Database Users

Phone won't boot past "Galaxy S4" splash screen

So I recently purchased my AT&T Galaxy S4 with MDL baseband. I rooted and installed TWRP via motochopper. I then loaded Kangabean 4.2.2 and everything was great. Got notification for OTA update to 4.3 and decided might as well load Kangabean 4.3 as opposed to dealing with the OTA notification. I did so (after formatting internal SD and performing factory reset) and now my phone won't boot beyond the Galaxy S4 splash screen. I restored a nandroid backup of the original software and was able to boot the phone once, but couldn't load the custom rom again, nor can i load into the stock rom anymore either. Does it sound like my phone may have a hardware failure? Would attempting to restore through odin be the next logical step? I'm by no means an expert with these sort of things but my S2 has never given me any sort of grief when flashing various roms in the past. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Try a different kernel, also, pull the battery for 5 min, it will boot.

TheAxman said:
Try a different kernel, also, pull the battery for 5 min, it will boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I left the phone off with the battery removed all night - didn't want to boot this morning. I'm also noticing an oddity with TWRP - it's for some reason asking for a password on startup even though I've never set one. It also gives an error when attempting to wipe the phone or re-flash

id try odin

Don't Odin yet. If you can get into recovery see if you can flash a new recovery onto the phone. Try this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=41746967

jd1639 said:
Don't Odin yet. If you can get into recovery see if you can flash a new recovery onto the phone. Try this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=41746967
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will not let you past the password, been there, it will only do simulated flashes.
Odin is his only option.

So I managed to flash back to stock with odin. I was then able to re-root and re-install recovery. Something is still wrong here though. I was able to load kangabean 4.3, but when i installed the SIM card (kept it out to prevent OTA updates) the phone would no longer boot. I then re-flashed with odin, re-rooted, installed sim, THEN loaded the rom and it worked.... For a while. I had the phone plugged in to my laptop as i had recently transferred some ringtones to the internal SD. I powered down the phone. It seemed to shut the OS down but it then displayed a battery symbol with a rotating circular animation, as if it was trying to show that it was charging the battery. The phone froze in this state.
Another thing that I've noticed is that when this phone freezes, it gets warm. It also tends not to respond well until i've let it cool down. I'm now having difficulty booting the phone after re-flashing with odin. It loads to the white screen with AT&T logo and hangs (and gets warm). I plan to leave the phone alone with battery removed for the day and attempt to reboot or re-flash with odin later.
I find it odd that the rom that i flashed would stop working if i've flashed the rom with the sim removed from the phone, then introduced the sim to the phone after the flash is complete. Is this normal? I'm also unsure if my phone has faulty hardware, or maybe there's some sort of software glitch that's causing it to hang and overhead (like an infinite loop caused by faulty software).
I think if / when I can get it working with the stock rom again, I'll root it and run it for a while and see what it does. I never intended to run this phone with the stock rom as I prefer vanilla android.
I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the kernel. Perhaps I should re-download the ROM and re-install it. I'm not sure but I think the kernel is responsible for charging issues. Perhaps a bad kernel WOULD explain why the phone sometimes freezes at the "battery charging" logo? I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to do. I could try exchanging it through AT&T. If so, I hope they nave another one in their stock that has the MDL baseband as I know I'd be screwed with the current one...

Squidbert said:
So I managed to flash back to stock with odin. I was then able to re-root and re-install recovery. Something is still wrong here though. I was able to load kangabean 4.3, but when i installed the SIM card (kept it out to prevent OTA updates) the phone would no longer boot. I then re-flashed with odin, re-rooted, installed sim, THEN loaded the rom and it worked.... For a while. I had the phone plugged in to my laptop as i had recently transferred some ringtones to the internal SD. I powered down the phone. It seemed to shut the OS down but it then displayed a battery symbol with a rotating circular animation, as if it was trying to show that it was charging the battery. The phone froze in this state.
Another thing that I've noticed is that when this phone freezes, it gets warm. It also tends not to respond well until i've let it cool down. I'm now having difficulty booting the phone after re-flashing with odin. It loads to the white screen with AT&T logo and hangs (and gets warm). I plan to leave the phone alone with battery removed for the day and attempt to reboot or re-flash with odin later.
I find it odd that the rom that i flashed would stop working if i've flashed the rom with the sim removed from the phone, then introduced the sim to the phone after the flash is complete. Is this normal? I'm also unsure if my phone has faulty hardware, or maybe there's some sort of software glitch that's causing it to hang and overhead (like an infinite loop caused by faulty software).
I think if / when I can get it working with the stock rom again, I'll root it and run it for a while and see what it does. I never intended to run this phone with the stock rom as I prefer vanilla android.
I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the kernel. Perhaps I should re-download the ROM and re-install it. I'm not sure but I think the kernel is responsible for charging issues. Perhaps a bad kernel WOULD explain why the phone sometimes freezes at the "battery charging" logo? I'm somewhat at a loss as to what to do. I could try exchanging it through AT&T. If so, I hope they nave another one in their stock that has the MDL baseband as I know I'd be screwed with the current one...
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Click to collapse
TheAxman said:
Try a different kernel, also, pull the battery for 5 min, it will boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
//

Squidbert said:
.
Another thing that I've noticed is that when this phone freezes, it gets warm. It also tends not to respond well until i've let it cool down. I'm now having difficulty booting the phone after re-flashing with odin. It loads to the white screen with AT&T logo and hangs (and gets warm). I plan to leave the phone alone with battery removed for the day and attempt to reboot or re-flash with odin later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're on the stock AT&T rom and you're getting stuck on the AT&T boot logo try the following:
Power off your phone and hold down Volume Up, Center Home, and Power buttons together.
Once you see the Galaxy S4 splash - Keep holding down Volume Up and Center Home buttons but let go of Power button.
Choose the wipe datafactory reset. This will wipe your phone completely but it should boot after.
Hope that helps.

Well I've been toying around with this thing and much to my surprise, I have CM10 running stable w/o any issues booting! I think I would prefer to run Kangabean 2.05 (android 4.3) though. Assuming that the kernel could be a likely cause of the OS not booting, could someone recommend a suitable kernel for that rom? It appears to come packaged with the "KT" kernel...
Another thought i had was perhaps TWRP wasn't adding the loki feature to the roms that i was trying. I upgraded from 2.5x to 2.6. Hasn't seemed to have made a noticeable difference though.
Would the fact that CM10 runs absolutely flawlessly with no issues booting at all possibly help narrow down why the other roms that I'm flashing only load up the first time but fail at the "Galaxy S4" splash screen on subsequent reboots? Admittedly I'm a relative noob to roms and such but up until now i've been able to muddle my way through things and eventually figure them out. I'm not having the greatest luck with this one!

Squidbert said:
Well I've been toying around with this thing and much to my surprise, I have CM10 running stable w/o any issues booting! I think I would prefer to run Kangabean 2.05 (android 4.3) though. Assuming that the kernel could be a likely cause of the OS not booting, could someone recommend a suitable kernel for that rom? It appears to come packaged with the "KT" kernel...
Another thought i had was perhaps TWRP wasn't adding the loki feature to the roms that i was trying. I upgraded from 2.5x to 2.6. Hasn't seemed to have made a noticeable difference though.
Would the fact that CM10 runs absolutely flawlessly with no issues booting at all possibly help narrow down why the other roms that I'm flashing only load up the first time but fail at the "Galaxy S4" splash screen on subsequent reboots? Admittedly I'm a relative noob to roms and such but up until now i've been able to muddle my way through things and eventually figure them out. I'm not having the greatest luck with this one!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP does not now and has never added LOKI to any ROM or Kernel. Only OUDHS CWM auto-LOKIs. You have to use A pre-LOKIed Kernel or flash the LOKI DokI script to LOKI anything with TWRP. You can do a search to find the LOKI DOKI script and how to use it.

fatah
hi my phone is galaxy s4 at&t i337 rooted but not installed recovery the phone was working good suddenly i deleted at&t software updater after that the phone rebooted it's self and then stuck in at&t boot logo won't bootup please help
TheAxman said:
Try a different kernel, also, pull the battery for 5 min, it will boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

galaxy s4 i337 stuck on at&t bootAnimation
i tried everything but still same please help my phone is not booting up

fatahmusse said:
i tried everything but still same please help my phone is not booting up
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Click to collapse
Flash the stock firmware.

samsung galaxy s4 i337
thank you i flashed to mf3 everything is ok

fatahmusse said:
thank you i flashed to mf3 everything is ok
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear

[Q] GT-i9500 has no OS installed.

Hi everyone I just recently purchased a used S4 the GT-i9500. Everything seemed fine until I got home. It detected my T-Mobile Sim fine but I could only access 2G data and could not connect to any WiFi network I came across. The rom was stock 4.2.2 and the phone was rooted pre purchase. So after fiddling around for a few minutes I discovered the previous owner had flashed TWRP v2.4.1.0 as his choice for a Custom Recovery. Now at this point I had decided to flash on a Custom Rom and of course I first made a backup before flashing on WanamLite. Now after attempting to flash it I immediately received a failure. I tried turning off the signature verification and it did not flash. Now in my frustration i attempted to wipe everything and tried flashing Omega Rom v14. Now i was able to go through with the installation and choose what I wished to install and when I pressed Install things went along smoothly until I hit the app SecSafetyAssurance.apk where it freezes. This is a bump that I've run into at least 5 times already. I changed certain options I wanted to install and eventually made it past this and I am prompted to reboot. Now when I do this to my dismay I just receive a black screen. Upon pulling out the battery and attempting to reboot I still receive a black screen. when I boot back into the Recovery and attempt to reboot the system from within TWRP it warns me saying No OS Installed Are you sure you want to reboot. Im at a loss of what to do. I have read about other members suggesting to use ODIN but I am very confused about how to access Download Mode in order to flash a stock rom from SamMobile.com. I could use a few tips or maybe a few options that I'm left with in order to obtain the operation of my phone again. I would like to get my phone back and Im sure some users can relate to how Im feeling so any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much in advanced!

JmastahJay56 said:
Hi everyone I just recently purchased a used S4 the GT-i9500. Everything seemed fine until I got home. It detected my T-Mobile Sim fine but I could only access 2G data and could not connect to any WiFi network I came across. The rom was stock 4.2.2 and the phone was rooted pre purchase. So after fiddling around for a few minutes I discovered the previous owner had flashed TWRP v2.4.1.0 as his choice for a Custom Recovery. Now at this point I had decided to flash on a Custom Rom and of course I first made a backup before flashing on WanamLite. Now after attempting to flash it I immediately received a failure. I tried turning off the signature verification and it did not flash. Now in my frustration i attempted to wipe everything and tried flashing Omega Rom v14. Now i was able to go through with the installation and choose what I wished to install and when I pressed Install things went along smoothly until I hit the app SecSafetyAssurance.apk where it freezes. This is a bump that I've run into at least 5 times already. I changed certain options I wanted to install and eventually made it past this and I am prompted to reboot. Now when I do this to my dismay I just receive a black screen. Upon pulling out the battery and attempting to reboot I still receive a black screen. when I boot back into the Recovery and attempt to reboot the system from within TWRP it warns me saying No OS Installed Are you sure you want to reboot. Im at a loss of what to do. I have read about other members suggesting to use ODIN but I am very confused about how to access Download Mode in order to flash a stock rom from SamMobile.com. I could use a few tips or maybe a few options that I'm left with in order to obtain the operation of my phone again. I would like to get my phone back and Im sure some users can relate to how Im feeling so any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much in advanced!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well first thing is get the latest stock firmware for your variant from my sign and get odin 3.07
For download mode power off phone unplug,, press volume down home and power all together till something pops up and release then press volume up and connect to pc
Open odin click pda and select that firmware u downloaded start the process
For more info check my sign help thread link it has more options on the same
.

JmastahJay56 said:
Hi everyone I just recently purchased a used S4 the GT-i9500. Everything seemed fine until I got home. It detected my T-Mobile Sim fine but I could only access 2G data and could not connect to any WiFi network I came across. The rom was stock 4.2.2 and the phone was rooted pre purchase. So after fiddling around for a few minutes I discovered the previous owner had flashed TWRP v2.4.1.0 as his choice for a Custom Recovery. Now at this point I had decided to flash on a Custom Rom and of course I first made a backup before flashing on WanamLite. Now after attempting to flash it I immediately received a failure. I tried turning off the signature verification and it did not flash. Now in my frustration i attempted to wipe everything and tried flashing Omega Rom v14. Now i was able to go through with the installation and choose what I wished to install and when I pressed Install things went along smoothly until I hit the app SecSafetyAssurance.apk where it freezes. This is a bump that I've run into at least 5 times already. I changed certain options I wanted to install and eventually made it past this and I am prompted to reboot. Now when I do this to my dismay I just receive a black screen. Upon pulling out the battery and attempting to reboot I still receive a black screen. when I boot back into the Recovery and attempt to reboot the system from within TWRP it warns me saying No OS Installed Are you sure you want to reboot. Im at a loss of what to do. I have read about other members suggesting to use ODIN but I am very confused about how to access Download Mode in order to flash a stock rom from SamMobile.com. I could use a few tips or maybe a few options that I'm left with in order to obtain the operation of my phone again. I would like to get my phone back and Im sure some users can relate to how Im feeling so any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much in advanced!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing through odin is one option.... some users have reported that there were some hiccups when installing omega 14 because of the aroma script.....try a different rom...there are many others to choose from....or you could flash stock via odin as said on the earlier comment good luck

Feedback
Today I attempted to use ODIN to flash now I am still currently attempting this. When I press the volume down key, power, and home button it takes me to the custom recovery TWRP instead of download mode. The phone did this when I first purchased it. When I still had what appeared to be the stock rom it would always take me to the recovery. When I would use the volume up instead of down it would take me to the factory test mode now mind you this happened when the OS was still installed. When i try that combination now i just receive a blank black screen. Are there any other ways to boot into download mode?

Stock Everything

What I want to do is install a stock non rooted rom, kernel, and recovery. I am not sure how to change recovery to stock either is it like flashing a rom? Please give me some links for these I can't seem to find them, besides the stock kernel I found that.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------The reason I want the above is bellow, if it matters.-----------------------------------------------------
My phone is about 95% broken.
Before, every rom/kernel combination would randomly restart, it was my phone it self I believe.
I went to a stock rooted rom, but then it restarted, and my lock screen worked, yet my home screen was black all i could do was slide my status bar down.
After that i restarted my self and then it got stock forever on the screen where it says Samsung galaxy s4.
The 5% working part is my recovery, for the most part.
I keep having to do a full wipe, not just system wipe otherwise it says error unable to mount preload or i/o or a few other things, I have to system wipe before every rom attempt.
I tried several popular roms such as sacs and triforce and a few other roms and all the kernels also.
The phone will turn on, work for a little normally, then crash again and go into the infinite loading screen where is simply says galaxy s4.
This phone is only 3 months old, so I want to take it back to sprint being completely stock so they give me a new phone.
I need links to files I need, and if i am forgetting to change anything back to stock please let me know. Thank you.

I replied to you in the newbie thread, but to return to complete stock download the latest firmware from here: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/ and install it with odin. Do a factory reset before and after install to make sure you have cleared out what ever is causing your problems. After this process you will be completely stock and unrooted. If you are still having problems after this it is probably hardware related.

[SM-T530] Screen "frozen" after flashing stock 5.0 Lolipop

So I've been having this strange issue for a year now, where I want to upgrade my SM-T530 (Tab4 10.1 wifi) to the stock Lolipop (5.0.whatever) ROM in order to get the damn kernel updated so I can access all these wonderful custom ROMs (Stuck on CM 12 atm...).
But whenever I flash a stock ROM for my model, it seems to freeze the screen after the boatloader. As in, everything seems to be working, sound and touchscreen, it just doesn't update/refresh the screen. Basically, the same behaviour as described in this post.
So here's the steps I took, in the hope that anyone can point me in the right direction:
Boot tablet in recovery (TWRP 3.0.1, in this case) and wipe Dalvik, /data, /cache, /system, basically everything)
Reboot tablet into bootloader/download mode
Using Odin 3.11.1, flash T530XXU1BOL2_T530PHN1BOE1_HOME.tar.md5 (Found here, which should be the correct ROM for my model (Bought in the Netherlands, but I have no idea where you folks are pulling this T530XX stuff from, it's nowhere to be found on the back))
Reboot tablet
After the 4th step, the tablet will be unresponsive for ~10 minutes (I think it's doing the whole "upgrading apps" thing that follows a new installation). After that, when I hit a certain area of the screen, I can hear the regular Android touchresponse, raising the volume also give the normal beeps and pushing the power button plays the "turning off screen" sound, but the screen stays active, showing the Samsung Galaxy Tab4 boot logo.
Soooo... Anyone care to take a guess what I'm doing wrong?
Personally, I think it might have to do with flashing the incorrect stock ROM, but for the life of me, I can't find out which T530-code I have. I've been flashing different ROMs, but no luck so far...
As for troubleshooting I've already tried:
The above procedure, afterwards flashed TWRP via Odin and flashed a custom ROM via TWRP. Same effect.
Variations of the above procedure, where I keep wiping the tablet after each step
Different custom ROMs

Ugh, nevermind.
Turns out I have an UK tablet (BTU-T530XXU1BOG2). After flashing a dozen or so ROMs, this one did the trick.
Oh well, problem solved :good:

I337 extreme lag, random reboots, no recovery

Recently bought a new out-of-the box Galaxy S4 I337 from Amazon. Had i known how much trouble it would give me, i would have picked something else. When i first turned the device on, it was almost totally unusable due to lag and random reboots. Software version was 4.4.2. I used Odin to flash a rootable NB1 onto the device. Still had lag and random reboots. Upgraded to lollipop using this guide: https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4-att/help/guide-att-samsung-galaxy-s4-sgh-i337-t3383078 and still have lag and random reboots. Also, the first time i upgraded to lollipop, i installed safestrap not knowing it wouldn't work on lollipop. Obviously, my recovery disappeared. When i figured out what was going on, i did a fresh install of lollipop. I got recovery back, but today when i tried to boot into recovery to wipe the cache, i discovered it had mysteriously stopped working again. If i attempt to boot into recovery, it just skips to the Samsung logo. I didn't install safestrap or any other custom recovery this time.
When i turn the phone on, either it hangs at the AT&T white splash logo and refuses to load at all, or advances to the lock screen. I have disabled animations and every widget i could on the lock screen and yet when i attempt to unlock the phone, it usually freezes. If i repeatedly swipe the phone for thirty seconds or so, it unlocks but it is still frozen and i have to continue swiping to prevent it from locking again. Eventually i'm able to navigate the phone normally, until it randomly reboots or freezes. Sometimes i see an error message that Touchwiz home, Process System, or SystemUI has stopped working or is not responding. This is always accompanied by a freeze. Also, choosing an option in the dialogue that comes up when i press the power button (shut down, reboot, etc) invariably causes the device to soft reboot. Other times a soft reboot happens totally at random, even if i'm not doing anything. Anybody have any idea what's going on or did Amazon just sell me a dud? All of these issues have been happening since before i rooted the device or upgraded it, except for the disappearing recovery mode.
Thanks in advance for your help.

Sounds like a data factory reset is in order. First you need recovery back so I would odin the latest firmware for the phone that can be flashed in odin. If it's still messing up then get Amazon to replace it.
Since you have safe strap though, try booting a TW based rom like Thor ROM or Golden eye ROM. That may fix some things.

StoneyJSG said:
Sounds like a data factory reset is in order. First you need recovery back so I would odin the latest firmware for the phone that can be flashed in odin. If it's still messing up then get Amazon to replace it.
Since you have safe strap though, try booting a TW based rom like Thor ROM or Golden eye ROM. That may fix some things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wanted to bump this to thank you for your reply. Never got the phone to work but i was able to get it back to stock and return it. I got a refurbished S5 instead.