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This started as a beg for help thread, but since the GS4 is coming up on 3 generations old, help is quite slow, yet does still exist as of this edit (3-20-15).
None the less, I will try to explain what happened so that people searching for similar problems might find this thread and resolve their issues.
I soft bricked the phone flashing PacMan. ... The instructions CLEARLY stated that you need to flash the rom, then flash GApps. Well, I forgot to Flash Gapps because I was so excited that I had a successful root and new rom to test that I finger ganged the phone.... The phone booted just fine and worked just fine, but I did not have ANY google apps, and went into a panic... LESSON #1 DO NOT PANIC......
What I failed to realize is that Android Lolipop (at least PacMan's version) requires the user to select options in the developer section of the settings menu to enable you to boot into your custom recovery after you have flashed your custom rom.... I DID NOT KNOW THIS and the information was NOT readily available. So what happened was I panicked and tried to flash another recovery which was apparently NOT the correct recovery for my phone.. (the cascade of errors began here). My phone was soft bricked and NOTHING I did would get me out of it.
So, after at least 50 attempts using Odin to try and flash a good recovery, re-root the phone, whatever I could think of, I finally got out of soft brick, and back to a working phone, yet still no google apps, and no recovery (or so I thought).
By this time, I had asked ....no. begged for help on 2 or 3 different threads to no avail when what I thought was a brain storm came to me.... I googled and located the google play store apk, and google play services apk and thought that if I could just get these 2 things installed, I would be able to log onto the google play store and download the apps I need and all would be right with the world....... Yeah.... Remember the cascade of errors thing I mentioned a few lines up ^^^ ?
Once I installed those 2 apk's and rebooted the phone, I was in nag screen hell with no way out, no custom recovery (remember...or so I thought) and no way to access ANYTHING on the phone because literally the second I hit "ok" on the nag screen, it would immediately pop back up...This "nag screen" was the one that pops up and tells you that "google play services has stopped working".. I came inches away from launching the phone against the wall and buying another one... something... anything but a Samsung GS4.
So here we are, 14 hours (of actual face in the phone, Odin, XDA, Google, YouTube) frantically searching for ANY solution.....and NOTHING presented itself, when I decided to take a step back and walk away from it for a couple of hours.......
The next thing I tried was pounding my way through the nag screen... Literally hitting the "ok" toggle to clear the screen, while instantly trying to hit any other button on the screen to get me into the settings menu, because during my little self imposed time out, I had an epiphany.... of sorts..... What really happened is that I remembered seeing a "factory reset" toggle in the settings menus somewhere.....and I was determined to find it........ SO....... 13,386,329 clicks of the "ok" button later, I managed to engage the factory reset switch at the exact right moment, followed by another 4,388 presses of the "ok" button to get to the "confirm" button.......... and like a beacon from heaven...... My phone rebooted, and factory reset, and the #%g^7**&^|@# nag screen was GONE !!!!! Oh my GOD it was GONE !!!!!!! After recovering from my full blown conniption, catching my breath and feeling like a raver must feel after a good night of Molly and glow stick euphoria, I had a working phone again..... almost.
What I did next was go immediately to Odin, re-root the phone, install a DIFFERENT rom, and the latest version of TWRP and like another beacon from the gods I had a wonderfully functional phone with all of the google apps I needed.... and all was good with the world........Pretty much....
I am nearly certain that I cost myself 5 years of healthy living with the stress I imposed upon myself throughout this ordeal ---- The following are lessons learned. Hopefully they save you from madness...
(1) Do NOT use a USB hub to connect your phone to the computer. The phone MUST be connected directly to a USB port on your machine.
(2) Understand the workings of the rom you are going to flash BEFORE you flash it.
(3) DO NOT PANIC
(4) DO NOT randomly install apk's just because you think you are smarter than a 5th grader, and you are so mad your phone doesn't work, you are going to try anything regardless of how retarded it might be.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST and actually probably the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do is locate, download and CONFIRM GOOD a stock firmware for YOUR phone BEFORE YOU ROOT or flash a new rom..... If you get to brick he11 like I did, you will spend more time searching for the tools to get back to zero than you can imagine. You will be revved up, angry with the world, and your google fu will fail you......miserably I might add......
Get all of your ducks in a row BEFORE you root, and before you flash a new rom. That means finding the stock firmware and opening it up in Odin with your phone connected to CONFIRM you have a good firmware to go back to should you fail miserably.... Your very sanity could depend on it...
Team Scream said:
Does anyone have and is willing to share a stock Galaxy S4 rom so I can go back to stock on my phone? I am currently soft bricked and completely dead in the water...
I need to be able to flash the rom using Odin since that is the ONLY way I can communicate with this phone right now....I can flash whatever recovery I want using Odin, but I cannot boot into that recovery once successfully flashed with Odin. It boot loops and goes back to the completely useless PacMan 5.02 rom I flashed previously that repeatedly shows the "google play services has stopped working" screen.... and no number of attempts to clear it by hitting ok will get me to a working desktop
I bricked my phone by flashing PacMan and forgetting to flash GAPPS before rebooting, then trying to install google play services apk and google play store apk manually because I could not get back into recovery for whatever reason....
I have spent the ENTIRE day searching for a stock rom that I can flash with Odin so I can at least get back to zero with this S4 which is actually a brand new phone for me....
PLEASE do not link me to mediafire or rapidgator downloads because I have tried every one of those that google will reveal.. I need one that YOU know is good, and will work. NONE.... NOT ONE of the files I have been able to find online are legitimate .tar files... They ALL unzip with errors and I have tried them on multiple computers.....Multiple download attempts and NOTHING... I have literally been at this for 10 hours now and really need some love.
On a side note, if I can pull the stock rom from my wifes brand new S4 without screwing up her phone, PLEASE tell me how to do that. She literally picked up her brand new replacement S4 today...
Any help is genuinely appreciated... PLEASE.
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Click to collapse
http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung Galaxy S4 (SPH-L720)/Stock ROMs
KennyG123 said:
http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung Galaxy S4 (SPH-L720)/Stock ROMs
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Click to collapse
Man thank you! THANK YOU! I really appreciate it... I woke this morning to find this reply after leaving my computer running all night for another corrupted downloaded image file.... I have my fingers crossed !!! THANK YOU
P.S. how do I know which one of those files I actually need? I have no idea what the difference is in each of those folders.... Forgive me for noob but I really am pretty noob at this.....
I just looked at the link to help you and noticed that Wilco stops at the NAE baseband. A lot of phones are on the NG2 baseband and if you have a 720T, it could be even a different baseband. Go to settings, "About Phone". Look for" "Baseband" and "Model Number". Write that information down. Once you have that, the last three characters are what is in the list in the link KennyG123 sent you. (For example, I have the original S4 so I have a SPH-L720 and my baseband is L720VPUFNG2 (or NG2 for short. Which was not on that list.) If it is not on the list, go to www.sammobile.com and search for your model number (For example, I am on the SPH-L720. If you just bought your phone from Sprint, you probably have the SPH-L720 or SPH-L720T). You can download the tar file from there. It is a little slow but it will get it done for you. The tar file for both phones are here in this forum if you want to search but going to Sammobile would probably be a little easier from the sounds of it.
dyandell said:
I just looked at the link to help you and noticed that Wilco stops at the NAE baseband. <snip>
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Click to collapse
Hey brother, thank you so much for the help and reply. I might have forgot to mention that I cannot get into the phone to read the model # or get any information from it at all. The nag screen telling me that google play services has stopped working is so persistent that I can't do anything with the phone once it boots.
Is there a way to brute force wipe the phone so that the only thing left when that process is done is a custom recovery like TWRP or Philz or anything other than stock?
If so, would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of a tutorial that would help me get through that process.... I am either not using the right search terms or I am just too old to be good at this and should have stayed home when the rooting lessons were being handed out...
Anyway, I genuinely appreciate your help... Thank you so much !!
Ok I was able to pound my way through the nag screen to the settings menu and eventually got to the baseband and model #
baseband: L720TVPUBOA3
model #: SPH-L720
I have tried 3 times to download the only version I can find on the sammobile.com website using the baseband to search and the file fails to download after getting about 2/3 complete.... I have tried it on 2 separate computers from 2 different locations now...... This is horrifying ...... Every single force that can be working against me, is working against me.
Ugh...... If you have a link to a method I can use to force wipe the phone without a stock rom, but with a recovery I can boot into to flash a rom I have on my external SD card, I would love to see it...... im losing my mind here...
<<<<<<<< EDIT>>>>>>>>>
I was also able to pound my way into the settings menu and do a factory reset which removed the google play nag. From there I was able to root around in the developer options folder where I discovered that in order to be able to boot into recovery, you need to select the "boot options" tab and allow the device to boot into recovery....
I know this device is old now and most people have moved on, and I am pleased that there are some people who stick around here to keep this device alive. I only wish that someone would have advised me to check the boot options selection when I indicated I could not boot into recovery... That would have saved me 2 days of manic obsessive he11....... This was complete he11...... But I am on the other side of it now, and have reflashed another rom... I am back among the living.
Team Scream said:
Ok I was able to pound my way through the nag screen to the settings menu and eventually got to the baseband and model #
baseband: L720TVPUBOA3
model #: SPH-L720
I have tried 3 times to download the only version I can find on the sammobile.com website using the baseband to search and the file fails to download after getting about 2/3 complete.... I have tried it on 2 separate computers from 2 different locations now...... This is horrifying ...... Every single force that can be working against me, is working against me.
Ugh...... If you have a link to a method I can use to force wipe the phone without a stock rom, but with a recovery I can boot into to flash a rom I have on my external SD card, I would love to see it...... im losing my mind here...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sprint phones have always been able to downgrade and thinking that has not changed. You should be able to Odin the last one listed on the link I gave you...NAE...then your phone should boot...you can then take the Sprint OTA if you like then root and recovery as normal. Then you can get to the stuff on your SD and flash. The only issues I remember popping up these days is if you mismatch the modem and OS...which wouldn't be the case if you Odin'd NAE.
Team Scream said:
Ok I was able to pound my way through the nag screen to the settings menu and eventually got to the baseband and model #
baseband: L720TVPUBOA3
model #: SPH-L720
I have tried 3 times to download the only version I can find on the sammobile.com website using the baseband to search and the file fails to download after getting about 2/3 complete.... I have tried it on 2 separate computers from 2 different locations now...... This is horrifying ...... Every single force that can be working against me, is working against me.
Ugh...... If you have a link to a method I can use to force wipe the phone without a stock rom, but with a recovery I can boot into to flash a rom I have on my external SD card, I would love to see it...... im losing my mind here...
<<<<<<<< EDIT>>>>>>>>>
I was also able to pound my way into the settings menu and do a factory reset which removed the google play nag. From there I was able to root around in the developer options folder where I discovered that in order to be able to boot into recovery, you need to select the "boot options" tab and allow the device to boot into recovery....
I know this device is old now and most people have moved on, and I am pleased that there are some people who stick around here to keep this device alive. I only wish that someone would have advised me to check the boot options selection when I indicated I could not boot into recovery... That would have saved me 2 days of manic obsessive he11....... This was complete he11...... But I am on the other side of it now, and have reflashed another rom... I am back among the living.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you got it fixed! I have had my phone for over a year now and never heard of a boot options tab. I guess you learn something new every day.
Also glad you got it fixed. But let's keep this open in case someone else has the same or similar issue.
KennyG123 said:
Sprint phones have always been able to downgrade and thinking that has not changed. You should be able to Odin the last one listed on the link I gave you...NAE...then your phone should boot...you can then take the Sprint OTA if you like then root and recovery as normal. Then you can get to the stuff on your SD and flash. The only issues I remember popping up these days is if you mismatch the modem and OS...which wouldn't be the case if you Odin'd NAE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well not being able to leave well enough alone, I locked my phone up again.
Because I was able to get out of soft brick without needing a stock firmware, I never bothered downloading NAE from the link you provided.
Turns out after 2 separate downloads (one using Chrome and one using Firefox) I have determined that the md5.tar files on that site http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung%20Galaxy%20S4%20%28SPH-L720%29/Stock%20ROMs are worthless.... BOTH downloads failed in Odin before I could even get out of the gate....
They failed the md5 check that Odin performs and would not allow me to continue.... IS there something I am missing?
Team Scream said:
Well not being able to leave well enough alone, I locked my phone up again.
Because I was able to get out of soft brick without needing a stock firmware, I never bothered downloading NAE from the link you provided.
Turns out after 2 separate downloads (one using Chrome and one using Firefox) I have determined that the md5.tar files on that site http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung%20Galaxy%20S4%20%28SPH-L720%29/Stock%20ROMs are worthless.... BOTH downloads failed in Odin before I could even get out of the gate....
They failed the md5 check that Odin performs and would not allow me to continue.... IS there something I am missing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remove the .md5 extension at the end and try again.
KennyG123 said:
Remove the .md5 extension at the end and try again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sweet baby Jeezes please tell me that is not all I had to do.... I spent 4 hours staring at the screen downloading files last night .... I waited 4 hours and finally could not stay awake any more but I finally got the OA3 firmware from SamMobile downloaded successfully. I left the .md5 extension and it is now flashing via Odin as I type this.... I could have saved myself a few more hours of misery if I had known you can remove the .md5 extension..... This learning curve is hard on an old man like me hahaha!
Thanks Kenny
<edit> Ahhhhh.... the sweet smell of success !!! I am now booted back into a stock phone!!!
Man I hope this thread can help save someone else from the anguish I have put myself through with this thing....
Team Scream said:
Sweet baby Jeezes please tell me that is not all I had to do.... I spent 4 hours staring at the screen downloading files last night .... I waited 4 hours and finally could not stay awake any more but I finally got the OA3 firmware from SamMobile downloaded successfully. I left the .md5 extension and it is now flashing via Odin as I type this.... I could have saved myself a few more hours of misery if I had known you can remove the .md5 extension..... This learning curve is hard on an old man like me hahaha!
Thanks Kenny
<edit> Ahhhhh.... the sweet smell of success !!! I am now booted back into a stock phone!!!
Man I hope this thread can help save someone else from the anguish I have put myself through with this thing....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sure it will! Glad you got it working and glad I helped! Some versions of Odin don't care about the md5 extension and others barf it up. With the way your luck went....well...don't buy a lottery ticket this week...hahaha.
I have rooted many phones before without an issue, and during the root process for this phone, everything was going great, I flashed SuperSU zip in TWRP and rebooted, since it was the first boot I expected a decently long wait, after about 25 minutes I followed the guide's instructions for Verizon since it did say some Verizon users were experiencing long first boot times. I took the battery out like it said, put it back in, then proceeded to fastboot boot2.img, like the guide said. After letting it sit for an hour this time, I got the idea that something was obviously wrong. After multiple attempts with no success I tried to fix it myself. So far I have learned that on the fastboot screen it says my bootloader is locked again, even after unlocking it. I have tried flashing TWRP as a recovery, just to at least have a recovery boot, that does not work either unfortunately. So as of right now, all I have is a v20 that has no OS, a locked bootloader, no way of booting recovery, I can fastboot with no ADB, and its virtually a paperweight. If anyone has a solution to at least get back to Stock, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!
First off. It will say: Bootloader Unlocked: No
Thats normal. 2nd. you are not bricked. You have TWRP installed. You just need to redo some steps.
PM me. and I will help you.
Did you get it fixed?
frome901 said:
Did you get it fixed?
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Click to collapse
He has not responded to my pm
What roms can we use with dirty santa root?
me2151 said:
First off. It will say: Bootloader Unlocked: No
Thats normal. 2nd. you are not bricked. You have TWRP installed. You just need to redo some steps.
PM me. and I will help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bricked 2 LG V20s this way any help would be appreciated lol what steps do I need to redo...
TheDantee said:
Bricked 2 LG V20s this way any help would be appreciated lol what steps do I need to redo...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In his case we needed to redo from step 3.
I managed to un-brick mines after returning sadly from the Sprint store.
First, get to the boot loader screen and try running thru the steps again, especially step 3. You need to make sure you have TWRP.
Use this link to make sure you can get into the different modes (Download mode, fastboot, etc) http://www.hardreset.info/devices/lg/lg-v20/
Once you can get TWRP to show up,then you are good. In the mean time I downloaded "LS997-deODEXd-signed"
When I got into TWRP, I transferred the file to my phone. Rebooted from TWRP back into TWRP and flashed the ROM.
During my reboots, I do get a message saying my phone is corrupt, blah blahblah, but I just wait a few seconds and it will boot up.
Hope this helps.
I had managed to brick mines only 3 hours after upgrading from my Note 4. It took me from 9pm to almost 2am to get it back up again. I can live with the message about my phone being unbootable until someone comes up with a work thru.
Bricked T-Mobile v20
I have rooted many phones before without an issue, and during the root process for this phone, everything was going great, I flashed SuperSU zip in TWRP and rebooted, since it was flash a new rom on it then i get boot loop with TWRP. so i decide to OEM LOCK again after that everything was stuck on my phone just boot loop with LG so any solutions please help me...... THx u for help me.
Kinda nerve wrecking to read about all these "bricked" phones popping up after trying this method lol.. Perhaps I'll just wait until a more tried and true way comes out...
Dirty Santa root is not for the average user who has a couple of experience in rooting.
You have to at least have background on Hard bricking phones to fully understand what you are getting yourself into
For anyone that isnt on sprint that has "bricked" their phone. There are kdz's that will allow you to reflash back to 'stock". Someone had an issue with the kdz, but it was an easy fix. If you failed the process, it can be restored. Just if it doesnt want to boot, just lock and unlock the bootloader...
If your phone doesnt have a kdz, I know TeamDev is working on a custom kdz for such phones. Don't bug him if it isn't finished as I type this.
Anyone that can't get into TWRP, or has failed the process. Either start back at step 3, or if you have TWRP installed but can't get to it, the manual way to get into TWRP is a pain.
Keep your back cover off and hold the volume down button for ease. Now press the power button and as soon as you see an LG logo, let go and repress the power button. Its tricky.... If you get the corrupted screen, pop your battery out and put it back in quick and repress volume down and power. Usually if Im quick enough the first LG logo will hang a lot longer than usual and that gives me time to enter TWRP. A factory reset screen will pop up. Hit Yes twice.
Please help urgent
lcovel said:
I managed to un-brick mines after returning sadly from the Sprint store.
First, get to the boot loader screen and try running thru the steps again, especially step 3. You need to make sure you have TWRP.
Use this link to make sure you can get into the different modes (Download mode, fastboot, etc)
Once you can get TWRP to show up,then you are good. In the mean time I downloaded "LS997-deODEXd-signed"
When I got into TWRP, I transferred the file to my phone. Rebooted from TWRP back into TWRP and flashed the ROM.
During my reboots, I do get a message saying my phone is corrupt, blah blahblah, but I just wait a few seconds and it will boot up.
Hope this helps.
I had managed to brick mines only 3 hours after upgrading from my Note 4. It took me from 9pm to almost 2am to get it back up again. I can live with the message about my phone being unbootable until someone comes up with a work thru.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please can u help ke unbrick mine i bought this mobile in my country its expensive and has no support. I have tried all tools but still getting the error model unknown please help sir
Jaistah said:
Dirty Santa root is not for the average user who has a couple of experience in rooting.
You have to at least have background on Hard bricking phones to fully understand what you are getting yourself into
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does that mean? Not for the average user who has a couple of experiences in rooting.
I've only rooted 2 phones, this is my 3rd (maybe 4th). I am on Sprint. Instructions worked fine for me. I did have one hiccup, but it was my fault, and I was able to root just fine. I've been running for a few months now.
I have not flashed any custom ROM yet, I'm going to wait for the next major version of Android to come out. The only mods I've done so far are Titanium Backup install so I can remove Sprint crap.
yuppicide said:
What does that mean? Not for the average user who has a couple of experiences in rooting.
I've only rooted 2 phones, this is my 3rd (maybe 4th). I am on Sprint. Instructions worked fine for me. I did have one hiccup, but it was my fault, and I was able to root just fine. I've been running for a few months now.
I have not flashed any custom ROM yet, I'm going to wait for the next major version of Android to come out. The only mods I've done so far are Titanium Backup install so I can remove Sprint crap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it means dirty santa root got a high posibility rate of bricking a device compared to other root methods for other devices and if you have no experience in bricking phones before then you're screwed if it happens to you
Actually, if you follow the directions, almost none of the problems create a true brick-- which means unrecoverable. For most of the cases, you might get a soft brick, meaning you have to back out, use a KDZ to repair it or reflash something else, or start over from scratch and try again-- but usually (maybe with some help from here) you can pull the phone back into a usable state.
I would hazard to guess for the vast majority the process works fine, maybe with a hiccup, but I've not seen many reports of a truly unrecoverable brick from this method. It's complicated, yes, and you need to be ready to read a LOT to understand what's going on, but it seems pretty difficult to end up with a $700 paperweight with this.
So i have been trying tonroot my sprint lg v20 and everytime i try and go to the phone on mobile terminal to enter id
Then enter the apply patch /system/bin/atd /storage/emulated/0/dirtysanta i get this message and i cant go to step 2 to boot into recovery
Any help would be appreciated: i have a sprint v20 and i wanted to know if i have to flash the stock sprint rom or can i just flash lineage rom following this guide? I have it running on AT&T and i want to keep it on AT&T...
can you please assist
Could you help out, please? I don't believe I have hard bricked my LG V20 H910. However, I have read and tried all of the unbrick info out. It seems my screw up is unique. I completed dirty Santa then went to flash a custom. in the boot between that. I get a black screen and cant do anything even download mode will not come up. My PC does make its usual noises when i connect or disconnect, but my phone does nothing.
Ok, I managed to brick mine too. It's a VS995, it was running stock 1AC. I used the LGUP tool to downgrade it to VS99512A, and then did Dirty Sanata and TWRP. After booting into TWRP I decided to try lineage OS with Android 8.0, I did not make a backup of the Stock ROM, which was very stupid. Lineage OS 15.1 flashed but I had no cell service so I panicked and instead of wiping it in TWRP and using the backup of stock I should have created, I just opened LGUP and tried to downgrade it back to stock VSS99512A. Well LGUP said it worked, but when it went to boot it would hang at the Verizon logo with 4 pastel dots. Device manager could see an ADB device and I could connect to it with ADB. So I did and read the logcat. I could see it was trying to update as part of the rollback, but it appeared that some components from Android 8x could not be "upgraded" to Andoird 7.x. There was a repeated error about failing to update SQLite instance version from 3 to 1.
The one feature that could fix this is if the refurbish function worked with any of the VS995 KDZ files we all have access to. But alas, none work instead we only get the upgrade function... or so I thought. Somewhere in my search for the past 2 weeks I found a modified LGUP https://forum.xda-developers.com/v20/how-to/guide-patch-lgup-to-unlock-features-t3652222
**Please be warned what I did was absolutely ****ing stupid, and it was sheer luck I didn't screw anything up.**
From what I can tell if you only flash ("LGUP Upgrade") the KDZ from the same model it never clears the partition it just adds to it. My problem was there was stuff from lineage OS 15 stuck on one of the partitions that was making the rollback to stock fail because it kept saying it couldn't update the SQLLite DB from 3 to 1. So no "upgrade" within LGUP would work because the upgrade function does not clear internal storage. But the link above is to a version someone modded so you can force a partition update from any KDZ onto the system. So I started playing around with forcing KDZs from other models onto my VS995, and I noticed when using the Partion DL function with non-VS995 KDZ files it would say something about the partition changing. All I can assume is that the partition layout is so different on each model and it forces LGUP to re-partition the storage.
**Again I state for the record this was stupid, and I'm only fortunate it worked.**
I forced Partion DL of H91510d_00_VTR_CA_OP_1110.kdz, then H990N10b_00_OPEN_HK_DS_OP_1017.kdz, then back to VS99512A_06_1114_ARB00.kdz, then when it booted it gave the Verizon hello, and moved on finally but the setting service kept crashing while it was trying to load the Secure Boot screen. So I yanked the battery and went into the boot menu and did the Factory Reset function, and it worked.
Lesson learned, always make a backup and don't be so hasty to use tools that aren't fully functional (LGUP).
Perhaps what I've done may help others, maybe I've found out how to reimage or unbrick our V20s. Or maybe I just got really stupid lucky.
Hey guys, thought I would make a discussion thread about the new update today for the Sprint S5's. Looks like todays update was just over 200 MB. I don't know if it affects the latest chainfire root yet or not.
But yeah, make your stock S5 search for a update and you should find one waiting.
I've noticed:
The Android Security Patch Level is now December 1, 2016
Software version is now G900PVPU3CPL2
Do we know how long Samsung will continue to update our phone OTA? I appreciate that we still have support. It's not so bad being 1 month behind in security updates since even with security updates we are still vulnerable to 0-day exploits anyway.
Does anyone have a copy or link to this update? I want to see if it helps with signal on nougat based roms.
Thanks in advance
KIES
The~Skater~187 said:
Does anyone have a copy or link to this update? I want to see if it helps with signal on nougat based roms.
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The best way to actually try and get this is through Kies or SmartSwitch apps. Sam Mobile does not have this, and it would be, about another month from now, till they even have it... Been there too many times looking for this so call update.
I know that is does state 01dec2016 security update. I also know, that Knox is added to (at least, all Knox is added data (Kbs, not Mbs) I also believe, they (Samsung, tech side phone updates) have added more apps for Knox. However, we don't have anything that is related to these new updates. heck 2 of them, state they have DATA. Through the stock app manager, you have an option, to erase this, because it is not installed....
not sure if this helps you find what you are looking for. ...
( me 2cents on this),... Why extra apps and data../. Why do we have to download a complete new Stock Rom, when we already were stock anyway ???) (Me dog did a real number on the phone. had to be a good eBay and Amazon shopper... Completely rebuild my S5.
Wondering if the S5 will be having A real update, such as 7.1... ??? !!!) we S5, was not on or in the press release early this month, regard the Samsung, Android updates... 7.0, 7.1 NOUGAT !!!
I certainly believe that they will in time update the S5 to 71 Nougat
This may just be a hunch but I have a feeling that if the Note 8's don't blow peoples faces off that the S5 probably won't be seeing Nougat officially (from Sammy).
Well there's a new update today for me anyways. This one is just over 27 MB's. 2 new updates in one month!
The new software version is called G900PVPS3CQA2
New antutu score updated.
It's very unlikely that S5 will receive an official N OTA from any carrier(or any msm8974, for that matter) as Qualcomm had planned 'no official support' for msm8974 past M. It was already very late in the cycle for M, and may not have made it onto the list for M had the msm8994 sucked less.
Does anybody know if we are still able to root our phone model with this new update?
LEN671 said:
Does anybody know if we are still able to root our phone model with this new update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know for sure myself, as I have not gotten the update bring on aftermarket firmware. But I would imagine if you flash twrp and apply the latest supersu, it should work. I know that's how I did it with the cpk1 update.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong. I don't want anyone bricking their device based on what I've said.
LEN671 said:
Does anybody know if we are still able to root our phone model with this new update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.. I did
I ran into some issues and factory reset, deleted my Internal Storage, and then ODined PK1 Stock onto my Sprint S5. I then got a prompt that G900PVPU3CPL2 update was available. After the phone restarted I was then prompted to update to G900PVPS3CQA2 After that one installed and restarted.. I successfully rooted using CFAutoroot and then put the latest TWRP Recovery on.
Now.. what screwed me up is me trying to put a 7.1.1 Rom on (LOS and even Resurrection Remix). Phone froze and would not allow me to enter any info in or select Wifi. When it did.. I had ZERO signal/data. I then re-odined.. PK1.. without the updates, rooted, and Twrped, then flashed the 7.1.1 (LOS and RR) with no problems. Made back-ups of both (within TWRP) and was able to Restore all three at will. I am currently back on the STOCK/ROOTED w/all updates including the QA2.. as I didn't feel like doing the customization of the 7.1.1. Roms with the game (SuperBowl) getting ready to come on.
Personally I like the Stock- Rooted -Updated- Twrp config as the only thing that bothers me is the heading theme being that Samsung Aqua blue. If I could theme it.. I might stay with it
Cmicasa the Great XvX said:
Yes.. I did
I ran into some issues and factory reset, deleted my Internal Storage, and then ODined PK1 Stock onto my Sprint S5. I then got a prompt that G900PVPU3CPL2 update was available. After the phone restarted I was then prompted to update to G900PVPS3CQA2 After that one installed and restarted.. I successfully rooted using CFAutoroot and then put the latest TWRP Recovery on.
Now.. what screwed me up is me trying to put a 7.1.1 Rom on (LOS and even Resurrection Remix). Phone froze and would not allow me to enter any info in or select Wifi. When it did.. I had ZERO signal/data. I then re-odined.. PK1.. without the updates, rooted, and Twrped, then flashed the 7.1.1 (LOS and RR) with no problems. Made back-ups of both (within TWRP) and was able to Restore all three at will. I am currently back on the STOCK/ROOTED w/all updates including the QA2.. as I didn't feel like doing the customization of the 7.1.1. Roms with the game (SuperBowl) getting ready to come on.
Personally I like the Stock- Rooted -Updated- Twrp config as the only thing that bothers me is the heading theme being that Samsung Aqua blue. If I could theme it.. I might stay with it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the info!! This is what I wanted to hear!! Someone who had the newest update and then went into detail of what they encountered. Thank you again!! Much appreciated!!
You can always see the latest official stuff for our phones here: https://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SM-G900P/SPR/
The only way we'll ever see Nougat on the S5 is via rom ports, or CM14/CM14.1 Official, which is supporting the S5.
LEN671 said:
Thank you for the info!! This is what I wanted to hear!! Someone who had the newest update and then went into detail of what they encountered. Thank you again!! Much appreciated!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. After using the STOCK/ROOTED MM version with all the updates , I have decided that I really am just gonna stay on it. It is smooth, fast, and has all the things I need. I killed Bloatware so outside of the pull-down bar being aqua blue.. and background being white I'm very content.
Anyone know of an app for rooted phones that will allow me to rectify those things?
Cmicasa the Great XvX said:
No problem. After using the STOCK/ROOTED MM version with all the updates , I have decided that I really am just gonna stay on it. It is smooth, fast, and has all the things I need. I killed Bloatware so outside of the pull-down bar being aqua blue.. and background being white I'm very content.
Anyone know of an app for rooted phones that will allow me to rectify those things?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@cmicasa the Great, I keep getting a failed when using Odin, CFAutoroot, KingoRoot, KingRoot, and even when I try to use TWRP. I also read somewhere that I would have to unlock the Bootloader in order for this to work? Do you mind sending me a message in PM about how you did your rooting? If you don't mind sir. Thank you again for your time and assistance.
LEN671 said:
@cmicasa the Great, I keep getting a failed when using Odin, CFAutoroot, KingoRoot, KingRoot, and even when I try to use TWRP. I also read somewhere that I would have to unlock the Bootloader in order for this to work? Do you mind sending me a message in PM about how you did your rooting? If you don't mind sir. Thank you again for your time and assistance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is everything I did including putting PK1 on my phone, letting it then upgrade to G900PVPU3CPL2 and then update to G900PVPS3CQA2 After that one installed and restarted.. I proceeded to Root and put custom recovery on. Because U will not get the OTA updates once U root
Here are my steps Len:
1) First make sure U have the ODIN 3.10 or above> Links are here SamsungOdin or here Odin Download
2) Then go into Download Mode by pressing the "Volume down +home and then Power buttons" Once device boots hit the volume up button and Android dude should appear
3) open ODIN (I used 3.10) and plug phone to computer.
Load the PK1 tar in the PDA Slot, put your phone in Download Mode (power off, hold Vol Down, Home, and Power), and connect your phone to the PC. (I checked F.Reset and Auto Reboot)
Then after that is successful run CF Auto Root or whatever root injector you have in the PDA slot again. Once that finishes (wait until Odin tells you it was a Success before doing anything), get ROM Toolbox or something of that nature and remove any app with Knox in the title or that has the Knox symbol.
Load your phone into Download Mode one last time and then put whatever recovery you have (I use TWRP, make sure you grab the .tar format instead of the zip) and put that in the Bootloader slot in Odin. Then you're good to go, rooted and custom recovery, sky's the limit.
-I found a perfect site that does exactly what I did using CFAUTOROOT. It explains everything including TWRP
then for Root http://www.stechguide.com/root-samsung-galaxy-s5-android-marshmallow/
then for Recovery http://www.stechguide.com/install-twrp-recovery-samsung-galaxy-s5/
Cmicasa the Great XvX said:
This is everything I did including putting PK1 on my phone, letting it then upgrade to G900PVPU3CPL2 and then update to G900PVPS3CQA2 After that one installed and restarted.. I proceeded to Root and put custom recovery on. Because U will not get the OTA updates once U root
Here are my steps Len:
1) First make sure U have the ODIN 3.10 or above> Links are here SamsungOdin or here Odin Download
2) Then go into Download Mode by pressing the "Volume down +home and then Power buttons" Once device boots hit the volume up button and Android dude should appear
3) open ODIN (I used 3.10) and plug phone to computer.
Load the PK1 tar in the PDA Slot, put your phone in Download Mode (power off, hold Vol Down, Home, and Power), and connect your phone to the PC. (I checked F.Reset and Auto Reboot)
Then after that is successful run CF Auto Root or whatever root injector you have in the PDA slot again. Once that finishes (wait until Odin tells you it was a Success before doing anything), get ROM Toolbox or something of that nature and remove any app with Knox in the title or that has the Knox symbol.
Load your phone into Download Mode one last time and then put whatever recovery you have (I use TWRP, make sure you grab the .tar format instead of the zip) and put that in the Bootloader slot in Odin. Then you're good to go, rooted and custom recovery, sky's the limit.
-I found a perfect site that does exactly what I did using CFAUTOROOT. It explains everything including TWRP
then for Root http://www.stechguide.com/root-samsung-galaxy-s5-android-marshmallow/
then for Recovery http://www.stechguide.com/install-twrp-recovery-samsung-galaxy-s5/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much for breaking it down dummy style. Haha. It definitely helps. I will try it out when I get to my house and PC.
LEN671 said:
Thank you very much for breaking it down dummy style. Haha. It definitely helps. I will try it out when I get to my house and PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL.. no issues. Definitely go to those bottom links. They even have pictures. Be careful though.. I tried to experiment and see what checking the "Nand and Erase" in odin.. and damn near bricked my phone. Had to get PIT file and rebuild. Working smoother than ever now.. and like I said.. I'm sticking to Stock/Rooted and Xposed
Cmicasa the Great XvX said:
LOL.. no issues. Definitely go to those bottom links. They even have pictures. Be careful though.. I tried to experiment and see what checking the "Nand and Erase" in odin.. and damn near bricked my phone. Had to get PIT file and rebuild. Working smoother than ever now.. and like I said.. I'm sticking to Stock/Rooted and Xposed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So just to clear, there is no need to unlock the Bootloader? Also, if my phone has a password, does it need to be disabled? I.e. lock security feature such as creating a pattern in order to unlock the device to use.
LEN671 said:
So just to clear, there is no need to unlock the Bootloader? Also, if my phone has a password, does it need to be disabled? I.e. lock security feature such as creating a pattern in order to unlock the device to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm confused on that. Your phone will be booted into DOWNLOAD mode during the time of ODIN. Your Password will be inconsiquential
Cmicasa the Great XvX said:
I'm confused on that. Your phone will be booted into DOWNLOAD mode during the time of ODIN. Your Password will be inconsiquential
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I am just making sure as I am not sure if that was one of reasons why Odin came back saying "FAIL". Thank you again.
Hello all. I am about done with this phone. Let me give you a quick timeline.
I had a bootloader error, so I flashed the NPN25.137-35 images to get it working
I used it for about 1 week, installing all of the OTA security updates
One morning, my phone had restarted (I know because "You must enter your pattern after a restart")
Over the course of this day, google apps starting force closing and opening some of them would soft reboot the phone.
The next day, random apps were doing it too
Finally, after one crash, the OS never came back up, it was bootlooping
Upon a hard restart, the phone only boots into bootloader.
This is where I am now. I have downloaded NPN...35-5, NPNS...93-10, and NPNS...92.14. Unfortunately, trying to flash any of these give me a "prevaildation failed security update downgrade" error on every partition I try to flash. The phone just bootloops when I try to restart it.
Things I have tried:
Using fastboot to manually install one of the 3 packages mentioned above.
Using a toolkit to automate the install of the 3 packages.
Using Motorola Device Manager (Never got it to launch)
Flashing the blankflash bin (No usable image file found)
Android OEM unlock setting was not set before this crash, so I cannot unlock the bootloader.
Praying to various deities.
Unzipping the packages, editing the *info.txt file into androidinfo.txt and rezipping to use as an update package (Invalid info.txt error)
I have no idea what to do next. I find it frustrating that Motorola doesn't differentiate between 32GB, 64GB, Amazon ads, no amazon ads, US, EU, or indian variant in it's model numbers! Everything is just "XT1687" and none of the update files are named with words, so knowing what the hell I'm flashing is impossible.
So, frustrations aside, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get this phone working again. On a side note, the only thing that I can think of that would cause such a cascading failure from Stock OS is RAM or Storage corruption / failing. Any thoughts on that as well?
=~=~=~=~= SOLUTION FOUND =~=~=~=~=
This may not be a good solution for anyone else that has this issue, but recently Oreo came out and the OTA update was captured. I was able to flash the new OTA because it had a higher security level and at least got the phone bootable.
Do you know what software channel you were on? E.g. retus, retla, etc? If your phone was completely up to date with the OTA, then you can't use a firmware version of less than 92-14 or 93-14. Whether or not you use 92 or 93 depends on the channel.
Locked bootloader limits other possibilities unfortunately.
Retus. I can't guarantee it, but that looks familiar to me, like I had seen it somewhere in the "about phone" section. Is there a released Stock image that has the current security patch? I can't find it on XDA and I'm not trusting androidfixfiles.info or a link in a youtube video.
93-14 hasn't been leaked yet. So you'll be stuck for now.
Kilo__ said:
I have no idea what to do next. I find it frustrating that Motorola doesn't differentiate between 32GB, 64GB, Amazon ads, no amazon ads, US, EU, or indian variant in it's model numbers! Everything is just "XT1687" and none of the update files are named with words, so knowing what the hell I'm flashing is impossible.
So, frustrations aside, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get this phone working again. On a side note, the only thing that I can think of that would cause such a cascading failure from Stock OS is RAM or Storage corruption / failing. Any thoughts on that as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a last resort you might try booting TWRP in fastboot mode, download and flash the TWRP flashable version of NPNS25.137-93-14. and see if that gets you back to a working phone. Just a suggestion. I don't know if it will boot when the bootloader is locked but it is worth a try.
pastorbob62 said:
As a last resort you might try booting TWRP in fastboot mode, download and flash the TWRP flashable version of NPNS25.137-93-14. and see if that gets you back to a working phone. Just a suggestion. I don't know if it will boot when the bootloader is locked but it is worth a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone was completely stock. It has the stock recovery and bootloader.
Kilo__ said:
The phone was completely stock. It has the stock recovery and bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get that. What I am suggesting is not installing TWRP, but booting it from fastboot, if it is even possible. Given your results trying to flash a ROM I would say not. But what do you have to lose by trying?
pastorbob62 said:
I get that. What I am suggesting is not installing TWRP, but booting it from fastboot, if it is even possible. Given your results trying to flash a ROM I would say not. But what do you have to lose by trying?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried that with a locked bootloader myself, it doesn't allow a non-signed image to boot. OP should give it a go as a 'hail Mary' attempt, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.
I've never heard of a phone that was fully stock with no mods or flashing ever done on it getting a bootloader error. The only bootloader error I am aware of is when the bootloader and ROM build are mismatched which doesn't happen unless the phone is being manually flashed. Was the phone on a custom ROM and you tried to return to full stock? Did you purchase the phone used?
If no to both exactly what did you see when you got the bootloader error? What was the message and what was the phone doing?
People who are on full stock with a locked bootloader don't usually flash system images so your story is a little hard for me to understand unless there is more to it. Normally a factory reset would be the logical solution when your phone is acting odd--flashing a system image seems pretty extreme and it sounds like flashing the wrong system image might be the cause of your current problems.
jhs39 said:
I've never heard of a phone that was fully stock with no mods or flashing ever done on it getting a bootloader error. The only bootloader error I am aware of is when the bootloader and ROM build are mismatched which doesn't happen unless the phone is being manually flashed. Was the phone on a custom ROM and you tried to return to full stock? Did you purchase the phone used?
If no to both exactly what did you see when you got the bootloader error? What was the message and what was the phone doing?
People who are on full stock with a locked bootloader don't usually flash system images so your story is a little hard for me to understand unless there is more to it. Normally a factory reset would be the logical solution when your phone is acting odd--flashing a system image seems pretty extreme and it sounds like flashing the wrong system image might be the cause of your current problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. :good:
While my phone was wholly stock, I am not new to phone rooting or custom ROMS. I bought the phone from someone who was trying to unlock it. They screwed something up and couldn't get the phone to boot. I bought it, flashed the NPN25.137-35 image after reading plenty of XDA posts about it. This one was the Retus / North America stock image. Flashed using the suggested guidelines that are along the lines of "fb_oem_mode ... flash oem oem.bin ... flash partition sparsechunk1.img" (Something like that). That got it running and once booted, it had many OTAs update in quick succession. After about a week the phone started having trouble. Google apps would crash frequently, then non-google apps started crashing and restarting my phone. After one said restart, the phone would only bootloop. I tried rebooting into recovery to do a factory reset and got the bootloader instead. I can go take a look at the bootloader and see if it says it's secure / oem or what
Kilo__ said:
While my phone was wholly stock, I am not new to phone rooting or custom ROMS. I bought the phone from someone who was trying to unlock it. They screwed something up and couldn't get the phone to boot. I bought it, flashed the NPN25.137-35 image after reading plenty of XDA posts about it. This one was the Retus / North America stock image. Flashed using the suggested guidelines that are along the lines of "fb_oem_mode ... flash oem oem.bin ... flash partition sparsechunk1.img" (Something like that). That got it running and once booted, it had many OTAs update in quick succession. After about a week the phone started having trouble. Google apps would crash frequently, then non-google apps started crashing and restarting my phone. After one said restart, the phone would only bootloop. I tried rebooting into recovery to do a factory reset and got the bootloader instead. I can go take a look at the bootloader and see if it says it's secure / oem or what
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try flashing just the stock recovery, as it sounds like that is corrupt. Ideally you'd want to get a recovery that was the same build as you were on after all the OTAs had installed. At least you'd hope that that would give you the factory reset option.
If that doesn't work, there's fastboot commands to erase user data, cache, which would be pretty much what a factory reset would do. Hope you had your data backed up.
Oreo OTA came out recently. Someone grabbed the update file and uploaded it. I was able to flash it and get the phone to boot. The verdict is still out on if it'll be stable.
Hi all -
I have two US996 phones.
Luckily, my primary phone is fine (rooted stock Oreo ROM)
The "backup" phone was previously bootloader-unlocked and also had TWRP and a stock-rooted Oreo ROM on it - but not yet set up; it booted to the welcome/setup routine.
Well, I did a "full" Nandroid backup of my primary phone (TWRP 3.3.1.0) using the beta feature supposedly allowing backup of data as well as the internal storage and wanted to see if it really did fully restore the phone without need for re-entering all of the passwords and other info for all of the apps. So, I tried to restore it to my backup phone.
Well...I screwed up and apparently didn't do an adequate wipe before flashing. Now, the backup phone is bootlooping with a message saying something like "your phone failed a security test and will not boot". I am not able to get into recovery at all.
I am able to get into fastboot mode, and on "fastboot getvar all", I see that the bootloader has been re-locked!! So, of course, trying to unlock it via fastboot doesn't work, since I am not able to get into developer mode to re-enable OEM unlock...any way to re-unlock it and get into TWRP?
Looked at Medusa Flasher, which is supposedly free (1.1.0.1) but when I try to use it I get "card not found" and it won't open, and the file needed to fix this isn't available. It also appears that it's only good for Sony and HTC phones anyway, and some serious hardware dissection is necessary.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
dilligaf56 said:
Hi all -
I have two US996 phones.
Luckily, my primary phone is fine (rooted stock Oreo ROM)
The "backup" phone was previously bootloader-unlocked and also had TWRP and a stock-rooted Oreo ROM on it - but not yet set up; it booted to the welcome/setup routine.
Well, I did a "full" Nandroid backup of my primary phone (TWRP 3.3.1.0) using the beta feature supposedly allowing backup of data as well as the internal storage and wanted to see if it really did fully restore the phone without need for re-entering all of the passwords and other info for all of the apps. So, I tried to restore it to my backup phone.
Well...I screwed up and apparently didn't do an adequate wipe before flashing. Now, the backup phone is bootlooping with a message saying something like "your phone failed a security test and will not boot". I am not able to get into recovery at all.
I am able to get into fastboot mode, and on "fastboot getvar all", I see that the bootloader has been re-locked!! So, of course, trying to unlock it via fastboot doesn't work, since I am not able to get into developer mode to re-enable OEM unlock...any way to re-unlock it and get into TWRP?
Looked at Medusa Flasher, which is supposedly free (1.1.0.1) but when I try to use it I get "card not found" and it won't open, and the file needed to fix this isn't available. It also appears that it's only good for Sony and HTC phones anyway, and some serious hardware dissection is necessary.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried going into download mode?
Landloord said:
Tried going into download mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, @Landloord.
I can get into download mode. Can I use it to re-flash my stock rooted Oreo ROM (NOT the backup, but the original .zip) or do I have to flash a KDZ and start over?
Thanks!
dilligaf56 said:
Thanks, @Landloord.
I can get into download mode. Can I use it to re-flash my stock rooted Oreo ROM (NOT the backup, but the original .zip) or do I have to flash a KDZ and start over?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing a kdz would be your best option right now. It's safer to start from a rock-solid base
Landloord said:
Flashing a kdz would be your best option right now. It's safer to start from a rock-solid base
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashed the Stock Oreo KDZ. Thanks! phone boots now....but I can't unlock the bootloader in the usual way (using the unlock.bin file from LG) because somehow the IMEI number got nulled - all zeroes.
Edit:
Got the IMEI fixed with this method: https://forum.xda-developers.com/v20/help/us996-imei-null-0s-how-fix-t3876980 - and now the bootloader magically became unlocked.
Now to flash TWRP and a rooted image and all should be well.
Thanks again, Landloord!
dilligaf56 said:
Flashed the Stock Oreo KDZ. Thanks! phone boots now....but I can't unlock the bootloader in the usual way (using the unlock.bin file from LG) because somehow the IMEI number got nulled - all zeroes.
Edit:
Got the IMEI fixed with this method: https://forum.xda-developers.com/v20/help/us996-imei-null-0s-how-fix-t3876980 - and now the bootloader magically became unlocked.
Now to flash TWRP and a rooted image and all should be well.
Thanks again, Landloord!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good to hear. Happy modding
Landloord said:
Good to hear. Happy modding
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you send me your unlock.bin, looking to try something crazy on my H910
Landloord said:
Can you send me your unlock.bin, looking to try something crazy on my H910
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, have been away from the forum for a while. Still need it?
dilligaf56 said:
Sorry, have been away from the forum for a while. Still need it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure
Hmmmm....couldn't find the file anywhere on my phone or the computer. I unlocked the bootloader on that phone when I first got it four years ago.