Database Users

[Q] Rewarded for my stupidity

Greetings, I'm having a cascade failure and I'm not sure what to do next.
I signed with AT&T on Saturday, and took home a new S4 for free. About 30 minutes later it was rooted, and the upgrade from MF3 to MK2 was installing I removed some obvious bloatware, patched the mail client to bypass an Exchange server's mobile device management, and began to use TB to restore my apps.
I encountered some odd behavior with a couple of restored apps, and did a factory reset. Then, I decided that I wanted to get the patched mail client off the system, so I reflashed the MK2 update through ADB.
The reflash of MK2 failed because I'd removed chrome.apk . D'oh.
Then I thought I'd flash a stock firmware. I quickly found the MF3 tars in another topic. And because I'm stupid and didn't read the whole topic, my nice new phone is showing an ugly yellow triangle and says, "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue." D'oh, d'oh, d'oh.
I'm stopping before I waste any more time or do any more damage (not that I think I can eff things up any more).
Can I fix this at home?
Or should I just take it to the Samsung Experience Shop at the nearby Best Buy store? Will they believe me if I tell them that the MK2 upgrade trashed my phone? The loader says, "Samsung Official," but, also, "custom." Both Knox lines read 0x0. Does any of that matter if they're reflashing as a courtesy?
If they flash MK2, can I get root ..... I'm guessing, no, but probably someone else knows for sure.
THANKS
.

Deleted

xpanmanx said:
Greetings, I'm having a cascade failure and I'm not sure what to do next.
I signed with AT&T on Saturday, and took home a new S4 for free. About 30 minutes later it was rooted, and the upgrade from MF3 to MK2 was installing I removed some obvious bloatware, patched the mail client to bypass an Exchange server's mobile device management, and began to use TB to restore my apps.
I encountered some odd behavior with a couple of restored apps, and did a factory reset. Then, I decided that I wanted to get the patched mail client off the system, so I reflashed the MK2 update through ADB.
The reflash of MK2 failed because I'd removed chrome.apk . D'oh.
Then I thought I'd flash a stock firmware. I quickly found the MF3 tars in another topic. And because I'm stupid and didn't read the whole topic, my nice new phone is showing an ugly yellow triangle and says, "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue." D'oh, d'oh, d'oh.
I'm stopping before I waste any more time or do any more damage (not that I think I can eff things up any more).
Can I fix this at home?
Or should I just take it to the Samsung Experience Shop at the nearby Best Buy store? Will they believe me if I tell them that the MK2 upgrade trashed my phone? The loader says, "Samsung Official," but, also, "custom." Both Knox lines read 0x0. Does any of that matter if they're reflashing as a courtesy?
If they flash MK2, can I get root ..... I'm guessing, no, but probably someone else knows for sure.
THANKS
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think Best Buy has the update now, but I'm not sure. If you have the unlocked padlock boot screen, they won't take it probably and not if system status is custom in download mode either. There is a chance they'll glance over it, but otherwise you have to follow these instructions: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47586777&postcount=135
You can get root, look in the general section for the safe root thread.

joshzdad2013 said:
Deleted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Deleted, why?
This post in your quoted topic makes it look like a viable option....
ETA: Ok, I get it. DeadlySin9 post has a link that drops you right onto the procedure.

Nutty. Following DeadlySin9's advice, I used Odin to flash recovery-mj6.tar.md5 into the bootloader slot, it was successful, the phone rebooted through the Samsung / open padlock screen and came right up into my old MK2 load. I immediately used TA to remove the open padlock and it now shows official/official. In the end I guess I didn't eff things up as badly as I'd thought.
How may I reflash MK2 from here? Being as there's only have an upgrade ROM out there, and we're waiting patiently for the whole ROM, I bet it will choke on the missing chrome.apk and other victims of my bloatware-removal party.

xpanmanx said:
Nutty. Following DeadlySin9's advice, I used Odin to flash recovery-mj6.tar.md5 into the bootloader slot, it was successful, the phone rebooted through the Samsung / open padlock screen and came right up into my old MK2 load. I immediately used TA to remove the open padlock and it now shows official/official. In the end I guess I didn't eff things up as badly as I'd thought.
How may I reflash MK2 from here? Being as there's only have an upgrade ROM out there, and we're waiting patiently for the whole ROM, I bet it will choke on the missing chrome.apk and other victims of my bloatware-removal party.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Follow deadly sins guide exactly...except replace the mj9 side load zip with the mk2...
The two emergency files will get everything you need for the phone to pass security checks (adds in missing files and apps) after you Odin the two emergency files Odin the recovery again. Reboot to recovery and it will perform a mini update. When the mini update completes reboot to recovery once more and side load mk2...so:
-Boot to download mode
-Odin emergency tar1 (it will fail that's ok)
-Reboot to download mode
-Odin emergency tar2 (it will fail that's ok)
-Reboot to download mode
-Odin recovery
-Reboot to recovery
-Let it auto update
-Reboot to recovery
-Sideload mk2
After I rooted mk2 I messed up with a mod and was left with a phone missing a system file which resulted in it not booting, I did the above and was able to successfully side load mk2 and was back to stock... :
All credit goes do Deadlysin9
Edit here is the link for the mk2 side load: http://www.mediafire.com/?ktkoogwz562p64k
Found like from this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=48363444
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

mg2195 said:
Follow deadly sins guide exactly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks so much, man.
Things went a little differently, but I let the phone walk me through it. All's well.
For me it went like this ....
-Odin recovery, reboot
-Odin emergency tar1, failed as expected, had to manually reboot
-Odin emergency tar2, failed as expected, had to manually reboot
-Let it boot to the pulsating blue LED, manually reboot
-Odin recovery, it automatically rebooted and applied updates and rebooted to pulsating blue LED
-Manual reboot to recovery, sideload mk2, reboot
-Blow through the initial setup
-Regain root with this procedure
-Drink beer
.

NEED HELP QUICK, fast, and in a hurry please

Alright, so i soft bricked my phone is what the internet is telling me. the phone turns on but stops at the opening samsung screen with the unlock symbol on it. i can get into odin mode, and recovery, but i have a locked recovery. I went to flash a rom to my stock slot which is what the forum said to do so i did it. looking back it was pretty stupid, and now when i tried to recover my back up it came back with an error and then said there was no os system in my stock slot. i tried doing a recovery in rom slot 1 which it recovered but when i restarted my phone everytime it went into a boot loop. so now i have a very expensive paperweight. so my questions are one is there anyway that i could salvage my phone. two is there a way i could get it back to where i was with any of my recoveries that i have. i herd the odin method works but will it work for my phone? i tried the odin before but never could get it to work. also kies is out of the question because neither programs will recognize my phone.
oh yeah my phone. so the last thing i had running on it was the 4.4.2 update I337 NC1 would i have to flash the NC1 os or could i flash an earlier one because all i could find were the 4.2.2's and the NB1 flash.

tshaulis said:
Alright, so i soft bricked my phone is what the internet is telling me. the phone turns on but stops at the opening samsung screen with the unlock symbol on it. i can get into odin mode, and recovery, but i have a locked recovery. I went to flash a rom to my stock slot which is what the forum said to do so i did it. looking back it was pretty stupid, and now when i tried to recover my back up it came back with an error and then said there was no os system in my stock slot. i tried doing a recovery in rom slot 1 which it recovered but when i restarted my phone everytime it went into a boot loop. so now i have a very expensive paperweight. so my questions are one is there anyway that i could salvage my phone. two is there a way i could get it back to where i was with any of my recoveries that i have. i herd the odin method works but will it work for my phone? i tried the odin before but never could get it to work. also kies is out of the question because neither programs will recognize my phone.
oh yeah my phone. so the last thing i had running on it was the 4.4.2 update I337 NC1 would i have to flash the NC1 os or could i flash an earlier one because all i could find were the 4.2.2's and the NB1 flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. As long as you can get into Odin mode, you're ok.
2. if you are on NB1 or NC1 base running safestrap 3.72, stock slot is the ONLY slot you can use. ROM slots do not work.
3. it's not really clear what you did to cause the boot loop, but lets get you back to stock...
Check out post 5 in my thread. If you follow these steps, you should be back to stock (and rooted with recovery, if you want) in no time.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2616221
BTW - Post 2 has a list of ROMs that are safe to flash for safetrap users. Read the install notes first then follow the install instructions to install one of the ROMS.

guut13 said:
1. As long as you can get into Odin mode, you're ok.
2. if you are on NB1 or NC1 base running safestrap 3.72, stock slot is the ONLY slot you can use. ROM slots do not work.
3. it's not really clear what you did to cause the boot loop, but lets get you back to stock...
Check out post 5 in my thread. If you follow these steps, you should be back to stock (and rooted with recovery, if you want) in no time.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2616221
BTW - Post 2 has a list of ROMs that are safe to flash for safetrap users. Read the install notes first then follow the install instructions to install one of the ROMS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sir i will tell you that your a genius. its pretty cool to see the creator of the link you posted (which is you) being used on other sites. goes to show you really know what you are doing. for me well i thought i did, and wish i did. it might be awhile before i change roms again or at least until i get more knowledge.
ok so from my understanding safestrap is having difficulties being you and only flash in the stock slot. ok well what i did was flashed the hyperdrive rom (from your link) to the stock slot because in the hyperdrive forum it said only can flash on stock. so i did a full wipe on stock then flashed the hyperdrive and gapps. well my guess is when i did the full wipe it wiped the os. also i didn't grab the supporting modules for the rom so i didnt have wifi or service which made me try to restore from my nandroid and couldnt because it said error loading /system. then tried other things i thought would work and softbricked it so to that.
i think for newbies like myself its a lot of reading and well we could miss some things and screw things up. and plus samsung had to make different freakin models like the i337 or i9505 or the i9000 or something and everything has to be the exact same and perfect. but oh well. i am happy to tell you that my phone is fully restored and working from the day before all this happened. thanks again and sorry for the long message.

[Q] Trying to install liquidsmooth to S4

I am sure my answer has been posted before, but i couldn't find what i was looking for after scouring google and XDA for a few days now so my apologies in advance.
I have the ATT I337 s4 with 4.4.2 firmware and am trying to install liquidsmooth V3.2 but obviously its not working. I keep getting an error that states:
"E: signature could not be verified"
"E: whole package signature could not be verified"
And then the phone factory resets itself and reboots.
What I have done: Rooted the phone with towelroot, then installed supersu, disabled knox, and then installed busybox.
Some posts I read said that i need to use safestrap to install liquidsmooth, so i tried that as well, and it says the installation is successful, but the program state never changes to show "installed" and the button to reboot into recovery never gets activated.
I am not sure what I am doing wrong, but I think from what I have read that I need a custom boot loader in order to get the install to work, such as CWM, but then i run into other posts that say:
"NOTE – For AT&T/Verizon users with Android 4.3/4.4.2 or higher, you cannot use the LOKI method, you need to use SafeStrap Recovery to install custom ROMs, see How to Install Custom ROMs on AT&T/Verizon Galaxy S4 using SafeStrap instead!"
Im hoping someone can fill in the gaps that I am missing because it is getting annoying having my phone factory reset after every attempt and having to start over again, but its better than a brick lol.
Let me know what you think, and please help get me in the right direction

What firmware version are you on? Go to settings, more, about device and look at the last three characters of your build number.
Nvm, I read your firmware as 4.2.2. You're either on nb1 or nc1. Either case you'll need to use safestrap. See in the general forum index, all things at&t.... It'll have everything you need.
PS, you won't be able to install liquidsmooth on your device. Only touch wiz based roms
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app

[Q] Phone has no recovery and other issues.

First want to say hi and that this site is full of knowledge so any help with my subject will be great.
Got a att s4 sgh-i337 phone. I rooted it before the lollipop ota update was out and everything went fine. Then the lollipop update came out and I followed one of the methods on keeping root and updating to 5.0.1 lollipop on the phone. Everything went fine with that. Still showed root status and never did the phone brick or have any issues in the updating.
At some point though, I did run triangle away because I would have the custom logo and opened padlock when the phone would boot up. I knew it wasn't a huge deal but the counter showed correct and never could just figure out how to get it to go away. Either way, I did run it and I think rebooting twice, the factory loading image came back to it. Now it shows my current status as 0 for the counter and the binary is Official.
I have not tried to load any roms or nothing like this to the phone, just followed the instructions to give it root access so I could run a few different apps and adaway for when I listen to Spotify.
One day, I was trying to install a new version of Words with Friends and it failed because I think wwf was open, but I did go back and install it. For some reason now, my phone never notifies my with a wwf notification when somebody plays me. Every now and then, it might pop up when I restart the phone but that is it. I don't think facebook notifies me everytime also but was more worried about words with friends.
Searching google, it says to go into recovery mode and flash the cache of the phone there. I have done the cache memory in the phone but that has not fixed my problem. When trying to go to recovery, it never works, it would always show, recovery booting and then load the phone up as normal.
I have download quick boot and rom manager since they all have an option to boot into recovery rather than pressing the buttons but it always does the same thing. Reading the web though, it seemed like I needed to install a different recovery than the factory I guess, so using rom manager, I tried twrp and that didn't work so I installed ClockworldMod 6.0.4.7. Rom manager shows that as the current recovery method.
When I try to boot into recovery, it still shows that recovery is booting and then goes straight to loading the phone as it should normally.
Now though, every time I restart my phone, it says recovery is trying to boot but never does.
How do I fix my phone to be able to boot into recovery and it not try to boot every time it powers on. I have tried searching google but I just just can find an answer to my direct problem. I know how to hold the buttons and go to recovery but does not work, and I also know how to get to it from the different app programs(rom manager and quick boot) but they do not work either. It would be nice to get the wwf notifications to work properly again also.
If you need any information from my phone, please ask. Thanks for any help on my matter,
Charlie

Odin stock and start over.

Apparently, you are not aware that the boot loader is locked, preventing the installation of a custom kernel. You can not use twrp, or rom manager. Rom manager itself may cause issues.
I agree you should flash back to stock and start over to get a clean install. Hopefully, this will solve the issues with notifications as well. You can use the "[GUIDE]Odin to Stock, Updating, Rooting, and Installing Safestrap" by guut13 in the general forum for files and instructions.

creepyncrawly said:
Apparently, you are not aware that the boot loader is locked, preventing the installation of a custom kernel. You can not use twrp, or rom manager. Rom manager itself may cause issues.
I agree you should flash back to stock and start over to get a clean install. Hopefully, this will solve the issues with notifications as well. You can use the "[GUIDE]Odin to Stock, Updating, Rooting, and Installing Safestrap" by guut13 in the general forum for files and instructions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the replies guys, I really don't know a whole lot about rooting other than following instructions about it. I was unaware you could not use the twrp or cwr as a recovery. My recovery did not work before so that is why I was trying to install those. I knew you could not install custom roms but I did not know that you could not use rom manager to install custom recoveries.
I appreciate the help so far and I will look into that thread you mentioned. I haven't read it but will this take me back to stock lollipop 5.0.1 and I just reinstall apps or will I have to re-root the phone.
Charlie

please delete, sorry
Charlie

You have to go back to 4.4.4, to the nb1 base, root with towelroot, and then use the keeproot method to get back to 5.0.1 rooted. The instructions are in the guide, and also a link to the keeproot thread is there.
By the way, for future reference, questions, help and troubleshooting issues should go in the Q&A forum, not the general forum.

not having any luck
Ok guys,
I am trying to follow the guide but not having much luck.
I downloaded the I337UCUFNB1_4.4_Stock_Odin_tar and put it in the AP Odin file. I'm not sure if I should be using it or the other file named I337UCUFNB1_4.4_Rootable_Stock_Odin_tar to begin with. The instructions said to use the first one so that is the one I was trying to use.
After putting the first file in the AP slot of Odin and hitting start, it begins to try to do it's thing and then says it fails!
What do I do now? Am I doing something wrong or what because I'm trying to follow instructions but not having much luck.
Please help. Sorry for posting in the wrong area also in the beginning.
Charlie

I'm screwed
Now when I turn my phone on, it says Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again?

doing better now
Pretty sure I got it going finally. I changed cords and then changed ports on my computer and it finally did go back to stock without an error. I'm currently back on Lollipop and rooted so now is the fun of reinstalling contact info and anything else. So far I have not rebooted but it was not showing the recovery booting option when it did reboot. Hoping my notifications work properly now also!
Thanks!!!
Charlie

Want to install new Goldeneye, Safestrap keeps reloading

Hey all, every time I try to hit recovery in safestrap (which it says is disabled at boot) it just goes black and shows the safestrap menu, if I keep repeating this it will eventually just boot up the original rom.
I also no longer have root on Goldeneye 52 XXUHOC6, I'm not exactly sure where to go from here, do I reinstall safestrap and start all over?
Every time this happens it's long enough from when I did this all last that I get scared of bricking it, can someone link me to the best links for my situation here?
Thanks.

Would truly appreciate any ideas on this, thank you.

What version of Android are you running? As far as I'm aware SafeStrap only works on 4.x.x.

5.0.1

Are you flashing the nc1 kernel before you try to enter safestrap?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4-att/general/nc1-flasher-odin-to-safestrap-t3082620
Follow the instructions in that thread and it should work fine.