[Q] Turn GS5 into standalone camera-only device? - Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have a GS5 W8 I bought from someone off of Kijiji, and it turns out it was stolen.
I contacted the police, they said too bad, they don't police the internet. I contacted my provider, and they said that I could send it to them to be destroyed, as they said that they don't have access to see who reported it as stolen (to return it), only that it was reported, and that there's nothing they could do. The original seller is all quiet.
So, I don't want to return it to be destroyed, a perfectly good phone-that's-not-a-phone that I just dished out $400 for, but luckily I still have an older phone I'm using.
Is there a ROM I can flash that is strictly a camera and camera only? No cell phone modem, maybe WiFi only, and the camera with all the features? No Google Apps, No games, literally, nothing but a camera, and maybe a file explorer to move stuff around.

Problem with this is, we don't know if you stole it
Same with all threads like this, how to bypass locks and forgotten passwords etc
For all we know, the person making the thread, could be the thief

Related

IMEI issue on a USA T-mobile MDA

Hi,
I just bought a MDA off ebay and the phone works great!
BUT the problem is IMEI numbers dont match ANYWHERE!!
Box, Back of phone and *#06# They are 3 different #'s
I can still make and recieve calls and go on the net.. phones works properly.
Is there anyway some1 could have changed the IMEI? Or is there a Rom flash that could have done this?
OR could a Unlock have altered the IMEI?
And is there a way i can change the IMEI to the same one as the one on the back of my phone?
The Seller has agreed to refund my money, but I want to exercise all my options b4 I return it. Bc the price was actually great!
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks in Adv!
Brit.
:thumbup:
PS i did search for this issue and did come accross some good threads, but there was alot of "THIS IS ILLEGAL" i know this so please post somthing meaningful...
Your best bet is to get your money back. At best the phone was serviced and the guts placed inside the wrong case by accident (which would explain 3 different IMEI) but at worst there could be something hinky in the phone's history that will come back to bite you as the current owner.
I wouldn't worry about it.
1) The phone works
2) You know the phone's actual IMEI
That's all there is to it. Don't worry about it.
both of you bring up a good point.
I am leaning towards keeping theh thing b/c of the price i paid for it b/c of a mislabeling of the auction. It was a super low price..
I will check to see if the guts were changed, there probably will be a sign if the casing was opened.
Can you give signs to look for tampering?
Second, I read were some1's IMEI changed b.c of a Unlock could this have happend to my MDA?
Thanks for you replies agian!
HTC (or T-Mobile Warranty) might me able to confirm if any (or all) of the IMEIs you have are from serviced phones.
As for the Unlock changing the IMEI, I know one user reported it but I seriously the validity of their story.
I've CID unlocked 5 HTC Phones (3 BlueAngels, 2 Wizards) and SIM unlocked them also with the IMEI never being changed.
Just remember though, if there is something hinky and the phone is hot you can lose the phone and never see your money.
I would imagine that if the phone was put up for sale, sold, shipped, turned on and found to work and it is hot, the heat has probably cooled considerably. Or, in other words, if it was going to be banned by the network, I would think it would have already happened. As far as unlocking changing the IMEI, I second the above. Few things are impossible but a simple unlocking changing the IMEI has to be close. If it was my phone, I'd first look for some obvious sign of tampering. Crooks aren't very smart (they are crooks, after all) so it shouldn't be hard to find. If nothing jumped out at me, I'd shrug my shoulders and call it mine.
Cool, I will call HTC.
I just called Tmobile and they said that they dont BAN phones, they just ban simcards. but I doubt they would admit the truth.
the phone working is a Positive sign to me.
But I will call HTC and confirm. ALSO I will Call Paypal and see if i have any kind of warranty to buying a stolen item.
if all else fails i will return the phone to the seller.
Brittany
the IMEI should look exactly like the IMEI on the back of the phone rite? not shorter or longer?
i will reverify if its' shorter or something. b/c i read some where about a 17 and 15 digits are needed.
ALSO say if my MDA was stock right out of the box would the phone have these 4 lines on the top left corner in red with some numbers and stuff.. possibly rom info and model info?
Usually the stickers with IMEI numbers are difficult to forge since it requires a special paper (Nokia at least) and a special kind of file.
Although the theory of mixing boards, cases and boxes is very plausible there's still the chance that the IMEI on the back of the phone is the hot one. You can always try to change back to it (but taking note of the one stored presently in ROM for future use) and see if it gets barred/blocked or you get a visit from the authorities :twisted: In any case, this forum's posts could help to prove your innocence in court (just kidding :lol: )
As for the procedures to achieve it, get back to me via PM
cheers
Well i took it to a local Tmobile store and they exchanged the phone for me. WOOT! WOOT! this was a pure sealed one. so prob solved.. now i just have to do a CID and Sim Unlock and upgrade to the latest rom.
Any recomms? i will try to do my NEWBIE duties and search and learn, if anyone wants to make it easy for me. well hooka sista up!..lol
Brit
Wow! Not bad! If the 2.26 ROM is already on it (I got a new one a couple days ago on warrantee and that was the case), you may want to think twice before changing that. I've been real happy with 2.26 and it's gotten to where the ONLY thing I bother changing in the registry is the glyphcache and menu settings and I uninstall OZ, the DAT MailTrigger thing and the Hotspot login utility. And...bonus time....you don't void the warrantee that mayb prove handy in the future.
Moral of the story.. get 3 old phone, inter change their IMEI (e.g. stickers and box) .. go to different local store to get 3 new phones
So last night i did
1. Sim Unlock
2. CID Unlock
3. installed AIM (wifi friendly)
4. Upgraded the rom to 2.26
5. installed Agile Msnger beta verson
phone's running like butter! Thou after i installed AIM phone RAN really sluggish! but i think it was b/c i put my orig sim card with 150 entirees.
so i rebooted charged the phone to 100% and did the rom upgrade from Tmobile's webiste..
the phone runs like a charm now.. I just need to find a good Instant Messenger software, wiht profile and away msg so my friends to hit me up with a huge txt msg bill..
I came, i read, i learned, i conquered the mda!

i337M Abrupt Signal Loss

Hi everyone,
So about five days ago I was in the middle of using my Galaxy S4 (I think I was playing a game or something) and all of the sudden my cellular signal dropped out completely—from 4 bars to zero with a little X in it. There it's remained ever since.
My first thought was that I ought to reboot the thing and see if that would solve anything. The answer was no.
My second thought was that maybe my contract was up (as that was due to happen this month), and rather than auto-renewing, they kicked me off. Weird, but possible. But that's not it: I phoned up my provider and they said that all systems are go, there are no outages, your account is active for a week still, and even past that contract expiry I'll just get bumped to month-to-month and never experience a blip in service. So that's not it.
So then I put my SIM in another unlocked phone, and lo-and-behold, it connects just fine. So clearly the problem is with my phone.
My i337M is running Liquid Smooth 2.9 and KToonSez' kernel. I decided to make a nandroid and flash back to stock ROM/kernel. Still I could not connect to the network.
I can only think of two potential problems. First, I unlocked the phone myself via FastGSM.com's tethered USB method. It was a Bell-locked phone, and I'm on Rogers. This was accomplished back in July, and since then, there haven't been any issues to speak of (i.e., the unlock worked flawlessly). I tried to see if those unlocks ever expire, and couldn't find any reason why they ought to. I personally don't think it's that, but I mention it out of interest in being thorough.
Second, I messed around with my phones NVData a few weeks back to enable the AWS network via this method. I didn't experience any signal problems after doing so. Again I mention this out of interests of being thorough. Could that have had something to do with it? I suppose I could try flashing back my original NVData, but honestly I don't see why that would suddenly kick in now since I did it weeks ago originally.
Any thoughts? This is really bizarre, and it sucks being without connection.
I was also thinking of flashing back to stock and going to a Bell shop to see what happens when I put a tester SIM in.
It sounds to me like it's hardware related. Don't see anything you've done that would have caused it. I'd flash back to stock and if it still persists I'd file a warranty claim.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
Hi, thanks for your reply.
An additional thought's occurred to me: I lost signal at or about the same day I setup Android Device Manager to allow for remote lock/wipe directly from Google. That couldn't possibly be responsible for signal loss, could it...?
Currently flashing back to stock, and I'll unroot/restore kernel/restore NVData and make it look factory, and see what the store says about it. Hopefully I don't have to pay for another unlock at some point.
Okay, this is very messed up. Nobody has any idea why my phone isn't getting signal. I can scan for networks and everything shows up, but in any case with any SIM it says "unable to connect to network". It doesn't matter what ROM I'm on. I flashed back to stock and updated to latest using KIES of all things, which found a firmware/modem/baseband update, and still no dice. I don't know what to do with this thing except take it to an unlocking store that might be able to figure something out for me, but it'll cost me. This is messed, I've never had to get someone else to look at my tech for me.
Okay, so the situation is that it most probably is a hardware failure related to the radio.
I am a Rogers customer who bought the phone from a guy from CraigsList who apparently got it from Bell. I went into Bell and explained the situation, and they scanned the IMEI and printed me out a proof of purchase of the guy's name and told me I should take that to the Bell service centre, and it doesn't matter if I'm not the guy. I also had them check to see if he reported the phone stolen; it turns out he did not—though it should be known that if he had done so, then that could have very well been the reason I wasn't getting signal from anyone, as all providers across Canada apparently share their blacklists with one another now (including the little guys like Wind/Mobilicity).
So now I am in the process of making it look like it's never ever been hacked before: I shall restore my NVData, unroot, and update everything using KIES, and then perform a factory data reset. I'm also on the hunt to figure out what the heck the "flash counter" is and whether or not I need to reset that, but perhaps since mine is the i337M Canadian variant, I don't need to worry about that. (Any advice on restoring my phone to factory condition would be welcome, thanks.)
Edit: Figured out TriangleAway and everything associated. I'm all stock now and ready to bring it back to the factory.
MAJOR UPDATE: PROBLEM IDENTIFIED
So I got my phone back from the factory today. They reported that everything is 100% a-ok on the hardware/software side of things. The radio IC is NOT blown as was suspected.
You know what they said? The problem is on the network. I have a story to tell that I think people should hear, as I've learned something very valuable today and people need to learn this lest they get conned themselves.
Today I phoned in Rogers again, armed with new information, to ask what's up. They ran the IMEI number, and this time... it's come up on the blacklist.
It wasn't there last week. In fact, it wasn't even there an hour ago. It actually only appeared there as the clock ticked past midnight Eastern time... as that is EXACTLY 90 days from when the phone was reported missing. It took them a long time to track down this information.
To reiterate, I did not steal the phone. I bought it from a guy on Craigslist who had it brand new in box with the screen-protector sticker still on the front of it. I checked it out, tried it, and unlocked it myself and have been using it since July without issue, until a week ago.
There is the trouble of, why now? Why only now does the IMEI come up blocked? What the senior rep at Rogers thinks happened was that the guy had it delivered to his house, didn't sign for it, kept it in box, reported it as "undelivered", and flipped it to me for cash. Insurance has meanwhile hooked him up with a new phone, and the factory kept my phone in the "we're looking for it" pile for the requisite 90 days, after which they officially publish its IMEI as "blacklisted". That would explain why it worked for a while but doesn't now; and this 90-day TO THE DAY period is the same for Rogers as it is for AT&T apparently (which is where the rep used to work for 10+ years).
I am in possession of stolen property. I've little hope of recuperating my losses. I've been advised to file a police report, and I think I will actually, given that I've got a receipt with the "anonymous" guy from Craigslist's name on it which I had printed out from Bell after they scanned the IMEI number for my factory warranty receipt. This phone will officially never work in Canada, as there is no way for it to be removed from the blacklist. I've been very unfortunate in this case, and it's a real shame.
People should take note: If buying a phone, ALWAYS do it in-store and have the IMEI number run first to check and see if it's on the blacklist. Next, have the phone transferred into your name so that the IMEI and you are officially linked, and the guy can't report his gear stolen or lost. That should suffice in most cases... except in the case of insurance fraud, which is my case, where there is a 90-day delay period in the IMEI number being added to the blacklist (which is why it didn't come up on the blacklist last week when I had the Bell rep run it in-store for me). Another point of interest is that in my case, I found it was possible to lose service BEFORE the number is on the blacklist—assuming the Bell guy didn't run the number wrong last week.
So f**k me. All I can do is try to hack the number, I guess, or find a way to spoof the IMEI.
Edit: Unf***ing believeable—I somehow reenabled data and texting by messing around with QPST. Calls still not happening, though.

Lost Phone > File Claim > Phone Shipped > Phone Found > New Phone in Mail

Hello,
I think my topic title is pretty self-explanatory. However, here it goes....
I somehow put my phone on top of my visor in my car. This is a place I have never placed my phone before. I am not sure how I ended doing that. I parked my car and went to work. When I got to work, I couldn't find my phone. I retraced my step back to my car, and I couldn't find the phone. I called it from my work phone, and of course I couldn't find it since I was at my desk. I attempted to use Android Device Manager to locate the phone, and the phone showed as "unavailable." I am not sure why, and since I had lost my phone at work about four months ago, I came to the conclusion that I must have left/dropped it somewhere between leaving my CAR and getting to my desk and someone found it. This person did not intend to return it, so he/she turned the phone off.
I filed a lost/stolen claim with Asurion, and the claim was approved. Asurion already shipped the phone. When I got off work and got to my CAR, I then noticed that my phone was on top of the visor. There is nothing wrong with the phone, and it is basically only less than four months old. I want to keep my phone. I have spent the past hour researching what happens when you find your lost phone that you already filed a claim for, and I did not really find my specific scenario. One thing is clear: the "lost" phone legally belongs to the insurance company and must be returned if/when found.
However, here's my concern: although I am getting an upgraded model (I have the Note 4, and I am getting the note 5), I don't really want the new phone since I have found my phone. However, I do not want Asurion to impose keeping my $200 bucks and having me return a perfectly good phone with no issues. I want to "reject" their new phone, since I have not received it, get a refund, and continue using my phone. However, based on what I have read so far, once a phone is reported as stolen, the ESM is deactivated and blacklisted (sometime, that is not really the case from what I have read), I may not be "able" or "allowed" to keep my phone and must keep the new one I have not received or used (by the way, it should already be activated when I do receive it). I really want to keep my phone.
I understand that Asurion would be the one who can address my concern, but I am wondering if anyone has been in my shoes. I am not talking about finding your phone after you've received the new one AND used it. I am talking about even before you receive the new phone... and when you do receive the new one, you do not use it.
Thoughts?
It appears that I was concerned for no reason. I called the ins co, and I was told all I needed to do is refuse the package when it gets to me, and I should be fine. I tried making calls, and I wasn't able to. So, I called Sprint and I was able to take care of that without speaking to anybody.
The insurance company did tell me that they won't clear my ESN until they receive the refused phone. Hopefully, I won't get into a battle with them about the bill, which I was told would be getting rid of after they receive the package.

S7 Edge Stolen

Hello guys, yesterday my S7 edge was stolen and I was able to track the device till one location, but couldn't find the device or the robber once I got there. I had the SM-G935F international variant (Exynos) - stock and first question I would like to ask is: Is it possible to turn off the device from the lock screen without the pincode/fingerprint? Because I think it was not possible when I had it.
I'm just asking because once I have reached the location the google maps timeline, stopped recording the movement of my device.. and have stopped since there..
Around 3 hours later my girlfriend (I put her contact as security), received a message on her device saying the SIM card had been changed. I had the device with 4G (wifi I'm not sure) and the lock screen was secured. I tried using Samsung find my mobile and was even more useless than google maps timeline, because It couldn't locate the device even when google maps could.
I went to the police and they say that, they could locate (but It's going to take a while) the sim card that was put on that IMEI.
Do you guys know another way that could help me know some information sooner? At least something I could help the police with..
Hope you can help me in some way.
I'm in Czech Republic btw.
Best Regards,
Neto
damn man, I'm so sorry for u, f*cking crappy ppl...
the easiest way to track ur phone is to detect via SIM/IMEI, for that u have to know that new code that was inserted (not easy for us, but police should have), all other services (google, samsung,whatever) works just when de phone is on and have a network connection/GPS active (that cannot be turned off with the phone locked), sad is, the phone can be turned off w/o problem at any moment. Last updates with google apps, doesn't let u use your phone even giving a factory reset because u need to put the last google credentials used in that phone (but I don't know if u have to activate that in some settings, in my older phone it was on by default)....
sad is no much to do here, hope police in your country is more competent that mine's
I also advise going the police route.
File an official complaint and ask for a file number so you know it's official and the investigation will be active.
Keep us posted on how things go.
I've already talked with the police, gonna know if they can find them by the EMEI..
Wish tracking devices were made much more simple..
Brother's stolen phone (iD*ot 6S) was found by czech police within two days (in Prg), so finger's crossed for you! If you are from Prague I could ask him which office he went to.
Not sure there is anything you can do at this point, but I will recommend an app that I use called Where's My Droid. You can get the paid version (I would highly recommend paying the small one time fee for this) and it does quite a lot. You can track it online from a computer, and even through text messages. You can use text message commands to take pictures from the front and rear cameras, get GPS location, lock the sim and prevent others from being used, and even change your pin through text. You set up the keywords needed so that others cannot send out a generic code to lock you out of your own device. I would highly recommend that app for your next phone. It may not prevent a theft, but at least you could get a picture of the criminal and provide that to the police as well.
Good luck on finding your phone, and I feel for you.
Outbreak444 said:
Not sure there is anything you can do at this point, but I will recommend an app that I use called Where's My Droid. You can get the paid version (I would highly recommend paying the small one time fee for this) and it does quite a lot. You can track it online from a computer, and even through text messages. You can use text message commands to take pictures from the front and rear cameras, get GPS location, lock the sim and prevent others from being used, and even change your pin through text. You set up the keywords needed so that others cannot send out a generic code to lock you out of your own device. I would highly recommend that app for your next phone. It may not prevent a theft, but at least you could get a picture of the criminal and provide that to the police as well.
Good luck on finding your phone, and I feel for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you man, I will do that once hopefully I have my phone back. Does it drain a lot of battery?
Hgneto said:
Thank you man, I will do that once hopefully I have my phone back. Does it drain a lot of battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a screenshot of how much it has used.
Outbreak444 said:
Here's a screenshot of how much it has used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow. Wish I wouldn't have took a lot of measures in order to save battery and making the tracking of my device harder.. never again.. :crying:
Yeah, it's unfortunate, especially for a new phone that's not cheap.
One workaround I did when I broke my phone screen out of anger right after I upgraded was open a new line on my account so I only had to pay the upgrade price for the phone again. Not sure if you have that option for your carrier or even country for that matter. But hopefully the police can help you out greatly.
I'm sorry about what happened, my s7 edge was stolen too like 2 weeks ago, I feel you bro. ****ing thieves

Locked S8

A month ago while doing some off road bike riding I found a S8 on the trail. I call Verizon and they said they would get back to me on that to do with the phone. They never called back.
I've placed a ad on Craigslist and have called Verizon 4 times. No one seems interested in the recovery of this phone. I could use it to fly my drone but it's locked. I tried a reset but it's asking for the old Google account info. Is it possible for me to root this phone so it can be used on WiFi? My other option would be skipping it accross the San Francisco bay. I wonder how many skips I could get.
Thanks for any input on this post.
WP
You could just flash stock firmware on it, using Odin.
Flash unlocked (G950U1) firmware on it and wipe it through recovery. Should allow setup without needing the account linked to it
joe3681 said:
Flash unlocked (G950U1) firmware on it and wipe it through recovery. Should allow setup without needing the account linked to it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, that does not erase frp. Frp bypass discussion is forbidden on XDA, as the #1 reason to use it is to resell stolen phones.
To OP there are enough resources on the internet that you should be able to figure out whether or not this is possible yourself.
You could also just figure out what carrier it's on, walk into their store and hand it to them so it can be reunited with its owner. I know if I lost my $800 phone I'd be pretty sad. Definitely better than destroying it, seemingly out of spite
There is a combination file which you can flash via odin to bypass frp
google it for more info
partcyborg said:
No, that does not erase frp. Frp bypass discussion is forbidden on XDA, as the #1 reason to use it is to resell stolen phones.
To OP there are enough resources on the internet that you should be able to figure out whether or not this is possible yourself.
You could also just figure out what carrier it's on, walk into their store and hand it to them so it can be reunited with its owner. I know if I lost my $800 phone I'd be pretty sad. Definitely better than destroying it, seemingly out of spite
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you for your input. I'm not sure how but I will try to close this thread down or delete.
Because of my busy schedule I was trying to have verison send me a mailer so I could send them the phone. Also I was just kidding about skipping the phone across the bay. I would never do that. I have left the phone on since I found it expecting someone to call it so I could find the owner but there has been nothing. The owner probably got replacement through insurance leaving this phone disconnected.

Categories

Resources