Database Users

[q] safe mode

hey there,
i currently have a galaxy S5 SM-G900F which is stuck in safe mode,i have searched and searched this forum for a solution and have exhausted all possible fixes for this issue
the only one i have not yet done is to use odin to flash a new firmware...yet
this device was dropped into a toilet and after drying it out was scrambled,(the rom kept jumping into all sorts of different parts of itself,so i updated from kitkat via kies to lollipop...the update went fine and the device has re-booted without the previously explained problem above but now it will not exit out of SAFE MODE
if anybody has any suggestions as to a fix that would be very appreciated....also the menu and back hardware buttons light up but do not work only the home button seems to work and am not sure if this is an effect of safe mode or not...also VOL- seems not to work either
could all of these problems be related to that fatal toilet dunk and will it be worth my while getting these parts fixed or replaced...???

The button problem should appear because of the toilet drop.
Send from my G900F @ Ressurection Remix using Tapatalk.

sp3d00 said:
The button problem should appear because of the toilet drop.
Send from my G900F @ Ressurection Remix using Tapatalk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this much info i did gather from XDA...now the device is back to going all funky again...will only boot if vol+/home button/power button are held together then as soon as it boots the system goes haywire...flickering between all sorts of crap and so fast that i cannot identify anything...only a battery pulls seems to solve that issue...is weird as it was working fine this afternoon straight after i updated to lollipop..for hours it was fine...then funky rom raised it's ugly head and has not gone away...also it is still in safe mode as well....

If you have done this already then boot your phone into Recovery Mode, wipe cache and do a factory reset, I can't remember but I think in stock recovery (I use TWRP so I can't check) but I think there is an option to shut down the phone so if it stays in recovery after the wiping and factory reset select that option, then remove the battery for a few minutes, then replace the battery and reboot the phone.
Hopefully the water hasn't caused any permanent damage, they are only waterproof to a limit and it can get in, the non working buttons could be related to a conflict with 4.4 rom residue software and the new 5.0 software, the wipes will clear this, then if its still not behaving try to re-flash the rom again, if that fails then the water may well have got to it.
Bear in mind the factory reset will wipe all phone data, contact data, etc, basically it will restore it to an out of the box condition.

S4 bootloops on every rom, even after Odin stock flash.

Hello, I am having an issue with my S4.
I was having random reboot issues and my rom was quite old (omega 30 or something) so I decided to update my phone. I flashed stock from odin, then installed TWRP again and tried flashing roms. Roms previously would boot up to the point where I would setup android and then reboot. Now my phone seems to reboot almost directly after the "Samsung Galaxy S4" logo. Some roms have let me boot into the android setup but once the Mobile Network seems to try to connect, the phone reboots right away.
I have tried flashing 3 different stock roms thru ODIN and they all have the same issue. I have tried clearing cache/data in recovery but it hasnt helped.
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice? Thanks!

Might be a power button issue. A friend had a similar problem. The phone would boot and work for some time and then turn off.
At some point it just wouldn't turn on anymore.
It was the power button.

GDReaper said:
Might be a power button issue. A friend had a similar problem. The phone would boot and work for some time and then turn off.
At some point it just wouldn't turn on anymore.
It was the power button.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank for your reply!
Just curious, if it was the power button, wouldnt my phone also restart in recovery and in download mode? In both of those modes, there is no issue. I'm worried that I flashed a modem incorrectly some time in the past and that could be casuing me issues. If the stock rom passed in odin, shouldnt the modem be working correctly?

BigNaes said:
Thank for your reply!
Just curious, if it was the power button, wouldnt my phone also restart in recovery and in download mode? In both of those modes, there is no issue. I'm worried that I flashed a modem incorrectly some time in the past and that could be casuing me issues. If the stock rom passed in odin, shouldnt the modem be working correctly?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock roms have modems and bootloaders included. So it must be something else.

GDReaper said:
Stock roms have modems and bootloaders included. So it must be something else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's very odd. I have no problems getting into recovery or download mode, but absolutely anything I flash will not boot with any reliability and not for more than a few seconds. I was able to flash Omega 42.1 and that worked for about 30 minutes yesterday and then began bootlooping as well.
I have no ideas.

I hate when people solve their problems and don't follow up on their own threads so here I am to post my solution.
Turns out my battery was slightly swollen and causing the battery to disconnect and make the phone restart. I noticed this after a bunch of various testing with the phone plugged in and unplugged. The phone would work fine plugged in but within a minute of being unplugged it would turn off or reboot.
I purchased a new battery and have had no problems at all since, everything works great. When I compare my swollen battery to the new battery, you can see it is slightly swollen but hardly noticeable if they are not side by side.
Anyway, for anyone reading this thread in future, my solution was to replace the battery which had swollen.

Phone still gets stuck in boot loop after flashing stock firmware

I have a TMobile/MetroPCS GS4 model SGH-M919N that got stuck in a boot loop last week. I was finally able to find working firmware last night and used Odin to flash. Once it got to PASS my phone automatically rebooted with the blue recovery boot text in the top left, but then it just went back into a boot loop. I tried all other firmwares and none of them got to 100% so now I don't know what else I can do.

I have the same issue on a GT-i9505. I was using my phone this evening when it randomly rebooted and just keep rebooting until I removed my battery. After that, it was dead . Flashing stock firmwares like shooting a minigun and nothing works. Smells like a hard brick?

alesu69 said:
I have the same issue on a GT-i9505. I was using my phone this evening when it randomly rebooted and just keep rebooting until I removed my battery. After that, it was dead . Flashing stock firmwares like shooting a minigun and nothing works. Smells like a hard brick?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried replacing the battery? I figured I would try that but I havent gotten around to it yet

Not yet, i have no spare battery. Looks like when i plug the charger my phone just vibrates, like it's rebooting, and it's not showing anything. I found a similar issue here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2532447
Looks like one guy did solve his problem.
*need to mention that by dead I mean it shows the "Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9505" logo and also shows "RECOVERY BOOTING", even though I didn't enter in recovery mode. Looks like now it doesn't shows anymore "RECOVERY BOOTING", but still, it doesn't boot. I was able to flash firmwares via odin and kies, but still no luck.
LE: It start booting by.. magic, i got to samsung boot logo, but that's all, crashed again.

After flash with Odin, immediately boot into recovery, perform a factory wipe, and reboot.

The problem is it doesn't boot into recovery.
LE: I managed to flash twrp via odin and boot into recovery, but i have an error:
"Unable to mount /data"
Any ideas?
LE2: Everything is useless, i managed to flash the rom, manage to boot into the rom, but then it will still reboot (which it did). Next step will be maybe to disassemble and clean all contacts.

alesu69 said:
The problem is it doesn't boot into recovery.
LE: I managed to flash twrp via odin and boot into recovery, but i have an error:
"Unable to mount /data"
Any ideas?
LE2: Everything is useless, i managed to flash the rom, manage to boot into the rom, but then it will still reboot (which it did). Next step will be maybe to disassemble and clean all contacts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you manage to get into recovery?

harary said:
How did you manage to get into recovery?
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Click to collapse
Yes, but if I leave my phone in recovery (stock or custom), it just either freezes, either reboots, even though i don't do anything, just let it idle.
I can't manage to boot into the ROM 'cause eventually it will reboot. I couldn't finish the setup wizard.

OK so I don't know if this helps, but I managed to at least get past the "blue recovery boot" part. When the phone vibrated I let go of the power while still holding home + vol up, and I managed to get to the android guy with a blue progress bar below him. My phone shut off as the progress bar got 80-90% but now I know it's not impossible to start recovery.

Well, nothing works. After flashing pit file, an 4.4.2 odin prerooted image from here, cf auto root and then twrp, it will still randomly reboot. I manage to get past the boot logo into setup wizard, but phone just freezes after a couple of minutes, can't finish the setup wizard. Also, if i idle in twrp it will reboot sooner or later, tested already.I left my phone idling in twrp just to recharge my battery.
At least i have no more "unable to mount /data" errors.

I finally got it to work, all I had to do is keep flashing twrp and stock firmware back and forth. But it is just one problem after another with this thing, the problem now is every 5 minutes it will freeze and restart, also it tells me there is no sim even though it worked the first time i put it back in.

Operation Ivy said:
I finally got it to work, all I had to do is keep flashing twrp and stock firmware back and forth. But it is just one problem after another with this thing, the problem now is every 5 minutes it will freeze and restart, also it tells me there is no sim even though it worked the first time i put it back in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean with back and forth?

harary said:
What do you mean with back and forth?
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Click to collapse
It means he flahsed and reflashed many times until he got lucky and it worked. That's what happened to me also. But i have the same issue, phone reboots or freezez after a couple of minutes, even though everything else is installed properly.
Dude, we have the same issue. Btw, is this happening to you too? Like, now and then when the phone freezes, that the screen is turning to a bright yellowish green?
I know a friend who repairs phone hardwares for a living, i gave it to him, i'll let you know how this went.

alesu69 said:
It means he flahsed and reflashed many times until he got lucky and it worked. That's what happened to me also. But i have the same issue, phone reboots or freezez after a couple of minutes, even though everything else is installed properly.
Dude, we have the same issue. Btw, is this happening to you too? Like, now and then when the phone freezes, that the screen is turning to a bright yellowish green?
I know a friend which repairs phone hardwares for a living, i gave it to him, i'll let you know how this went.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got several times into Recovery Mode now, flashed several ROMs. I had no issues with freezing, especially not in TWRP Recovery Mode. But sometimes if i am trying to go into Recovery Mode or i just want to start ROMs, the screen turns into yellow behind the Samsung logo. If i dont take out the battery this wents into a complete white, but nothing happens.
Yes please tell if you got some news..

guys its not hard bricked its a problem wiht your power button
my friend had the same issue and then i killed the battery by letting it keeep bootlooping
then plugged it in and let it charge to around 10% and booted it
just try to press the power button slowly

Joashrox said:
guys its not hard bricked its a problem wiht your power button
my friend had the same issue and then i killed the battery by letting it keeep bootlooping
then plugged it in and let it charge to around 10% and booted it
just try to press the power button slowly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it is sure that the power button is working because i get this blue "recovery booting". Or am i wrong?

So.... bad news, the guy whom i gave the phone to said that it's a short on the motherboard and there's nothing he can't do other than changing the motherboard. If you guys found another solution and that guy is mistaking, let me know.

alesu69 said:
So.... bad news, the guy whom i gave the phone to said that it's a short on the motherboard and there's nothing he can't do other than changing the motherboard. If you guys found another solution and that guy is mistaking, let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replace power button to new one. I have the same problems with s3 and this works. Try it.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA-Developers mobile app

My phone is dead, it's not even charging anymore. The guy whom I give it to said it's a short on the motherboard. You guys managed to solve something with your phones? Or still a dead end?

alesu69 said:
My phone is dead, it's not even charging anymore. The guy whom I give it to said it's a short on the motherboard. You guys managed to solve something with your phones? Or still a dead end?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If You can't charge phone... Yup, motherboard is died. If You plug the charger and see something this have to be button but if You plug charger and don't see anything this is motherboard.

S7 Edge Hardbricked by it's own?

Hi people, something quite terrible happened to my phone when I woke up today. Before I went to sleep the phone worked and was charged by about 40% but some apps were force closing like crazy so I turned off the device before I went to sleep, cuz why not, eh? Then I woke up and turned on the phone and it showed the screen to choose if I want to go into downloading mode, I pressed cancel and the phone shutdown and now it wont turn on.
I tried soft resets, tried to charge it for 10 minutes, but the thing is the phone is like its hard bricked for no apparent reason... even the charge indicator when phone is off doesn't show anymore, no lights, no nothing. Please help me. If anyone has an idea what to do it would be greatly appreciated. It worked this morning, no one else touched the phone. :crying:

if it doesnt boot then its a battery problem, even in hard brick, it has some kind of flights flashing.
if Its hard brick then its paper weight, sorry.

Chord_Hugo87 said:
if it doesnt boot then its a battery problem, even in hard brick, it has some kind of flights flashing.
if Its hard brick then its paper weight, sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's the battery what can I do here at home? At least try? I don't think it's a hardbrick cause I didn't do anything iregular to the phone, it was working before I shut it down and went to sleep. Idk how I hardbricked it by turning it off. :/

theSperks said:
If it's the battery what can I do here at home? At least try? I don't think it's a hardbrick cause I didn't do anything iregular to the phone, it was working before I shut it down and went to sleep. Idk how I hardbricked it by turning it off. :/
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Click to collapse
well the storage drive could fail, that could be another possibility which if I think about it now that seems to be the case. best bet send it to samsung.
if you plug your phone into your computer and it does not read or register, you really dont have any other choices. This goes for all phones, the forum can help you with soft brick, not something like this, this looks like a hardware failure.

Chord_Hugo87 said:
well the storage drive could fail, that could be another possibility which if I think about it now that seems to be the case. best bet send it to samsung.
if you plug your phone into your computer and it does not read or register, you really dont have any other choices. This goes for all phones, the forum can help you with soft brick, not something like this, this looks like a hardware failure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone rebooted constantly and force close apps from the day I bought it. I thought it was software issue... I went to my carrier to complain but they said nothing is wrong with the phone (way back few months ago). So my last question is this, can a phone force close apps and restart constantly with a software issue? or does it happen only to devices with hardware issues?

theSperks said:
The phone rebooted constantly and force close apps from the day I bought it. I thought it was software issue... I went to my carrier to complain but they said nothing is wrong with the phone (way back few months ago). So my last question is this, can a phone force close apps and restart constantly with a software issue? or does it happen only to devices with hardware issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that sounds like a storage drive failure...no apps doesnt do that and phone doesnt restart for no reason.

Chord_Hugo87 said:
that sounds like a storage drive failure...no apps doesnt do that and phone doesnt restart for no reason.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so good news! Today I plugged it in the charger again and it booted! As I see it when I turn it off it doesnt really shut down properly and it stays in some kind of a phase and doesnt let me reset or do anything really... but It drained the battery that it had left and it bugged out. I know this cause I shutted it down again via the android option and its "bricked" again. Now I will wait for it to lose charge again so I can boot it.
Can you please tell me how to properly flash via odin to the latest nougat firmware? The phone was from Vodafone in Germany, few months ago I flashed a Netherlands firmware, then some other one few weeks down the road. Can you please tell me how to flash it back to full stock and what firmware should I download? The model is SM-G935F and the S/N is RF8H61YE4CP. I prevously tried THIS firmware from sammobile. Is this the correct one for my phone? I tried using samsung smart switch but it says "Secure Check Fail : Bootloader" when it tries to emergency restore it in the download mode, and the smart switch software says just error. Also whenever I flashed with Odin, BL never wanted to flash cause of just one file in every BL md5 file and that is the param.bin one, everything else flashes like it should. Please write me a guide on how to flash it properly and "upgrade" everything to the latest version correctly for my phone. (many settings in Odin that I never touched)

theSperks said:
Ok so good news! Today I plugged it in the charger again and it booted! As I see it when I turn it off it doesnt really shut down properly and it stays in some kind of a phase and doesnt let me reset or do anything really... but It drained the battery that it had left and it bugged out. I know this cause I shutted it down again via the android option and its "bricked" again. Now I will wait for it to lose charge again so I can boot it.
Can you please tell me how to properly flash via odin to the latest nougat firmware? The phone was from Vodafone in Germany, few months ago I flashed a Netherlands firmware, then some other one few weeks down the road. Can you please tell me how to flash it back to full stock and what firmware should I download? The model is SM-G935F and the S/N is RF8H61YE4CP. I prevously tried THIS firmware from sammobile. Is this the correct one for my phone? I tried using samsung smart switch but it says "Secure Check Fail : Bootloader" when it tries to emergency restore it in the download mode, and the smart switch software says just error. Also whenever I flashed with Odin, BL never wanted to flash cause of just one file in every BL md5 file and that is the param.bin one, everything else flashes like it should. Please write me a guide on how to flash it properly and "upgrade" everything to the latest version correctly for my phone. (many settings in Odin that I never touched)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i had a simmilar problem i couple months ago when i flashed a custom kernel.
i was overclocking the cpu but caused the phone to freeze actually without being able to to anything
i thougt my battery was dead also
when i charged it nothing came up into the screen also.
you just have to hard reset it but just keep on pressing your volume down button together wih your home button and the power button
it may take lonnger then you can normally do it cuz your phone freezed
but eventually your phone will just reboot into download mode then eand you can hit the volume down button to reboot your phone then

Galaxy S8 hardcore bootloop

Hi everyone,
When I tried to restart my Galaxy s8 it entered some kind of hardcore bootloop where I couldn't stop it from looping except by entering the download mode, letting it drain the battery or simply disconnecting the battery. When I exit the download mode it will just continue looping. It is also impossible to enter the recovery menu, which makes things much worse.
I have tried opening the phone and disconnecting everything except power supply (either battery or charger) and screen to see whether some detachable component is failing it (camera, speaker, etc.). But nothing.
I have also tried reinstalling the firmware (BL + CP + AP + HOME_CSC), it installs successfully but it doesn't fix the bootloop. I have also tried two most recent firmware, also without success. Somewhere on the Internet I have found a recommendation to install the firmware from June 2017 which I have tried but it doesn't work anymore because it's not possible to install earlier version of firmware on Samsung phones anymore (since November 2019 I believe).
Now I have started to believe that this could be a motherboard failure but it doesn't really make whole lot of sense because the phone can enter the download mode and reinstall firmware just fine. Or maybe there is a component which can make it able to enter the download mode, but nothing else would work?
Has anyone experienced something like this? How could it be fixed? Any recommendations? Is there any hope?
Edit: The phone has never been rooted, means it is in its original software state (currently on Android Pie with build number G950FXXS8DTC1). Is there any way to install anything on it (custom ROM, TWRP, etc.)?

Come on guys! Please don't tell me that I've tried everything and exhausted all the possibilities...

If there is still warranty on the phone, then send it in for repair. If there isn't, then I would take it to a repair shop and see what they can do about it. It is wierd that you can enter download mode, but can't flash stock firmware. I think it might be a motherboard problem

Nevin1901 said:
If there is still warranty on the phone, then send it in for repair. If there isn't, then I would take it to a repair shop and see what they can do about it. It is wierd that you can enter download mode, but can't flash stock firmware. I think it might be a motherboard problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, there's no warranty and I'm pretty sure no one would repair this kind of failure for a price lower than the price of a used and fully functional Galaxy s8.
Yes, I can enter the download mode and I CAN flash stock firmware, but I can flash only the ones which are newer or the same as the one installed on the phone.
Yes, most probably it's a motherboard failure. In some YouTube videos I have seen people fixing similar issues by replacing the CPU (which I am unable to do by myself). Other suggestion I found on iFixit says that I could soak my motherboard in 99% Isopropyl alcohol and leave it overnight in it (I am going to try this if I get my hands on the alcohol).
BTW: One interesting thing I experienced while flashing the phone without its battery connected is that the phone's screen will go black when you press 'Start' button in Odin, but nevertheless the installation will finish normally and you can track its progress in Odin. At the end you'll need to restart your phone manually.

roberta-xda said:
Hi everyone,
When I tried to restart my Galaxy s8 it entered some kind of hardcore bootloop where I couldn't stop it from looping except by entering the download mode, letting it drain the battery or simply disconnecting the battery. When I exit the download mode it will just continue looping. It is also impossible to enter the recovery menu, which makes things much worse.
I have tried opening the phone and disconnecting everything except power supply (either battery or charger) and screen to see whether some detachable component is failing it (camera, speaker, etc.). But nothing.
I have also tried reinstalling the firmware (BL + CP + AP + HOME_CSC), it installs successfully but it doesn't fix the bootloop. I have also tried two most recent firmware, also without success. Somewhere on the Internet I have found a recommendation to install the firmware from June 2017 which I have tried but it doesn't work anymore because it's not possible to install earlier version of firmware on Samsung phones anymore (since November 2019 I believe).
Now I have started to believe that this could be a motherboard failure but it doesn't really make whole lot of sense because the phone can enter the download mode and reinstall firmware just fine. Or maybe there is a component which can make it able to enter the download mode, but nothing else would work?
Has anyone experienced something like this? How could it be fixed? Any recommendations? Is there any hope?
Edit: The phone has never been rooted, means it is in its original software state (currently on Android Pie with build number G950FXXS8DTC1). Is there any way to install anything on it (custom ROM, TWRP, etc.)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an S8 with a similar issue. I can get to recovery menu but following similar steps to above by flashing combination firmware and still got stuck in bootloop. Subscribing to this thread in case anyone has a fix.

Just wanted to share a video I found. This is exactly how my s8 bootloops: https://youtu.be/gBlIcAJzgVA?t=5
PS: Obviously, the solution explained in the video didn't work for me.
PS2: This issue started by just restarting the phone. Before the restart it was in a perfect state, fully working, never had any hardware issues. Although there were some software issues introduced by an update (October or November 2019 I think) which made my phone need to restart 2 times to fully boot once if I wanted to restart it or turn it on after it was turned off. But those software issues were solved by a latter software update.

kjaved373 said:
I have an S8 with a similar issue. I can get to recovery menu but following similar steps to above by flashing combination firmware and still got stuck in bootloop. Subscribing to this thread in case anyone has a fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i know it's already an old comment, but was your phone also completely stock?

Leberkuchen said:
i know it's already an old comment, but was your phone also completely stock?
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Click to collapse
Yeah I believe so.