[Q] Reset to Stock ICS/Unroot/etc. (Boot Issues) - T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-T989

So I've found a lot of threads on here giving me great info on how to handle various situations, but given what I'm looking to do with my phone, I'm not sure what order to do everything in and what tools are best. Currently, my T989 is on ICS 4.0.3 (UVLE1), rooted, with CWM installed. When I originally upgraded to ICS, something got messed up that caused my phone to hang on "Goodbye" anytime I try to turn it off/reboot. I've read that Darkside's Cache Wipe can fix that issue, but basically I'd like to wipe the device, start fresh with a stock build and get everything right from the start. I will likely root it again later, but I'd at least like to get it reset to stock and have everything working correctly first.
What I'm looking to do:
Unroot and uninstall CWM
Wipe the phone clean (all data, cache, partitions, etc.)
Clear the phone entirely back to stock OS/stock recovery/stock everything
Upgrade to the latest stock OS (if necessary)
I'd like to do all this while also fixing whatever caused the hang while shutting down/rebooting. I'd also like to use a stock OS image from Kies instead of downloading one from other places if at all possible (I'm a tad paranoid/OCD when it comes to stuff like that). I've seen two Darkside tools-- cache wipe and super wipe, and I'm not sure if I need one or both of them to help with clearing off the device/fixing my reboot issue.
So with all that in mind, what's my best route to take? I'm just looking for what tools to use and in what order, there are enough great guides on here on how to use the various tools that I can figure out the rest from those. In other words, "Use X to clear blah, uninstall Y while choosing yadda, install Z" etc. I hope that's not too tall of an order Thanks to all for your help!

Related

[Q] Stuck with a ROM - Can't seem to change it

After the lifehacker article about Pimp My ROM, i decided to try my hand at rooting and installing a custom ROM, problem is i can't seem to change to anything else now, its alright but lacks slight compatibility.
So, i followed the following guide.
www androidauthority com/xperia-arc-lt15i-android-4-1-1-jelly-bean-paranoidandroid-rom-117723/
And now i have Paranoid Android ROM, it works well for the most part, but lacks all the things Xperia phones were good for, video is the worst thing on it, flash problems i think, with the interface on videos too. The only reason why i would keep it is because the phone is smooth, and Google Voice is pretty good, but those arent enough reasons to keep.
Anyway, i've tried to use other methods to change my ROM, non of them work, i'll explain;
My phone boots with the FreeXperia project logo, where i can go into CMW v0.6 i think, or i leave it and it goes into Paranoid Android, thats if it doesnt crash here. After following different guides for different ROMS etc, it never boots into the ROM, the CMW can be accessed, and i have to do a restore. Is there something i need to do? I thought it might've had something to do with priviledges, but i thought id fixed it, superuser, debugging, root access, all seemed to be available.
I also tried flashing with a modified stock rom, that was to be used in flastool, cant seem to get it to work either, it does 2 different thigns, the first in the .0.9 version, gives me an error, which i looked up an gtrap said its an general error, and should use 0.7 instead, which i did, but no matter what i do it always tells me to restart phone and go into settings and put it in debugging mode... it's already in debugging mode, iim confused, so i checked superuser and made it allow everything. Still nothing.
I cant repair my phone with PC companion because my phone contains modded software.
How can i get my phone to a better, more stable ROM, ICS based, Stock or Moddified. Is the problem the Bootloader?
Any help / directions / links to fixing this issue will be very much appreciated
You can relock the bootloader. I can't remember in which thread I found it but it's here on XDA. You just need to flash a file. It will let you use SEUS to "repair" the phone.
stu15 said:
After the lifehacker article about Pimp My ROM, i decided to try my hand at rooting and installing a custom ROM, problem is i can't seem to change to anything else now, its alright but lacks slight compatibility.
So, i followed the following guide.
www androidauthority com/xperia-arc-lt15i-android-4-1-1-jelly-bean-paranoidandroid-rom-117723/
And now i have Paranoid Android ROM, it works well for the most part, but lacks all the things Xperia phones were good for, video is the worst thing on it, flash problems i think, with the interface on videos too. The only reason why i would keep it is because the phone is smooth, and Google Voice is pretty good, but those arent enough reasons to keep.
Anyway, i've tried to use other methods to change my ROM, non of them work, i'll explain;
My phone boots with the FreeXperia project logo, where i can go into CMW v0.6 i think, or i leave it and it goes into Paranoid Android, thats if it doesnt crash here. After following different guides for different ROMS etc, it never boots into the ROM, the CMW can be accessed, and i have to do a restore. Is there something i need to do? I thought it might've had something to do with priviledges, but i thought id fixed it, superuser, debugging, root access, all seemed to be available.
I also tried flashing with a modified stock rom, that was to be used in flastool, cant seem to get it to work either, it does 2 different thigns, the first in the .0.9 version, gives me an error, which i looked up an gtrap said its an general error, and should use 0.7 instead, which i did, but no matter what i do it always tells me to restart phone and go into settings and put it in debugging mode... it's already in debugging mode, iim confused, so i checked superuser and made it allow everything. Still nothing.
I cant repair my phone with PC companion because my phone contains modded software.
How can i get my phone to a better, more stable ROM, ICS based, Stock or Moddified. Is the problem the Bootloader?
Any help / directions / links to fixing this issue will be very much appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stu15 said:
After the lifehacker article about Pimp My ROM, i decided to try my hand at rooting and installing a custom ROM, problem is i can't seem to change to anything else now, its alright but lacks slight compatibility.
So, i followed the following guide.
www androidauthority com/xperia-arc-lt15i-android-4-1-1-jelly-bean-paranoidandroid-rom-117723/
And now i have Paranoid Android ROM, it works well for the most part, but lacks all the things Xperia phones were good for, video is the worst thing on it, flash problems i think, with the interface on videos too. The only reason why i would keep it is because the phone is smooth, and Google Voice is pretty good, but those arent enough reasons to keep.
Anyway, i've tried to use other methods to change my ROM, non of them work, i'll explain;
My phone boots with the FreeXperia project logo, where i can go into CMW v0.6 i think, or i leave it and it goes into Paranoid Android, thats if it doesnt crash here. After following different guides for different ROMS etc, it never boots into the ROM, the CMW can be accessed, and i have to do a restore. Is there something i need to do? I thought it might've had something to do with priviledges, but i thought id fixed it, superuser, debugging, root access, all seemed to be available.
I also tried flashing with a modified stock rom, that was to be used in flastool, cant seem to get it to work either, it does 2 different thigns, the first in the .0.9 version, gives me an error, which i looked up an gtrap said its an general error, and should use 0.7 instead, which i did, but no matter what i do it always tells me to restart phone and go into settings and put it in debugging mode... it's already in debugging mode, iim confused, so i checked superuser and made it allow everything. Still nothing.
I cant repair my phone with PC companion because my phone contains modded software.
How can i get my phone to a better, more stable ROM, ICS based, Stock or Moddified. Is the problem the Bootloader?
Any help / directions / links to fixing this issue will be very much appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know to get a customised stock rom (such as jelly sandwhich which i find is absolutely amazing), you have to flash a stock rom, root it, install cwm, flash jelly sandwhich and your done. Normally customised stock roms work for both locked and unlocked bootloaders so you'll be fine in that regard.
If you are thinking of flashing jelly sandwhich, here are the steps (which the original post doesn't actually say)
make sure in cwm before installation
1. Wipe data/factory reset
2. wipe cache partition
3. go to mounts and storage menu and\
4. format /system
5. format/data
6. format cache
7. exit mounts and storage menu
6. go to advance
7. wipe dalvik cache
8. wipe battery stats
9. exit advance
10. install Jelly sandwich from sd card without rebooting
Same procedure for most roms
jman2131 said:
make sure in cwm before installation
1. Wipe data/factory reset
2. wipe cache partition
3. go to mounts and storage menu and\
4. format /system
5. format/data
6. format cache
7. exit mounts and storage menu
6. go to advance
7. wipe dalvik cache
8. wipe battery stats
9. exit advance
10. install Jelly sandwich from sd card without rebooting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is pretty much the recommended procedure for most, if not all, ROMs.
I have tested Jelly Sandwich, Ice Cream Pureness, and currently testing Ultimate HD v2.0... they are all great.
Im finding this one to be a good rom
Original Xperia T ICS Rom v5.0 for ARC/ARC-S based on (4.0.4) 587 [9th-Oct-2012]
put this on mine and my kids arc s runs sweet :good:

Seem to have soft bricked my SGH-i747

I'd like to start by apologizing for what is probably the 9,000th "help, I've bricked my phone!" thread. I did some searching, and while I found many, I wasn't able to find one that both dealt with my specific issue, and did so assuming a level of newbishness appropriate for me.
Months ago, I rooted my AT&T Galaxy SIII, and installed CM10. It's been all candy and rainbows since. This morning, I somewhat foolishly decided to update from a nightly I installed in October/November, to the January 7 CM 10.1 nightly, using the built-in updater I had previously used to switch to a nightly.
It worked...sort of. I guess I should have cleared my cache or something ahead of time, because almost all of my GAPPS stopped working. Woops! Figuring that I should probably stop dicking around with my phone until I learned a bit more, I just went back and told the phone to switch back to the nightly I from October/November that I was previously using.
It didn't work. My phone now reaches the CM boot animation and just...sits there. And sits there. And sits there. To complicate the issue, I cannot get the phone to boot into recovery mode (although admittedly, I'm too thick to know what I'm meant to do once I'm there anyway). I CAN get the phone into download mode, but not being sure what I should do there, I thought it best to consult you all on what to do next.
I'm happy to give any additional information needed, and I hope it goes without saying that I am extremely thankful for any help you all can offer.
Try to get it back into recovery by taking the battery out, putting it back in and then holding volume up, home, and power. If you are sure you can't get it into Recovery, but know for sure you can get it into Download, go into Download and flash stock and go from there. These aren't bricks. These are just whoops. Lol.
If you can reach download mode, you'll be okay. What you want to do is use Odin to flash a rooted stock image; from there, you should be able to get back to a point where you can re-install a custom recovery of your choice and try flashing your favourite ROM again.
For the record, it's always a good idea to clear data/cache when changing ROMs, or changing between major revisions of a ROM (such as CM10 -> CM10.1) to avoid this sort of problem.
Actually, you should always wipe cache and dalvik when flashing the update. If it is a major update like 4.1.2 to 4.2.1, then you should wipe cache, wipe dalvik, Factory Reset, Format System then flash your ROM.
Move important files to SD using twrp file manager. Put rom on SD with gapps. Format internal, wipe caches, format system, factory reset, load ROM, load gapps. Reboot.
Sent from a Horny Pink Pony
smelenchuk said:
If you can reach download mode, you'll be okay. What you want to do is use Odin to flash a rooted stock image; from there, you should be able to get back to a point where you can re-install a custom recovery of your choice and try flashing your favourite ROM again.
For the record, it's always a good idea to clear data/cache when changing ROMs, or changing between major revisions of a ROM (such as CM10 -> CM10.1) to avoid this sort of problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did this, being careful to follow all the instructions provided. Odin seemed to think everything worked, and after about 10 minutes, it rebooted the phone.
However, it still gets stuck. Now, since CM is no longer installed, it just sits at the SAMSUNG logo forever.
It still boots into download mode, and will now boot into recovery as well. Any suggestions?
naporeon said:
It still boots into download mode, and will now boot into recovery as well. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Boot to recovery and clear data and cache.
smelenchuk said:
Boot to recovery and clear data and cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Worked like a charm, thanks! Can't believe after all that trouble, I didn't think to do that myself. >.<

Need major help/advice from the community

I'm so disconcerted right now. I have the Verizon LG G3, everything stock but rooted, and just recently was fiddling with the Bump bootloader bypass. Everything was going well, and I remember this thread from a while back because I'm heavy on customizing my phone. Long story short, I download the "Clean Lockscreen" mod, flashed it, and now I get a "unfortunately the process com.android.systemui has stopped" when I boot up my phone. Skips the lockscreen, the home pages load up normally, but the only thing I can interact with is the Power Menu and the "Ok" to dismiss the "unfortunately..." message.
(mod was directly from http://forum.xda-developers.com/lg-g3/themes-apps/theme-g3-clean-look-kk-4-4-2-t2834442)
Short of factory resetting, is there any quick dirty fix that will let me stop having a panic attack? I'm so lazy/dumb for not having a backup, but I was so eager to start flashing things I couldn't be bothered to set one up. I gambled and lost. Hard.
Also, is there anyway to extract my photos before, worst case scenario, I do have to factory reset? I have so many pictures since I bought this phone that losing them all because of this little mistake is what's driving me crazy, on top of losing every little tweak I did here and there for the past few months.
Lastly, if I do factory reset, does that also erase everything on my SD card? The Quick Circle case is on there pretty snug.
**My theory is that someone with a Verizon LG G3 V10B (didn't update because I was afraid to lose root) has the original file that whatever the "Clean Lockscreen mod" file replaced, and I can just flash that and be sane again** please please please
TL;DR --> Verizon user, got Bump, got excited, started flashing things with no backup (dumb dumb dumb), going crazy, now hoping that I can replace that one thing I flashed with the stock original and be fine (whatever the Clean Lockscreen mod changed)
BE VERY CAREFUL READING THIS POST, IF YOU FOLLOW MY SUGGESTIONS AND LOSE YOUR PICTURES FOR ANY REASON I AM NOT RESPONSABLE.
~ You shoulda done a backup.
Just booting into recovery is 90% of the work needed to do a backup, The other 10% of the work is just clicking "backup" and waiting 15 seconds. (You were just lazy/impatient, Not dumb.)
~ Did you flash a mod that was specifically for your exact model?
~ Can you still get into your custom recovery?
~ Before you try anything in my list I would first see if you can locate the stock lockscreen files on the internet for your model and flash them back onto your phone.
~ The FC issues you're having is usually related to not having the proper permissions.
If you can still go into recovery, Boot into recovery and wipe the Cache, Dalvik cache, & go to advanced and click fix permissions.
~ It looks like to me that your launcher may be pooched.
(In my experience the lockscreen/keyguard seems to be tied to the actual launcher/UI itself, Which is why I believe your UI is broken)
Because you can't install a new launcher in the operating system I would try and find a flashable .zip version of another launcher, like nova launcher or something and flash that in recovery.
~ I'm 99% sure a Factory reset won't help your situation.
I'm almost positive you're gonna have to re-flash your firmware to return your phone to working condition.
~ Try a dirty flash, Using same type of rom. (YOU "COULD" LOSE YOUR PICTURES DOING THIS, BUT PROBLY WON'T, Use as one of your last resorts)
Try and find a flashable .zip rom that is flashable in recovery, One that is the same type as your current rom and try a dirty flash "without" wiping anything.
Only flash using the recovery without wiping "OR YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR PICS", Also if you flash using your PC it WILL DELETE EVERYTHING.
(If your current rom is stock or stock based rom, Find a stock/stock based .zip based rom and dirty flash in custom recovery)
(If your current rom is AOSP based rom, Find a AOSP based .zip based rom and dirty flash in custom recovery)
After you dirty flash, Backup your pictures & anything else you may need then do a clean flash.
~ There are apps that can recover "deleted/inaccessible" data. (THIS IS ABSOLUTLY LAST RESORT, DON'T TRY THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE ABSOLUTLY NO OTHER OPTION.)
When you delete something off a storage device, It doesn't delete the actual data, It deletes the operating systems directories where the said info is stored, Resulting in what looks like to the operating system as "empty space" Which it actually isn't.
If you "have to" wipe your phone before being able to recover your pictures, Avoid installing ANYTHING you can (If/when possible) until you recover your pictures if you have to wipe your phone, Because anything that goes on your phone while your stuff is deleted CAN be overwritten. (You're gonna have to google a bit to find what apps are capable of this on android.)

[Solved] Issues activating SGS3 SPH-L710 on Sprint with Custom ROM + lots of problems

Hello all!
This is my first foray into the world of custom Android systems, and I'm having a hell of a time with it... if somebody would be able to help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.
First off, the situation:
I am on Sprint, and I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S3 (SPH-L710) from Sprint to use as a backup phone, I used it for a while on Stock, then deactivated it so I could give it to my wife. First though, I wanted to put a custom ROM on it, and experiment/play around a bit and see what this world of options could do for me. Long story short, I ended up flashing an AICP ROM, and everything seemed to go smoothly, but when I went to activate the phone on my account again and it would not work no matter what I tried (details below). I figured maybe I could activate on the stock setup then just restore my custom setup, so I tried to revert to my stock ROM backup and I couldn't do anything because I was constantly getting messages that various programs had closed... Then I tried to wipe and restore my custom ROM backup and I get stuck in a boot loop... so I tried to flash a stock recovery and I get stuck in a boot loop... I'm out of ideas here, and now I'm stuck with a phone I can't use or do anything with, and I can't activate.
Details:
The initial rooting/install process seemed to work ok, and was fairly straightforward. I followed various guides on http://galaxys3root.com/ to get my phone rooted and backed up (Don't recall which ones now, but I've read through so much by now I don't know if it matters...).
My phone:
Samsung Galaxy S3 (Sprint) SPH-L710
Modem: L710SPRDNJ2
My Desktop:
Debian Linux
Here's the steps I performed:
Rebooted phone in Odin mode
Downloaded CWM S3 Sprint Recovery from the http://galaxys3root.com/ website (can't find the link any more)
Flashed the CWM recovery using Heimdall then rebooted phone into CWM
Installed SuperSU through CWM, then rebooted
Checked that the phone was rooted successfully (it was), then ran Titanium Backup on the whole device to my SD card, then copied the backup files to my desktop computer
Rebooted into CWM, and performed a backup through CWM, then rebooted and copied the CWM backup to my desktop.
Downloaded AICP Rom for my phone from here: http://downloadandroidrom.com/file/GalaxyS3Sprint/roms/AICP/aicp_d2spr_lp-10.0-RELEASE-20150707.zip, put it on my SD card, then installed it through CWM and rebooted
At this point, I was happy with how everything was working, so I did some minor theme customizations then made another backup through CWM, and copied it to my computer, but I did NOT run Titanium this time...
After all of this, I tried to go ahead and activate it through the Sprint web service. This process failed continuously with an unhelpful error message of "Sorry, this device can't be activated right now". I then got on Chat to see if they could activate it manually, and then the problems began. They did their thing activating the phone, but when I booted up I got no data connectivity, and couldn't make calls, and the SIM was not changing over to the new number. I was on the chat with them for over an hour trying to get the situation resolved, but that finally ended when they started asking me to punch in ## codes, because I discovered that none of them worked on my custom ROM. Some quick research told me that this was non-trivial to get around so I had them switch everything back and I started researching the issue.
I found this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626638&highlight=sph-l710 that looked like it would let me do what I needed from the custom ROM, but I couldn't tell if it would fix my problem for sure, so I figured "I'll just restore my stock setup from that backup I took, activate it and update, then start over". This is when things got really frustrating...
First I rebooted into CWM, went to 'backup/restore', and restored my stock backup
Rebooted, and as soon as I got past the lock screen, I get inundated with messages of various apps being closed unexpectedly.
I researched a bit, discovered the issue may be caused by stale dalvik cache, so I rebooted into CWM, cleared the dalvik cache, formatted the /cache partition, then tried to restore the stock backup again, but this time I get stuck in a boot loop.
I then rebooted into CWM, tried to restore the backup of my AICP ROM, only to be stuck in a boot loop as well.
Trying to get into any usable system, I rebooted to CWM, cleared dalvik cache, then formatted /cache, /data, and /system just to be sure, and re-flashed the base AICP ROM I started with. This worked fine, and before long I had stock AICP back
Since I still couldn't get the phone to activate in the custom ROM, and my backups are apparently completely useless, I rebooted into CWM, wiped dalvik, /cache, /data, and /system again and tried to install a different stock ROM I found in the XDA forums (here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-sprint/development/stock-rom-4-4-2-t3010642) only to be greeted by another bootloop
At this point I've spent well over 24 man-hours trying to get this to work, reading, researching, flashing, etc all to no avail. Nothing I do seems to work, and it seems like every article, tutorial, or forum thread I read either has nothing to do with my device, is too old, or doesn't describe my problem.
I'm at wits end, and am so frustrated I'm ready to just give up and smash this device and buy a new one... My questions to the community are as follows:
I know I screwed up on a couple of things, but in my initial research of doing this there was no indication that these were even things I needed to watch out for... Is there any more organized sources of information for doing this sort of thing?
Does anybody else out there use Sprint on a custom ROM, and if so how you you pull this off
Where else have I screwed up, and how can I fix this situation? (My end goal is still to get the S3 onto Sprint with a custom ROM)
What can I do differently next time? I would like to figure this out and do it to other phones and devices I have, but if it's this much trouble every time, I just don't have the time to mess with it.
Thank you in advance, and I appreciate any information that the community can provide.
This sounds like a CWM problem to me. If I were you, I'd boot the phone into Odin Mode and flash TWRP ( www.twrp.me ) then try flashing the latest aicp nightly downloaded from the official site ( www.aicp-rom.com ). Check the md5sums on everything! Then maybe try flashing a touchwiz ROM and activating your phone. Remember that you need to wipe the internal storage when you go between KitKat and lollipop.
I'm fairly certain you have to do activation with the stock Touchwiz roms -- once the phone is activated you can flash a custom.
You should go into recovery and wipe everything (System/data/etc) EXCEPT for the External SD Card
Power off - pull the battery for a few - power on directly into download mode
Odin NJ2 back onto the phone and reboot and activate it (skip through most of the setup since you'll flash a custom after)
Once you know it's activated and working under the stock Touchwiz, then again power off and Odin TWRP recovery
Then you can go back into recovery, wipe everything except External SD, and flash the custom rom back on.
Looks like swapping CWM for TWRP did the trick.
Flashed TWRP no problems, and put CleanBean on there to get the phone activated. Still wouldn't work automatically over the Sprint website, but I got on chat with them and they fixed me right up. Downloading a fresh copy of AICP now...
Is it worth it to keep the CWM backups I made earlier, or should I just go ahead and flush them? I figured just get rid of them since restoring them wasn't working anyway, but I figured I would ask.
Now to move all the data over to the new phone. Thanks so much for your help guys!
afarris01 said:
Looks like swapping CWM for TWRP did the trick.
Flashed TWRP no problems, and put CleanBean on there to get the phone activated. Still wouldn't work automatically over the Sprint website, but I got on chat with them and they fixed me right up. Downloading a fresh copy of AICP now...
Is it worth it to keep the CWM backups I made earlier, or should I just go ahead and flush them? I figured just get rid of them since restoring them wasn't working anyway, but I figured I would ask.
Now to move all the data over to the new phone. Thanks so much for your help guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get rid of them. TWRP can't restore CWM even if the backup is good

Totally wiped my samsung galaxy sm-t111nq device. HELP!!!!

hello everyone,
recently i wanted to upgrade my Samsung galaxy tab 3, model:sm-t111nq device to see if it would install the telephony functionality on my device because it was running on a customized stock firmware (from samsung i guess) with no telephony functionality which means i can't make or receive calls. I flashed the firmware with odin two times but it got interrupted the second time, so it couldn't boot up. i searched for solutions on the internet, any time i tries to flash the firmware using odin it stops at file analysis and every time i try flashing with recovery it says "E:/ could not mount system" or something like that, then i installed twrp recovery to see if i could remove the firmware and flash it again still the same error. Now this is where i messed up, I initially wanted to just wipe the cache completely at first following a solution online but after doing this it still didn't work and so i felt i needed to wipe more than just that, and with no backup i went ahead to wipe the whole thing including EFS, system, data, preload, i basically selected all the boxes there :crying:. now i really dont know what to do seems like i'm the only one that messed up this bad. Please help me out. Can i use the back up of another of the same type of device to restore it and get it running. Please help, just wanna use it again even if its not gonna come with the complete functionalities.

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