Removing safe apps brick the phone - Galaxy A3, A5, A7, A8, A9 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot

Hello.
I've just rooted the phone and I wanted to uninstall upps I don't use. It's something I always did with my previous phone but now I'm having troubles at doing it with this one.
I have a galaxy a3 2016, SM-A310F, android 7.
Firstly I had tried with system app remover as I always did, but even though the app seemed to work good, bloatwares were neither frozen nor removed. So I tried with titanium backup and it worked pretty good.
First time: I had removed some safe apk (microsoft, vodafone, some samsung, some google apps), but at boot the phone was soft bricked. Strange.
Second time: I removed only microsoft apps, vodafone apps and s health. Soft bricked. Stranger.
Third time: I removed ONLY microsoft apps and s health, gain bricked.
Not being able to remove unwanted apps is just something I hate. I deactived some of them via standard app manager, but samsung and vodafone apps cannot me deactivated...
There is definetely something wrong. Even when I was younger I removed apps and never got a brick. Why now? I don't think microsoft apps are vital to the phone. May it be a titanium backup problem?
Thanks
EDIT: Oh, all of this happened when I upgrade from android 6 to 7. Before I had removed many apps with no problem

We all had that problem when N came. I tried everything without succes , on pure stock.
Then I tried to make rom with assayyed kitcken to make it deodexed. Thought maybe that was the problem...Same problem still.
Then I found a way to update smalis in assayyed to make it compatible with N, deodexed, deknoxed, edited both build.prop and kernel ramdisk to remove knox related stuff.
All good. Seems like pure stock can't be tampered with withput softbrick.

Thank you for the answer. Now I know it wasn't my fault

Related

[Q] Did I f* up my Play?

Hey guys. I hate making my first post a really noobie question but here it goes.
I just updated my rooted Xperia Play to 2.3.3 and it erased and/or re-wrote all of my system apps. I stupidly converted some of my downloaded apps into system apps using Titanium (because system apps turn red on the list. It helped me quickly figure out what was external and what was internal. Stupid, yes, and more trouble then it was actually worth.) so those apps were lost. Didn't matter, I had backups but I lost my root so I couldn't access them.
Forgetting what I used to root my phone originally I decided to use z4root after reading about it somewhere. The site I got it from is usually trust worthy but when I downloaded the file my OfficeScan (its a school bought computer) warned me of a potential virus threat. I wrote it off as just the pop-up ad and un-zipped and transferred the file to my phone. I still am not sure if it was a virus or not... Running z4root it got up to "acquiring shell root..." or something like that before kicking me back to the home screen with no change. I, again, stupidly, re-ran it several times without rebooting between each attempt. Giving up I then realized to reboot. Strangely rebooting was A LOT faster then it was usually is and I don't know if that was z4 or 2.3.3.
Anyway I remembered that I used Gingerbreak last time and re-installed that. I made several attempts with that with no change either. Too many to count, but at least more than 8. Several attempts I got a call or a text and, checking them, ended the process. 2 attempts I left running for about half an hour (I know that the instructions say it will never take more then 10 minutes) and some I ended with a battery pull after more then 10mins(as per instruction).
So I guess I have several questions:
1. How bad did I f* up, If I did so?
2. Any suggestions on how to re-root/fix it?
3. Will switching to an empty SD card, successfully rooting it, and switching back to the full card still keep the root?
4. Does an in phone factory reset work the same as flashing the same rom or will I need to actually flash that new rom?
5. If I do need to flash, where can I find a regular Play rom? Or do you have suggestions about a better rom?
6. Is the fast reboot the work of the half done, possibly a virus, z4root process or just the 2.3.3 update?
7.Lastly Was this tl and you ;dr?
Normally, I wouldn't care if there was no fix; My phone boots much faster, I didn't lose all my apps and only some apps launch a little slower then before. But I made tons of progress on Zenonia 2 and I want my back ups for that... lol.
Any help appreciated. Also thanks for putting up with a noob that's writing way to formally
1. Messing with the system apps, and not backing them up probably caused you to not have an OTA update. I'm guessing you flashed it? Not restoring anything and not doing an OTA was mistake number one. Trying to use z4root was mistake number 2.
2. Get the generic UK firmware from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1097591
-Flash that with Bin4ry and Androxhyde's flashtool
-Put in your carrier's APN settings, configure your google account, wifi etc. etc.
-Get Gingerbreak 1.2, run it(I used Astro to open the apk, and you need uunknown sources enabled).
Gingerbreak only worked for me when I formatted an SD card right before running it. I used a spare that was lying around, not the usual one with all my data, and I suggest you do the same if you kept your titanium backups. Hopefully you'll get rooted after about 3-5 minutes. Do not mess with any apps/bloatware after you have the root.
-After you have root, go into the settings menu and start an OTA update.
You should now have 2.3.3 WITH root.
-Once the phone is updated, install Titanium Backup and start backing up your old apps from before you messed up the phone and lost root.
-At this point feel free to remove the bloatware, but make sure you back it up in titanium for later.
3. Switching SD cards won't affect root at all.
4. A factory reset will reset whatever ROM was installed last. In other words, you can't revert back to 2.3.2 with a reset, it'll just reset 2.3.3 - It's really just for wiping data and settings.
5.The regular play ROM is the UK generic I posted above. The only "better" roms are customs that you need an unlocked bootloader to install. Currently they're still buggy and in development and not worth getting unless you like incomplete ROMs with bugs, and wanna lose the ability to update normally. Both OTA updates and the Sony Ericsson Update Service will brick your phone once the bootloader's unlocked.
6. My phone was booting a bit faster after updating to 2.3.3, and became even faster after removing some bloatware.
-Root doesn't speed up the boot process.
-I highly doubt an Android phone would have a virus that makes it boot faster, it's probably just from the update.
7. No, it wasn't. No, I didn't.
Thanks for the (semi-)quick response. Been browsing around the web with this tab open, constantly refreshing like a creep. I'll try your advice soon but its like 3am, just wanted to say thanks and love your Stocking pic.
Btw is there a difference between A US, UK or CAN rom or do those even exist?
The only real differences are carrier specific apps, and some versions have different games installed.
Sent from my R800
Seems like I was to late to flash and the link to the rom you gave me may have been updated to 2.3.3 as well. I was looking for a Canada/Rodgers rom anyway but the forum search isn't turning up anything and google seems to hate me...
Help anyone?
The link was for 2.3.2 in the generic.
The only rogers rom available is for 2.3.3 so you won't be getting root without an unlocked bootloader with that one.
Just follow the directions and it should be fine.
The rogers apps are available in the android market separately.
Sent from my R800

Deleted TouchWiz, can't use UPSM.

I got my new S5 (SM-G900W8, Telus) and I rooted using Towel Root. I installed a bunch of root apps, including Titanium Backup. I then proceeded to remove apps (backing them up first). I removed TouchWiz (backing it up) and used Nova. A few days later, I decided to activate UPSM (Ultra Power Saving Mode), and found that my entire screen went black, I could only drop down the notification bar, I had no apps, no ability to deactivate it.
I googled and found no way to force UPSM to turn off. I tried charging to full, no. I eventually restarted, and my phone got stuck on the "Samsung" logo, in black and white. I everything I could think, and then just decided to factory reset. I re-installed all my apps, and stuff, and just remembered that I didn't backup Titanium Backup, so I couldn't re-install TouchWiz.
What do I do now? I'd like to use UPSM, but I would prefer to not soft-brick it, and have to factory reset it after everytime I use it. I know I'm n00b, and it was my first rooted phone, and I should have researched first, but oh well.
Is there anything I can do to get TouchWiz back without tripping the KNOX counter (i.e. reflashing my phone to get it back)?
Once rooted I don't think you can use UPSM. You could install a TouchWiz based ROM with safestrap and probably get similar functionality, but I don't believe ultra power saving mode is available after rooting.
Find a rom for your device and either flash that, take the apk out and put it in your system/priv-app, or find someone here to post it for you. It's called TouchWizHome.apk. Seeing as how you don't want to trip Knox you will need to put it back yourself using something like root explorer.
Actually. Look at this thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2732110. The second post has all the bloatware that was removed that I think you can add back.

How to troubleshoot logs of a bootloop failure

I've had my Note 4 for a while and after a few Lollipop update incidents I finally after a lot of hesitation decided to root my phone (with the TWRP bootloader) and disable the update notifier. Since then, I've always stuck to the latest stock version of KitKat 4.4.4.
Since I've rooted my phone, I made the following modifications that require root priviliges: I installed XPrivacy mod, YouTube AdAway mod, NoSafeVolumeWarning mod, PlayPermissionsExposed mod, and CrappaLinks mod for the Xposed framework. I also installed Titanium backup to freeze/uninstall the updater and AdAway. After XPosed was installed I had to change a line in /system/build.prop to 'ro.securestorage.support=false' to make 'S Health' work again. I did that with the 'FX' app.
That's it, I had made no more modifications and the phone seemed to work quite well for a month or so.
Two days ago I decided to try out Instagram, I've been quite wary with social apps but figured Instagram shouldn't hurt and everything was fine. Then I installed a bunch of dating apps, I started with Match.com and Tinder. Tinder didn't work because it required FB and Match didn't work because it refused to, probably because of denied permissions with XPrivacy so I gave up on them and uninstalled them.
But I also installed OkCupid and Motesplatsen and enjoyed playing around with these apps. They didn't seem to interfere with XPrivacy and worked rather fine. Motesplatsen was rather intense with sending me notifications of girls who watched my profile and sent me (rather strange) messages whereas OkCupid was rather calm.
Then something strange happened.
Yesterday I started noticing that the battery was draining considerably faster than normal during normal day. It was almost empty whereas it usually is half full after a full day, I also noticed that the phone was unusually warm. I forgot to put it on the charger and woke up today with a dead phone. I put it on charge and after about an hour the battery was full again.
When I tried to turn on the phone it was stuck on boot loop. I first tried disabling XPosed by "touch /data/data/de.robv.android.xposed.installer/conf/disabled" using the 'terminal' tool in the TWRP bootloader. It didn't help. I tried flushing the cache/dalvik cache but it didn't work either. Then I did a total factory reset, but that didn't work. I noticed that during boot, the phone froze so hard that it doesn't even respond to button pushes. I had to take out the battery to reboot (that's one reason why I never will buy S6).
So then I decided to flash the phone with stock KitKat once again using Odin and that finally restored the phone.
Now, here's one of my questions, how can things go so bad with a phone that not even a factory reset will fix it? We're talking stock firmware here, albeit it is rooted.
What boot logs could be worth looking into when such a thing occurs and what is the easiest way to extract them? The terminal tool in the bootloader seems promising, plus I saw a 'copy log to SD' option which I neglected this time.
I'm puzzled, does anyone know what happened? I made no root modifications in the process of installing these apps and they don't advertise themselves as needing root privileges. How can a seemingly inconspicuous app directly from Google play **** a phone up like that?

My rooted smt-350 crashed (kind of)

I rooted my smt-350about a month ago using chainfire and odin for my brother. Yesterday, suddenly many of the system apps started crashing, including the default launcher. I restarted the tab, but in vain. It stooped detecting the SD card. Third party apps are working fine but they are also not sensing the SD card. The tab worked fine before this happened. The tab doesn't have custom recovery or ROM.It has SuperSU. I am not an experienced rooter so please explain your solution. Thanks in advance.
Sounds Like you deleted Something you shouldn't have. Think of root as removing the protection that keeps you from screwing up you device. When you rooted unlocked the device and made read only files now read and write files. Did you install any apps from unknown sources(Not Google Play Store)? May have installed a bad app or just accidentally deleted something you were not suppose to. Easy to fix if you can stil get to download mode and find your stock firmware. Then flash it with Odin. Then reroot and be more careful this time and also make a back up with Titanium Backup from the play store(Needs root). Let me know if you need help with this I can walk you though it...

Question [Help] Nothing Phone 1 Bricked After Restoring with Titanium Backup

Hello XDA community,
I recently purchased the Nothing Phone 1 running on the latest version of Android 13. After rooting my phone using Magisk, I installed several Magisk modules which worked fine initially.
Here's a list of Magisk modules that I installed in chronological order:
Font Manager
NotoCJK
Fullscreen/Immersive Gesture
G-visual (later closed as I didn't see any effect)
Shamiko
DRM disabler
Revanced Youtube
Webview Manager (replaced with ungoogle chromium)
Nexus Media Before installing the 10th module, I took a full backup of my device using Titanium Backup. However, during the backup process, it got stuck while backing up a file named "Media 13-9427200." After several attempts, I had to cancel the backup for this file to complete the backup process.
Pix3lify (failed to unpack boot image and finally used slim mode)
Safetynet fix
After installing the 11th module, I went to bed and installed several applications before sleeping, such as Kiwi, Shizuku, App Ops, Buzzkill, Automate, Vmos, Brevent, and Greenify.
12.Audio Modification Library
13.Ainur Narsil
After installing the 13th module, I noticed that my phone started behaving abnormally, and it would automatically reboot. Every time I start the phone, the interface freezes after two minutes, and it restarts automatically after several seconds. This scared me, so I uninstalled all the Magisk modules and applications installed after the 11th module and disabled the two audio modules, but it didn't seem to work. So, I turned off the phone for a few hours, and it seemed to work fine after that.
When I tried to log in to my Reddit account, I found that I couldn't use "Continue with Google." When I went to the Google section in Settings, I found that I couldn't open it either.
I searched for solutions online and found that the problem might be due to the Webview. I replaced it with Ungoogle chromium and downloaded the latest version of Android Webview from the Play Store and disabled WebView Manager. But nothing worked. I tried updating the Carrier Services and clearing the Google Service's cache, but it didn't work either. (All Google apps can be opened and used normally.)
After updating the WebView, things got worse. I use a third-party launcher called Smart Launcher, and I have many customized app icons. I found that all customized app icons no longer work, only the native icons can open the app.
I am really frustrated and everything seems out of my control. I decided to restore all the data from the backup I made last night using Titanium Backup (in snap mode). Unfortunately, after the restore was complete and I restarted the phone, I found that my phone was bricked. I can see the boot animation and select the launcher, but once I choose the launcher, the screen goes black, and I cannot do anything. I am also unable to enter Safe Mode as it keeps restarting.
At the same time, I used a software control my phone. I can see NOTHING in sdcard.
What can I do? Is there any way to fix my phone and preserve my data? If not, I am willing to wipe all my data. Also, if I restore my phone to factory settings, can I still use the backup data I made with Titanium Backup?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Additionally, please find attached a screenshot of the only interface I can see on my phone after booting up.
Seems you've broken lot of system apks , clearly Nothing Launcher is first . See if you have a intact bootloader and use fastboot commands to flash the launcher but I'm quite sure there many culprits in system .
So maybe short way is to flash entirely system image shown here in one of all threads about phone unbrick
muppetz said:
Seems you've broken lot of system apks , clearly Nothing Launcher is first . See if you have a intact bootloader and use fastboot commands to flash the launcher but I'm quite sure there many culprits in system .
So maybe short way is to flash entirely system image shown here in one of all threads about phone unbrick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your advice!

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