Database Users

My journey to the unconscious brick of the Flipout.

Here's how I bricked my phone, for the ones who're interested:
I think it's a pretty funny story, so keep reading if you're searching for some entertaining story.
So I Bought a flipout because I wanted a small phone. I was pretty satisfied by the phone and it's performance, althought it's kinda an effeminate phone. Anyways, before I knew it (When I booted up the phone for the first time) I was disgusted by Orange's laggy intro: it was supposed to be an explosion followed by an implosion which created the Orange logo (sort of XBOX style). The reality was less: a very laggy 2 or 3 fps intro. Bravo Orange if you were actually aiming for this rate.
When I boot up the phone it shows the menu just like any other phone, but it came with another disgusting fact: MotoBlur. Lag, lag and lag. There it was, in all it's glory:
- It's laggy (not as much as Orange's intro...)
- Uses default services (calendar, gallery) with some unfinished 3D features (that caused needless lag)
- "Happenings" which connects your twitter, facebook and other things.
Although I have to say, I did like the lil tab that shows above and tells you on which screen you were. It looks kinda like the following (excuse me my drawing skills):
.: : . |^| . : :.
resp. -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
Anyways, I had to get rid of this "MotoBlur" and the first thing I had to do was to root my device. I remember the days with the G1 which were a hassle to just root your phone, so I was hesitating if I really wanted to go through all this again...
But after a lil search, I found that nowadays we have superoneclick, androot, z4root, etc... etc... So I tried one of these "new" apk's which gave me a small error, so then I tried z4root which was quite easy, fast and simple. I was in. Things were going my way, hell, I even found a brand-new-looking 4GB microSD on my work. Just out of nowhere there it was, very small, laying down on the ground waiting for me to get picked up.
What goes up, must go down...
So there I was with my first steps trying to remove MotoBlur, and although I knew there were tut's about how to remove Orange and Blur, I just couldnt wait. I made backups of my system apk's with Titanium which was quite easy, and it was that precise moment when I was like "GET!", i'm sick of this MotoBlur, let's remove these "things". They are right in front of me, just get rid of them... And while continuously hitting the "remove" button I was daydreaming of a simple usefull handy phone. Bam, bam, bam, I deleted one app after the other, even Google Talk didn't had a chance. Everything was going smooth, bye Blur.Calendar.apk, bye odex, bye Blur.gallery.apk, bye Blur.happenings.apk,... ... ... about 20 apk's later, I was quite satisfied.
But you know how it goes when you just delete stuff without greater knowledge. You BRICK your phone. But people, this was just the start. I had some force close after this one man operation, but my phone was smoother. I have to admit, things were comming unexpected. First I couldnt find my gallery (removed). Then I found out I couldnt download anymore from the Android Market because I deleted Blur.calendar.apk which is connected with Calendar.apk which syncs my G-Mail account which is needed before you can download anything from the Market. Hah! Owned.
Backups.
So there I was having these problems, but the phone still works great. I have to admit I silently thought: luckely I made a backup, and was kinda proud I wasn't one of those noobs who just goes forward without a save game, right? Right? Guys...? Anyone...? . ... ...Wrong! The reality was I couldn't even "restore" with Titanium. The backups weren't real backups, but just data-backups which were stored on my sdcard in .tar format. Aaarrgh!
No problem, no problem. There has to be a way to fix this, someone did this stupidity before me. Obviously. Ofcourse. No?
When I was searching about why I couldn't fix my Titanium backups, someone answered to someone else that's because he couldn't sideload the apps. He needs to root his phone in a way so sideloading is enabled. Great! Sideloading it will be then.
Sideloading is def a great way to install .apk's without the market, because I tried a factory reset (hoping that would solve everything) and I couldn't download anymore from the market. I had to sideload ASTRO which was successful with the right ADB drivers - even though I didn't knew what ADB meant I did register on MotoDev's website (so I can download the little bastard).
Easy peasy. Now I'm back on track with ASTRO and an easy install of Flan Gallery (fixed camera) replaced my gallery. We're off to set!
Despite this minor victory I was aware I'm still not were I wanted to be. Factory reset doesn't get me were I want to be and I'm still having issues. But no problem no problem. This time I'll turn my questions to the community, not google. That's eventually why there is a community? That's why we are open source? Yes. Score. Win.
So maybe some knowledgeable people will reply because they can help the ones who are trying to learn. I think I'll start with how to fix the calendar-issue and then I'll try to make a ROM-backup, so I can install a new ROM or whatever. That's probably a better idea then before. Cool, I even got a quick reply by someone who told me to go to this-and-this site, which is better for noobs. Allrighty then...
Trying my own way.
Since things weren't going were I wanted to, I thought now it's time to give it a real last try by searching about this mystery "ADB" and eventually to push some apps into system/app/ so I could fix all this misery. I found what I was searching for, however the tut about how to push apps sounded like someone was holding a gun against the writer's head. It really sounded like he wrote it against his will.
Desperate attempts.
I started today (15 april) around 5pm local time with this whole pushing-thing because I thought I had the knowledge that I needed and even surprised myself by actually successfuly pushing some apk's using a quick and nice XDA how-to, but then things went from worse to worser. I pushed Blur.calendar.apk, Blur.service.apk, Blur.email.apk, Blur, Blur, Blur... Ironically thát what I wanted to remove at the start came voluntary back in my system/app/ of my phone.
That's quite funny especially when I rebooted my phone and I kept getting force close com.motorola.blur.service.main and I couldn't get around this except by using voice-commands (double tap home button). "Find ASTRO" I said. Finding ASTRO... Opening ASTRO... Ingenious! It was quite amazing that this feature actually works without any bugs or misunderstandings. So I started root manager, rebooted the system with r/w settings so I can try a final attempt by trying to remove blur-service.apk from the system/app/ which actually didn't had any impact. Nothing really happened.
The end.
And there I was having these problems, and the phone doesn't work. A friend of me adviced me on Steam-chat to hard-reset the phone. I could care less, but we had a little discussion about what has more effect hard-reset or factory-reset? Btw... Holding down the power button and the camera button...?! The phone doesn't even has a camera button! Hilarious.
I eventually did the hard-reset with another tut and now the phone is... ehm... kinda... pretty... bricked. It just boots up and then gives 1 continously looping force close of the blur service (which I allready had), and another force close when I finish setting up the blur account wizard. At the end of the wizard it just force close and shows the wizard again,... and again... and again...
Mathematical summon:
+1 noob
+1 bricked phone
- $$$
- (a lot of) time
+ frustrations/stress
+1 story
Equals a possitive outcome?

i've not rooted my Flipout as it seems there's not much you can do with a rooted one anyway
but I've done bad flashes before...many times
and i've always been able to rescue those phones by flashing the original rom. just wondering if this might be an option for you..

See if you can flash that device using RSDLite, I can see some tuts in this board that features this, likely that debranding guide. Hold up+power when it's off and boot into flash mode, not camera+power

A brick = a dead phone, no boot, no flicker, nothing. If it acts like a brick it's a brick, otherwise it's just a messed up phone. I'm sure you'll be able to recover yours...
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA Premium App

Moto phone + rsdlite + flipout sbf= fixed phone. Just find those two things and you can restore your phone back to fresh out of the box state again. Promise.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

Yeap i just did it first try hold "up" button on the keyboard + power for 4 sec then plug usb. in flex options i checked everything and it all went god then

[Q] Persisting bug. Voice in call comes out of media speaker and not the ear speaker.

When in a phone call the other persons voice comes out of the speaker on the back of the phone, not the ear speaker like it should. Speaker phone works fine. I've tried everything. Flashed multiple different roms, switched recoveries and kernals. Anyone have an ideas? could this be hardware related?

I've seen this happen on a desire, but a full wipe (w/no settings restored from TB) fixed it.

Yeah I've every wipe possible, several times. still did not do anything.

I'm having the same problem, did you ever find a solution? The phone is currently running the most recent Cyanogen 7.

no still no solution. I've posted multiple threads on different sites. I feel like I've tried absolutely everything.

Sounds like it may be a hardware issue?

yeah it seems that way. I just dont want to believe it because that would mean I was ripped off by swappa.com/the seller because they claimed everything was working perfectly.

mitchstehlin said:
yeah it seems that way. I just dont want to believe it because that would mean I was ripped off by swappa.com/the seller because they claimed everything was working perfectly.
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Click to collapse
has the phone done this the entire duration that you've owned it? or did it work normal, then start doing this randomly? to me it seems like a software issue that a full wipe would solve if possible. if that dont work then yes maybe a hardware issue, though its hard to imagine how that could be possible.

I believe it has been like this since I had it. I had to root it when I got it and I think I noticed it the first call I made. but it may not have been like this although I don't see how anything I did could have caused it. I have done everything possible. every wipe imaginable. various roms, kernels, and recoveries. Even went back to stock unrooted. and the OTA gingerbread update. nothing works.

So you did a fastboot wipe?

I stand corrected. I have not done a fastboot wipe. how do you do one?

I have not because it was a MAJOR pain in the butt to do it on my G1 with a Mac. Seems like the last resort though.

oh I see. well its makes no difference to me. ill try anything. do you know of any good guides? I'm using a PC

I did a quick search but didn't find anything good, when I have more time I'll find something and share it if you haven't already.

This might be helpful...
http://theonda.org/articles/2010/03...-performance-boost-and-some-serious-geek-cred

that had nothing about a fastboot wipe in it however I did find something. I'll let you know how it goes.

I wiped it with Flashboot but it didn't help.

yeah same here. this is extremely irritating. what is htc's policy on it? like the warranty specifics.

Not sure, they just told me to call 1-888-716-3593

oh I see. let me know what they say. cyanogen tweeted that he sent in his unlocked n1 and they replaced it because of a bad power button. so I'd imagine we have hope?

[Q] [SOLVED] Back and menu buttons stopped working

I've searched and all I can find is the backlight not working. That's not my issue. The buttons don't light and nothing happens when I press them. I flashed CM to see if it was just a software issue. They still don't work at all. Any idea how I might possibly be able to address this? Don't think variant matters but it's the G900R4 if anyone's interested.

Solved. I bit the bullet and did a full restore to stock w/ Odin. I haven't the slightest idea what got grumpy but it was something that lived through wiping the usual stuff. Glad I had enough sense to do a backup just before doing all this.
Lesson of the day: Always maintain a current backup. You never know when you might have to send it to hell and start fresh.

device keeps shutting down

No matter what battery i have left, if i leave the tablet with the screen off for any length of time (half hour say), the tablet seems to die?
To start it again, i have to long press the power button and the device reboots.
Does anyone know why? Its only started since recent updates.
My N10 is not rooted, and running 5.0.1.
Any help would be appreciated.

I guess no one else has this issue?
I literally go back ten minutes after using the N10, and it has shut down. Only a long press to reboot will bring it back?
Frustrated

sparks7 said:
I guess no one else has this issue?
I literally go back ten minutes after using the N10, and it has shut down. Only a long press to reboot will bring it back?
Frustrated
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I just bought/ordered a Nexus 10 so I might as well come in here and start talking to people about it. lol
I haven't used a Nexus 10 before but it should be like any other Nexus device. If your tablet is turning off on it's own, first off, pray it isn't hardware related. Hopefully some hardware inside isn't failing on you. But to make sure it isn't software related, I would say use the factory images and do a fresh install. This will set anything that is out of wack straight. If its software related, it will fix it.

Cheers for the reply.
Do you mean a factory reset, and I will lose all my saved stuff?
I'm not very clued up tbh, and only ever update the Nexus when notified.

sparks7 said:
Cheers for the reply.
Do you mean a factory reset, and I will lose all my saved stuff?
I'm not very clued up tbh, and only ever update the Nexus when notified.
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Click to collapse
It's not just a simple factory reset that you do in the settings or recovery. It will wipe your device (Internal storage and all) but it wipes everything including all system files and reflashes everything back to the way you got it out of the box. If you had a software issue and sent it in to get fixed, they would most likely do this. Its safe if you read up on it and know what you are doing. Google gives us the factory images for this reason. Here is an article for instructions. Not used to the Nexus 10 forums so I don't know if they have a dedicated thread for this:
http://www.androidbeat.com/2013/11/flash-factory-image-nexus-device/
I'm sure there are some videos on YouTube explaining in depth on how to do it as well. You might want to watch them and get familiar with the process. It's not that hard once you have everything you need to do it. Just back up everything onto your computer, flash the images and put everything back onto your tablet when done.

Thanks very much. I'll have a read up on that and give it a go.

My tablet used to do that. I've had this tablet since I pre-ordered it on initial release (so it's old!) It would also freeze/reboot at times, especially using any browser, so I naturally thought it was a browser problem. But, it would also occasionally do as you describe, wouldn't turn on unless I did a hard reset - holding power button 15-20 seconds or so. I'm also rooted so I started trying different roms. Finally, I flashed the 10.18 release of AOKP. It's beautiful & runs perfect. I've not had ANY, not a single issue & have been running it since last October. I don't think I'll ever change anything from here on. That's just my personal experience.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for your help.
I'm going to properly read up on things before I try to resolve it. I don't want to make a mess of it

Essential ph1 twice random reboot

Just got this today and it's great besides being a bit smaller than my g6 and because of front camera design only being technically 5.5in screen for most apps especially games.
However since I have had it, it has randomly rebooted itself twice for no real apparent reason. Is this a known issue or something anyone else has experienced? I want to try to get a bit more information on it before contacting the eBay seller. It is a refurbished.

I have never experienced a random reboot. You might want to try factory resetting your phone and then setting it up with the fresh start option instead of restoring from a Google cloud backup. Was your phone on Nougat or Oreo when you received it? Were there any major software updates?

It was fully updated to 8.1.0 when I received it. April 5th security patch. It was factory reset and I started fresh. No backup other than logging into my Google account for contacts, passwords and logins and such. I never do backups and restores always start fresh other than Google account.

Nickvanexel said:
It was fully updated to 8.1.0 when I received it. April 5th security patch. It was factory reset and I started fresh. No backup other than logging into my Google account for contacts, passwords and logins and such. I never do backups and restores always start fresh other than Google account.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Must be rogue app, had mine 3 months and never had a glitch or reboot.
Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk

If you are still having the random reboots you might want to boot your phone into safe mode to verify that a third party app isn't causing the problem. Since your phone was refurbished it's also possible that it was damaged by the previous owner or returned for the same issue you are experiencing. I did read that some early PH-1 buyers had to return their phones because of hardware issues like overheating.

Just did it again while using chrome. Just froze up for a few seconds and restarted. Doesn't seem to be overheating and the first time it happened before I installed anything I think. Guess I'll try a reset and go from there.

Factory reset twice now. No 3rd party apps installed. Updated all apps on Google play. The default phone apps.
Now the phone is freezing and rebooting itself constantly. Out of control. I am in safe mode right now and hasn't frozen yet. I don't know what the hell is going on.
Would love to be able to fix this issue myself without having to do return shipping. I have contacted the seller already though.

If it doesn't freeze or reboot at all in safe mode that usually means an app that you downloaded is causing the problem. The normal thing to try would be to factory reset the phone, download one app and see if there are problems. If the phone seems to be fine download a second app and use the phone long enough to see if the phone is stable. If it seems fine download a third app and do the same.
That's obviously very time consuming and if you were running a phone with heavily modded code like OnePlus with Oxygen it would probably be worth the investment of time. But this phone runs stock Android. Unless you are installing something unusual that might cause stability issues what you are describing sounds like a hardware problem. You might have bad memory for example and not enough is going on when the phone is in safe mode to trigger the unstable behavior.
I think returning or exchanging the phone you bought is definitely your best course of action. I really like this phone but it sounds like yours is defective or damaged.
The only other thing that comes to mind is that sometimes if you own more than one phone the Play Store will show apps that aren't compatible with the phone you are actually using. Dialers, messaging apps, camera apps and music players made for a specific phone brand aren't usually compatible with other brands because they need modded framework to function properly. Some apps that definitely are not compatible with this phone do show up in my Play Store Library available for download. Is it possible you are downloading an incompatible app?

I factory reset and haven't installed a single app. Just updated everything that was stock with the phone after reset. I was thinking faulty ram too, seems like it is.

Yeah I guess it's toast. Last night while watching YouTube it froze. Screen scrambled with artifacts and the phone made a loud continuous howling sound like an emergency alert. I honestly thought it was an emergency alert until I saw the artifacting.
Unless someone here can possibly give me an idea of any other reason it could be displaying this behavior I guess I have no choice but to return it?

Nickvanexel said:
Yeah I guess it's toast. Last night while watching YouTube it froze. Screen scrambled with artifacts and the phone made a loud continuous howling sound like an emergency alert. I honestly thought it was an emergency alert until I saw the artifacting.
Unless someone here can possibly give me an idea of any other reason it could be displaying this behavior I guess I have no choice but to return it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Grab a BTS zip from the back to stock thread... And flash that...
I'll bet however it was updated had some yuck in it...

Nickvanexel said:
Yeah I guess it's toast. Last night while watching YouTube it froze. Screen scrambled with artifacts and the phone made a loud continuous howling sound like an emergency alert. I honestly thought it was an emergency alert until I saw the artifacting.
Unless someone here can possibly give me an idea of any other reason it could be displaying this behavior I guess I have no choice but to return it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Someone in the Essential stock ROM dump thread just described the exact same behavior that you are experiencing. He hopes reflashing stock will fix it but since it's identical to what's happening with your phone I think he's going to end up disappointed. You might want to check out his post and see if he has any luck. It was the latest post in the thread so it should be easy to find.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/essential-phone/development/stock-7-1-1-nmj20d-t3701681/page41

Yeah that was me. Trying to get information on the procedure to manually reflash this phone with stock firmware. I shouldn't need to unlock bootloader to do it? Just trying to flash stock over stock to hopefully correct any os corruption. Also mine is apparently a unlocked Sprint variant even though it was advertised as being a normal unlocked variant. Not sure if the firmware from that thread will work for me.

Nickvanexel said:
Yeah that was me. Trying to get information on the procedure to manually reflash this phone with stock firmware. I shouldn't need to unlock bootloader to do it? Just trying to flash stock over stock to hopefully correct any os corruption. Also mine is apparently a unlocked Sprint variant even though it was advertised as being a normal unlocked variant. Not sure if the firmware from that thread will work for me.
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Click to collapse
Sorry I didn't notice that. I haven't done any flashing on this phone but I know I read that people with the Sprint phones were flashing the regular stock image to get rid of the Sprint apps and get updates from Essential rather than Sprint. But if you don't want to unlock your bootloader you can download official factory images from the Essential website and sideload using a computer. Flashing instructions are on the download site.
https://www.essential.com/developer/current-builds

Alright I reflashed the latest firmware from essential page via adb sideload. I highly dout it worked but I'll see.
What would I need to do from here to do a complete fresh reflash completely overrighting any trace of the old os? I still want to keep it stock but doesn't matter if I need to unlock the bootloader. Just want a complete wipe of the old os and fresh reflash to be sure any traces of corruption are removed to be sure if it's a hardware issue.

That's easy on single partition phones but much more difficult on phones with an A & B partition like the PH-1. You definitely need to unlock the bootloader. On my Pixel XL you needed to flash the factory image separately to partitions A & B to ensure there was nothing left from before but the procedure might be different on this phone. I went through the flashing instructions when I got this phone and think if you flash the full restore stock image it supposedly returns both partitions to stock automatically but that definitely didn't happen on the Pixel. Considering that this phone is supposed to be easy to hard brick (which was virtually impossible on the Pixel) I wouldn't chance it unless you can't return or exchange the phone from the seller.

Well side loading the ota from essential website didn't work. I'd say it's already hard bricked. Still crashing after a while of using it. Last night I loaded as many apps at one time as I could. Got maybe 10 opened at once before it crashed. Seems like faulty ram to me.

Wife just had it happen on her new White one twice today while playing Pokemon GO.
She says she also had her podcast app and hangouts open but minimized and not being actively used in the background.
She's on a fresh install of Oreo 8.1 with the Gcam mod by MGC_5.1.018_Urikill_vXXII.apk using the settings suggested by aer0zer0
Anyhow I hope its just a completely random fluke and not a serious issue as I have a new black one from Amazon in the mail and would really hate to have to return these otherwise wonderful devices.

Mine ain't no fluke. After it crashes if I immediately reboot it instantly crashes again. I have to let it sit a while turned off and reboot again to any significant time before crashing. Longest time it's ran before crashing since having it it's maybe an hour. Didn't notice it much at first because I didn't use it more than a few minutes at a time. So it was in sleep mode constantly crashing and rebooting. Now that I have been watching it more it just constantly keeps rebooting even while sitting idle. I'll glance over at my phone and low and behold it's rebooting again.

Nickvanexel said:
Mine ain't no fluke. After it crashes if I immediately reboot it instantly crashes again. I have to let it sit a while turned off and reboot again to any significant time before crashing. Longest time it's ran before crashing since having it it's maybe an hour. Didn't notice it much at first because I didn't use it more than a few minutes at a time. So it was in sleep mode constantly crashing and rebooting. Now that I have been watching it more it just constantly keeps rebooting even while sitting idle. I'll glance over at my phone and low and behold it's rebooting again.
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Ouch okay that most certainly sounds like a bad hardware issue as you suspected earlier.
Thankfully in her case the reboots were well apart from one another and the phone was fine after the reboot. Even let her play PKGO.
I mostly came in to comment to hopefully help by voicing that it had happened and the circumstances in which it did for her with the idea it might pinpoint some flaw in the overall system if there was one.