Related
Hello all, I'm curious to hear your thoughts and advice.
My nook is completely unresponsive. It is not stuck at rooted forever.
In fact this has nothing with a root attempt/reset/restore/power on.
I had done a a fresh reset/root with touchnooter about four months ago and was happily and smoothly reading for about two months. I then got busy and put the nook down, did not touch or use for about another two months. I tried to use it about a week ago but found that it had run out of battery in sleep after the two months of disuse (not surprising). I put it on charge overnight and everything booted right and functioned well once it turned on, except that the battery indicator in the statusbar showed a "?" and the battery info in system info showed 100% "unknown". After alot of fruitless research I put it down with the intention of reset/restore/root when I had the time.
I just picked it up this morning and was faced with the expected "Press then button below to wake up your NOOK" screen. But when I pressed the "n" button nothing happened. Obviously holding the "n" did nothing as well.
I tried to power it off and on- nothing
holding power for 20- nothing
power for 30- nothing
8 failed boots- nothing
left right- nothing
left right power-nothing
random pushing and holding of power- nothing
all these with mem card in and out- nothing
all these plugged usb- nothing
all these pugged ac- nothing
I let it charge some more- nothing
None of the buttons do anything, the screen stays inevitably at the " press the n button to wake" screen. no activity whatsoever except that when It is plugged in, the green light shows. NO ORANGE LIGHT... it is fully charged by both usb and ac.
It is not detected at all by windows anywhere.
In Linux- lsusb, bklid, and df -h yield nothing. My nook might as well be the invisible stupid ereader.
I did not drop it, sumbmerge it, perform magic around it... It has been sitting on a shelf doing nothing.
To repeat, the only thing my nook does is light up green when plugged.
It is unchangeably stuck on poe's face...
If this isn't true brick, I don't know what is.
I'm exhausted. Any ideas? I appreciate the help.
Best,
Thomas
i don't know. i just know my dog ate mine and i'm now in the market for a new screen, so if you don't get it working sell me the unit and get some money for yourself to purchase a new one =D
or you could google the disassembly instructions and try unplugging the battery, not very hard to do. could be of .. some help perhaps?
I would definitely take you up on your offer, but i'm still under warranty.
However, I would still like to have my original, and figure out what is going on and why it happened.
Ideas?
Thank you.
similar problem were solved
Hi! I might have read about similar problem solved on USB host mode here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23475998&postcount=131
That's it, thanks so much.
if it help
if it helps let them know in the tread that you had same problem. they are wondering whether it is due to host mode
[N2E]: After automatic update to 1.1, Nook Touch Screen absolutely DEAD--Nothing Work
THIS WAS A POST FROM ANOTHER SITE AS TO MY PROBLEM:
I was reading on my N2E last night. I put it down for about 30 minutes and when I came back it was displaying the default "Authors" screensaver (I had switched to the Nature photos) and asking to slide to unlock. I thought, "Oh, the new software update must have downloaded and installed. I'll check it out." To my shock, the touch screen was completely unresponsive--no amount of swiping would unlock from the screen saver. I let it set for a while longer thinking perhaps the softare update was not yet finished. No such luck.
As a result of the new update, my NOOK is now completly DEAD! I tried powering off, but couldn't do that because you are asked to confirm power off on the touchscreen, which no longer works. So, I looked online and tried the soft reset/reboot by holding down the "Home" or "n" button and then pressing the power button for several seconds. Great--it started rebooting...and came right back to the "authors" screen saver and asking to swipe to unlock. I tried this rebooting process several times, always with the same result: back to screeensaver mode with completely unresponsive touchscreen.
So, looked at the online technical troubleshooting discussion and helps and decided to try a downloaded manual install of the software update. Plugged my NOOK into my computer and it recognized it. So, I downloaded the manualo software update and dragged and dropped it onto the NOOK as directed and sure enough, it started to reboot itself. I thought, "whew, maybe this will fix it". NOPE--came right back to the locked screensaver, with no mention of attempting to update software, and the touchscreen is still dead. (By the way, all of this was done initially with the NOOK showing about 94% charged, so it was not a battery issue.)
Reconnected the NOOK to my computer and the software update file was gone from its home directory, which implies it did something with it. So, I tried repeatedly to install the software update manually, always with the same result: NOOK comes back to locked default "authors" screensaver wtih a dead touchscreen.
Looked online for B&N technical support again saw that others had this problem (though only found a couple references). Found the instructions to do a factory reset and reluctantly tried that, desparate to make my NOOK work again, but frustrated that if it did I would have to rebuild everyting on it and download my 400+ B&N book library all over again. But, guess what, factory reset just comes up to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen (sounds like progress), BUT the touchscreen is STILL dead, so I can't hit the "Next" button onscreen to proceed with setting up my factory-reset NOOK. Tried rebooting again (as this seems to be the only solution offered in the online tech support) and now it just keeps coming back to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with a dead touchscreen keeping me from doing anything.
So, now I am taking it back to my local B&N store in hopes they will exchange it for a new NOOK.
I really want to see a feature to disable automatic updates in the future. I specifically didn't download and manually install when the update came out, figuring I'd wait for the automatic download to give time to B&N to work out the bugs and perhaps issue a patch (as they have done in the past for the N1E). Instead I get no warning about the automatic download (happens while I am reading and set the NOOK aside for 30 minutes), and then the update KILLS my NOOK.
I am not a satisfied NOOK customer at this point.
MY POST: (from the that site)
Not Sure how to do this post or whatever, but I was happy until the update and everything that happened to you is the same with me. This is the first post that describes what happened to me. I'm out of warranty and refuse (and can't) to buy another one of these. If their updates can do this, I'm not sure I want to sink another $100 into the shareholders pockets. I'd really like to know if anyone knows what may be wrong with it.
In addition to what was already mentioned, I took the battery out several times(which seems intimidating but very easy but voids the warranty) and took it completely apart cleaning the screen very well with water and another time a glass cleaner. I tried rooting also. Not sure of what to do now. It seems software related due to working fine until the update. Still at the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with unresponsive screen. I wasn't sure if the last sentence from B&N was a personal message to me welcoming me to the "new" state of the my nook.
Thanks for any help from anyone.
Thanks.
Identical problem.... and no fix..
It is a shame you got no solution for this. and the worst, you are not the only one... it happened exactly the same with my Nook ST....
Hopeless...
Machiavelli_The_Man said:
THIS WAS A POST FROM ANOTHER SITE AS TO MY PROBLEM:
I was reading on my N2E last night. I put it down for about 30 minutes and when I came back it was displaying the default "Authors" screensaver (I had switched to the Nature photos) and asking to slide to unlock. I thought, "Oh, the new software update must have downloaded and installed. I'll check it out." To my shock, the touch screen was completely unresponsive--no amount of swiping would unlock from the screen saver. I let it set for a while longer thinking perhaps the softare update was not yet finished. No such luck.
As a result of the new update, my NOOK is now completly DEAD! I tried powering off, but couldn't do that because you are asked to confirm power off on the touchscreen, which no longer works. So, I looked online and tried the soft reset/reboot by holding down the "Home" or "n" button and then pressing the power button for several seconds. Great--it started rebooting...and came right back to the "authors" screen saver and asking to swipe to unlock. I tried this rebooting process several times, always with the same result: back to screeensaver mode with completely unresponsive touchscreen.
So, looked at the online technical troubleshooting discussion and helps and decided to try a downloaded manual install of the software update. Plugged my NOOK into my computer and it recognized it. So, I downloaded the manualo software update and dragged and dropped it onto the NOOK as directed and sure enough, it started to reboot itself. I thought, "whew, maybe this will fix it". NOPE--came right back to the locked screensaver, with no mention of attempting to update software, and the touchscreen is still dead. (By the way, all of this was done initially with the NOOK showing about 94% charged, so it was not a battery issue.)
Reconnected the NOOK to my computer and the software update file was gone from its home directory, which implies it did something with it. So, I tried repeatedly to install the software update manually, always with the same result: NOOK comes back to locked default "authors" screensaver wtih a dead touchscreen.
Looked online for B&N technical support again saw that others had this problem (though only found a couple references). Found the instructions to do a factory reset and reluctantly tried that, desparate to make my NOOK work again, but frustrated that if it did I would have to rebuild everyting on it and download my 400+ B&N book library all over again. But, guess what, factory reset just comes up to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen (sounds like progress), BUT the touchscreen is STILL dead, so I can't hit the "Next" button onscreen to proceed with setting up my factory-reset NOOK. Tried rebooting again (as this seems to be the only solution offered in the online tech support) and now it just keeps coming back to the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with a dead touchscreen keeping me from doing anything.
So, now I am taking it back to my local B&N store in hopes they will exchange it for a new NOOK.
I really want to see a feature to disable automatic updates in the future. I specifically didn't download and manually install when the update came out, figuring I'd wait for the automatic download to give time to B&N to work out the bugs and perhaps issue a patch (as they have done in the past for the N1E). Instead I get no warning about the automatic download (happens while I am reading and set the NOOK aside for 30 minutes), and then the update KILLS my NOOK.
I am not a satisfied NOOK customer at this point.
MY POST: (from the that site)
Not Sure how to do this post or whatever, but I was happy until the update and everything that happened to you is the same with me. This is the first post that describes what happened to me. I'm out of warranty and refuse (and can't) to buy another one of these. If their updates can do this, I'm not sure I want to sink another $100 into the shareholders pockets. I'd really like to know if anyone knows what may be wrong with it.
In addition to what was already mentioned, I took the battery out several times(which seems intimidating but very easy but voids the warranty) and took it completely apart cleaning the screen very well with water and another time a glass cleaner. I tried rooting also. Not sure of what to do now. It seems software related due to working fine until the update. Still at the "Welcome to your all-new NOOK" screen with unresponsive screen. I wasn't sure if the last sentence from B&N was a personal message to me welcoming me to the "new" state of the my nook.
Thanks for any help from anyone.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The factory restore does not actually fix every possible problem with your Nook.
If your Nook responds at all, try to boot it up on an SD card like ClockworkMod or noogie.
At least that way you can see what is happening.
The partitioning might have become corrupted which the "factory restore" does not touch.
If no response with anything, try disconnecting the battery.
You might also try booting over USB using the techniques in rooting the new white glow.
Hello I was wondering if I'm just screwed I bought 2 nook simple touch, one for me and one for a present to my mother for her birthday on march 16. I bought them at best buy for $40 a piece on January 30. I used mine and was perfect but when I tried to set up my mom it wouldn't load the license agreement, always got stuck or reboot or something, so I loaded cwm on an sd card just to play around, tested on my nook and was fine, then put it on my moms nook booted once then I didn't press anything and turn it off then I load the image but when I tried to boot again it got stuck on the load screen and wont do anything, no reset sequence will work with the sd card on or off the other nook boots with this sd card. at the end I exchanged with my mom she is happy with her nook an I have a useless unit do you think they will exchange it I didn't rooted it or did anything to it but has the n cwm splash on screen forever. I'm in Costa Rica right now and wont return home until May do you think I'll might be able to exchange it or should I just try to repair it.
I'm glad that your mother got the working one!
You say that that one will boot on your CWM SD card, but yours won't?
It may be hard to get your unit exchanged with a conspicuous screen on it, even if it's not your fault.
When you plug it into your desktop is there any indication of a new USB device found?
If it's charged and no amount of the power button gets a reaction, I'd open it up.
any news???
Hi endor43, same problem here, have been able to find any solution?
endor43 said:
Hello all, I'm curious to hear your thoughts and advice.
My nook is completely unresponsive. It is not stuck at rooted forever.
In fact this has nothing with a root attempt/reset/restore/power on.
I had done a a fresh reset/root with touchnooter about four months ago and was happily and smoothly reading for about two months. I then got busy and put the nook down, did not touch or use for about another two months. I tried to use it about a week ago but found that it had run out of battery in sleep after the two months of disuse (not surprising). I put it on charge overnight and everything booted right and functioned well once it turned on, except that the battery indicator in the statusbar showed a "?" and the battery info in system info showed 100% "unknown". After alot of fruitless research I put it down with the intention of reset/restore/root when I had the time.
I just picked it up this morning and was faced with the expected "Press then button below to wake up your NOOK" screen. But when I pressed the "n" button nothing happened. Obviously holding the "n" did nothing as well.
I tried to power it off and on- nothing
holding power for 20- nothing
power for 30- nothing
8 failed boots- nothing
left right- nothing
left right power-nothing
random pushing and holding of power- nothing
all these with mem card in and out- nothing
all these plugged usb- nothing
all these pugged ac- nothing
I let it charge some more- nothing
None of the buttons do anything, the screen stays inevitably at the " press the n button to wake" screen. no activity whatsoever except that when It is plugged in, the green light shows. NO ORANGE LIGHT... it is fully charged by both usb and ac.
It is not detected at all by windows anywhere.
In Linux- lsusb, bklid, and df -h yield nothing. My nook might as well be the invisible stupid ereader.
I did not drop it, sumbmerge it, perform magic around it... It has been sitting on a shelf doing nothing.
To repeat, the only thing my nook does is light up green when plugged.
It is unchangeably stuck on poe's face...
If this isn't true brick, I don't know what is.
I'm exhausted. Any ideas? I appreciate the help.
Best,
Thomas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are times when a Nook gets in a mode where it won't accept a charge.
Opening it up and disconnecting the battery for a minute might fix this.
endor43 said:
That's it, thanks so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When this worked for you did the light turn orange right when you plugged the battery back in? I just took the battery out, plugged the nook into a charger, and with it plugged in plugged the battery back in and the light stays green the whole time yet I'm not able to use the nook at all.
My nook second generation is not responding to my touch I tried everything to get it to work and I eventually got it to completely power of what if it does not work when I turn it on what should I do
It could be power/battery problems.
Check to see if it makes itself known when the USB is plugged in.
If it reacts at all, that's an indication of life.
Hi all
Apologies at coming on here and immediately asking for help, but....
I've had my Nexus 7 since July and have been very happy until NOW!
I seem to have been cursed with the dreaded flat battery resulting in n7 being stuck in the boot up.
I get as far as the Google and X icon but then stalls.
I've tried all the methods of long push of buttons/multiple buttons/etc but to no avail.
I can bring up the factory restore option so I know I can get it working again, but....
I have an exam in a week which foolishly had work stored for on my n7 without back up (yes fool) so....
Please is there anyway to retrieve my files via PC etc before factory resetting
All help genuinely appreciated
Mark
rooted vs unrooted (or unlocked bootloader even if not rooted) makes a huge difference in the answer.
Please state which.
Sorry about that
Not rooted.
It is absolute stock, nothing changed or added from purchase other than jellybean updates
Thanks Mark
pleading said:
Sorry about that
It is absolute stock, nothing changed or added from purchase other than jellybean updates
Thanks Mark
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe you are SOL in that case. Sorry.
Find someone with a Nexus 7, pop the back cover off and use their battery to boot up and retrieve your files. The back cover just pops off.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
bigbop said:
Find someone with a Nexus 7, pop the back cover off and use their battery to boot up and retrieve your files. The back cover just pops off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pleading mentions the battery, but then says "stalls" - not "shuts down", which is what you might expect if the battery was drained:
pleading said:
I seem to have been cursed with the dreaded flat battery resulting in n7 being stuck in the boot up.
I get as far as the Google and X icon but then stalls.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But, bigbop could be correct if pleading meant "low battery shutdown"
One other very long shot - assuming that that the device is hung - is to see if either adb or MTP are available. Normally that happens very late in the boot & I have to imagine that he has already tried that though.
Hi again guys
Firstly thanks for not giving up on my situation!
Bad explanation by me I guess....
The battery went flat/dead (my bad)
Plugged in to charge and screen lit up again but showing the 'powering off' script
Left over night on charge, wouldn't switch on again next morning
Left on charge all day still no joy but if I try switching on whilst plugged in I first get the Google name, then the Google X but then gets 'hung' (probably a better description than freezes etc as it still pulsates the colours)
Only way to get out of this is to keep power button pressed which switches n7 off and starts the cycle again
If during the recycle I keep the volume down pressed then it accesses the option screen to recover/reboot etc
Hope this helps, and again thanks (desperate to recover course work)
Mark
Hi again
Update...
Battery is showing full now
But still same 'hung' situation
Regarding the 'ADB'
I can get to the 'apply update from ADB' option
And if I choose it states.... 'now send the package you want to apply to the device with "adb sideload <filename>"'
As always thanks for any help or suggestions
Mark
Mark,
It sounds to me like what you are describing is ADB in the stock recovery, not a ADB when the regular operating system is running. (Is that right?)
Unfortunately, the stock recovery is only good for 2 things: applying an OTA update, and doing a factory reset. Even if your tablet needed an OTA update (and it probably doesn't if it is up to date), it probably wouldn't fix the looping/wedged phenomenon: usually that is caused by stuff in the userdata partition.
Doing the stock recovery factory reset might cure the wedged/looping problem - but only if it wipes all the data from your tablet. (Including the /sdcard area too).
The only hope I held out was if your tablet was reachable via a ADB or MTP with the wedged operating system sitting there looping. Usually those facilities start up quite late in the boot sequence, however so probably you don't have that.
Sorry. I think you are still SOL when it come to retrieving files.
Thanks for the help anyway
I'm guessing that with no further responses that really is the end for my work.
Unfortunately for me personally it will mean the end off my relationship with the N7, as much as I've loved it I really can't justify the obviously common occurrence of this happening.
Thanks again all
pleading said:
Thanks for the help anyway
I'm guessing that with no further responses that really is the end for my work.
Unfortunately for me personally it will mean the end off my relationship with the N7, as much as I've loved it I really can't justify the obviously common occurrence of this happening.
Thanks again all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had same sort of problem N7 went flat tried to charge but would not power on
Took back panel off and disconnected battery for 10 mins reconnected battery and put back on charge
it then booted up as normal
pleading said:
Thanks for the help anyway
I'm guessing that with no further responses that really is the end for my work.
Unfortunately for me personally it will mean the end off my relationship with the N7, as much as I've loved it I really can't justify the obviously common occurrence of this happening.
Thanks again all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhhh ... what?
The OP was about a tablet that you couldn't get into because
[a] it had a correctable soft-fault
you didn't want to exercise an available soft-fault recovery method because of a desire to reclaim user files not backed up
... and so far as we know the soft-fault recovery mechanism still is available to you.
How did that morph into "this is the end"?
You need to re-do your homework, perform a factory reset, and move on with your life.
You have used either software or hardware in the past haven't you? That thing isn't a toaster or a waffle-iron! No backups of important stuff? Come on!
OK, well then. Pack it up and send it to me with the charger and I'll pay for the shipping - UPS ground.
Doesn't the Nexus have a safe-boot mode?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
bigbop said:
Doesn't the Nexus have a safe-boot mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tried right now - held the Vol-down button down continuously from about 2 secs after the Google B&W splash screen appeared until the lock screen appeared. That worked. (Stock 4.2.2)
"Safe mode" appears in the lower left corner. I had access to all the market apps (that I tried), but did not see a toast notification from StickMount after the boot - suggesting that safe mode only inhibits apps from starting on boot.
I suppose this could work (although the OP's deadline has probably come and gone) for bypassing a hung boot - but only if the hang is due to a market app that normally starts on boot.
So, my mother set a password to her tablet, forgot what it was, and fixing it fell to me.
I looked up how to do a hard reset, with the power and volume button, and the lock switch, and initially it did not work. I tried it again, and what resulted was a picture of the Android icon with a back panel open and his gears showing. I left it there a moment thinking that might be a process of the hard reset, but after a while I figured it probably wasn't.
I turned off the tablet again. looked around for a better guide, and tried it again... It basically asked me to do the same thing but was more specific about it. I did the same thing... This time it seemed to work. An erasing data message appeared, but then in red I had another error that was something to the effect of, "Bootloader something or other, nope can't do it" in red.
Now when I try to boot at all, it's just stuck on ICONIA TAB loading screen.
Is it bricked or is there something I can do about it? I saw some threads about plugging it into a computer and copying over some files, but... they were all for the A500, and I don't want to mess it up further... So... Any have any ideas?
I would also add, plugging it into my Win7 desktop with a mini-USB to USB cable doesn't seem to register anything under the list of my drives. Soooo... unless anyone has some light to shed, I really can't imagine what I even COULD do... It won't boot. Computer doesn't recognize it. This is new territory to me, but I'm not technically incompetent.
There is no warranty so whatever has to be done can be tried.
Okay, maybe I'm not giving people time to respond, but maybe there's a way to boot from a flash drive? How would I set that up?
The problem is that I'm familiar with computers... not so much with android smart phones/tablets. Do they just design these things to become bricks, because it seems like we've had computers for a long time that you could open up a BIOS, boot from somewhere else, install an OS... fix the problem. Either there's a way to do that or I don't understand why people use these devices.
Hey everyone I really hope you can help me out here. Last night my completely stock Nexus 7 2012 locked up during normal use. It had KitKat 4.4.4 on it not rooted or unlocked. I THINK usb debug was enabled but don't honestly remember. After the lock up I forced it to power off. When it started up again, it was stuck with the 4 circles going round and round. After a long wait I went into recovery and tried to wipe the cache. This went on for almost 10 min but never completed. I forced it to power off again (and here is where I panic and things get fuzzy. I tried to get back into recovery and just restore it but I can not get it to do anything except boot to the dead android picture and a message that says NO COMMAND. I've tried to use the VOL UP and Power button sequence to get the menu and it won't come up. It stays on that screen for a few seconds and then it acts like its restarts but I never see the google logo just this dead android flashing on and off with the no command error. I've read several threads, tried the WUG toolkit as well as skipsoft toolkit but with the device stuck in this loop nothing can communicate with it. I removed the cover and unplugged the battery which gets the machine to shut down but when it powers back on even with key sequences I can't get anything but this dead android. I can use power and VOL up to get into APX mode but that is my only other option. Please give me some more suggestions!
Well things have gotten worse now I can no longer get past the black and white google screen. I'm guess this thing is just toast.
How old is it? If it's under a year, you can RMA it back to ASUS and they'll fix it for free. Since you haven't rooted it nor unlocked it (although I don't think that would be an issue anyway), they shouldn't have any issue with repairing it. Just be sure you didn't leave any signs that you opened it or else, that will void the warranty and they won't repair it for free.
Its exactly 2 years old today. It was a birthday present. funny how it chose today to die.
Okay just so I can have some closure here,
The tablet will not shut off when I hold power button it shuts off and comes right back on to the google logo.
I can NOT get into boot loader or recovery at all. No key sequences work what so ever. I've been into recover and boot loader before on this device so its not that don't know how.
The only time it gets detected by my PC when plugged in via usb is if its int APX mode which as far as I can read is useless to me.
So is there any other secret or is it just trash now?
Thank you.
My wife's was doing this when it failed an OTA. Hold the power button long enough the screen will go dark for a couple seconds.when it's dark, hold all three buttons down and wait.it will go into fastboot.use nexus root toolkit to flash stock+ unroot and select bootloop .
---------- Post added at 09:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 PM ----------
Ps it did this because she accepted an OTA not knowing I had TWRP on there.
KANDL said:
Okay just so I can have some closure here,
The tablet will not shut off when I hold power button it shuts off and comes right back on to the google logo.
I can NOT get into boot loader or recovery at all. No key sequences work what so ever. I've been into recover and boot loader before on this device so its not that don't know how.
The only time it gets detected by my PC when plugged in via usb is if its int APX mode which as far as I can read is useless to me.
So is there any other secret or is it just trash now?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"The tablet will not shut off..." <<---- This suggests that you are seeing or observing something happening. But based on your previous posts I can not tell exactly what you are now observing - the black & white Google logo?
I would start first with trying to determine if the battery is capable of being charged. The last thing you want to be doing is fooling around with this stuff with a nearly dead battery.
If you put it on a 2A wall charger (*not* a PC USB port), does the tablet warm up a little after 20-30 minutes? If so, leave it on the charger for at least 2 hours. (Heck, even if it doesn't warm up, same advice - put it on the wall charger for at least 2 hours)
OK, next item for you to consider. In Android devices, there is usually a nonvolatile storage area (maybe in the "misc" partition?) called the BCB (Boot Communication Block). The bootloader will always look at that area first, and if there are no boot instructions in there, by default the bootloader will attempt to load & jump to the entry point of the contents of the LNX partition (Linux boot partition). This would cause a "normal" Android boot to occur by default when turning the power on. The other two common instructions in the BCB are for a reboot into the recovery, or instructions for the bootloader to stay resident but drop into it's fastboot mode.
Why am I telling you this? Because there are certain pathological situations that can develop into loops without apparent escapes. Imagine that the tablet was sitting in custom recovery mode, and the dummy behind the PC keyboard flashes some random garbage to the recovery partition, and then uses the touch interface to reboot into recovery. What happens is that "boot to recovery" instructions are placed in the BCB, and a soft-reset of the device occurs... which (when the hardware finishes resetting) loads up the bootloader.**
Now the bootloader sees the "boot to recovery" instruction in the BCB, and attempts to load the garbage in the recovery partition. Eventually - either due to a watchdog timer reset, or a illegal instruction trap, the device will soft-reset again... WITHOUT EVER CLEARING THE CONTENTS OF THE BCB.
In this example, the bootloader is intact and operational, but the looping behavior continues until the battery drains. You don't get an opportunity to communicate with it in fastboot mode because it is always trying to load the bad recovery. Either there is a way to break out of this death spiral... or their isn't.
Now, one more thing - I lied slightly right around the ** annotation.
On the Tegra3 SOC, there is a kind of micro-kernel inside the Tegra3 that is responsible for loading the bootloader. Simpler processors of old would simply load a memory page at a specific hardware memory address when they reset, but this is far more sophisticated: the little micro-kernel in the Tegra3 can evaluate the bootloader to see if it has the correct cryptographic signature and so forth.
If that micro-kernel doesn't like what it finds, the Tegra3 will put the USB port into APX mode. This is important because it is diagnostic: if your tablet always goes into APX mode, for instance after disconnecting/reconnecting the (charged) battery and then powering up the device, then you are probably out of luck; but if it doesn't go into APX mode, that suggests that the bootloader is actually healthy, but perhaps thrashing in one of those nasty boot-loop cycles.
OK, still with me?
Have you looked at this thread carefully?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2133986
It suggests that possibly you can get the bootloader to ignore the contents of the BCB by a carefully-timed press of the Vol-Down button - which, if it works - should let you escape to fastboot mode. This is documented in the above thread as "bootloader interrupt".
So, questions for you:
1) Are you sure the battery is well charged? (Not easy to tell without a voltmeter or heating of the tablet during charging - the temperature of the tablet will drop after it finishes charging. One way to be sure of things is to disconnect the battery, reconnect it, and then put it on the wall charger. That way you can be sure that the tablet is not on, so any heat would be due to battery charging, not other components running. FWIW, a discharged battery will be about 3.5v, and charged about 4.15v.)
2) Does the tablet always go into APX mode when it starts up, even if you only press the power button?
3) Once the battery is charged, what are you seeing on the screen during start-up? After you have disconnected the battery and reconnected it, do you see anything on screen when you put the tablet on the charger?
bftb0, Thank you for attempting to help me out, I really appreciate it. I understand 99% of what you wrote, and that gives me a little bit of hope! Let me begin by answering your questions.
1. I am certain the battery WAS charged. as I had just pulled it off the charger when this happened. Also I'm certain the battery IS charging when I plug it in. It does get warm after a while. The battery did drain down now since my last post, but I have removed the cover and unplugged the battery to get it to power off. Now it is currently charging back up as I'm typing this. I can see the battery charge indicator on the screen while its laying here.
2 and 3. The tablet does NOT go into APX mode by its self. It only does that when I hold power and VOL+. It now currently powers on with a press of the power button goes to the black screen with with the white google logo and stops. After that I can no longer get it to power off without manually disconnecting the battery. I can get it to reboot and go right back to the same google logo. Prior to it doing that it would go to the android on its back and just say no command. That screen would flash on and off like it was contentiously rebooting. However after trying all day to get some sort of menu to come up and different key sequences it now only goes to the google logo and stops.
I have it currently charging and will let it charge to full capacity while waiting for you to reply. I tried and tried to get the boot interrupt to work from the thread you posted in your reply and it wither does not work or I'm simply not doing it right but I'm willing to try some more if it will save this thing and I don't have to go buy a new one.
Thank you again for your help!
Well, because you have a pure stock tablet and the problem occurred spontaneously and under innocuous operating conditions, the most likely explanation is some type of hardware failure affecting the eMMC NAND chip.
Even if that is the case ... AND you successfully are able to get to fastboot mode ... it still might not be repairable. It could be a modest failure (e.g. something affecting the cache partition only, which could knock offline both the normal boot as well as the recovery boot), or it could be an enormous fraction of NAND.
eMMC NAND is supposed to be able to degrade gracefully, so there is a small chance that erasure and formatting of partitions will release blocks that have failed. But it could also be that the failure is extremely severe and no recovery is possible even if the bootloader is still intact.
I imagine you've already tried it, but since it will be your only possible means of rescue I would try the bootloader interrupt trick (Vol-Down approximately when the b&w Google logo appears - hold it down for 3-4 seconds)
Since the tablet gets stuck in a hardware reset loop, you should probably unplug the battery after every failed attempt, start it up normally (power button only), and then press and hold Vol-Down as soon as you see the Google b&w logo. Perhaps with the use of a stopwatch, you could experiment with slightly different timings, possibly even try the button press a second or two before you expect the logo to appear. I am not aware of any other way to get to fastboot (without having a booted kernel as in the recovery or normal os); and it may also be that the only time that the Vol-Down button has any effect is under the "default" (empty) BBC contents. If that is the case you are probably SOL.
The objective is to try and get the tablet into fastboot mode by any means possible.
If it were happening to me, and I was able to get that to happen, the next thing I would do would be to erase the entire tablet (except the bootloader) using fastboot, and then follow that up with an installation of a stock recovery (and formatting of cache, system, and userdata in that order), and then follow that up with a "factory reset" using the stock recovery.
If you can get just the recovery and (bootloader) fastboot mode working again, there is an outside chance that the tablet could be put back into service.
A little bit of explanation is in order here for me to explain why I am suggesting this. Sometime after I got my tablet, I spent a bunch of time dumping *all* the device partitions (things like MISC, USP, PERS, etc in addition to the "normal" Android partitions) before/after certain fastboot operations. What I noticed - by accident - was that I was seeing data that belonged in a certain partition showing up in other partitions. And always in block-sized offsets.
I think that what I was observing was an artifact of the eMMC wear leveling / block remapping that is part of the device's FTL (Flash Transition Layer). Literally, blocks were being shuffled around - even across partition boundaries - when they were in an unused/erased state.
In addition, if you look at the Google instructions for flashing a factory image, you will note that sequence is
erase p1
erase p2
...
erase pN
(followed by)
format p1
flash p2
format p3
...
That is, **as much as possible is erased before anything is put back into service**
It is my presumption that this happens to give the wear leveling and bad block remapping process of the eMMC chip maximum flexibility (as most everything in the device is marked as not in service it should be easy to remap based on block write counts as individual partitions are put back in service via via flash and format operations). Can't prove that though.
It looks like you did your reading about APX mode - there is a risky and fairly complicated procedure available to rooters that allows them to capture some custom (unique per tablet) file blobs that allow re-installation of a bootloader from APX mode, but is a procedure that has to be performed ahead of time. (And because the file blobs are unique per tablet - encrypted & signed with a unique hardware identifier, you can't get someone else to generate them for you) So APX mode is of no value to you afaik. It's barely of value to rooters as well. (I will say that I haven't kept up over the last year, so there is always the chance that someone discovered something new wrt the Tegra3 and APX mode that I don't know about - but that's the way it was a year ago or so)
Well, good luck with your tablet - I suspect you are going to need a bit of good fortune.
Thanks you so much for your help. I will continue to try the boot interrupt and see if I can get it to go. Failing that I guess I'll be shopping for a new one. I really appreciate your time in trying to help me.
Hi! I was wondering if what happened to me it's normal and so I thought about asking here.
My phone was on my desk, I had looked at something a couple of minutes before. I grab it again and... Crashdump Mode. I pressed the usual combination of keys (I think it was Vol+ and Power), the device turned off and then rebooted in Lineage OS. No problem, no data lost, nothing.
While searching for this I met all kind of horror stories and so I wonder... is what happened a sign of more trouble along the road (faulty hardware that is going to only get worse, for instance) or it can happen without it pointing to any larger issue?
EDIT: also... I am rooted. Could anyone point me to an absolute idiot's (that would be me) guide to do a full backup of the phone? Before it happens again and I end up being SOL.
No ideas?
gorman42 said:
No ideas?
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I am new to this as well, as long as your device boots up it is not hardware error. You can back it up and try to fully reinstall using MSM tool and check if it happens on official OOS...