CWM disappeared? - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

I was having a few issues with my phone. Primarily boot loops with AOKP b23 and franco #17.2 kernel. So I went into clockwork recovery as per usual, flashed a backup a had made a few months back.
However when it booted up, it was not the backup I had made, and was in fact a stock version of android. I know this as it even prompted me with the option to upgrade android over the air. Something I believe an unlocked phone will not do. So wtf happened? It is all working fine now as stock, but will no doubt be trying to flash CWM on sometime soon.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

If u turn your phone off and power it back on and see a padlock in the bottom of the Google logo. Then your boot loader is still unlocked. U can use fast boot to flash cwm again and flash a new rom.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Yeah it is still unlocked. So I'll follow the normal procedure from there.
It seems a very strange occurrence though, something I haven't read about or experienced before. Had me very worried for a while. Any idea what could cause a recovery to do that?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I can't definitively speak to why things reverted in that way, but I'd suggest reading through this thread.
The discussion there was very informative to me as far as better understanding how a cocktail of stock/modded recoveries, bootloaders, kernels and ROMs all play together on the same phone. For one, your idea of what receiving an OTA notification indicates is a bit off (but I'll let you read through that for yourself instead of rehashing).
This is sort of a stab in the dark, and I don't know if a nandroid includes the recovery installed at the time, but you can run CWM without installing it over the stock recovery. Maybe you did this with your first nandroid and installed CWM afterwards, then forgot about what the nature of that nandroid was?
Anything qualified with "a few months ago" is a red flag to me to suggest limits of human memory accuracy

Related

[Q] GNx bricked? Screen not unlockable, constant softreboots

Hi all,
this is the 3rd time this is happening to me with different ROMs. The problem is:
The phone boots up normal, I can swipe to unlock, enter my PIN, but after pressing OK it won't unlock the SIM. If I lock the screen it won't come back on. It stays black whatever I do. After some time the phone reboots (soft reboot) and everything starts from the beginning.
The first time this happened I was using Modacos Ir9. I had the phone switched off over night and switched it on. Only thing that seemed to help was completely unrooting the phone and rerooting it again.
The second time I was using codeworkx CM9 Builds and tried to update. I restored my nandroid, but it kept happening. Flashing the XXKK1 Radio did the trick here.
Now it is happening again. This time I installed dropbox and the phone froze on the setup wizard...
I don't want to unroot the phone, it takes forever to restore the SD card.
Any advice on this one?
Update:
- Flashed the following radio images without any success: XXKL1, KRKL1, UGKL1 and XXKK1
- Used my older nandroids from CM9 and Modaco Ir10. NOT WORKING
- Wiped every nandroid. NOT WORKING AT ALL
- Reflashed CM9 and Ir10. Still NOT WORKING
I'm so lost I'm going to revert to stock and unroot... and try how far I can throw an 1 month old GNx from the fourth story.
I don't know much on the development part so I don't know why its doing that I can only suggest using odin and going back to stock.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
I had similar problems with mine once. Only thing that helped me out wasn't unrooting though. A complete factory reset was enough to make me go on again.
I posted a thread here then to ask people if anyone experianced the same but got no reaction what so ever zo I guess "we" are a dark minority.
I don't know what it caused it or what the solution might be but a Factory reset did it for me.
Good Luck!
C-4Nati said:
I don't know much on the development part so I don't know why its doing that I can only suggest using odin and going back to stock.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last time it was working again after reverting to stock. But I bought it to use Custom Roms
I would say go back to stock w/ odin, Wipe everything and start again.
Diger36 said:
I had similar problems with mine once. Only thing that helped me out wasn't unrooting though. A complete factory reset was enough to make me go on again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory Reset wasn't helping unfortunatly.
Flashed the original factory image through fastboot. Now everything is working again. I'm restoring my SD backup now and will try to get CM9 working again.
If it would keep failing in stock I could return the phone. Now I'm left with "hopefully it isn't happening a fourth time" and "My phone doesn't work I need 4 hours to get ich working"
the_alien said:
Factory Reset wasn't helping unfortunatly.
Flashed the original factory image through fastboot. Now everything is working again. I'm restoring my SD backup now and will try to get CM9 working again.
If it would keep failing in stock I could return the phone. Now I'm left with "hopefully it isn't happening a fourth time" and "My phone doesn't work I need 4 hours to get ich working"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fastboot flash stock google images. And your phone isn't bricked. Stop using the term wrong. It's most likely a software issue or you're doing the rom flash procedure incorrectly.
A bricked phone is a phone that is unaw to go into bootloader and recovery mode and cannot start android.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
zephiK said:
Fastboot flash stock google images. And your phone isn't bricked. Stop using the term wrong. It's most likely a software issue or you're doing the rom flash procedure incorrectly.
A bricked phone is a phone that is unaw to go into bootloader and recovery mode and cannot start android.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for using the term wrong, I thought it just referes to broken phones.
The ROM flash is correct and it runs for some time and the problem occours after a few days... the only thing that helped was reverting to factory images and after that restore the nandroid from the "broken" Rom.
So the Rom works... than keeps crashing, I do a nandroid backup and only a factory image stops the crashes. But the Rom keeps working after I restore it.
I can't see why this could be a hardware issue. And I can't see how I should explain it to the store "Yes, it is working but not with custom roms, and I bought the Nexus because of custom roms..."
the_alien said:
Sorry for using the term wrong, I thought it just referes to broken phones.
The ROM flash is correct and it runs for some time and the problem occours after a few days... the only thing that helped was reverting to factory images and after that restore the nandroid from the "broken" Rom.
So the Rom works... than keeps crashing, I do a nandroid backup and only a factory image stops the crashes. But the Rom keeps working after I restore it.
I can't see why this could be a hardware issue. And I can't see how I should explain it to the store "Yes, it is working but not with custom roms, and I bought the Nexus because of custom roms..."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm willing to bet an app is causing it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
One of my colleagues had this issue with an early CM9 build on his Nexus S - turned out it was an app that is incompatible with ICS. Every time it tried to launch a notification, poof. So I would have to side with Josh in the post above mine.
A way for you to verify / discredit this theory would be : When you say it works with the stock ROM, are you re-installing everything you have when you are on stock? My understanding from what you've written above is that you're only getting your full suite of apps back when you restore your (presumably custom ROM) nandroid backup...
Potterified said:
One of my colleagues had this issue with an early CM9 build on his Nexus S - turned out it was an app that is incompatible with ICS. Every time it tried to launch a notification, poof. So I would have to side with Josh in the post above mine.
A way for you to verify / discredit this theory would be : When you say it works with the stock ROM, are you re-installing everything you have when you are on stock? My understanding from what you've written above is that you're only getting your full suite of apps back when you restore your (presumably custom ROM) nandroid backup...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can't be any app or ROM because IF it happens, it happens on all ROMs, regardless of wipe or not.
It just happened again and i wiped everything and tried using AOKP MS 3. Wasn't working... So I tried using the phone without the SIM card, because the hell only breaks loose after entering my PIN. And it worked. I could use the phone...
I put it back in and it worked...
I'm restoring my CM9 nandroid right now. I'm hoping it works...
edit: Nope, ripping out the SIM doesn't work. I'm reverting to stock and wait what happens. If it crashes again I'm trying to return it.

[Q] What keeps happening to my phone??

So here's the situation and this is literally the 3RD time this phone has done this. I'll be on a ROM on my rooted unlocked galaxy nexus, and randomly I'll be opening my texts or contacts or something and my phone will reboot. No big deal right? But then it just boot loops. Endlessly. If I try to restore a nandroid from a different ROM, it'll get almost done then won't be able to restore /data. I know it's not a bad nandroid backup cuz I switch back and forth between them all the time. I can't flash any rom, it'll be a boot loop, can't restore a nandroid,so I always have to end up flashing a stock image and start from scratch again.
I've seen this problem before after it happened the first time and found that flashing stock img fix. I have two questions: Why does it do this randomly every month? It's like my bootloader goes MIA or something for no reason. What would cause it to do this and literally, almost once every 30 days?
Second question: Is this a stable phone? I'm coming from the nearly unbrickable Captivate and I've done some crazy stuff to that phone and always managed to recover it, a couple times when it shouldn't have even worked at all. But yet this thing breaks down almost every month. Didn't flash anything new, didn't flash anything incompatible, nothing. Everything was running smooth. Then all of a sudden reboot, boot loop, backups dead, roms on SD card are useless.
Can someone please fill me in on what's going on with this? lol this is my 5th rooted android phone, not a developer or a themer or anything, but I know quite a bit about what would cause a phone to do whatever. Any insight would be great. Thanks guys!
Wich roms are you trying? Wich rooting methods? Wich flashing method? Are you using adb and fastboot?
Edit: does the issue happens on stock?
So far my phone its rock solid stable and buttery smooth fast after 3/4 months
Galaxy Nexus AOKP m5 Franco kernel m3
It first happened on liquid rom. I rooted via Samsung gnex toolkit. It happened again on gummy 1.2.0 honestly I wasn't on stock long enough to see how stock ran lol I don't use adb or fastboot often. Just to root and recently, to flash a stock image every time this happens
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
I'd try rooting properly by using fast boot and flashing a superuser.zip. It may be that the toolkit is not working properly and you have a bad recovery. Something is wrong if this is happening. Its not too hard...
Sent From My Sprint Galaxy Nexus via XDA Premium

Bad Flash Stories

Hi everybody!
I figure we should have a thread dedicated to telling horror stories about flashes gone wrong. Whether it's because of power failures, bad USB cables, poorly labeled packages, or pure user error, we've all had that moment of worry: "Did I just turn my device into a paperweight?"
It's my hope that, by sharing these stories, we can help each other realize that we're all human, we all make mistakes, and most mistakes can be recovered from. Don't be afraid to share your stories; we can't learn from each other's mistakes if nobody talks about them!
_____________________________________________
My first story is from my Telus SGS3 (I747M, you'll see why that matters in a moment) and is definitely a user-error kind of story.
I've been playing around with CM10 and its derivatives for the past month or two (got my SGS3 on release day and it wasn't running Samsung software 3 hours later) and I'm not new to Android, having run XDAndroid on my HTC Diamond, and bouncing between CM7 and CM9 on my Milestone. The first thing I did when I got my SGS3 was a full block device backup using DD from the command line, which is the only reason I don't have a paperweight today.
I decided to try out Paranoid Android over a week ago and I've been loving it, so I haven't been flashing much lately. But, when I got back from vacation and saw that CM10 had gone into nightly builds, I couldn't resist the temptation to try a clean install. I've got folders on my SD card for ROMs, GApps, kernels, recoveries, and anything else flashable just to make my life easier. Apparently at some point I downloaded an AT&T (I747, no M) modem, stuck it in a "/modems/" folder with the rest of my flashables, but realized that it wouldn't work on my device, so I never used it. I then promptly forgot that I had put it on the SD card, and it had a fairly cryptic filename. Away I went, flashing CM10, GApps, a nice bootscreen, and... the modem.
Dammit. :crying:
At this point, I was running the newest CM10 build, but with a borked modem. I thought I had fallen victim to the IMEI bug that's been going around, but then I remembered something about that modem file not being usable on a Telus device... And had no idea how to get back to a working state. I already knew that none of my nandroid backups would have the modem in them, and the only "stock" flashables I could find were rooted kernels and a nearly-700MB "stock" package that wouldn't download any faster than 10 kb/s. I couldn't wait 20 hours for a download, I wanted my phone now! I tried using Odin with a few of the TAR packages I found, but that only made my situation worse to the point of failing to boot entirely, even restoring a nandroid wasn't helping anymore.
I started digging through the forums in the hope that someone had ripped the Telus modem into a CWM flashable zip, but had no luck. I tried both the Rogers and Bell modems with the same results. That's when I remembered that I had done a block backup, but I had no idea which block device was the modem, and my phone wouldn't even boot up to let me MTP the files over. I was left with CWM recovery as my only option, and had to ADB push 2.5 GB of .img files to the SD card, and DD them one at a time through the ADB shell.
Somehow, it all worked out, and I was back to running Stock Touchwiz with root, and was then able to restore a nandroid from yesterday and amazingly enough Paranoid Android booted up, happy as ever, and in came my emails and text messages. I know I'm lucky that my IMEI didn't get lost in that mess, but it just goes to show that there's no such thing as a backup being "too extensive". You never know when "mmcblk0p99" needs to be replaced with a known working copy.
I do believe im going to flash a stock/rooted ROM and then do a dd backup.
What options do you set for your backups?
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda premium
I did as follows:
Code:
cd /dev/block/
ls
(get the list of mmcblk devices from here)
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 of=/sdcard/dd/blk0p1 bs=4096
...
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p99 of=/sdcard/dd/blk0p99 bs=4096
Obviously you shouldn't have 99 partitions... but you get the idea. I ran each line manually.
Then just move the /dd/ folder off your /sdcard/ and onto some safe storage.
I bought my device off someone from Craigslist 2 nights ago. Went home with device working great. Decided to update from ICS to JB, downloaded everything on the ol gaming machine, go to update using Kies, then BAM! Hung update, bricks phone immediately. Woo....great experience after dropping $400 on phone lol. Contacted Samsung support who told me my update wouldn't work until I registered? I told him it bricked my phone and it wasn't being picked up by computer anymore and I wanted to go back to ICS, he apparently thought waiting 24 hours would fix driver issues. Found JB official rom and learned about Odin. Worked at it until 2-ish am, never worked, woke up, did ICS instead same method, worked immediately, then update worked.
Moral of story? Don't trust Samsung apparently, go with 3rd party everything....
Can we share from other devices? Because I've had a serious one with my nitro HD lol.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
After having my phone on stock rooted touch wiz since day one I was tempted to go jellybean... So months later I'd say Octoberish I finally said f**k it I'm going aokp... So I ran the task and k toonsen romantic for a while until they started porting the t mobile jelly bean stock tw rom... It made me miss tw and it's awesome camera app... So I flashed it after a week or so upon its release... First thing I noticed was the phone would get txts and phone calls rarely (keep in mind I'm in an lte area) and it became un bare able after about an hour. So I reverted back to my aokp nandroid and just figured I'd call it a day... But when I restored my nandroid my service was still messed up.. So after a bit of gooogling I checked my phone status to find my imei to be 0!!! I was beyond upset... So I tried re flashing stock in Odin and everything else I could find (unfortunately the imei restorer wasn't existent yet) and it came to the point where I left it stock and went to the att repair center down the road... The guy didn't know what was wrong with it and I just played dumb... After about 30 mins he came to the conclusion that my sim card slot was broken and I got a new phone...
After getting this one back home I instantly rooted it again
I've been staying away from those ported tmobile roms ever since
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
[/COLOR]
rani9990 said:
Can we share from other devices? Because I've had a serious one with my nitro HD lol.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont see why not. All stories are interesting lol
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
No bad flashes .... Yet?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Alright then,
It was my first day with the LG Nitro HD. My first smartphone (don't comment xD) and I was prepared to root and flash the living crap out of it. Done with rooting, now to install CWM. Simple enough, right? WRONG. This was the one time where google was not my friend. I followed a horribly misleading guide, and ended up with a paperweight. Turns out I flashed the recovery image to the secondary bootloader partition, thereby bricking my phone completely and utterly, irreparably. Had to ship it off to LG, and they fixed it, no questions asked. Thank God for that...
I had an HTC Touch Pro on Sprint. You had to flash a stock ROM before flashing a new custom ROM or the phone would stop working properly after almost exactly an hour. The file system would become completely messed up but the OS would keep running from RAM. It would fail to reboot after that. It was such a pain that I updated my phone every ~3-4 months.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
This one actually just happened this weekend.
So I finally got bored of having stock ICS on my i747 (Rogers), and since I loved cm 7/9 on my SGS2, I figured I'd go with the latest (15 dec) CM10 nightly.
downloaded to phone, rebooted in recovery, wiped data and cache, and installed the new firmware.
booted up and I've got no (or inconsistant) cell service. Figure it's a bug that hasn't been fixed, so no biggie, I backed up a week ago, so I decided to revert back to stock for the time being.
go through the process, and discover I still only have EDGE data.... WTF?
So I do some reading *AFTER the fact, hur dur...* and discover the IMEI wipe issue, and surprise surprise, I didn't do an NV backup, since I didn't know it'd get wiped.
Spent a couple hours keeping the phone / computer away from the 13 month old while I replace the IMEI NV data.... Still stuck on EDGE.... at least my IMEI is showing up though.
Nick
Odin back to stock worked for me when that happened to me.... YMMV.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
The night I got my phone, I rooted via odin and when it booted, I'd get a framework FC every 90 seconds or so. It took me almost two hours to get cwm recovery on my phone to flash AOKP. Not a brick, but since I hadn't even activated it, yet....not happy.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Each Phone an Adventure
I can completely relate to all of you. Though I'm new as a member (thought I already had an account but apparently I didn't), I've been using the forum for a long time. I have rooted four phones to date, each with its' own disaster story and happy ending. My latest was the AT&T S3. While not a disaster entirely, the no flash counter guide ended up not working out for me. So I paved my own trail so to speak and I found all the root dependencies (Recovery, ROM, the works) by myself. The entire process took me about a day. I also used TriangleAway which threatened explosions if anything went wrong and thankfully nothing did. I'm glad I never had to send a phone back, I've always been very cautious about any type of flashing and always read the forum before doing it.
When I was on the captivate, I really wanted JB so I thought I could grab the Nexus S JB ROM cause the devices were so close to each other. Flashed it via Odin. Good God was that a mistake. I couldn't get back to download mode using the button combo since the button mapping was all switched up. I had this one cable that would give me bad connection, so I jiggled that around in the port for 35 minutes trying to get download mode. Finally, I got it and flashed the stock package. Learned my lesson, will never flash something from a different phone or anything that won't work 100%.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
goobs408 said:
When I was on the captivate, I really wanted JB so I thought I could grab the Nexus S JB ROM cause the devices were so close to each other. Flashed it via Odin. Good God was that a mistake. I couldn't get back to download mode using the button combo since the button mapping was all switched up. I had this one cable that would give me bad connection, so I jiggled that around in the port for 35 minutes trying to get download mode. Finally, I got it and flashed the stock package. Learned my lesson, will never flash something from a different phone or anything that won't work 100%.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing about the Captivate was, no matter what ROM you flashed, the jig ALWAYS worked. It saved my ass quite a few times, until that is, the memory in the phone decided to die. I could flash through Odin as much as I wanted and it would pass everytime, but never go past the boot animation.
Dave the Knave said:
The thing about the Captivate was, no matter what ROM you flashed, the jig ALWAYS worked. It saved my ass quite a few times, until that is, the memory in the phone decided to die. I could flash through Odin as much as I wanted and it would pass everytime, but never go past the boot animation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash stock GB with forgot name of kernel baked in. After that in cwm recovery partition external SD card.. then reflash in Odin then install whatever ROM u want
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
Trying to use Kies to flash anything. That's always a bad story for me
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Don't attempt to explain to a friend of little flashing knowledge how to root their phone. He hard bricked my phone. Odin is easy if you read but he turned it into rocket science and yeah.. Had to wait for another phone
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Well let me begin by saying I have a Galaxy Nexus and have been flashing roms, etc like it's going outta style. It's very simple to me and I am no newb. So with this logic in mind, I got a brand new GS3 the other day and proceeded to do the same. First, it took my a while to realize there are so many variants of our phone, then when I did a search I saw that there was a i9305 that is LTE....you already know where this is going. I figured that was the correct variant, spent like an hour trying to install a recovery because of the auto wipe feature and thus increasing the flash counter to 10+ (wtf!). Finally I download a rom, flash it. Freezes half way through (knew that wasn't good) and when I pull the battery, BAM, bricked phone.
After some more reading, not only did I find out the correct way of flashing to not increase the counter but also that the Canadian versions are the i747! Luckily it happened a day after I got it and I switched it out for a new one. Moral of the story: If you are flash happy and think all phones are like the Nexus, that's your biggest mistake! lol

Samsung Galaxy S4 Problem

Hello everyone,
I really need your help with my wife's Metro PCS Samsung GS4 M919N.
The thing is, we are now living outside the US so I had to unlock her phone. After ordering the unlock codes, I decided to root the phone and use a custom ROM while waiting for the codes.
That is why I found this guide here: androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/790899-metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root-guide.html
So while reading the guide, I aimed to have the following accomplished at the end:
Recovery: TWRP
Custom ROM: CyanogenMod 10.2.1
I then started doing the guide for the TWRP recovery by using Odin. I got the message saying that the flashing passed and went ahead to restart to recovery to install CM 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. The thing is that I keep on restarting to the stock recovery not TWRP. So I went to YouTube and found a video showing how to flash TWRP using GooManager. After following that guide, I went to restart to recovery and I successfully got into TWRP.
Now, to achieve my goal, all that's left to do is to flash CyanogenMod 10.2.1 (jfltetmo).
Before doing that, I decided to make a backup. After using TWRP to do a backup, I proceeded to installing the custom ROM + gapps (wiped with the default settings). Everything was working I think (I handed the phone to my wife so she was he one testing it). After some time, she decided she wants the stock ROM instead so I decided to download the androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/783769-rom-recovery-flash-able-stock-m919nuvuamf2-rooted-deodexed-rom.html ROM.
I flashed the newly downloaded ROM + gapps (same file). This time, I couldn't get the gapps to work probably because it was meant for another version. So I decided to just restore from the backup I created earlier.
So, the usual stuff. Wipe. Restore. Restart.
Seems to be going smoothly because my wife was happy to see the old ROM she was used to.
Until the phone started to restart on it's own. (It's pretty much downhill from here on out).
At first I thought it was just a random thing that probably would never happen again. I was wrong as it became more frequent as days went by.
Recently I can't just restart the phone, I would have to remove the battery and then restart it. Now, it's getting really hard to restart the phone. Please help me fix this. I prefer to leave the phone rooted, but if the fix unroots the phone then so be it, anyway my wife prefers the stock ROM so only the unlocking was necessary.
Metro PCS Samsung Galaxy S4 M919N
Recovery:
TWRP 2.6.3.1
ROMs:
Stock Metro PCS
CyanogenMod 10.2.1
Let me know if you need more information from me. Hopefully I can restart the phone so I can give you some version numbers.
Thanks everyone!
I didn't read everything but just wanted to say
VERY GOOD THREAD!
this is how threads should be done. Very descriptive, organized, told us everything you did and asked for help! Good job man! Only negative is it prolly should have gone in Q&A section but irregardless very good thread!
About your issue, I recommend flashing stock Odin tar file to everything back to stock and reroot and start over. Flashing stock will not lock it again it will remain unlocked. But should get you back up and fresh. Just be aware it will erase all your data and all of the internal SD card.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
dokgu said:
Hello everyone,
I really need your help with my wife's Metro PCS Samsung GS4 M919N.
The thing is, we are now living outside the US so I had to unlock her phone. After ordering the unlock codes, I decided to root the phone and use a custom ROM while waiting for the codes.
That is why I found this guide here: androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/790899-metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root-guide.html
So while reading the guide, I aimed to have the following accomplished at the end:
Recovery: TWRP
Custom ROM: CyanogenMod 10.2.1
I then started doing the guide for the TWRP recovery by using Odin. I got the message saying that the flashing passed and went ahead to restart to recovery to install CM 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. The thing is that I keep on restarting to the stock recovery not TWRP. So I went to YouTube and found a video showing how to flash TWRP using GooManager. After following that guide, I went to restart to recovery and I successfully got into TWRP.
Now, to achieve my goal, all that's left to do is to flash CyanogenMod 10.2.1 (jfltetmo).
Before doing that, I decided to make a backup. After using TWRP to do a backup, I proceeded to installing the custom ROM + gapps (wiped with the default settings). Everything was working I think (I handed the phone to my wife so she was he one testing it). After some time, she decided she wants the stock ROM instead so I decided to download the androidforums.com/metropcs-galaxy-s4-all-things-root/783769-rom-recovery-flash-able-stock-m919nuvuamf2-rooted-deodexed-rom.html ROM.
I flashed the newly downloaded ROM + gapps (same file). This time, I couldn't get the gapps to work probably because it was meant for another version. So I decided to just restore from the backup I created earlier.
So, the usual stuff. Wipe. Restore. Restart.
Seems to be going smoothly because my wife was happy to see the old ROM she was used to.
Until the phone started to restart on it's own. (It's pretty much downhill from here on out).
At first I thought it was just a random thing that probably would never happen again. I was wrong as it became more frequent as days went by.
Recently I can't just restart the phone, I would have to remove the battery and then restart it. Now, it's getting really hard to restart the phone. Please help me fix this. I prefer to leave the phone rooted, but if the fix unroots the phone then so be it, anyway my wife prefers the stock ROM so only the unlocking was necessary.
Metro PCS Samsung Galaxy S4 M919N
Recovery:
TWRP 2.6.3.1
ROMs:
Stock Metro PCS
CyanogenMod 10.2.1
Let me know if you need more information from me. Hopefully I can restart the phone so I can give you some version numbers.
Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with Elesbb. If the goal is jus tto get back to stock, just do an odin flash of the stock ROM. Be advised if you flash the latest Kit Kay update you will nto be able to go back to Jelly Bean. From your post it seems like you are partial to Jelly Bean. So if that's what you want, but sure you use the stock 4.3 ROM. You can find it around here on XDA somewhere with a quick search to make sure you have the right one.
As Elesbb said, you won't loose the 'sim unlock'. But you will lose root. However you can root the stock ROM just fine.
You might also consider one of the myriad of TouchWiz based custom ROMs. They are look just like TouchWiz that your wife wants, but have a lot of optimizations and options in them. Those should flash just like any ROM. If you still get the reboot issue then do the Odin back to stock, reroot, then flash the custom TW roms.
---------- Post added at 12:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:45 PM ----------
Thread cleaned.
Rather than bashing a ROM or user let's keep on topic and help the OP resolved the problems he's having. Arguing over the virtues of a ROM doesn't help anyone.
Thank you,
Rwilco12
Before posting this thread I sent the aforementioned guide's poster (arocker). He sent me a reply saying not to use gapps as the stock ROM for Metro PCS already comes with Google apps. I'll try his suggestion first and see if the phone still reboots a lot.
If the problem persists, I will try the solutions mentioned here. Thanks a lot!
elesbb said:
I didn't read everything but just wanted to say
VERY GOOD THREAD!
this is how threads should be done. Very descriptive, organized, told us everything you did and asked for help! Good job man! Only negative is it prolly should have gone in Q&A section but irregardless very good thread!
About your issue, I recommend flashing stock Odin tar file to everything back to stock and reroot and start over. Flashing stock will not lock it again it will remain unlocked. But should get you back up and fresh. Just be aware it will erase all your data and all of the internal SD card.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After trying arocker's suggestion to not flash gapps, the phone still reboots. So now, I am going to try your solution guys.
But before I do, I want to make sure that I am on the correct paths/links.
Here's what I found for the following:
ODIN
forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/themes-apps/27-08-2013-odin-3-09-odin-1-85-versions-t2189539
I've had a couple of chances to use ODIN but only using specific functions like flashing a recovery file while the phone is in download mode. I don't however have any experience using ODIN to put the phone back to stock where the phone gets unrooted. Having the phone unrooted is fine by me as I only needed to have the phone unlocked.
Any step-by-step guides for using ODIN for this specific purpose guys? I don't want to mess this up again.
Thanks and sorry for the trouble.
dokgu said:
After trying arocker's suggestion to not flash gapps, the phone still reboots. So now, I am going to try your solution guys.
But before I do, I want to make sure that I am on the correct paths/links.
Here's what I found for the following:
ODIN
forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/themes-apps/27-08-2013-odin-3-09-odin-1-85-versions-t2189539
I've had a couple of chances to use ODIN but only using specific functions like flashing a recovery file while the phone is in download mode. I don't however have any experience using ODIN to put the phone back to stock where the phone gets unrooted. Having the phone unrooted is fine by me as I only needed to have the phone unlocked.
Any step-by-step guides for using ODIN for this specific purpose guys? I don't want to mess this up again.
Thanks and sorry for the trouble.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No trouble at all, check out the stickies in the beginning of threads.
Look for guides similar to this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335109
Pp. Good luck.
sent from my bluetooth controlled toaster.
PanchoPlanet said:
No trouble at all, check out the stickies in the beginning of threads.
Look for guides similar to this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335109
Pp. Good luck.
sent from my bluetooth controlled toaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello PanchoPlanet,
Thanks for the link. I went ahead and tried to unroot without Windows (Mobile Odin) as per the instructions on the link. I downloaded everything and went ahead to install the Mobile Odin APK. When I ran it to install the Flash Kernel, the app told me that the device is not supported.
To my understanding the guide is for M919 devices but should work for my wife's device as well (M919N - Metro PCS). I would like to try the guide for using Windows but I'm not really expecting for it to work or I might mess it up more. I'll try to search some more and provide the links where this forum will lead me to. But if you have any ideas, please let me know asap. Thanks!
PanchoPlanet said:
No trouble at all, check out the stickies in the beginning of threads.
Look for guides similar to this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2335109
Pp. Good luck.
sent from my bluetooth controlled toaster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, here's what I found:
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2446497
It seems like the perfect thread for what I am trying to achieve. Will let you guys know if it is successful. But it will have to wait for tomorrow. Gonna catch some sleep.
Okay, I'm running out of options. I was able to flash the stock ROM using Odin 3.07. The recovery looks like it came back to the stock recovery as I no longer have TWRP installed. When I install Root Checker, I see that I am no longer rooted. That's good.
But my original problem is still here. The phone reboots a lot. The phone is so unstable that it is barely usable.
I am now going to try one more thing.
I have a Galaxy S4 (I337M) from Rogers Canada (my wife has Metro PCS M919N). Mine got rooted and has CyanogenMod 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. My phone is working perfectly while hers reboots a lot. I was thinking it was because of a faulty battery. So I am doing an experiment by swapping the batteries. So far no reboots have occurred, but I will continue to monitor this.
Any ideas why the battery is kinda messed up?
This thread talks about battery stuff and reboots:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/530338/20131216/samsung-galaxy-s4-problems.htm
Batteries can go bad a lot of ways. Extreme temperature, factory defect, phone drops, moisture, etc.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Android_Monsters said:
This thread talks about battery stuff and reboots:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/530338/20131216/samsung-galaxy-s4-problems.htm
Batteries can go bad a lot of ways. Extreme temperature, factory defect, phone drops, moisture, etc.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And 100% of the time, they eventually just get old.
dokgu said:
Okay, I'm running out of options. I was able to flash the stock ROM using Odin 3.07. The recovery looks like it came back to the stock recovery as I no longer have TWRP installed. When I install Root Checker, I see that I am no longer rooted. That's good.
But my original problem is still here. The phone reboots a lot. The phone is so unstable that it is barely usable.
I am now going to try one more thing.
I have a Galaxy S4 (I337M) from Rogers Canada (my wife has Metro PCS M919N). Mine got rooted and has CyanogenMod 10.2.1 as a custom ROM. My phone is working perfectly while hers reboots a lot. I was thinking it was because of a faulty battery. So I am doing an experiment by swapping the batteries. So far no reboots have occurred, but I will continue to monitor this.
Any ideas why the battery is kinda messed up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a wierd situation, by swapping batteries you basically performed a battery pull, which acts as a reset, that in it self may have cleared your issue.
Now if battery is bad that could be an unusual problem. Maybe just replacing the battery will be the end of your mystery.
Pp.
sent from my P5113 using TouchPal mind control keyboard. (Beta)
The battery should be brand new as the phone was just recently purchased this April.
Anyways, so far no reboots have happened and any instability has not been shown at all. Everything looks ok, yet.
Anyone know if it is safe to swap batteries? Our phones have different S4 models. I'm not sure what the implications would be. Also what is this battery pull which acts as a reset? We've been pulling the battery a lot of times but the reboot still happens but not when we swapped batteries.
The batteries are all the same. Don't worry about that.
Even if its a new battery if could have just been bad. A manufacturing defect perhaps.
Sent from your phone. You should be more careful where you leave that thing.
dokgu said:
The battery should be brand new as the phone was just recently purchased this April.
Anyways, so far no reboots have happened and any instability has not been shown at all. Everything looks ok, yet.
Anyone know if it is safe to swap batteries? Our phones have different S4 models. I'm not sure what the implications would be. Also what is this battery pull which acts as a reset? We've been pulling the battery a lot of times but the reboot still happens but not when we swapped batteries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This battery thing is wacky, anyway swapping batteries should not be a problem, it's just an energy storage container. Pulling the battery isn't like powering down the phone or resetting/rebooting ,sometimes devs request a battery pull to get the proper wipe effect that reboots can't provide.
You inadvertently solved your problem by accident. That's a good thing.
Pp.
sent from my P5113 using TouchPal mind control keyboard. (Beta)
PanchoPlanet said:
You inadvertently solved your problem by accident. That's a good thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have quite literally solved the vast majority of my problems this way.
Its a preferred method.
Sent from your phone. You should be more careful where you leave that thing.
Sometimes it's that "total disconnect "of power that kind of gets all the ducks lined up in a row and everything flows in the dynaflow.
Good.
Pp.
sent from my P5113 using TouchPal mind control keyboard. (Beta)
its very important topics and it might seen for every galaxy s4 users.just wonderful topics.
This exact same thing happened on my mother's 6-month old S3. If you're still wondering, you could try putting the old battery and running a CPU stress test app. It should increase the current draw and trigger a shutdown.
EDIT: whoops, sorry to kind of zombie. Didn't check the date.
Sent from my Galaxy S4

[Q] Bricking Issues

Three times now I have bricked my Samsung S3 (SGH-T999) by flashing a new Rom that should work ok. I flashed my recovery with Multiboot v2.11 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2684052). Booted into Recovery, created the new Rom, selected the new Rom, installed the new Rom and attempted to boot into th new Rom. at that poin t my phone went dark, it would not power up no matter what I did. Plugged in I would see the object "qhsusb_dload" in the Device Manager (Windows 7). From there I learned it was bricked. I have been able to recover in all instances
Can anyone possibly shed some light on what might be going on??
Thanks,
Robert
First thing I'm noticing is you are using multi boot for the I747. Probably doesn't matter much but you really can't know for sure. We gave our own multi boot thread btw.
The only other thing is the roms. You need to tell us exactly what you flashed, how you flashed and what recovery you used. (Links can be a big help so we don't have to spend extra time verifying that we understand correctly which ones you are referring to.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
DocHoliday77 said:
First thing I'm noticing is you are using multi boot for the I747. Probably doesn't matter much but you really can't know for sure. We gave our own multi boot thread btw.
The only other thing is the roms. You need to tell us exactly what you flashed, how you flashed and what recovery you used. (Links can be a big help so we don't have to spend extra time verifying that we understand correctly which ones you are referring to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doc,
Thanks for your reply. My phone is a Samsung S3 (SGH-T999 T-Mobile). To start with, I already had TWRP 2.8 installed.
I followed this link for a starting point: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2646528
Recovery File: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?w=files&flid=12831 (d2tmo-twrp2.7-mb-v2.11.zip)
Flashed the new Recovery from the old recovery. No problems installing or using the new recovery.
I had tried Android Revolution HD from (http://joyofandroid.com/10-best-custom-roms-samsung-galaxy-s3/) and soon realized that was for the i9300. Needless to say that bricked my phone the first time. Flashed everything back to stock.
Next I tried FlashingDroid from the same link as above with the same results.
In the Multiboot TWRP 2.7 I would simply do the following:
- Create the Rom Space using the img option
- Set the Rom to the newly created space.
- Flash the new Rom.
- Set Boot to new Rom.
All seemed to go ok, but when it rebooted it was bricked. My phone would not power on either on battery or plugged in. When plugged in I would see an unloaded device named "qhsusb_dload". From what I briefly read on that, it is a very distinct indication that your phone is bricked.
From that point I would image my sd card with a debrick image, reboot into download mode and reflash back to stock...
If there is a better way, please direct me to the correct docs.
Thanks,
Robert
I tried yet again from a fresh flash with the same results. Somethings not right can anyone shed some light on what I might do to be able to use this Multiboot option?
Robert
Never heard of "FlashingDroid" but it is also an i9300 rom. The ONLY roms you should be using are ones in our Development and Original Development sections. Everything in our forums here is as safe as your going to get. (There's always some risk when flashing). I highly recommend Against flashing anything from any other site or Google search.
I didn't look to verify, but I'm betting every rom on that page you linked is for the i9300. Pretty much every time you see something about the S3 online, they are talking about the i9300. They will specifically refer to the model number and/or carrier otherwise.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
Doc,
What I really do not understand is how this is bricking my phone. One would think if I reset the Multiboot options back to Internal away from the new Rom I created that it would still be able to boot my original Rom? Isn't that one of the reasons to have a Multiboot feature?
Robert
I'm not completely sure on that one tbh. I do know that just because it's not internal and it's on your SD card, those i9300 roms are not going to work. (I don't use multi boot so I'm not really well versed on how it all works, but if it has to symlink partitions for example, when you try to reboot to the internal rom it would need to reset those links, but if they are linked to the wrong partitions, it probably wouldn't boot at all. Keep in mind that is more a guess, but the logic seems right to me.
Bricks occur because when flashing an i9300 rom, it flashes the kernel to the wrong partition. (One of the bootloaders if I remember right). So if it does operate using symlinks, it'll try to access the bootloader and will get redirected to the i9300 kernel resulting in the inability to boot.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
I never heard of multiboot what is it? Is it like a custom recovery. By the way I heard the best custom recovery that is really safe is ClockworkMod you can even flash it as a zip so that it isn't permanent. Bit I'm using it and I haven't found anything wrong with it so far. It even tells you when the ROM isn't the right one for your phone. (Status 7) so that you don't brick your phone.
Just wanted to give you a heads up.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using XDA Free mobile app
I highly suggest reading all the stickied threads for starters. Multi boot has its own thread in development. Cwm is not the only recovery, none are permanent (in the way I'm guessing you referred to it) and all will throw status errors when necessary. All the recoveries are good. Just comes down to personal preference.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

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