Develop Bugs

[Q] Unable to use USB as data connection

Hi,
I have an Xperia Arc with PolygonKK 1.4 custom ROM.
I had a problem similar to what has been reported many times of Xperia S where the phone becomes soft brick if the battery was completely drained, and the phone was not starting or allowing me to recharge the battery. This problem was fixed by charging the battery outside the phone and then plugging it in and starting the phone.
The problem now is that neither my phone or my PC can detect that they are connected via a data cable.
I checked the cable with another phone, it works fine, and I am using the same PC that I have always used to handle my phone (on windows and linux).
When I try to access fastboot mode I see the blue LED but the PC detects nothing
Flash tool does not detect any mode connected (fastboot, ADB, Flash)
I tried cleaning the USB port with no result.
I think now that the port is damaged, but I still have a little hope that this is a software issue, is there a way to know what has happened to the phone?

[Q] Wiped everything with TWRP 2.8.4.0, now softbricked?

So just as the title says, but here's a little back story (might help).
I'm trying to help out a friend with his Bell Mobility i747M. He wanted to try out Lollipop, so I looked into it and said I could do it. Last I even touched his phone was quite a while ago when he wanted me to flash CM11, back when KK was still pretty new. So it's been over a year. I flashed CWM back then, got the ROM installed, and everything has been good ever since. Fast forward to now, and he wants to try Lollipop. I figured the first thing I should do is update the bootloader/radio, which went perfectly fine (after some researching, I chose 4.3/MK5 for his i747M). I tested them by booting back to the ROM and checking About Phone - everything was good. So I booted back to the old version of CWM, and thought it would be a good idea to get a more modern recovery. CWM or TWRP didn't matter, just as long as it was more up to date (I thought it might help with Lollipop compatibility). So I decided on TWRP, and I got the latest version (2.8.4.0 as of now) and flashed it. Successfully flashed, then rebooted recovery. TWRP is there and working. Great. Next step... I had the Lollipop ROM and Gapps already downloaded and ready to go, so in TWRP, I proceeded to wipe everything (system, data, cache, internal sd).
Uh oh... Half way through wiping, the phone reboots itself! Now there's no ROM, so naturally it has nothing to boot to. Try going back to TWRP, and I see the splash screen again. OK, false alarm... Well, not really... Because now it just reboots itself after the splash screen, every time. Can't get into TWRP no matter what! I can access download mode, but Odin doesn't recognize the phone. Yes, I have the drivers. In fact, the device isn't detected by Windows at all.
So here we are. Download mode boots, but Odin doesn't work because there's no communication through USB at all. There's no ROM on the phone because it was wiped. And TWRP won't boot beyond the splash screen.... Now what?? I tried the 80MB MK5 debricking .img on a 64GB microSD. It does nothing - besides, USB isn't reading anyway, so it's not like I can proceed with Odin.
I'm at a stalemate here... Any suggestions?
My friend's gonna kill me if I killed his phone I'm pretty experienced with several devices, but not much with Samsung. I've never seen anything like this happen before...

When connecting to the computer, have you tried different USB 2.0 ports and USB cables? Have you tried different computers? Different operating systems?
Is the phone recognized using adb or fastboot commands?

audit13 said:
When connecting to the computer, have you tried different USB 2.0 ports and USB cables? Have you tried different computers? Different operating systems?
Is the phone recognized using adb or fastboot commands?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I figured that would be the case. Just about done downloading Ubuntu which I'll boot from USB. I'll post back with results once that's ready. I should have it booted within 10 minutes. Once I get there and verify the phone connects, what would be my next step? Should I try flashing stock 4.3 first?

I would confirm the bootloader that is on the phone before flashing anything from sammobile.com.
You may be able to use fastboot commands to get the information by typing fastboot getvar all.

OK, in Linux now. ADB/fastboot won't connect. Tried different USB ports and cables, ones that I know work. No luck...
The only thing I can boot to in the phone is Download mode, so that's where I'm trying from.
For the record, ADB picks up my Nexus 5, so I know it's all set up right.
I'm gonna retry the debrick img, using dd to write it this time.

Bloodflame said:
OK, in Linux now. ADB/fastboot won't connect. Tried different USB ports and cables, ones that I know work. No luck...
The only thing I can boot to in the phone is Download mode, so that's where I'm trying from.
For the record, ADB picks up my Nexus 5, so I know it's all set up right.
I'm gonna retry the debrick img, using dd to write it this time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No luck. wrote to the SD successfully, and it just boots to download mode. Nothing else.
ADB and fastboot still do nothing

Maybe the phone's USB port is flaky?
Have you tried Kies to see if it recognizes the phone?

audit13 said:
Maybe the phone's USB port is flaky?
Have you tried Kies to see if it recognizes the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have Kies, but I'm doubting that would work anyway. There's absolutely no communication between the computer and phone. Nothing happens when I plug it in. No sound, no indication anything was even plugged in. Running lsusb in a terminal doesn't show the phone either.
Edit: Downloading Heimdall (Linux-compatible Odin)...

Bloodflame said:
I don't have Kies, but I'm doubting that would work anyway. There's absolutely no communication between the computer and phone. Nothing happens when I plug it in. No sound, no indication anything was even plugged in. Running lsusb in a terminal doesn't show the phone either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, forget kies. Sounds like a USB port issue. Does the phone start charging when connected to a power source?

audit13 said:
Okay, forget kies. Sounds like a USB port issue. Does the phone start charging when connected to a power source?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plugging into the wall makes the phone vibrate every couple of seconds, but nothing shows up on screen, and there's no indicator light.
The vibrations lead me to believe it's detecting something, but no indicator light worries me (unless that's just because there's no kernel)
The red light does come on if I plug it in without the battery.
Heimdall fails to detect the device as well (no surprise there)

If the phone was bricked, it would usually be recognized as a some sort of device under Windows' device manager which leads me to conclude that it is a USB port issue.

audit13 said:
If the phone was bricked, it would usually be recognized as a some sort of device under Windows' device manager which leads me to conclude that it is a USB port issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that it is weird, because it's not coming up as a device at all, in either Windows or Linux, yet it does receive power.

I'm guessing here but it appears to me that the only left to try is a debrick image. Is it possible the battery is drained and needs to be charged?

audit13 said:
I'm guessing here but it appears to me that the only left to try is a debrick image. Is it possible the battery is drained and needs to be charged?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The debrick image is what I've been trying. It's on a 64GB microSD. And I made a new one from Linux a few minutes ago (booted back to Windows now).
The battery was about 80% before all this started, and the phone powers on without being plugged in, so I doubt it's the battery.

Maybe you need a different SD card? Based on posts I have seen, it seems that certain brand/size combinations work while others don't.

audit13 said:
Maybe you need a different SD card? Based on posts I have seen, it seems that certain brand/size combinations work while others don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only have one card over 16gb...
Either way, I still have the USB problem. I'll need USB to flash with Odin. The debrick card only seems useful when Download mode isn't working, but that part works fine on the phone, even without the debrick card. My problem is with recovery. If I could run that from the SD, I think I would be fine - just flash a ROM. But I'm not finding anything for that (not surprised).
I thought it could potentially be a corrupt driver, so I tried using USBDeview to uninstall all disconnected devices. I tested it with a portable hard drive, which indeed had to reinstall after. So the program works as intended. However, the phone still isn't detected when I plug it in. No sound, no notification saying it's installing or install failed - absolutely nothing. Power goes to the phone through USB, with multiple cables and USB ports. Just no data connection.
I'm starting to think there's just nothing I can do...

The phone may need a USB port replacement. I know of no way to push recovery to the phone from as SD card without USB capabilities.

audit13 said:
The phone may need a USB port replacement. I know of no way to push recovery to the phone from as SD card without USB capabilities.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Found this, and it's cheap enough... But that shipping!

You'd be better off getting it from China with free shipping. The problem is the amount of time required to get the part.
Maybe contact a cell repair shop to see how much it would cost to have them replace it. Soldering is not my strongest skill

audit13 said:
You'd be better off getting it from China with free shipping. The problem is the amount of time required to get the part.
Maybe contact a cell repair shop to see how much it would cost to have them replace it. Soldering is not my strongest skill
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, doesn't look easy. I already tore down to here, and visibily, it looks OK. I'm not so sure about soldering either :silly:
I appreciate your assistance.

Wont recognize USB or charge. (help!?)

As the title says my phone will not recognize when a usb cable is plugged in. However if I take the battery out and plug in the phone it will boot and begin charging when i replace the battery but as soon as I reboot its right back to not seeing the cable. Ive tried restoring a backup in TWRP from before the issue started and that didnt help. Any Ideas? Also even when I do the battery work around my computer still wont see the device.

Windows will recognize the phone in bootloader mode so I do have access to fastboot commands.

What version of Windows and do you have the LG drivers installed?
Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

Windows 7 and yes i have lg drivers installed. But I dont think that is not the issue here. Its not that the computer wont recognize the phone its that the phone wont recognize a usb cable attachment at all. This has something to do with the phone and apparently its on a really deep level. I have done a full system wipe and even formatted the internal storage then installed the stock 20E update and bootstack and even that didnt help. Ive tried using KDZ to factory restore the phone but for some reason when its in download mode it isnt being read as a LG phone but as a generic ADB device.

Update: so I finally did a full factory restore with the stock recovery and the phone would identify a usb cable plugged in, It was charging with a wall charger and would be read by my computer however as soon as I reboot the phone the problem returns.... so after a wipe all is wel but rebooting breaks the phone again. could something be happening during boot up that would cause the usb port not to register. Im so confused.

Unique USB Data Issue

I have the d2spr with OctOS 7.1.1 installed (from April 2017 I think). This rom has been awesome and I have been able to connect via USB and transfer files in the past but now I cannot. When I plug in USB I always get a charging indication on the phone but no evidence of a data connection either at the phone or the PC. I have the USB mode set to MTP but when I plug in the phone it acts as though I have Charging Only selected. Windows device manager shows no activity. There are no UNKOWN devices listed and the PC shows no sign of hardrive or processor activity when I connect the phone. I have tested with 5 different USB cables and three different PC's. They all behave identically. Additionally I have plugged the phone in while in DOWNLOAD MODE and still the behavior is identical. I have fresh samsung phone drivers installed. One of these PC's have seen this phone before the other two have not. I'm beginning to think my micro usb port on the phone has taken a biff but it has always and still does charged perfectly.
I could try a factory reset but that doesn't seem to jive with getting nothing in DOWNLOAD MODE. I haven't loaded ODIN to see if it sees the phone but even without odin loaded it should still load a bunch of devices in device manager.
EDIT: I have also booted into recovery and it also behaves identically when plugged into the PC - no response but it charges
Any ideas? I have searched the forums but no one I could find has this exact issue of absolutely no response from the PC.
Thanks in advance!

I have had this for quite awhile. USB port is done. It's also a very difficult repair. Now I use flashfire instead of Odin because of this. But flashfire doesn't do bootloader and modems are iffy. So only flashfire a version you are already on (nd8, ndc, etc.)

UPDATE: I was able to adjust the usb cable to just the right position for Odin to see it and was able to flash via Odin. The weird thing is no amount of wiggle gets windows to recognized it. Thanks for your response.

I Guess I Discovered a New Form of Hard Bricking on my Device???

I was running the Developer Preview Beta 2 and noticed that my device would no longer communicate correctly with my OTG usb jump drive, I tried all the normal trouble shooting techniques and nothing worked. I than tried connecting my phone to my computer and my computer would no longer connect to my device either. I didn’t think this was a big deal so I was going to just flash back to the May factory image from my computer.
This did not work, so I did a factory reset in TWRP hoping that this would clear out the issue that was stopping the phone from usb communication. It did not fix the issue. So normally in TWRP I can always plug a flash drive into the phone through the otg and explore the files, however for some reason this was still not possible, something has happened to the device where it no longer allows incoming or outgoing usb communication. The device still charges however it is no longer recognized at all by my computer nor does the device recognize usb drives. I have all the latest USB drivers and updates needed. I uninstalled and reinstalled my drivers on my computer as well. The main issue I feel like I am having here, is that the device no longer wants to communicate with usb asides from charging, this is why it is not seeing the otg storage when I plug it in while I am in TWRP.
I am at a loss, I can boot into twrp and explore the device, this is useless as i deleted all the files on the device, TWRP will not allow a usb to be found so i cannot flash anything to the device. My computer does not see the phone so i cannot fastboot anything to the device. I have tried everything, DUECS script, skipsoft, none of them have identified a device. This is further verified by running cmd and typing in adb devices, to which the response is a blank line.
How can a device be bricked, but somehow have TWRP recovery working, along with the ability to boot the device into fastboot/the bootloader (and yes the bootloader is unlocked still)? If anyone has any ideas of how I can get this thing to be recognized by my computer please let me know.

jasonstackhouse said:
I was running the Developer Preview Beta 2 and noticed that my device would no longer communicate correctly with my OTG usb jump drive, I tried all the normal trouble shooting techniques and nothing worked. I than tried connecting my phone to my computer and my computer would no longer connect to my device either. I didn’t think this was a big deal so I was going to just flash back to the May factory image from my computer.
This did not work, so I did a factory reset in TWRP hoping that this would clear out the issue that was stopping the phone from usb communication. It did not fix the issue. So normally in TWRP I can always plug a flash drive into the phone through the otg and explore the files, however for some reason this was still not possible, something has happened to the device where it no longer allows incoming or outgoing usb communication. The device still charges however it is no longer recognized at all by my computer nor does the device recognize usb drives. I have all the latest USB drivers and updates needed. I uninstalled and reinstalled my drivers on my computer as well. The main issue I feel like I am having here, is that the device no longer wants to communicate with usb asides from charging, this is why it is not seeing the otg storage when I plug it in while I am in TWRP.
I am at a loss, I can boot into twrp and explore the device, this is useless as i deleted all the files on the device, TWRP will not allow a usb to be found so i cannot flash anything to the device. My computer does not see the phone so i cannot fastboot anything to the device. I have tried everything, DUECS script, skipsoft, none of them have identified a device. This is further verified by running cmd and typing in adb devices, to which the response is a blank line.
How can a device be bricked, but somehow have TWRP recovery working, along with the ability to boot the device into fastboot/the bootloader (and yes the bootloader is unlocked still)? If anyone has any ideas of how I can get this thing to be recognized by my computer please let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would try a different cable as this device is very finicky; that solved my issue of the computer not recognizing the phone.

Is it possible that your device's USB port data transfer function is damaged, but the charging portion is functional, making it a weird hardware failure?
You know, like the old days when the charge port would break or wiggle loose, and sometimes it would charge and sometimes it wouldn't, depending on the angle of the cable in the mini usb port?

Az Biker said:
Is it possible that your device's USB port data transfer function is damaged, but the charging portion is functional, making it a weird hardware failure?
You know, like the old days when the charge port would break or wiggle loose, and sometimes it would charge and sometimes it wouldn't, depending on the angle of the cable in the mini usb port?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be nice if that were the problem, but unfortunalty I do not think it is. For example, when the issues first began, before I did the factory reset on the device, windows would pop up a message that said unknown device, and failure to connect. After the factory reset in TWRP the computer gave up all together in recognizing the phone. Another sign it was likely not a hardware failure was when the device was on and i was attempting to connect the otg usb to the phone it would give me some weird options. With android P the options were, allow this device to control the usb, or allow the USB to control the USB. that made no sense to me since why would i want the the USB to have any control, it couldnt do anything its not a computer its only a storage device. However, even though I had file transfer selected in developer options, it would not allow this connection. The options were all greyed out and it would not allow the pixel to have control over the usb device.
As for USB cords I have used without fail the google issued USB cord that came with the Pixel 1 xl, It has never faile me or had any issues. It is still fully functional as I was able to use it to connect my girls note 8 to my computer for file transfers and all other things my phone is not doing anymore.
I reached out to google and explained the situation to them, after i told them I was on Dev preview beta and they verified this to be true they told me this is likely a hardware failure and offered to replace the device. I am now waiting on the new device to be sent to me, however still cant accept that i cant recover the current device with an unlocked bootloader, TWRP installed, and access to fastboot/bootloader screen. I have seriously bricked phones before as in they would not even turn on and I was able to get them back up and running, this would be my first ever device I could not recover and what makes it worse is that it actually has TWRP installed and powers on and off just fine.

Sorry for the obvious question: Do you have the latest drivers? I don't have the drivers set to the whole system (Windows), so if I don't CD into my fastboot folder, I can't do anything because the system wide drivers aren't current. Don't know if that could be your issue?
I'm too lazy to fix the PATH of my drivers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I had an issue similar to this. I was trying to hook up a USB c to Ethernet adapter. It worked fine on April's patch but after I flashed Mays the phone wouldn't recognize it. After I plugged it in my phone rebooted and I no longer had access to developer options and it wouldn't read any usb device. Luckily I had a TWRP backup on my device. Once I flashed the backup which was only about a week old everything worked again. I haven't tried using the adapter again. I think something in the data partition got corrupted. I tried just restoring the boot and system partition and that didn't fix it. Try doing an advance wipe and formatting the data partition. That might get you back up and going.

have we even seen a bricked device yet?

twiz0r said:
have we even seen a bricked device yet?
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Click to collapse
I didn't think it was possible, I still dont understand how this is happening. For the other responses above, I have all the drivers up to date, and I already formatted data, wiped everything. At this point I would like to see if there is anyway to delete TWRP recovery from the device, anything, I have no OS on the device, but for some reason still have TWRP on both A and B.
I almost dont want to give the phone back to Google because I want to figure out what happened and how to fix it, its definitely not broken/bricked like you see when someone flashes the wrong files to a device, it just has no USB connection capabilities which in-turn have rendered the device useless.
When I had Samsung phones if you bricked a device to the point it doesn't even turn on correctly you could always save it still using ODIN. Its weird that the google flagship device and software doesn't have its own proprietary flash software like Samsung, LG and HTC, we just have adb/fastboot, I feel like if we did, i may be able to get this thing started again.

have you tried using something like quickboot from the playstore to be able to get to fastboot?
I had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago on oreo. PC wouldn't 'see' the phone, but it would charge very slowly.
I installed quickboot, booted to fastboot and was able to flash the factory image

Pyr0x64 said:
have you tried using something like quickboot from the playstore to be able to get to fastboot?
I had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago on oreo. PC wouldn't 'see' the phone, but it would charge very slowly.
I installed quickboot, booted to fastboot and was able to flash the factory image
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't access the play store on the device in it's state. I do have access to fastboot. I can boot the phone to fastboot, and into TWRP, only problem is the phone doesn't communicate with the computer in either state. If the pixel had a SD card slot I would just load up a recovery but unfortunately we don't have that luxury

What cable are you using to connect to the PC? Is it USB c to USB c?
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using XDA Labs

Triscuit said:
What cable are you using to connect to the PC? Is it USB c to USB c?
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The cable is not the issue, I confirmed this by testing all my cables with the new device that I just received for my warranty exchange. I also tried my luck with Linux, after a complicated installation on my computer I was able to have Linux actually detect the device (partially) when the device was plugged in at splash screen I got nothing, at fastboot/bootloader screen nothing, but once the phone booted into TWRP it came up as AOSP device, when I attempted clicking on the AOSP device being detected by Linux an error message popped up telling me mtp or midi error, not sure for sure what one it said. Either way I couldn't connect for any transfer of information, I tried adb sideload and that failed as well.
This has been an experience for the memory books, glad that old device is gone and I'm back up and running on a working phone. No more beta testing for me, I'll be ready for Android P when they get it out of beta, I don't have the time or patience to deal with any more warranty exchanges.