Develop Bugs

Can't restore or even lock bootloader... Bricked?

I've been lurking for quite some time and haven't been able to find a solution for my issue. Here's what happened:
I cracked the screen on my Galaxy Nexus and got an insurance replacement. I then used ClockworkMod Recovery to copy over from my old device to my new device. All was good for about 12 hours when the new device started boot looping with the flashy color animation screen. I figured that might have been something I did, so I tried doing a factory reset and the like with ClockworkMod Recovery and managed to totally mess the phone. After trying to do a factory reset, the phone wouldn't boot up at all anymore -- I just get the dreaded red triangle with exclamation point. I tried formatting all the partitions with ClockworkMod (which was a bad idea). Ever since then, I've been stuck. I've spent several days so far trying to get this thing working. I have to note that Odin and fastboot modes work perfectly fine.
Among things I've tried unsuccessfully:
Flash to stock using Odin
--Odin says everything is fine, when I flash with a stock ROM that I downloaded. Upon reboot, nothing is any better and I still get the red triangle/exclamation point.
--When I try to use the tar files that ClockworkMod generated, Odin crashes immediately.
Push custom ROMs to /sdcard/ using adb while booted into ClockworkMod in hopes of getting the system to boot.
--This never works successfully. Sometimes I get no error but can't find the zip file. Other times I'll get an I/O error, or even a read-only error. The original backup is giving me checksum errors.
Flash factory ROMs using fastboot.
--I always get the red triangle/exclamation point.
Restore and flash with WUG's toolkit.
--Same thing as when I try to use fastboot. It seems that flashing the device goes fine, but the device will still not boot.
After every time I've flashed the device, whether using Odin or fastboot, I've tried doing a factory reset by pressing power+vol up+vol down and then selecting factory reset. This hasn't made any difference.
I'm about to give up on it and send the device back to the nameless insurance company, but I would like to lock the bootloader first. I can't even seem to lock the bootloader! In fastboot, I type the usual 'fastboot oem lock', and the device reports that it is locked, but after rebooting, the device always reverts back to having an unlocked bootloader.
Have I missed anything? Any thoughts? I'm lost.

Fyi, the red exclamation point is the stock recovery screen.
Try following the instructions in the "flash" link in my sig.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

As well, issue the following commands when in fastboot:
Fastboot erase system
Fastboot erase userdata <- this will wipe by the way, including/sdcard
Fastboot erase boot
Fastboot erase recovery
Fastboot erase cache
And then flash the images in fastboot.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Thanks a ton for the helpful info -- I hadn't tried flashing userdata and system using that method before, and your write-up was definitely one of the more helpful I've seen.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have helped. I used the factory 4.0.2 mysid/toro image on the link you provided. While flashing, the system seems to work absolutely fine, but it just reboots into recovery at the end.
I followed your instructions twice, including erasing the partitions. Also, after each try, I've tried doing a factory reset from recovery and then rebooting (after trying to boot a couple times), though none of this helped.

enginerrd said:
Thanks a ton for the helpful info -- I hadn't tried flashing userdata and system using that method before, and your write-up was definitely one of the more helpful I've seen.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have helped. I used the factory 4.0.2 mysid/toro image on the link you provided. While flashing, the system seems to work absolutely fine, but it just reboots into recovery at the end.
I followed your instructions twice, including erasing the partitions. Also, after each try, I've tried doing a factory reset from recovery and then rebooting (after trying to boot a couple times), though none of this helped.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you've flashed the system, userdata and boot images using fastboot, and you are still not able to boot into Android, I can only suspect that you have either a corrupt bootloader or a hardware issue.
And if odin does not work, then unfortunately I would suspect that there is a hardware issue.

This sounds like what happened to my phone as well. Someone else had it happen too. That's 3 nexus's in a week. Mine didn't even last 2 months.
I have a thread about mine and another user posted another thread a day or 2 ago. Mine boots into the system but is not erasable, not writable. Can't lock my boot loader. I've tried odin, adb, everything possible. I wish we could start a lawsuit because Samsung won't help me. I'm in the US and it's a gsm nexus that was purchased before the play store sold it. USA wont accept an international phone and UK Samsung won't take a phone from overseas. Basically they said I'm sh*t outta luck.

Thanks again for the help. I'm going to bite the bullet and just call the insurance company and try to send it back as a defective device. Hopefully they don't rake me over the coals.
I'll post back with an update as to how that goes.

You guys need to learn how to use fastboot and adb commands correctly to restore google's stock images.
Stop realying on toolkits thinking it will help you.
Also learning that the Red Exclamation Android is stock recovery!
Press the Power and Vol Up button will get you the stock recovery menu options to come up!
Not to be mean, BUT I hope the insurance company denies you, you totally screwed up the phone yourself.

I did not screw my phone up myself. My phone was never even rooted. I know very well how to issue adb commands and install images. Learn what you are talking about before you jump onto people or come across as a total di*khead

Alright, replacement phone is on the way. Thanks again for the help. I tend to think it is a hardware issue because of how the issue originally presented itself, but I'm still pretty new to the Android platform. It seemed to me that a watchdog timer was timing out or something similar.
Perhaps this will be the push I needed to start developing Android hardware/software... I'm all about embedded systems and would like to move beyond basic ucontrollers.

[Q] VERY weird issue, can't identify whether it's hardware or software.

First let me say that I have searched and searched but have not been able to find anybody talking about the issue my GSM Galaxy Nexus is having.
First thing's first: I'm running the developer preview of Jellybean still, I never got around to re-flashing it. I am not worried about losing any of the data on the phone, instead I'm much more concerned with simply getting the phone back in running order.
I was using the phone, the screen flashed and it rebooted. This was the beginning of my troubles. Ever since then, the phone boots up fine. Within a minute or so of reaching the lock screen, the screen flashes again and it proceeds to reboot. Here's where it gets weird. I've tried countless things, getting more and more serious as time went on. The last thing I've tried is simply fastboot flashing everything, but it doesn't take. I flashed the bootloader, boot, recovery, userdata, radio, system, (not in that order, of course) the whole nine yards, and everything appears to be successful, but it simply doesn't work. After flashing everything, I should not have unread emails on three accounts, an alarm set, the time still configured to 24-hour clock, my apps installed, my home screen organized, etc... I only get a short window each time the phone finishes booting, but it's long enough to tell that it didn't wipe anything. I've tried wiping from CWM and TWRP, but the same thing still happens.
And here's where it gets REALLY weird. I tried 'fastboot oem lock'. It says "Locked" until I reboot, at which point it is once again 'unlocked'.
Flashing my partitions, locking and unlocking, none of it has any effect.
Please, anybody have a clue?
I've been a long-time reader of the forums, but never registered until now for this. I wish I was registering for a happier reason. I'd send it back to Samsung, but I can't even re-lock my bootloader!
EDIT: I forgot to mention, I verified the md5 of the stock (straight from google) rom I was trying to flash, it checked out. I tried the stock ICS rom as well, I couldn't flash it at first because flashing the bootloader and radio didn't stick (surprise surprise) so the "fastboot -w update" didn't recognize them and gave me an error. I flashed the images in the zip manually, but got the same overall effect, nothing sticks, but no errors are generated. Everything appears to work. Also, I tried fastbooting from a different laptop, but nothing happened any different.

It sound like it could be faulty nand memory . If fast boot doesn't work The next step would be trying to flash via odin & if that fails omap flash. Look for the odin & omap links at the bootom of efrant's Android for Galaxy Nexus Guide

agreed, seems likely that is a hw issue. still, it would be nice to try and get omapflash to work. i posted a few links in some other post let me see if i can find it and link it here.
edit: cant seem to find it right now. it was in a thread that the op just had the screen with the pc linking to the phone, not even fastboot (i think)
sent from my i9250

3rdstring said:
It sound like it could be faulty nand memory . If fast boot doesn't work The next step would be trying to flash via odin & if that fails omap flash. Look for the odin & omap links at the bootom of efrant's Android for Galaxy Nexus Guide
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just got my hands on my brother's windows box so I could give these a shot. I'd never played with ODIN, but it looked simple enough. I gave it a tarball, it completed flashing successfully ("PASS!"). It all looked good, I got excited, and all for nothing. I was flashing an ICS tar (IMM76D) over a JB installation, and yet after reboot I still had a JB install. I don't know where the ICS went, if it went anywhere. Something weird is obviously going on. Is there a more low-level bootloader I can flash using the "BOOTLOADER" button in ODIN? I used the PDA button as per the tutorials, but, like I said, it didn't help. It flashed bootloader, boot, recovery, system, and radio. How about "PIT"? Is there a PIT tar I can flash? Or anything else, PHONE, CSC, I'll try just about anything.
Another thing I forgot to mention, when writing the system and userdata images in particular, it tends to take a long time. According to ODIN, it took 23:39 I guess (I'm not sure that's the elapsed time, but it sounds about right).
I guess it's on to the OMAP technique , after a little more ODIN research.
bk201doesntexist: At second thought, it seems like something lower-level than ODIN and Fastboot is the problem, since I understand that ODIN works independently of Fastboot to do its job. I suppose that means that it's unlikely ODIN can do anything to help, and I should probably jump straight to OMAP.
EDIT: Just tried the OMAP flash deal, followed by the same ODIN flash I did before. Still no change in anything, really, except that on one of the screens I noticed that it identifies itself as a tuna, when I think it used to say maguro. At first I freaked, thinking that I had just made my phone think it's the VZW version, but then I remembered that's toro, not tuna.
Is anybody comfortable enough to use ODIN to pull a complete dump of everything from the phone, so that I might try flashing that on to see if I can get anywhere? Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know how I would flash that, after all. I don't understand enough about ODIN yet.
I thought it was supposed to be pretty hard to screw up a Galaxy Nexus this bad (assuming that this is my doing, and not a hardware fault). Any more ideas? I'm really not looking forward to calling Samsung with an unlocked bootloader.

[Q] my phone isn't booting up all the way

For some reason my phone isn't booting up all the way to the rom/OS. It gets stuck on the boot animation and goes on forever and hasn't been able to boot up since yesterday, when my powered off at 20% battery, which is something normal for my phone. I was rooted and on android 4.3/MK4, but when I put it to charge and tried booting it back up, the phone would boot up, but would get stuck on the boot animation, going on forever. It wouldn't freeze it would just continue to play the animation. I tried removing the battery, factory wiping it, and installing a new rom, which I found out was for a different baseband. When i finished installing it it still wouldn't boot up all the way through.:crying: I then tried installing the previous rom, and still no good. After all that I installed a stock firmware using odin, hoping it would work. I installed the 4.4.2 NE2 firmware, which isn't for my phone but watching zedomax's video, he said to download the latest build date, which is what I did. Well, downloaded it and flashed it through Odin with a PASS and everything going good. Although, when it was rebooting-even after a factory and cache wipe-it still wouldn't boot up. I tried installing other firmwares aswell, but still no luck. I'm just waiting for it to finally boot up, so if anyone can help me out, I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT, otherwise, anything is going to help at this point. Since I flashed the firmware, I now have a stock recovery and rom(I hope). I've been through these types of situations, but not to this point.. :crying:

It seems odds, but you may want to try a new battery. I recently went through a total disaster with my device and it ultimately was the battery. You may want to try booting with it connected to the a/c wall charger. It may give you an indication.

Have you tried the quick fix posted? My phone did the same thing when i had the stock recovery it showed error mounting efs folder. I noticed after installing clockwork that error didnt show up. It was still the same problem though. Wouldnt hurt to check it out. I got my note two from a friend who described the issue starting the same way you said happend to yours. The phone had never been rooted though. Good luck to you in trying to fix it.
Sent from my SM-T217S using XDA Free mobile app

Soft brick that wont go away - stock firmware uneffective

So my issue is pretty similar, see what you guys think. i been trying everything i can think of.
i updated from xtrestolite 2.1 to 2.2 with out wiping. everything worked fine except when i would make calls, the other people could not hear me. so i updated the bootloader and modem again (i had done it before) and the problem persisted. i flashed back to stock and was getting stuck at the s6 edge screen. the only way to get around this was and get my phone to boot was to flash aou kernel. i was still having a similar issue with calling so I download a modem from a diffrent server and all of a sudden, it was working again on stock firmware... AWESOME!
now that i had all that done and my phone working as it should, i reset my phone for the first time and i got the FRP lock, wont boot phone because custom kernel. GREAT
I then flashed stock of6 again, the tar ball, and the 4 piece version. no dice
i then found of8, tried to flash that still no dice.
id love to flash twrp and load a rom on, but FRP is a alsjdflajs.
the phone will flash successfully, but upon reboot, it will go into recovery, run its course, reboot, and get stuck that the galaxy s6 edge screen.
i use the vol and power click during recovery to see what its doing and everything seems to go fine. it will then say failed to mount /data. im hoping flashing this with the pit file will work, but i cannot download the pit file from my work computer (hahah its blocks on 4shard and mega).
anyone have any other advice? i will update if i figure it out.
Regards team,
-Mad
p.s. none of this is xtrestolite's fault, that rom has been nothing but good to me.. my phone has been picky though. after 5.1.1 i had to flash a custom kernel in order for the digitizer to function properly.... any help is appriciated guys.

SO UPDATE!
nothing good, i tried the pit with of6 and of8, no dice. still stuck.
anyone got a s6 edge w a broken screen? you can claim it lost for all i care.

no one?
i guess if anything past flash stock firmware people dont know? was hoping for alittle more insight.
im sure if i could flash a kernel i could get it to turn on, but FRP has be at bay...

no help for you bro...Samsung just needs to release there software fixing for this comunity...I'm looking a for a dev to answer my question in this section about just flashing zip files in twrp instead of using odin or whatever other methods that can avoid all these problems that are all similar...hopefully in next few months it will be addressed

Hey mate, try this...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=61531848
Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk 2

holy... fu34%# /S45it.... IT BOOT?!
after flashing every firmware 100000 times...
THANK YOU!

I initially used odin to flash OI1 update, after a rom I was using caused problems and I got bootloop. It changed bootloader value to b:3 and I'm unable to downgrade now so I used smart switch which didn't recognize device so used emergency recovery and still bootloop. I have factory reset and wipe cache multiple times along with adb side load and individual flashes of bootloader, modem, kernel, flashed custom kernel and twrp to access fix permissions and to mount partitions with advanced wipe etc and still wont boot past logo. Also during one fix attempt phone said can't mount system.. Idk I'm not understanding where the problem is .everything says successful but I'm still in bootloop. Please help. I've spent hours everyday for the past week searching & trying different things that seem might help so open to any suggestions.

Failed to mount /data and frozen after factory reset, HELP!

I have what's probably a unique situation, though I hope not. For background info, I bought two I747s, one white and one blue, each with issues, but I intended to put parts together to end up with one good one.
When I did a factory reset on the blue one via the recovery menu, it returned a bunch of errors along the lines of "failed to mount /data." Then when it rebooted it would hang on the Samsung logo. Back in recovery mode it returns more of the same errors just booting into recovery mode, and factory reset still returns more of the same errors and doesn't fix anything. I flashed 4.3 with Odin in an attempt to fix it, but I got the boards mixed up, and that one had 4.4 on it, not 4.1 like I thought. I'm pretty sure it's hard bricked now (that whole can't downgrade thing) because it's unresponsive to everything. Though my computer does recognize that it's plugged in, more on that later.
So I figured, fine, I screwed up, I'll just use the other board with 4.1 on it from the white phone. Except when I did a factory reset on that one, it did the exact same thing! Same errors, same problem stuck at the Samsung logo. Except this time I'm not flashing sh*t until I know exactly what I need to do to fix it. In another post where the guy had the same issue with 4.1.1, it was solved by flashing 4.3 with Odin. And another post where the guy had no idea what version he had, he just knew it was lower than 4.3, his problem was also solved by flashing 4.3, But since my last efforts failed miserably, I'm very reluctant to try it until I get some knowledgeable input. I don't remember exactly which version is on there, it's 4.1.something. I'd also prefer not to upgrade beyond 4.1 because I'd like to unlock it and from what I'm reading you can only do it for free if you're on 4.1. So I guess I need a link to an Odin flashable 4.1 package?
As for the poor blue phone that used to have 4.4.something, and was mistakenly flashed with 4.3, I've heard about JTAG but I don't quite understand it, and I'm not sure it would work in my case since a lot of what I'm reading says that bricking which occurs from downgrading is often unfixable. However, Windows recognizes that a device is plugged in when I attach it via USB. It shows up in the Device Manager as QHSUSB_DLOAD. I am currently researching more on this and the method of booting from an SD card, except I don't have an SD card reader at the moment.
Any assistance, advice, links, information, and plain ole encouragement are always welcome and appreciated.

For the phone running 4.1, flash any stock rom in Odin. After flashing, boot into recovery and perform a factory reset, then boot the phone and use the free method to sim unlock. The important thing is to have the stock 4.1.1 dialler in order to access the hidden menu options?
For home hard bricked phone, you will have to try the debrick image method. If it doesn't work, a jtag service should be able to force flash a rom to the phone.

Wow, that was like a crazy fast reply!
What if the phone is 4.1.2? Can I still flash 4.1.1? I'm on the hunt for a 4.1.1 stock rom now.

Yes, you can flash 4.1.1 from 4.1.2.

audit13 said:
Yes, you can flash 4.1.1 from 4.1.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently not always. I downloaded and flashed 4.1.1 with Oden 3.07, it rebooted, showed the android image like it was updating, progress bar finished, and then it just went blank. Now both phones are in the same condition of being hard bricked and showing QHSUSB_DLOAD in the device manager.

This is strange. I have downgraded approximately 10 i747m phones from 4.1.2 to 4.1.1, unlocked using the free method, and re-flashed back to 4.1.2 after unlocking.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2371897
What options did you check in Odin? Where did you get the 4.1.1 ROM? I ask because the stock ATT 4.1.1 rom was apparently removed from sammobile.com.
How did you confirm that the phone was running 4.1.2?

I checked only auto reboot in Odin.
I found this link sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SGH-I747/ in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-att/help/downgrade-att-running-stock-4-4-2-rom-t3170938 , 7th post
The download was going absurdly slow, so I googled the exact file name being downloaded which was, I747UCDLK3_I747ATTDLK3_ATT, and found a google drive link at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_UTWXKFnZoNVFdSVjJEZlMwZjA/edit which was the first result after searching for the file name if that link doesn't work. I'm downloading the slow one now to compare it to the one I got from google drive.
I'm unsure if the phone was 4.1.1 or 4.1.2, that's why I asked if it's possible to flash 4.1.1 on top of 4.1.2. I was only trying to do a factory reset originally and had no intentions of flashing anything. I just wanted to wipe out all the crap on it from the previous user so I had only glanced at the version out of curiosity to see if it was unlockable via the free method. I remember it was 4.1.something.
I have an SD card reader on order. Hopefully I'll be able to unbrick one of them.
Do you, or anyone else, have any idea why a simple factory reset would cause errors like I described and then hang on reboot? At that point both phones were 100% factory and I hadn't done anything to them except put a battery in them to power them on. I've done a factory reset on four other S3s and this didn't happen.

It is definitely possible to flash 4.1.1 over 4.1.2 because the bootloader could not be downgraded until the mjb version.

That's what I've been reading. So where did I go wrong? Any idea why a factory reset would screw up like that?

Did you confirm the bootloader before flashing?

audit13 said:
Did you confirm the bootloader before flashing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, because I had no intentions of flashing it when I tried to do a factory reset. Then after that went bad it wouldn't boot, and I don't know how to check the boatloader when a phone will only go into recovery mode.

Where did you see reference to 4.1? It's possible that the modem or baseband was 4.1 but the bootloader was 4.3.

Under about device and then Android version. The one where if you tap it a lot you get the jellybean android that pops up. It wasn't the baseband version because that's a much longer number with the model number in it.

That screen doesn't tell you the bootloader.

As I said, I didn't check for the bootloader version before I ran into trouble because I only wanted to do a factory reset and I didn't intend to flash anything. I wouldn't imagine that it would have a different bootloader than the OS version unless that can happen without any user intervention because the previous owner was only concerned with selfies and games. She certainly didn't modify anything.

I cant explain what happened. This has never happened to me after flashing about 10 phones.

I believe it has something to do with the errors that were produced while trying to do a factory reset. What bothers me is that both phones did the exact same thing. Normally I'd say it was something I did, except that I didn't do anything but put a battery in them, boot up, find lots of junk installed, and then attempt a factory reset. On the first phone, I rebooted into recovery and tried it from there. On the second phone I tried it from inside the OS. Same results on both. The phones ran fine before that.
Any advice on how to do the boot from an SD card, or how to do the JTAG thing? I've been reading a lot but the information jumps around a lot. I'm comfortable with soldering and have an IT background if that helps.

It's possible that the recovery was corrupt or the partitions were corrupt.
Whenever I factory reset a phone, I always boot into recovery to do that, not from within the ROM.
Sounds to me like you did nothing wrong.
Did the previous owner have the phone from the time it was new?
Edit: for the phone that you flashed with 4.1.1, Odin said "pass" in the status window and the it auto rebooted?

audit13 said:
Did the previous owner have the phone from the time it was new?
Edit: for the phone that you flashed with 4.1.1, Odin said "pass" in the status window and the it auto rebooted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know for sure if she had it from new. Yes, for both phones Odin said pass in the window and then it rebooted. I had walked away when Odin finished with the first phone. I came back and it was dead. The second one I watched and it showed the android with the wireframe in his guts and the progress bar which moved across, and then it just went blank.
There were error messages about the partitions when I did the factory reset IIRC. Perhaps the recovery or the partition was corrupted like you said. It's just odd that both had the exact same identical problem with the exact same results. That's why I think that it must have been something I did, except that I didn't DO anything other than initiate a factory reset.

I took an i747m and reflashed stock the Telus 4.4.2 ROM.
In download mode, you should see the green Android guy with the words "Downloading...Do not turn off target" and a blue progress bar moving from left to right.
I did not check reset in Odin. Once it finished flashing the ROM, I removed the USB cable, removed the battery, replaced the battery, and booted the phone. I the Android guy with the wire frame for a few seconds, the screen went blank, and the phone started up with the Samsung logo.
Since you were getting errors with mounting the different partitions, you may have needed to flash the PIT and PDA files but I can't really say for sure as I have never encountered this problem.
I normally verify everything before I use Odin because phones that I have been given to fix have had all sorts of weird configurations.
You'll have to try the debrick guide. of use a jtag service. You could also do what I did and that is to look for people with phones that have a damaged screen and buy they at a steep discount.