broken, like a driver for the display or something else.
The last step I wanted was to put it in qualcomm usb mode to erase everything in the internal memory and then using the qualcomm recovery for I9505 variants, reinstall the bootloader and at least, have it in download mode; but I can't find any way to put it in this qualcomm usb mode (QHSUSB) if anyone knows how to do this without disassembling the phone that would be great.
Thanks everyone for the help.

I'm telling you... It is not software related... All three things (OS, Download, and recovery) display absolutely nothing it is a hardware failure.
Here is what I want you to do. Turn the device on to any mode. Then shine a flashlight onto the screen. See if you can see any image. If so, the back lights are faulty, if not, you may see hairline cracks in the LCD. If this is the case, you will need to replace the LCD/Digitizer assembly.
Bottom line, it is not a software related issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

graydiggy said:
I'm telling you... It is not software related... All three things (OS, Download, and recovery) display absolutely nothing it is a hardware failure.
Here is what I want you to do. Turn the device on to any mode. Then shine a flashlight onto the screen. See if you can see any image. If so, the back lights are faulty, if not, you may see hairline cracks in the LCD. If this is the case, you will need to replace the LCD/Digitizer assembly.
Bottom line, it is not a software related issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly.