AT&T Galaxy SIII Bricked While Trying to Flash Back to Stock... Desperate For Help
Had my AT&T Galaxy S III rooted, stock ROM. Was having some issues after rooting so I decided to go back to bone stock, completely unroot so I flashed the I747UCALEM build from these forums on Odin 3.07. Needless to say the phone was held up mid flash, and I got a "FAIL" in Odin. When I tried to reboot the phone, I got a "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again" When I reboot the phone this comes up and it's almost like a permanent download mode. I tried to reflash in Odin to unbrick the phone and it fails every single time.
Am I completely screwed? If I send it back to Samsung like this they'll see the that I rooted (didnt trip the flash counter) and void my warranty. Not sure what to do here. Thanks for any advice guys.
statusnone said:
Had my AT&T Galaxy S III rooted, stock ROM. Was having some issues after rooting so I decided to go back to bone stock, completely unroot so I flashed the I747UCALEM build from these forums on Odin 3.07. Needless to say the phone was held up mid flash, and I got a "FAIL" in Odin. When I tried to reboot the phone, I got a "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again" When I reboot the phone this comes up and it's almost like a permanent download mode. I tried to reflash in Odin to unbrick the phone and it fails every single time.
Am I completely screwed? If I send it back to Samsung like this they'll see the that I rooted (didnt trip the flash counter) and void my warranty. Not sure what to do here. Thanks for any advice guys.
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Click to collapse
Sounds like you got a bad file re-download the AT&T software again from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1737848 make sure you have Kies disabled i do think if its running in the background odin won't flash right don't hold me to it.and as long as you can get in download mode you should be able to fix it.also check here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1727443
statusnone said:
Had my AT&T Galaxy S III rooted, stock ROM. Was having some issues after rooting so I decided to go back to bone stock, completely unroot so I flashed the I747UCALEM build from these forums on Odin 3.07. Needless to say the phone was held up mid flash, and I got a "FAIL" in Odin. When I tried to reboot the phone, I got a "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again" When I reboot the phone this comes up and it's almost like a permanent download mode. I tried to reflash in Odin to unbrick the phone and it fails every single time.
Am I completely screwed? If I send it back to Samsung like this they'll see the that I rooted (didnt trip the flash counter) and void my warranty. Not sure what to do here. Thanks for any advice guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm this actually happened to me first time I tried to root (stupid computer fell asleep mid flash) however I was just able to reenter download mode and flash again, curious though , what did the screen say and where In the flash process did the Odin fail, for Me luckily it was 2/3 of the way through flashing system so I didn't have much to worry about. Though I imagine if it was writing something important like the sbl or somethimg and it failed you might be in trouble . All in all I would say try flashing again a few times maybe the file you downloaded is bad.
bec48 said:
Sounds like you got a bad file re-download the AT&T software again from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1737848 make sure you have Kies disabled i do think if its running in the background odin won't flash right don't hold me to it.and as long as you can get in download mode you should be able to fix it.also check here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1727443
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Click to collapse
Downloading the UCALEM build from that link now on my laptop (my PC is notorious for connection issues with this phone, I should of known) and I'll pray for the best. Thank you very much for the help, I'll post back once I'm on my way.
I can't even download either firmwares. The direct downloads stop for some random reason at around 33 MB and there's 0 seeders for the torrent versions. Any other way to get these firmwares? Samsung updates isn't being nice tonight.
statusnone said:
I can't even download either firmwares. The direct downloads stop for some random reason at around 33 MB and there's 0 seeders for the torrent versions. Any other way to get these firmwares? Samsung updates isn't being nice tonight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The update is in Kies as well.
Finally got the update to download, used a different browser. Flashed the new build through Odin and it worked, unbricked the phone. Apparently it is the connection through my regular PC. Thanks for everyones help!
Hello everybody
Like a lot of you I download a lot of custom ROMS and every once in a while you hit a bump in a curve..
I got thrown down a hill, and long story short, I have had the MACKS ROM Allstar installed on my Sprint Note 2.
That caused a few probems, like constantly asking me to update, then I would update and reboot into recovery it WOULD NOT flash any rom, any zip file. no backups. NOTHING.
I have seen a lot of people have this issue, and when that happens as you all know DO NOT try to go back to the stock firmware sing ODIN
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2241136
I did this and came up with a bricked phone that would not turn on, would not even go into recovery. Iw would just say
"Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in kies and try again"
I was up all night trying to unbrick my phone and fount there was really no solution to my problem but to use ODIN, yet ODIN caused this problem, so what do I do??? I kept trying. And eventually I found the solution!!!!
Enough ranting, here is how to fix your phone!!!
First you need to download the oneclick odin recovery tool. I can't create links because I am a new member, so you can just google
"SPH-L900 MA7"
and the result is right there on the top
It taked about 20 minutes to download but when it is finished you can use it just like you would use ODIN
Reboot into download mode and just click start after your device is recognized.
If you have any further questions just leave a comment or PM me, I would be glad to help!
This solution may also be used if you are having trouble flashing zip files through recovery
You may have to re install TWRP using odin though
VengefulGinger said:
Hello everybody
Like a lot of you I download a lot of custom ROMS and every once in a while you hit a bump in a curve..
I got thrown down a hill, and long story short, I have had the MACKS ROM Allstar installed on my Sprint Note 2.
That caused a few probems, like constantly asking me to update, then I would update and reboot into recovery it WOULD NOT flash any rom, any zip file. no backups. NOTHING.
I have seen a lot of people have this issue, and when that happens as you all know DO NOT try to go back to the stock firmware sing ODIN
I did this and came up with a bricked phone that would not turn on, would not even go into recovery. Iw would just say
"Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in kies and try again"
I was up all night trying to unbrick my phone and fount there was really no solution to my problem but to use ODIN, yet ODIN caused this problem, so what do I do??? I kept trying. And eventually I found the solution!!!!
Enough ranting, here is how to fix your phone!!!
First you need to download the oneclick odin recovery tool. I can't create links because I am a new member, so you can just google
"SPH-L900 MA7"
and the result is right there on the top
It taked about 20 minutes to download but when it is finished you can use it just like you would use ODIN
Reboot into download mode and just click start after your device is recognized.
If you have any further questions just leave a comment or PM me, I would be glad to help!
This solution may also be used if you are having trouble flashing zip files through recovery
You may have to re install TWRP using odin though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info well we have a detailed information on how to do this by Dr.Ketan.
and YES you dint Brick your phone rather its just a Bootloop
@op
Please don't post guide and tutorial for others, when yourself don't know what happened to your device and how did you solved it
Nobody understand what you did by information you gave and will end with bricking their N7100. And yes if you had just post your query to q/a and waited for response from senior member,likely it was possible to solve it in just 5min.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Hello there,
I've previously used Odin to install several versions on several phones, so at leas I know some very basics, like, using Odin and what not.
Here's my problem. I rooted my 4.3, it gave me some trouble, and the main reason I wanted it rooted was to get backups for my apps. Turns out I can back up my data with carbon "rooted-unrooted" so I decided to ditch the root since it was giving me some hassle with the security update thing and titanium was not working properly. "had to do some other stuff and I was kind of tired.
Turns out I tried to install my other official firmware I had "4.1". Sadly, upon using Odin with it, it now says that I'm trying to install an unsupported version and won't proceed... I'm stuck in here because I cannot restart by pressing up+power because it gives me an error and says I need to restart in download mode.
I was wondering if installing a fresh copy of 4.3 would fix this. Yet I've been unable to find any actual official files... yeah... I know this sounds pathetic, but... I've been herer for an hour + and have not found either a solution or the original 4.3 file or whichever file I would need for this.
Decided to turn unto this community which has helped me a lot in the past to solve all my previous issues.
So... How do I install a fresh 4.3 or how do I get out of this mess? My cell phone doesn't turn on, it just tells me the following:
Firmware Upgrade Encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again.
I had 4.3 installed with all the security crap on it, so when I go to download mode and install 4.1, it says that the verison is unsopported...
Thank you all in advance.
Download Mr Robinson's 4.3 rooted ROM from here.
Flash it via ODIN and you should be good to go.
Your phone is already on 4.3 bootloader and it is not letting you downgrade to any version below it.
Hi Everyone,
I am a new owner of a soft-bricked SM-T700. I am feeling very down and need some advice. I will be as thorough as I possibly can and I would truly, truly appreciate some help and advice from you kind folks. This is the first time I have had a bricked device out of my many Android devices.
My PLAN:
-Root
-Custom Recovery
-Nandroid Backup
-Backup EFS
-Flash stock western country firmware
What HAPPENED
Today I bought a wifi T700. I bought it in my hometown, which is China. Whenever I buy a new Android device in China my first action is to ensure it doesn't have any hardware/warranty issues. I then go about reflashing a western firmware so I can use Google services.
1) First I rooted using CF-Auto Root. That worked fine. I confirmed that I had root using an app called root checker.
2) I then attempted to flash TWRP recovery by following the instructions here: http://teamw.in/project/twrp2/238
- First I tried flashing the .tar file using Odin. As soon as I hit 'Start' Odin froze and I got the Windows error saying "Odin Downloader Has Stopped Working", asking to close the program. I close the program. I tried this several times then rebooted. It seemed as though the phone booted fine.
- I then tried using their own software, TWRP manager, here: http://jmzsoftware.com/twrp-manager-4. This app just crashed every time I booted it. I submitted an error log.
- I then tried using 'Flashify' as suggested by someone here on XDA. Once I did that it said flashed successfully and would I like to reboot. I said yes. This is when my troubles started.
3) Upon reboot it immediately booted into a sparse looking 'Download Mode' screen, all in English (the normal one on mine has some Chinese too) without the volume button options to reboot or continue. It just went straight into this screen.
After trying to reboot the phone using several power button holds and key combinations, it appears I am stuck in this screen, so I thought I had no chance of doing a NADROID backup as originally planned, so I decided to try my luck and flash the western firmware.
I tried to flash the version of the firmware provided here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2798835
http://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=23501681358556680
It got all the way through the install until it hit the hidden.img and then failed. I've attached a screen capture.
A few notes;
I have tried using two different USB cables (the one that came with it, and the one that came with my HTC One). I have tried several USB plugs, including the one in the back of my PC. I allowed Odin to do it's MD5 check and it said the file checks out.
I have tried using the Kies emergency Firmware recovery. Pffft! As it that was going to work. Damn Kies.
I sound like I've still got my sense of humor, but actually I am really cut up about this. It is so much money for a tablet and now it is useless unless I can get s firmware that will flash.
I don't have my stock Chinese firmware. That is T700ZCU1ANF4/T700CHN1ANF4/T700ZCU1ANF4/T700ZCU1ANF4 (CHN).
Questions:
Does anyone know where I could find the stock Chinese firmware to try flashing back to that?
Does anyone have the .PIT file and instructions on how to flash that, because I have read in other threads that it solves the hidden.img problem.
Does anyone know why this may have happened and have any alternative suggestions?
Could it have been the TWRP that actually caused this? The thread here indicates others aren't having trouble. Why would it have frozen for me?
I will try anything at this point. I am desperate.
Thanks so much in advance. Please come through XDA! Please come through Galaxy Tab S owners!!!!!!
-------------------------------------------
CLOSURE EDIT: I managed to flash Australian firmware, after reinstalling Kies, uninstalling and reinstalled the device drivers. I also made sure all Kies processes were killed before flashing with Odin.
For people in a similar situation I would urge them to have patience and keep trying to flash stock firmware.
Private Message UpInTheAir and see what he thinks.
Well let me start out by saying i have done some truely horrible things to my tablet in the proceas of porting CM 11. Bad kernels, messing up the partitions, you name it ive probably done it at this point.
I would try using heimdall. Flash one of the recoveries.. and try formatting your partitions.
The program crashing is when you should back off from trying to flash. Reassess what you did and what happened and if it's failing at a point flash the stock back before rebooting.
Continuing blindly was the problem. On something as expensive as a tablet never continue past a point where something goes wrong without reflashing back to stock and starting again.
As eousphoros said Use heimdall and flash a recovery.
Good luck.
eousphoros said:
Well let me start out by saying i have done some truely horrible things to my tablet in the proceas of porting CM 11. Bad kernels, messing up the partitions, you name it ive probably done it at this point.
I would try using heimdall. Flash one of the recoveries.. and try formatting your partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi All,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
You are certainly right that it is my fault and I should have stopped at some point and reassessed what was happening.
Can you please give me some more information about the steps you have offered? I am researching heimdall now, but if you could give some steps or advice that would be much appreciated.
It's probably going to be difficult because I assume we are in different timezones. I will persevere and try to get this worked out.
I have downloaded Heimdall and understand that it is an alternative to using Odin.
I currently have three questions about Heimdall.
1. Do I need to do the install drivers step if I have already installed the drivers for my device? Is this some step that actually replaces the current drivers with ones that are required for Heimdall to operate? I ask them because when I list USB devices, my tab is not shown up as Samsung Composite Device. It is actually shown as two separate entries, looking like generic USB entries.
2. Do I need to have a valid PIT file in order to run a custom Heimdall flash?
3. Which partition should I select if/when I run the Heimdall flash?
I'm dying a little inside every time I look at my tablet
Install heimdall
Download a recovery, I am going to pimp mine. http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-s/general/cwm-recovery-6-0-5-0-galaxy-tab-s-8-4-t2824099.
Run sudo ~/git/Heimdall/heimdall/heimdall flash --RECOVERY cwm6.0.5.0-2.img. Wait for it to complete, your tablet will reboot and will probably fail like it has been.
Hold down Power + Vol Down + Home button... wait for the "Press vol up to continue, press vol down to cancel"
Press vol down to cancel, then immediately hold down Power + Vol Up + Home button till you see the recovery screen pop up.
If you get the recovery screen your tablet can probably still be saved. Woo!
So then download http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2798835 (Which i think you already have)
Unzip it, there will be a tar file. tar xvf T700....something.tar.md5 -C some_directory
You will get a bunch of img files. From those you should be able to finish the recovery and hopefully return full function to your device. (Which unless something is physically broken you will most likely be able to do.) Good Luck! And again this is all done at your own risk, please dont sue me.
eousphoros said:
Install heimdall
Download a recovery, I am going to pimp mine. http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-tab-s/general/cwm-recovery-6-0-5-0-galaxy-tab-s-8-4-t2824099.
Run sudo ~/git/Heimdall/heimdall/heimdall flash --RECOVERY cwm6.0.5.0-2.img. Wait for it to complete, your tablet will reboot and will probably fail like it has been.
Hold down Power + Vol Down + Home button... wait for the "Press vol up to continue, press vol down to cancel"
Press vol down to cancel, then immediately hold down Power + Vol Up + Home button till you see the recovery screen pop up.
If you get the recovery screen your tablet can probably still be saved. Woo!
So then download http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2798835 (Which i think you already have)
Unzip it, there will be a tar file. tar xvf T700....something.tar.md5 -C some_directory
You will get a bunch of img files. From those you should be able to finish the recovery and hopefully return full function to your device. (Which unless something is physically broken you will most likely be able to do.) Good Luck! And again this is all done at your own risk, please dont sue me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, let me just say that OH MY F#@$ING GOD I THINK THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER!!!! I managed to flash the Australian Firmware successfully. It has now booted fine, I have factory reset and I am in the process of setting up the device afresh.
Having said that, when I do come to reroot and install a custom recovery, I will definitely take a look at yours. Was this here 12 hours ago? I looked and couldn't find anything about CWM except for a short thread and an unofficial port. I have never tried TWRP before and I will avoid it like the plague in the future. I have NEVER had trouble with CWM.
When (if ever) I get the nerve up to give this another go, I will try your CWM.
Thanks again.
I am so relieved right now.....
And make a Nandroid first this time
Hey,
I had the exact same issue with my Galaxy Note 8, every time I tried to install European or custom Rom.
The only way to get the tab back was to flash with the Chinese firmware. You may find it easily on Baidu.
Since it happened also with a note 2 and note 3, I stopped buying Android device in China... Unless you can make sure that you buy a model coming from HK.
Hi everybody.
In order not to create another Thread I would like to leave a request for help in here while searching the answer myself.
I've messed up with SM-T700 and it is suffering a "near brick expirience" now. D:
I wanted to install the TWRP in order to backup the stock ROM before proceeding to anything else. So I put it in download mode. In Odin. 3.09 I put the TWRP under the AP section, the auto-reboot and f-reset were checked. (later I understood that I look at a different chrome tab and followed the instuction for auto-root flashing in via Odin instead of TWRP's. Stupid me) THen I proceeded with flashing and it was succesfull. After that I rebooted to recovery but it was not TWRP but stock. So I went to Download mode again and decided to repeat the procedure. Hower this time, and each time after that Odin stuck with the SetupConnection... The tab itself is stuck in Downloading Do not tur off target!! and does not react to any combinations of buttons.
Looking for a piece of advice here.
At least Odin is detecting the tab is a good sign right?
Attaching the photo and screenshot just in case.
ky3bmu4 said:
Hi everybody.
In order not to create another Thread I would like to leave a request for help in here while searching the answer myself.
I've messed up with SM-T700 and it is suffering a "near brick expirience" now. D:
I wanted to install the TWRP in order to backup the stock ROM before proceeding to anything else. So I put it in download mode. In Odin. 3.09 I put the TWRP under the AP section, the auto-reboot and f-reset were checked. (later I understood that I look at a different chrome tab and followed the instuction for auto-root flashing in via Odin instead of TWRP's. Stupid me) THen I proceeded with flashing and it was succesfull. After that I rebooted to recovery but it was not TWRP but stock. So I went to Download mode again and decided to repeat the procedure. Hower this time, and each time after that Odin stuck with the SetupConnection... The tab itself is stuck in Downloading Do not tur off target!! and does not react to any combinations of buttons.
Looking for a piece of advice here.
At least Odin is detecting the tab is a good sign right?
Attaching the photo and screenshot just in case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replying to myself: The tab began to respond to buttons so now I succesfully rebooted it and will continue with Rooting then recovery
Added: Rooted successful but the same problem as described above occured when I tryied to flash TWRP in Odin under PDA tab unchecked the auto-reboot
ky3bmu4 said:
Replying to myself: The tab began to respond to buttons so now I succesfully rebooted it and will continue with Rooting then recovery
Added: Rooted successful but the same problem as described above occured when I tryied to flash TWRP in Odin under PDA tab unchecked the auto-reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I've had a really bad experience with TWRP on this device. Try flashing a firmware from sammobile.com or elsewhere to at least get it up and running again. Try to do that as quickly as possible too, so you don't have to leave the device in download mode all night. I think that is what caused the battery swelling in my first device that I had to return.
I'm going to stick with CWM when I work up the courage to try again....
pierrotee said:
Yeah I've had a really bad experience with TWRP on this device. Try flashing a firmware from sammobile.com or elsewhere to at least get it up and running again. Try to do that as quickly as possible too, so you don't have to leave the device in download mode all night. I think that is what caused the battery swelling in my first device that I had to return.
I'm going to stick with CWM when I work up the courage to try again....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi thx for reply. Actually it managed to unstuck from Download mode in 10-15 minutes. It happened twice to me.
ky3bmu4 said:
Hi thx for reply. Actually it managed to unstuck from Download mode in 10-15 minutes. It happened twice to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool! So do you now have root and custom recovery?
pierrotee said:
Cool! So do you now have root and custom recovery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah))
TWRP installs OK via TWRP Manager
I installed TWRP Manager, selected 'klimtwifi' as the device, and it successfully installed TWRP 2.7.1.1 without a hitch.
From TWRP I then immediately performed a nandroid backup of everything but the caches to my microSD card and encountered no problems.
The last step was to enable writing to my microSD card by installing NextApp SDFix.
My SM-T700 is bricked as well and I tried to flash a custom recovery with Heimdall on Mac but it gave me the Error "Claiming Interface failed". Seems like you really need the pit.
Hello guys
I just want to say i'm no where near an expert on this, and i feel i have tried to fix this issue but made it way worse in the process so please be gentle.
This morning i woke to my Samsung Note 2 N7100 just hanging on the samsung start up screen. Tried all the normal things, taking bat out, restarting many times etc. No luck, just kept hitting the samsung screen and freezing.
After some goggling i found my way to the Recovery screen (power+vol up+home) but when it was loading there was a lot of Red Error messages. It loaded the options screen and i tried to do a factory reset. A lot more error messages to basically then say failed. Tired it a few times and even tried to clear the cache but kept failing.
So i tried loading it into Kies, which didn't connect to the phone so i couldn't reinstall the software.
So i decided maybe i need to flash the phone. I downloaded a stock Rom for the phone (i was on Kitkat so found that version) Used odin and half way through the install it came up failed.
Since then the phone only displays the "Fireware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies"
So i went back to Kies but still couldn't find the phone. It also won't let me go back into recovery mode, only into download mode.
I thought maybe i'd give the flashing another go but this time when i flashed it, it just hangs trying to find Pit but eventually fails saying no Pit.
From research it appears that the partition is buggered. All the research i've done seems to say stay away from messing with the partition. some people say its Emmc thats gone and its game over but others say there is hope still.
I can still access the Download menu and the product name is still GTn7100, Binary still samsung official so i am holding out hope there is some life left in it. I'm on my last legs now so open to all offers for solutions. Please assist if you can
Thank you in advance
Andy
If you're able to get in download mode.. Maybe try flashing a custom recovery (TWRP) which you could try full format in it then install a ROM using it.. Also, maybe trying to use a CM based one? Though you might need a external SD card to move files from PC to your phone.
I don't know if this would work, but try it.
Sent from my Galaxy Note II using Tapatalk