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Hey peoples,
Just wanted to say hey and thanks for all the hard work you obviously put into this phone, it is pretty amazing.
I have had the phone for about 2 weeks now.
It is my first Android based phone and my first smart phone.
I really want to be able to use tethering and so I have decided that it is worth it to me to root the phone and try my hand at making it work.
So, I have been reading for the last week, trying to digest all of the information and really trying to wrap my head around just how to do this the right way.
Here is what I have done, and how I have succeeded and failed.
I downloaded the following:
PC36IMG.zip
EVO-recovery.zip
and placed PC36IMG.zip in the root of my sd card.
Went through the motions and successfully flashed from within the bootloader of the Evo.
Rebooted as instructed.
Now, here is where I got lost, or really was unable to confirm if I was successful or not.
I extracted the EVO-recovery.zip file to a folder I called "evo".
I placed that folder in the root of my c drive.
I opened up a command prompt and typed "cd \evo" and confirmed I was in that directory.
From there I typed "adb reboot recovery" and hit enter.
Then, once that process started, I opened up the evo folder and double clicked "recovery-windows.bat".
The process seemed like it was doing what it should be doing, and once it was complete, I navigated to and created a NAND backup.
That is where I think I went horribly wrong, as once that was done, and I rebooted the phone, I was shocked to find that all of my contact data was gone, which was painful because I had spent the last 2 days getting that all sorted out and new numbers transferred from my old phone (manually).
Anyway, after the initial shock wore off, I started looking around and realized I now had a blank phone.
All of the sprint apps were still there and nothing seemed to have changed other than my phone was now void of everything that I had installed and added to it.
So, feeling like I had probably rooted the phone, but failed to back up at the right point in the exercise, I really had nothing to lose since I was going to have to add all that data again anyway.
That brings me to today.
After much reading, and poking around, I figured all I really had at this point was a rooted stock rom on my phone?
I could not find any super user app in my apps pane, nor any other indication that I had done anything in particular other than wiping my phone clean.
So, I then decided that I needed to install a custom rom.
That seemed like the logical next step.
So I downloaded "RvU_1.3.2.zip" from Android central.
I placed that file on my sd card, shut the phone down, and then powered it up while holding the volume down key.
I navigated to and flashed the file to the phone and was ultimately stuck in infinite (reboot) loop after the process was seemingly complete.
In a bit of a panic, I pulled the battery, and rebooted the phone with the volume key depressed, and from there I wiped the caches (delvic and cache) and reset to factory default within the same menu.
From there, I went in to restore mode and restored to the NAND back up I created.
Now I was back in the same spot prior to trying to flash the RvU_1.3.2.zip rom.
Feeling a bit deflated, I decided that I really needed to see if I could get the phone back to factory fresh stock condition and was successful using "RUU_Supersonic_1.32.651.6_Radio_1.39.00.05.31_release_171253_signed.exe" which I downloaded from a link on this site.
So,
If you are still with me after this long winded post, and are even remotely interested in helping me figure out where I went wrong in the process, I would really appreciate any help you may offer.
At the end of the day, I would really like to root this baby, get a rom which has all of the Sprint crap ware deleted and ultimately be able to tether my laptop.
Is anyone interested in helping an old guy out?
Thanks in advance, this seems like a place with a hell of a lot of knowledge and skill.
I appreciate being here.
First off, your contacts should have been saved when you first created a google account when you got the EVO. After you completed part 1 of the root process, when you reboot your phone, you should gotten a prompt if you wanted to sign in to google. Since you are an existing customer, sign in, and within minutes, your contacts will show.
Second, it is highly recommended that you do part 2 of unlocking Nand protection so that you don't have to do extra steps to get into recovery mode and can get into it from within android.
Also, the blank phone that you saw was/is completely normal, since when you flashed the pc36img file, it ultimately erases all user data on the phone.
Ok, thanks Dave,
So, in your opinion, was I successful in rooting the phone?
And where did I fail in trying to get a custom rom installed?
Seems like you did it just fine. Try flashing the custom rom again if you'd like. Otherwise, go for the gold and do part 2 of unlocking nand protection.
-------------------------------------
Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
I apologize in advance if any of this makes you roll your eyes at my stupidity.
Good Afternoon
I have an ATT samsung galaxy s3, Because of the glitches with 4.3 I was experiencing I decided to install custom software on my phone. So I looked up guides and got everything I needed. I did manage to get root access, and verified with super user. I also installed TWRP and CWM because each kept giving me errors when I tried to install CM 11 onto my phone. I tried CWM first, and when that didn't work I tried TWRP. It says there was no MD5 information found when I try to install any mod. how ever I have used the md5 file checker program and the MD5 matches up to what was listed in this one for example.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2518998
Download:
CM 11.0 Unofficial Beta 7 for d2tmo and d2att
MD5: ef93957db1e6704f23f9015231a82826
So the MD5 matches, yet when I try to install it keeps giving me errors. I also tried other versions of CM that I found on here via links. Right now my phone has no OS as another guide I read some where also said to wipe system data (sorry if that was stupid, I was just following a guideline) And even more stupid, no I don't have a backup because in my naivety and stupidity I didn't think I'd need one as it seemed so simple from all the guides and videos I'd seen.
Yesterday a friend of mine knowledgeable with tech stuff took one of the original stock Image ROMs I'd downloaded and using linux and some program he managed to do some crazy stuff I can't even describe on here. All I saw was a lot of typing of command lines and it got my phone working again, how ever it wasn't exactly the stock image I guess because the phone would not make or receive calls/texts.
Since my phone was powering on again and the android OS was loading I figured I could connect it to my computer and use KIES to download the official latest update so my phone would be back on the legit software. But trying to do that...well broke my phone again. So I'm at a loss now of what to do. Right now I can still get to download mode on my phone, but when I try to get into recovery mode I get an error that "firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in KIES & try again." Which I've tried, and every time I try it gives me an error message.So I'm at a loss of what to do next.
So I'd like to get a working OS on my phone asap so I can get calls and texts.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. And being new I'm sorry if I broke any taboos or did not give some information that is typically given when describing a problem.
gvazquez82 said:
I apologize in advance if any of this makes you roll your eyes at my stupidity.
Good Afternoon
I have an ATT samsung galaxy s3, Because of the glitches with 4.3 I was experiencing I decided to install custom software on my phone. So I looked up guides and got everything I needed. I did manage to get root access, and verified with super user. I also installed TWRP and CWM because each kept giving me errors when I tried to install CM 11 onto my phone. I tried CWM first, and when that didn't work I tried TWRP. It says there was no MD5 information found when I try to install any mod. how ever I have used the md5 file checker program and the MD5 matches up to what was listed in this one for example.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2518998
Download:
CM 11.0 Unofficial Beta 7 for d2tmo and d2att
MD5: ef93957db1e6704f23f9015231a82826
So the MD5 matches, yet when I try to install it keeps giving me errors. I also tried other versions of CM that I found on here via links. Right now my phone has no OS as another guide I read some where also said to wipe system data (sorry if that was stupid, I was just following a guideline) And even more stupid, no I don't have a backup because in my naivety and stupidity I didn't think I'd need one as it seemed so simple from all the guides and videos I'd seen.
Yesterday a friend of mine knowledgeable with tech stuff took one of the original stock Image ROMs I'd downloaded and using linux and some program he managed to do some crazy stuff I can't even describe on here. All I saw was a lot of typing of command lines and it got my phone working again, how ever it wasn't exactly the stock image I guess because the phone would not make or receive calls/texts.
Since my phone was powering on again and the android OS was loading I figured I could connect it to my computer and use KIES to download the official latest update so my phone would be back on the legit software. But trying to do that...well broke my phone again. So I'm at a loss now of what to do. Right now I can still get to download mode on my phone, but when I try to get into recovery mode I get an error that "firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in KIES & try again." Which I've tried, and every time I try it gives me an error message.So I'm at a loss of what to do next.
So I'd like to get a working OS on my phone asap so I can get calls and texts.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. And being new I'm sorry if I broke any taboos or did not give some information that is typically given when describing a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same error happened to me yesterday and spent the whole day figuring it out. get into download mode. boot up ODIN and reflash your preferred custom recovery. after that, i couldn't find anything else to restore my phone with so i installed 4.3 leaked from here. doesn't matter which one you select. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2498233. place it on your sd card and head into recovery mode, wipe data/factory reset and cache. head to install zip from sd card and select the 4.3 zip you downloaded. reboot system and it should work. the at&t boot screen takes a while so be patient
MrHaPpY66 said:
same error happened to me yesterday and spent the whole day figuring it out. get into download mode. boot up ODIN and reflash your preferred custom recovery. after that, i couldn't find anything else to restore my phone with so i installed 4.3 leaked from here. doesn't matter which one you select. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2498233. place it on your sd card and head into recovery mode, wipe data/factory reset and cache. head to install zip from sd card and select the 4.3 zip you downloaded. reboot system and it should work. the at&t boot screen takes a while so be patient
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all thank you for trying to help me, I hope you are having a good Thanks Giving.
I used the thread you linked to, and downloaded the version with out knox. I followed the instructions
transferred ROM and flashed kernel file to SD card
used odin to flash TWRP,
used twrp to flash rom and kernel file.
and it takes the file thankfully, there's only one issue. My phone can't make or receive calls/texts. Is yours able to?
I messed up and was playing with things That I had no business playing with and decided that I should do a restore of a backup (TWRP) I made as soon as I rooted the 4.3 OTA. well it has soft bricked my phone. it was a TWRP 4.3 Nandroid and has me messed up a little.
so far I tried My nandroid (no dice now a soft brick) cleared cache and dalvik, It was booting as far as the white at&t spinning thing,
Factory reset same on booting,
Tried a format of the internal sd this is where it gets sketchy it now goes as far as the second samsung screen(the one that says Samsung GALAXY S III)
4.3 OTA .zip (no dice TWRP wont flash it) same on the booting 2nd samsung boot screen
Tried the files in the link above and got a Hard brick
Used the debricking .IMG file and got TWRP and download mode back
Any suggestions?
Looks like I might need a JTAG/RIFF BOX for this one. If nothing else I spent many Hours of darkness discovering the darkness of android 4.3
If I get recovered from this and with a different rom like 4.1.2 I will be happy. the 4.3 OTA was very stable but I did miss wifi tether and the whole hardbrick thing was kind of a bummer. it would be real nice to have an ODIN file to fix this (AHEM samsung) or atleast perhaps stopped the progression of it to a hard brick.
New update
I got my phone booting up again however there is a catch. That unbrick.img file on my 16GB sd card is still required to boot the phone and I have no cell service what so ever. Tried to check apn settings because at home I sometimes get poor service and I run net10 so I was going to fix my apn and it says insert sim??? the sim is properly inserted???
Next Update
the bootloader I flashed apparently flashed to the external sd card? I flashed another one and it is booting from the internal sd. I had to flash a different modem the one in the bootloader/modem file I flashed from the link above didnt take? I got most everything sorted out, but im getting tired, it has been an all night adventure. its 08:23 est now
sorry for the delay in updating this I had to get some rest.
theramsey3 said:
I messed up and was playing with things That I had no business playing with and decided that I should do a restore of a backup (TWRP) I made as soon as I rooted the 4.3 OTA. well it has soft bricked my phone. it was a TWRP 4.3 Nandroid and has me messed up a little.
so far I tried My nandroid (no dice now a soft brick) cleared cache and dalvik, It was booting as far as the white at&t spinning thing,
Factory reset same on booting,
Tried a format of the internal sd this is where it gets sketchy it now goes as far as the second samsung screen(the one that says Samsung GALAXY S III)
4.3 OTA .zip (no dice TWRP wont flash it) same on the booting 2nd samsung boot screen
Tried the files in the link above and got a Hard brick
Used the debricking .IMG file and got TWRP and download mode back
Any suggestions?
Looks like I might need a JTAG/RIFF BOX for this one. If nothing else I spent many Hours of darkness discovering the darkness of android 4.3
If I get recovered from this and with a different rom like 4.1.2 I will be happy. the 4.3 OTA was very stable but I did miss wifi tether and the whole hardbrick thing was kind of a bummer. it would be real nice to have an ODIN file to fix this (AHEM samsung) or atleast perhaps stopped the progression of it to a hard brick.
New update
I got my phone booting up again however there is a catch. That unbrick.img file on my 16GB sd card is still required to boot the phone and I have no cell service what so ever. Tried to check apn settings because at home I sometimes get poor service and I run net10 so I was going to fix my apn and it says insert sim??? the sim is properly inserted???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into Settings, About Phone, Status and check to see if your IMEI and Serial Number are present. If you only lost your IMEI there's a guide on how to inject it back (I'm not sure where the guide is). However if you've lost your serial number and don't have a Nandroid that can restore it I don't know what to do.
spongdangly said:
Go into Settings, About Phone, Status and check to see if your IMEI and Serial Number are present. If you only lost your IMEI there's a guide on how to inject it back (I'm not sure where the guide is). However if you've lost your serial number and don't have a Nandroid that can restore it I don't know what to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have my serial number showing but no IMEI number. So is that all that's needed for me to be able to call and text again?
gvazquez82 said:
i have my serial number showing but no IMEI number. So is that all that's needed for me to be able to call and text again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I updated my post above and showed my soultion. I simply had to flash a new modem and almost everything was kosher. I also had to flasah a different kernel but that was for preference not because things werent working.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47817339&postcount=23 Modem download
I used that modem, flash it and see if your problems go away. I use Net10 so after I flashed the Modem I had to create an APN aswell, but that is nothing new for me.
theramsey3 said:
I updated my post above and showed my soultion. I simply had to flash a new modem and almost everything was kosher. I also had to flasah a different kernel but that was for preference not because things werent working.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47817339&postcount=23 Modem download
I used that modem, flash it and see if your problems go away. I use Net10 so after I flashed the Modem I had to create an APN aswell, but that is nothing new for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will give that a shot, but what's an APN, sorry. And how do I create one, and is it needed for me to do so?
gvazquez82 said:
i have my serial number showing but no IMEI number. So is that all that's needed for me to be able to call and text again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It should be, I'm working right now so I don't have time to fine the guide on how to inject your IMEI. If I remember correctly it involves using QPST. If you have an old (or any) working Nandroid backup that should fix the problem.
FYI, make sure you don't use the guide for the international S3 as it has different hardware and folder structure/contents.
As for the APN, it should automatically fill itself in since it reads it off the SIM Card (I might be wrong).
theramsey3 said:
I updated my post above and showed my soultion. I simply had to flash a new modem and almost everything was kosher. I also had to flasah a different kernel but that was for preference not because things werent working.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47817339&postcount=23 Modem download
I used that modem, flash it and see if your problems go away. I use Net10 so after I flashed the Modem I had to create an APN aswell, but that is nothing new for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried it and it work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
67 texts just came in. Sir, I thank you oh so kindly. You have made this gloomy rainy day oh so joyous.
No problem. Glad I could help you.
The real credit should go to -Mr.X-, loserskater and anyone else(no disrespect there were alot of files) whose stuff I tried to flash lastnight thank you all in the dev community who contribute.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
So I guess the next question, do I try again to install kit kat on my phone.
I've already made bucks of my existing working phone haha....but I'd still like to have kitkat in place. I believe the issue of my phone not reading MD5 confirmations would still be in place, does anyone know how to remedy that situation?
At the same time I'm more than happy to leave my phone as is.
gvazquez82 said:
So I guess the next question, do I try again to install kit kat on my phone.
I've already made bucks of my existing working phone haha....but I'd still like to have kitkat in place. I believe the issue of my phone not reading MD5 confirmations would still be in place, does anyone know how to remedy that situation?
At the same time I'm more than happy to leave my phone as is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty sure you can turn off MD5 checks in TWRP. Probably in CWM too. Sorry if this has been mentioned. Didn't have time to read the whole thread. Just skimmed through.
2nd, there is a major difference between an IMEI that reads 0 and an IMEI that shows unknown. If it shows an unknown simply reflash your ROM and modem and you will be good to go. Sometimes a reboot is all you need. If your IMEI is showing a 0 on the other hand its gone and will require that it be injected back in which is a messy situation that usually results in tour phone being stuck on EDGE.
3rd, as someone mentioned on the previous page, restoring a working nandroid will NOT reinject your IMEI if it shows up as 0. No amount of flashing anything will get it to come back. Not even stock. It needs to be reinjected manually.
flexfulton said:
Pretty sure you can turn off MD5 checks in TWRP. Probably in CWM too. Sorry if this has been mentioned. Didn't have time to read the whole thread. Just skimmed through.
2nd, there is a major difference between an IMEI that reads 0 and an IMEI that shows unknown. If it shows an unknown simply reflash your ROM and modem and you will be good to go. Sometimes a reboot is all you need. If your IMEI is showing a 0 on the other hand its gone and will require that it be injected back in which is a messy situation that usually results in tour phone being stuck on EDGE.
3rd, as someone mentioned on the previous page, restoring a working nandroid will NOT reinject your IMEI if it shows up as 0. No amount of flashing anything will get it to come back. Not even stock. It needs to be reinjected manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you know of a good stable kit kat like ROM I could use for the s3? And any speculation as to why the ROMs werent taking for me?
Hello everyone thanks for checking out my post for assistance.
I was running the OpTimuS 2.2 yesterday when my phone jumped into a boot-loop. The phone will be on for about 20-40 seconds then reboot. During that time I have no service and when I update the profile I get a message that I don't have any service. I can get into recovery and Download mode. I tried to just wipe and install the rom again. That process resulted in the same boot loop. I have a back up but that was done before the "spark" update and I didn't want to restore that because I know there will be an issue with the radio. I downloaded the stock rooted rom but the phone will not stay on long enough to transfer the file and when I try and load via recovery it will not allow me to transfer the file. (never shows up on computer I might be doing that wrong) I then attempted to bring the phone back to stock following this process http://www.rwilco12.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=96 but when I get down to step 13 the program will not respond anymore. I am going a friends house to try on a different computer but I wanted to get this out there just in case that has the same result.
Thanks again for any info that you could provide.
usvi525 said:
Hello everyone thanks for checking out my post for assistance.
I was running the OpTimuS 2.2 yesterday when my phone jumped into a boot-loop. The phone will be on for about 20-40 seconds then reboot. During that time I have no service and when I update the profile I get a message that I don't have any service. I can get into recovery and Download mode. I tried to just wipe and install the rom again. That process resulted in the same boot loop. I have a back up but that was done before the "spark" update and I didn't want to restore that because I know there will be an issue with the radio. I downloaded the stock rooted rom but the phone will not stay on long enough to transfer the file and when I try and load via recovery it will not allow me to transfer the file. (never shows up on computer I might be doing that wrong) I then attempted to bring the phone back to stock following this process http://www.rwilco12.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=96 but when I get down to step 13 the program will not respond anymore. I am going a friends house to try on a different computer but I wanted to get this out there just in case that has the same result.
Thanks again for any info that you could provide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing back to stock won't work, I had the same thing happened.......it's the EFS Partition (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451390) If you made a EFS Partition Backup, then flashing that will be your best hope.....I didn't make a backup so I went to sprint cuz I have insurance and they are ordering me a new phone
Shadow_God said:
Flashing back to stock won't work, I had the same thing happened.......it's the EFS Partition (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451390) If you made a EFS Partition Backup, then flashing that will be your best hope.....I didn't make a backup so I went to sprint cuz I have insurance and they are ordering me a new phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They replaced it even though your phone was rooted?
Try installing an updated modem for your variant from this thread. It's worth a try.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451426
If you get it working, definitely make an EFS backup right away.
usvi525 said:
They replaced it even though your phone was rooted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the LGFlashTool to bring it back to stock unrooted.......but my phone had no sevice and rebooted every couple minutes, plus the touchscreen wasn't working either.....I told them I took the Spark update and thats when it happened, he said they had alot of issue with touchscreen stopped working and rebooting issue with the spark update......so they didn't look at it long...lol
I have tried back to stock numbers of times....installing modems....restoring my backups....nothing would get it to work, so I gave up and went to sprint...lol
On the rom you were using, have you tried enabling airplane mode to prevent reboots? You could try to get a stock-based flashable zip on the device if possible.
alone-together said:
Try installing an updated modem for your variant from this thread. It's worth a try.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451426
If you get it working, definitely make an EFS backup right away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the option. I was able to install the radio but the issue remains.
usvi525 said:
Thanks for the option. I was able to install the radio but the issue remains.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have we ruled out the possibility to flash a stock ROM in TWRP? If by any chance you have a USB OTG cable, you could try to connect a flash drive with another ROM.
This is my last ditch effort. Small back story: I somehow wiped EVERYTHING on my G2. EFS partition, ESN, data, SIM info., everything with dialer codes. All of my network information reads "unknown". I tried many methods from here on the forums to get this data back and it turns out I have lost my EFS partition- DNA for the network? I sent it to LG to get it fixed, having done a hard reset and leaving no trace of root. They sent it back without even asking and did no repairs. The note said "board bent". WTF?? How does the user bend the main board, especially when I never opened it? They voided my warranty and ripped off my IMEI/MEID sticker from the back of the phone.
Anyways, I am here with a brick. No network still. Here is what I have done:
1) .tot method to ZVC. Several more times... once to ZV7 where I lost touch capability. Luckily saved my arse with a micro->usb cable and a mouse.
2) attempted to root with ioroot25. Failed because the phone WILL NOT find recovery mode. adb, voldown+pwr then again from power off, and apps are unable to force the phone into recovery mode. I assume it is possible that my recovery mode is deleted?
3) Would have tried all of these "rewrite your efs/imei/etc" things but I can't do any without root. Can't root without recovery, can I?
4) Spent the last two weeks scouring the internet for a fix and going back to my Epic 4G temporarily.
Please help me, has anyone seen this before? Can anyone help me fix it? I am to the point where I would pay to have it fixed. Any experts out there? XDA has yet to let me down... I just need to know if I can fix it or if it is a brick so I can go searching for an old Sprint GS3.
Thanks all,
baublitz
Hey all, I've had my Samsung Galaxy S3 (SPH-L710 for Sprint) for some time now. Since the time I purchased (which was around the time it was released) I've had SlimRom installed. Never had any problems, updates always went through flawlessly, and I love the rom. Just the other day, I decided to update slimrom from to the newest stable version which is 7. Flash went through successfully, everything seemed fine and dandy as usual. But I had no service for some reason... Tried several methods of repairing the problem, to no avail.
In my about phone section, everything is all messed up; my phone number says "000-000-0016" my MIN "0000000016" PRL Version "1" IMEI "Unknown" and unfortunately I do not have a back up of anything, because I completely wiped my phone and did a full restore/unroot using rwilco's method here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2755793.
So now I am unrooted, I still can not get my phone to activate. Talked to a sprint rep at this point to see if they could help. After telling me to do a few different commands, such as ##3283# and changing the info with my MSL and what not, nothing worked. He was stumped. Now I am stumped, and I've got an unrooted Wi-Fi only S3 at the moment.
I've gone through so many threads and different articles and just can not find an answer. I really didn't want to start a thread asking for help, as I've never had to before. But now I feel like a complete noob and need it! Please anybody!
murdercitydan said:
Hey all, I've had my Samsung Galaxy S3 (SPH-L710 for Sprint) for some time now. Since the time I purchased (which was around the time it was released) I've had SlimRom installed. Never had any problems, updates always went through flawlessly, and I love the rom. Just the other day, I decided to update slimrom from to the newest stable version which is 7. Flash went through successfully, everything seemed fine and dandy as usual. But I had no service for some reason... Tried several methods of repairing the problem, to no avail.
In my about phone section, everything is all messed up; my phone number says "000-000-0016" my MIN "0000000016" PRL Version "1" IMEI "Unknown" and unfortunately I do not have a back up of anything, because I completely wiped my phone and did a full restore/unroot using rwilco's method here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2755793.
So now I am unrooted, I still can not get my phone to activate. Talked to a sprint rep at this point to see if they could help. After telling me to do a few different commands, such as ##3283# and changing the info with my MSL and what not, nothing worked. He was stumped. Now I am stumped, and I've got an unrooted Wi-Fi only S3 at the moment.
I've gone through so many threads and different articles and just can not find an answer. I really didn't want to start a thread asking for help, as I've never had to before. But now I feel like a complete noob and need it! Please anybody!
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Click to collapse
To my knowledge the only way to repair this problem would be to buy another device........but before you do that did you make a backup of the rom that was working perfectly and did you try restoring it before you went with Odin? What was your bootloader/modem before you flashed the initial slimrom?
6th_Hokage said:
To my knowledge the only way to repair this problem would be to buy another device........but before you do that did you make a backup of the rom that was working perfectly and did you try restoring it before you went with Odin? What was your bootloader/modem before you flashed the initial slimrom?
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I did make a back up, unfortunately however, when I did the full restore I lost everything that was on my phone, including the back up. And I did not try restoring is before doing Odin. About the bootloader/modem, no idea.
Welp, seems like its done. I'm eligible for an upgrade anywho. Think I'm going in today and picking up a new LG G3, not sure yet though. Can't decide what phone I want...
Have you tried dialing ##72786#? It is a forced reactivation.
Hello all!
This is my first foray into the world of custom Android systems, and I'm having a hell of a time with it... if somebody would be able to help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.
First off, the situation:
I am on Sprint, and I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S3 (SPH-L710) from Sprint to use as a backup phone, I used it for a while on Stock, then deactivated it so I could give it to my wife. First though, I wanted to put a custom ROM on it, and experiment/play around a bit and see what this world of options could do for me. Long story short, I ended up flashing an AICP ROM, and everything seemed to go smoothly, but when I went to activate the phone on my account again and it would not work no matter what I tried (details below). I figured maybe I could activate on the stock setup then just restore my custom setup, so I tried to revert to my stock ROM backup and I couldn't do anything because I was constantly getting messages that various programs had closed... Then I tried to wipe and restore my custom ROM backup and I get stuck in a boot loop... so I tried to flash a stock recovery and I get stuck in a boot loop... I'm out of ideas here, and now I'm stuck with a phone I can't use or do anything with, and I can't activate.
Details:
The initial rooting/install process seemed to work ok, and was fairly straightforward. I followed various guides on http://galaxys3root.com/ to get my phone rooted and backed up (Don't recall which ones now, but I've read through so much by now I don't know if it matters...).
My phone:
Samsung Galaxy S3 (Sprint) SPH-L710
Modem: L710SPRDNJ2
My Desktop:
Debian Linux
Here's the steps I performed:
Rebooted phone in Odin mode
Downloaded CWM S3 Sprint Recovery from the http://galaxys3root.com/ website (can't find the link any more)
Flashed the CWM recovery using Heimdall then rebooted phone into CWM
Installed SuperSU through CWM, then rebooted
Checked that the phone was rooted successfully (it was), then ran Titanium Backup on the whole device to my SD card, then copied the backup files to my desktop computer
Rebooted into CWM, and performed a backup through CWM, then rebooted and copied the CWM backup to my desktop.
Downloaded AICP Rom for my phone from here: http://downloadandroidrom.com/file/GalaxyS3Sprint/roms/AICP/aicp_d2spr_lp-10.0-RELEASE-20150707.zip, put it on my SD card, then installed it through CWM and rebooted
At this point, I was happy with how everything was working, so I did some minor theme customizations then made another backup through CWM, and copied it to my computer, but I did NOT run Titanium this time...
After all of this, I tried to go ahead and activate it through the Sprint web service. This process failed continuously with an unhelpful error message of "Sorry, this device can't be activated right now". I then got on Chat to see if they could activate it manually, and then the problems began. They did their thing activating the phone, but when I booted up I got no data connectivity, and couldn't make calls, and the SIM was not changing over to the new number. I was on the chat with them for over an hour trying to get the situation resolved, but that finally ended when they started asking me to punch in ## codes, because I discovered that none of them worked on my custom ROM. Some quick research told me that this was non-trivial to get around so I had them switch everything back and I started researching the issue.
I found this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626638&highlight=sph-l710 that looked like it would let me do what I needed from the custom ROM, but I couldn't tell if it would fix my problem for sure, so I figured "I'll just restore my stock setup from that backup I took, activate it and update, then start over". This is when things got really frustrating...
First I rebooted into CWM, went to 'backup/restore', and restored my stock backup
Rebooted, and as soon as I got past the lock screen, I get inundated with messages of various apps being closed unexpectedly.
I researched a bit, discovered the issue may be caused by stale dalvik cache, so I rebooted into CWM, cleared the dalvik cache, formatted the /cache partition, then tried to restore the stock backup again, but this time I get stuck in a boot loop.
I then rebooted into CWM, tried to restore the backup of my AICP ROM, only to be stuck in a boot loop as well.
Trying to get into any usable system, I rebooted to CWM, cleared dalvik cache, then formatted /cache, /data, and /system just to be sure, and re-flashed the base AICP ROM I started with. This worked fine, and before long I had stock AICP back
Since I still couldn't get the phone to activate in the custom ROM, and my backups are apparently completely useless, I rebooted into CWM, wiped dalvik, /cache, /data, and /system again and tried to install a different stock ROM I found in the XDA forums (here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-sprint/development/stock-rom-4-4-2-t3010642) only to be greeted by another bootloop
At this point I've spent well over 24 man-hours trying to get this to work, reading, researching, flashing, etc all to no avail. Nothing I do seems to work, and it seems like every article, tutorial, or forum thread I read either has nothing to do with my device, is too old, or doesn't describe my problem.
I'm at wits end, and am so frustrated I'm ready to just give up and smash this device and buy a new one... My questions to the community are as follows:
I know I screwed up on a couple of things, but in my initial research of doing this there was no indication that these were even things I needed to watch out for... Is there any more organized sources of information for doing this sort of thing?
Does anybody else out there use Sprint on a custom ROM, and if so how you you pull this off
Where else have I screwed up, and how can I fix this situation? (My end goal is still to get the S3 onto Sprint with a custom ROM)
What can I do differently next time? I would like to figure this out and do it to other phones and devices I have, but if it's this much trouble every time, I just don't have the time to mess with it.
Thank you in advance, and I appreciate any information that the community can provide.
This sounds like a CWM problem to me. If I were you, I'd boot the phone into Odin Mode and flash TWRP ( www.twrp.me ) then try flashing the latest aicp nightly downloaded from the official site ( www.aicp-rom.com ). Check the md5sums on everything! Then maybe try flashing a touchwiz ROM and activating your phone. Remember that you need to wipe the internal storage when you go between KitKat and lollipop.
I'm fairly certain you have to do activation with the stock Touchwiz roms -- once the phone is activated you can flash a custom.
You should go into recovery and wipe everything (System/data/etc) EXCEPT for the External SD Card
Power off - pull the battery for a few - power on directly into download mode
Odin NJ2 back onto the phone and reboot and activate it (skip through most of the setup since you'll flash a custom after)
Once you know it's activated and working under the stock Touchwiz, then again power off and Odin TWRP recovery
Then you can go back into recovery, wipe everything except External SD, and flash the custom rom back on.
Looks like swapping CWM for TWRP did the trick.
Flashed TWRP no problems, and put CleanBean on there to get the phone activated. Still wouldn't work automatically over the Sprint website, but I got on chat with them and they fixed me right up. Downloading a fresh copy of AICP now...
Is it worth it to keep the CWM backups I made earlier, or should I just go ahead and flush them? I figured just get rid of them since restoring them wasn't working anyway, but I figured I would ask.
Now to move all the data over to the new phone. Thanks so much for your help guys!
afarris01 said:
Looks like swapping CWM for TWRP did the trick.
Flashed TWRP no problems, and put CleanBean on there to get the phone activated. Still wouldn't work automatically over the Sprint website, but I got on chat with them and they fixed me right up. Downloading a fresh copy of AICP now...
Is it worth it to keep the CWM backups I made earlier, or should I just go ahead and flush them? I figured just get rid of them since restoring them wasn't working anyway, but I figured I would ask.
Now to move all the data over to the new phone. Thanks so much for your help guys!
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Get rid of them. TWRP can't restore CWM even if the backup is good