[Q] sprint gs3 wont boot into twrp - Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III

What's up guys!
Using ROM installer I flashed vanir 4.4 along with 4.4 gapps on my sprint gs3 sph l710. I wiped the cache and it looked as if it were installing fine but winded up getting stuck in boot loop mode instead. Now when I try to boot into recovery the twrp screen flashes and then it goes straight into bootlop mode from there. Now i cant acsess any of my backups. I can get into down load mode but unfortunately my computers messed up right now. I can't hit the run button on Odin because the screen is too big. I know it sucks!!! Does anyone know some tricks I can use or have any recommendations. Your help would be greatly appreciated! BTW.. I was running illusion 4.3 when this happened.

ddray said:
What's up guys!
Using ROM installer I flashed vanir 4.4 along with 4.4 gapps on my sprint gs3 sph l710. I wiped the cache and it looked as if it were installing fine but winded up getting stuck in boot loop mode instead. Now when I try to boot into recovery the twrp screen flashes and then it goes straight into bootlop mode from there. Now i cant acsess any of my backups. I can get into down load mode but unfortunately my computers messed up right now. I can't hit the run button on Odin because the screen is too big. I know it sucks!!! Does anyone know some tricks I can use or have any recommendations. Your help would be greatly appreciated! BTW.. I was running illusion 4.3 when this happened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you try using this? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1746680
Maybe that'll work, you can use it to return to stock, and if anything I would recommend going back to stock before doing anything else. Also, it may not be the consensus of the site here but in my own opinion, I don't like using rom installer or goo manager or anything. I like doing it all myself in recovery. I've heard one too many stories of people getting hardbricked because their rom installer or whatever downloaded the international version of the rom they wanted :/ always best to check your own md5 checksums and make sure you're downloading the rom for your phone from your phone's forum.
As for the exact reason your phone did that? I couldn't tell you, maybe with a little more info someone more knowledgeable here could tell you

So i got my computer fixed. I havent tried the tool kit in the thread you recommeded. I decided first to use a stock file i have on odin first that has saved me from softbricks in the past. I set everything up hit start, watched the process complete with the pass. Now it shows the stock boot animation but still stuck in bootloop mode. I put it into recovery,which is now stock instead of twrp, wiped cache, davlik cache and factory reset then i reconnected to odin and reflashed the stock file. Still stuck in bootloop mode!!!! Plain reboot and same thing :/ so for the hell of it, i wanted to see if i can to my backups by restoring twrp. So i flashed my cf auto root and then flashed my twrp file and bam!!!! Twrp was full functioning with all my backups!!! :laugh: next i restored my latest illusion 4.3 rom and wala! Ive got a fully functioning rooted phone with a custom rom. I flipped through everything to make sure it looks good and it does. Except.... any photos and music that are saved to phone and not sd card are gone I dont understand, everthing else is backed. Contacts, call logs, messages, text messages, apps, customised settings etc...I even flashed my carbon rom that had the same music and pics. When i open gallery it shows the photo count in snapseed and others im looking for but then they all start dissapearing!!! i also dont understand why the stock file which has saved me from softbricks before didnt work. I dont know anything about checking md 5 checksums but if its worth the time ill do my research! Im happy i got my phone working but i would like to be more solid in what im doing. Maybe someone can help shed some light on this.

Related

[Q] Bootloop with no Recovery/Download mode

Hi everybody,
I'm relatively new to ROMs and I think I've made a mistake. I rooted my phone with CASUAL (because I'm a noob like that), and after about of week of playing around with my new features I decided to try and get a new ROM, CyanogenMod 10.1. I followed a video guide on youtube called "How to install CyanogenMod 10.1 Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on the Samsung Galaxy S III/3" (can't post links) and used GooManager to flash the ROM over. The phone rebooted and it took me to a teamwin loading screen followed by a menu with 8 options. I thought it was weird, as it wasn't in the video, but one of the options was "install" so I clicked that, it showed the .zip for the ROM so I hit "flash". It rebooted again now and now continuously displays the spinning loading screen for CyanogenMod. I remember reading something something about CM 10 not working with ICS bootloaders, but all of the guides I read about flashing CM made no mention of it, so I didn't think much of it. Is this my problem?
I made a ROM backup with CWM Recovery, app and data backups with Titanium root, and even backed up my EFS folder, so I'm not worried about any data loss involved in a factory wipe or reset, but I need help getting there. I've read things about a USB jig, is this what I need to do? If so, , do I just need to make/buy and plug in the jig? What do I do afterwards?
Any and all help will be appreciated
uberchinchillaz said:
Hi everybody,
I'm relatively new to ROMs and I think I've made a mistake. I rooted my phone with CASUAL (because I'm a noob like that), and after about of week of playing around with my new features I decided to try and get a new ROM, CyanogenMod 10.1. I followed a video guide on youtube called "How to install CyanogenMod 10.1 Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on the Samsung Galaxy S III/3" (can't post links) and used GooManager to flash the ROM over. The phone rebooted and it took me to a teamwin loading screen followed by a menu with 8 options. I thought it was weird, as it wasn't in the video, but one of the options was "install" so I clicked that, it showed the .zip for the ROM so I hit "flash". It rebooted again now and now continuously displays the spinning loading screen for CyanogenMod. I remember reading something something about CM 10 not working with ICS bootloaders, but all of the guides I read about flashing CM made no mention of it, so I didn't think much of it. Is this my problem?
I made a ROM backup with CWM Recovery, app and data backups with Titanium root, and even backed up my EFS folder, so I'm not worried about any data loss involved in a factory wipe or reset, but I need help getting there. I've read things about a USB jig, is this what I need to do? If so, , do I just need to make/buy and plug in the jig? What do I do afterwards?
Any and all help will be appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it does anything it isn't a hard brick. Never use rom manager or goo manager to flash something. That is a sure fire way to kill your phone.
If it was an out of date boot loader it wouldn't have flashed.
By the sounds of if your bootloop is from not wiping.
Go here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=38838122
Everything you need to know is there. Pay close attention to step 5a it's proper wiping for twrp. Re wipe, re flash and you'll be fine. Don't forget to flash the gappps. Those videos are good and bad. Especially if you have no idea what you're doing it's a real fast way to a brick.
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

[Q] No ROMs taking, keep getting no MD5 message, phone close to bricked.

I apologize in advance if any of this makes you roll your eyes at my stupidity.
Good Afternoon
I have an ATT samsung galaxy s3, Because of the glitches with 4.3 I was experiencing I decided to install custom software on my phone. So I looked up guides and got everything I needed. I did manage to get root access, and verified with super user. I also installed TWRP and CWM because each kept giving me errors when I tried to install CM 11 onto my phone. I tried CWM first, and when that didn't work I tried TWRP. It says there was no MD5 information found when I try to install any mod. how ever I have used the md5 file checker program and the MD5 matches up to what was listed in this one for example.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2518998
Download:
CM 11.0 Unofficial Beta 7 for d2tmo and d2att
MD5: ef93957db1e6704f23f9015231a82826
So the MD5 matches, yet when I try to install it keeps giving me errors. I also tried other versions of CM that I found on here via links. Right now my phone has no OS as another guide I read some where also said to wipe system data (sorry if that was stupid, I was just following a guideline) And even more stupid, no I don't have a backup because in my naivety and stupidity I didn't think I'd need one as it seemed so simple from all the guides and videos I'd seen.
Yesterday a friend of mine knowledgeable with tech stuff took one of the original stock Image ROMs I'd downloaded and using linux and some program he managed to do some crazy stuff I can't even describe on here. All I saw was a lot of typing of command lines and it got my phone working again, how ever it wasn't exactly the stock image I guess because the phone would not make or receive calls/texts.
Since my phone was powering on again and the android OS was loading I figured I could connect it to my computer and use KIES to download the official latest update so my phone would be back on the legit software. But trying to do that...well broke my phone again. So I'm at a loss now of what to do. Right now I can still get to download mode on my phone, but when I try to get into recovery mode I get an error that "firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in KIES & try again." Which I've tried, and every time I try it gives me an error message.So I'm at a loss of what to do next.
So I'd like to get a working OS on my phone asap so I can get calls and texts.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. And being new I'm sorry if I broke any taboos or did not give some information that is typically given when describing a problem.
gvazquez82 said:
I apologize in advance if any of this makes you roll your eyes at my stupidity.
Good Afternoon
I have an ATT samsung galaxy s3, Because of the glitches with 4.3 I was experiencing I decided to install custom software on my phone. So I looked up guides and got everything I needed. I did manage to get root access, and verified with super user. I also installed TWRP and CWM because each kept giving me errors when I tried to install CM 11 onto my phone. I tried CWM first, and when that didn't work I tried TWRP. It says there was no MD5 information found when I try to install any mod. how ever I have used the md5 file checker program and the MD5 matches up to what was listed in this one for example.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2518998
Download:
CM 11.0 Unofficial Beta 7 for d2tmo and d2att
MD5: ef93957db1e6704f23f9015231a82826
So the MD5 matches, yet when I try to install it keeps giving me errors. I also tried other versions of CM that I found on here via links. Right now my phone has no OS as another guide I read some where also said to wipe system data (sorry if that was stupid, I was just following a guideline) And even more stupid, no I don't have a backup because in my naivety and stupidity I didn't think I'd need one as it seemed so simple from all the guides and videos I'd seen.
Yesterday a friend of mine knowledgeable with tech stuff took one of the original stock Image ROMs I'd downloaded and using linux and some program he managed to do some crazy stuff I can't even describe on here. All I saw was a lot of typing of command lines and it got my phone working again, how ever it wasn't exactly the stock image I guess because the phone would not make or receive calls/texts.
Since my phone was powering on again and the android OS was loading I figured I could connect it to my computer and use KIES to download the official latest update so my phone would be back on the legit software. But trying to do that...well broke my phone again. So I'm at a loss now of what to do. Right now I can still get to download mode on my phone, but when I try to get into recovery mode I get an error that "firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in KIES & try again." Which I've tried, and every time I try it gives me an error message.So I'm at a loss of what to do next.
So I'd like to get a working OS on my phone asap so I can get calls and texts.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. And being new I'm sorry if I broke any taboos or did not give some information that is typically given when describing a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same error happened to me yesterday and spent the whole day figuring it out. get into download mode. boot up ODIN and reflash your preferred custom recovery. after that, i couldn't find anything else to restore my phone with so i installed 4.3 leaked from here. doesn't matter which one you select. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2498233. place it on your sd card and head into recovery mode, wipe data/factory reset and cache. head to install zip from sd card and select the 4.3 zip you downloaded. reboot system and it should work. the at&t boot screen takes a while so be patient
MrHaPpY66 said:
same error happened to me yesterday and spent the whole day figuring it out. get into download mode. boot up ODIN and reflash your preferred custom recovery. after that, i couldn't find anything else to restore my phone with so i installed 4.3 leaked from here. doesn't matter which one you select. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2498233. place it on your sd card and head into recovery mode, wipe data/factory reset and cache. head to install zip from sd card and select the 4.3 zip you downloaded. reboot system and it should work. the at&t boot screen takes a while so be patient
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all thank you for trying to help me, I hope you are having a good Thanks Giving.
I used the thread you linked to, and downloaded the version with out knox. I followed the instructions
transferred ROM and flashed kernel file to SD card
used odin to flash TWRP,
used twrp to flash rom and kernel file.
and it takes the file thankfully, there's only one issue. My phone can't make or receive calls/texts. Is yours able to?
I messed up and was playing with things That I had no business playing with and decided that I should do a restore of a backup (TWRP) I made as soon as I rooted the 4.3 OTA. well it has soft bricked my phone. it was a TWRP 4.3 Nandroid and has me messed up a little.
so far I tried My nandroid (no dice now a soft brick) cleared cache and dalvik, It was booting as far as the white at&t spinning thing,
Factory reset same on booting,
Tried a format of the internal sd this is where it gets sketchy it now goes as far as the second samsung screen(the one that says Samsung GALAXY S III)
4.3 OTA .zip (no dice TWRP wont flash it) same on the booting 2nd samsung boot screen
Tried the files in the link above and got a Hard brick
Used the debricking .IMG file and got TWRP and download mode back
Any suggestions?
Looks like I might need a JTAG/RIFF BOX for this one. If nothing else I spent many Hours of darkness discovering the darkness of android 4.3
If I get recovered from this and with a different rom like 4.1.2 I will be happy. the 4.3 OTA was very stable but I did miss wifi tether and the whole hardbrick thing was kind of a bummer. it would be real nice to have an ODIN file to fix this (AHEM samsung) or atleast perhaps stopped the progression of it to a hard brick.
New update
I got my phone booting up again however there is a catch. That unbrick.img file on my 16GB sd card is still required to boot the phone and I have no cell service what so ever. Tried to check apn settings because at home I sometimes get poor service and I run net10 so I was going to fix my apn and it says insert sim??? the sim is properly inserted???
Next Update
the bootloader I flashed apparently flashed to the external sd card? I flashed another one and it is booting from the internal sd. I had to flash a different modem the one in the bootloader/modem file I flashed from the link above didnt take? I got most everything sorted out, but im getting tired, it has been an all night adventure. its 08:23 est now
sorry for the delay in updating this I had to get some rest.
theramsey3 said:
I messed up and was playing with things That I had no business playing with and decided that I should do a restore of a backup (TWRP) I made as soon as I rooted the 4.3 OTA. well it has soft bricked my phone. it was a TWRP 4.3 Nandroid and has me messed up a little.
so far I tried My nandroid (no dice now a soft brick) cleared cache and dalvik, It was booting as far as the white at&t spinning thing,
Factory reset same on booting,
Tried a format of the internal sd this is where it gets sketchy it now goes as far as the second samsung screen(the one that says Samsung GALAXY S III)
4.3 OTA .zip (no dice TWRP wont flash it) same on the booting 2nd samsung boot screen
Tried the files in the link above and got a Hard brick
Used the debricking .IMG file and got TWRP and download mode back
Any suggestions?
Looks like I might need a JTAG/RIFF BOX for this one. If nothing else I spent many Hours of darkness discovering the darkness of android 4.3
If I get recovered from this and with a different rom like 4.1.2 I will be happy. the 4.3 OTA was very stable but I did miss wifi tether and the whole hardbrick thing was kind of a bummer. it would be real nice to have an ODIN file to fix this (AHEM samsung) or atleast perhaps stopped the progression of it to a hard brick.
New update
I got my phone booting up again however there is a catch. That unbrick.img file on my 16GB sd card is still required to boot the phone and I have no cell service what so ever. Tried to check apn settings because at home I sometimes get poor service and I run net10 so I was going to fix my apn and it says insert sim??? the sim is properly inserted???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into Settings, About Phone, Status and check to see if your IMEI and Serial Number are present. If you only lost your IMEI there's a guide on how to inject it back (I'm not sure where the guide is). However if you've lost your serial number and don't have a Nandroid that can restore it I don't know what to do.
spongdangly said:
Go into Settings, About Phone, Status and check to see if your IMEI and Serial Number are present. If you only lost your IMEI there's a guide on how to inject it back (I'm not sure where the guide is). However if you've lost your serial number and don't have a Nandroid that can restore it I don't know what to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have my serial number showing but no IMEI number. So is that all that's needed for me to be able to call and text again?
gvazquez82 said:
i have my serial number showing but no IMEI number. So is that all that's needed for me to be able to call and text again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I updated my post above and showed my soultion. I simply had to flash a new modem and almost everything was kosher. I also had to flasah a different kernel but that was for preference not because things werent working.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47817339&postcount=23 Modem download
I used that modem, flash it and see if your problems go away. I use Net10 so after I flashed the Modem I had to create an APN aswell, but that is nothing new for me.
theramsey3 said:
I updated my post above and showed my soultion. I simply had to flash a new modem and almost everything was kosher. I also had to flasah a different kernel but that was for preference not because things werent working.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47817339&postcount=23 Modem download
I used that modem, flash it and see if your problems go away. I use Net10 so after I flashed the Modem I had to create an APN aswell, but that is nothing new for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will give that a shot, but what's an APN, sorry. And how do I create one, and is it needed for me to do so?
gvazquez82 said:
i have my serial number showing but no IMEI number. So is that all that's needed for me to be able to call and text again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It should be, I'm working right now so I don't have time to fine the guide on how to inject your IMEI. If I remember correctly it involves using QPST. If you have an old (or any) working Nandroid backup that should fix the problem.
FYI, make sure you don't use the guide for the international S3 as it has different hardware and folder structure/contents.
As for the APN, it should automatically fill itself in since it reads it off the SIM Card (I might be wrong).
theramsey3 said:
I updated my post above and showed my soultion. I simply had to flash a new modem and almost everything was kosher. I also had to flasah a different kernel but that was for preference not because things werent working.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47817339&postcount=23 Modem download
I used that modem, flash it and see if your problems go away. I use Net10 so after I flashed the Modem I had to create an APN aswell, but that is nothing new for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried it and it work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
67 texts just came in. Sir, I thank you oh so kindly. You have made this gloomy rainy day oh so joyous.
No problem. Glad I could help you.
The real credit should go to -Mr.X-, loserskater and anyone else(no disrespect there were alot of files) whose stuff I tried to flash lastnight thank you all in the dev community who contribute.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
So I guess the next question, do I try again to install kit kat on my phone.
I've already made bucks of my existing working phone haha....but I'd still like to have kitkat in place. I believe the issue of my phone not reading MD5 confirmations would still be in place, does anyone know how to remedy that situation?
At the same time I'm more than happy to leave my phone as is.
gvazquez82 said:
So I guess the next question, do I try again to install kit kat on my phone.
I've already made bucks of my existing working phone haha....but I'd still like to have kitkat in place. I believe the issue of my phone not reading MD5 confirmations would still be in place, does anyone know how to remedy that situation?
At the same time I'm more than happy to leave my phone as is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty sure you can turn off MD5 checks in TWRP. Probably in CWM too. Sorry if this has been mentioned. Didn't have time to read the whole thread. Just skimmed through.
2nd, there is a major difference between an IMEI that reads 0 and an IMEI that shows unknown. If it shows an unknown simply reflash your ROM and modem and you will be good to go. Sometimes a reboot is all you need. If your IMEI is showing a 0 on the other hand its gone and will require that it be injected back in which is a messy situation that usually results in tour phone being stuck on EDGE.
3rd, as someone mentioned on the previous page, restoring a working nandroid will NOT reinject your IMEI if it shows up as 0. No amount of flashing anything will get it to come back. Not even stock. It needs to be reinjected manually.
flexfulton said:
Pretty sure you can turn off MD5 checks in TWRP. Probably in CWM too. Sorry if this has been mentioned. Didn't have time to read the whole thread. Just skimmed through.
2nd, there is a major difference between an IMEI that reads 0 and an IMEI that shows unknown. If it shows an unknown simply reflash your ROM and modem and you will be good to go. Sometimes a reboot is all you need. If your IMEI is showing a 0 on the other hand its gone and will require that it be injected back in which is a messy situation that usually results in tour phone being stuck on EDGE.
3rd, as someone mentioned on the previous page, restoring a working nandroid will NOT reinject your IMEI if it shows up as 0. No amount of flashing anything will get it to come back. Not even stock. It needs to be reinjected manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you know of a good stable kit kat like ROM I could use for the s3? And any speculation as to why the ROMs werent taking for me?

Tried rooting S3, didn't work, need help.

I am very new at this, so I apologize in advance. I have the Virgin Mobile Galaxy S3 SPH-L710 running 4.3.
I simply wanted to root it so i could get rid of the bloatware and install Sixaxis and play emulators, but I didn't really know where to start, so I started looking around and found this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2546505
So I basically did everything on there. I used Odin to install PhilZ Touch 6 Recovery (CWM 6.0.4.7) Did factory reset, wiped cache/dalvik. then installed the Odexed MK5 stock rooted zip, wifi fix zip, SuperSU update zip, and then the knox app remover zip.
Everything flashed just fine and it started right up. It had the Super Su app, but when I tried to install apps that need root permission it would say I don't have root access. I couldn't delete bloat apps and Super Su didn't show any apps and there isn't much I can do with it. So I guess it didn't work? Either way I wanted to try a different rom. Was gonna give Cyanogenmod a try. But every time I try to install it I get the little "Android bot laying on his back" thing and it says status 7. I tried to flash CM10, CM10.1, CM10.2, CM11. Nothing worked, same thing every time. Even tried different SD cards just in case of a mess up.
The phone itself works fine for now, calls and text work, wifi works. And it says there is an update, but when i hit accept, it reboots to recovery mode, does the "android fallen over" then boots back up.
Now here is my stupid part, I didn't backup the original cause the guide didn't say to. (Not blaming them, i should have know better) So I am assuming I have a messed up version of 4.3 and Cyanogenmod doesn't know what to do with me. I'm not sure. Here is where I am stumped and I have no idea where to go from here.
I posted this by accident in the wrong forum here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/help/tried-rooting-s3-didnt-help-t2879278
But someone decided to help me anyways (thank you so much). They said all i need to do is update my recovery. so I went here
https://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/d2lte/
And now I am running PhilZ 6.48.4, but I am still getting status 7 when I try to install CM11. I have tried CM10, CM10.1, CM10.2 and CM10.2.1 as well. I have been at this for days and i am going crazy because nothing I do seems to work. Does anyone have any idea what is wrong with my phone? Thank you so much in advance.
Mumonk said:
I am very new at this, so I apologize in advance. I have the Virgin Mobile Galaxy S3 SPH-L710 running 4.3.
I simply wanted to root it so i could get rid of the bloatware and install Sixaxis and play emulators, but I didn't really know where to start, so I started looking around and found this
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2546505
So I basically did everything on there. I used Odin to install PhilZ Touch 6 Recovery (CWM 6.0.4.7) Did factory reset, wiped cache/dalvik. then installed the Odexed MK5 stock rooted zip, wifi fix zip, SuperSU update zip, and then the knox app remover zip.
Everything flashed just fine and it started right up. It had the Super Su app, but when I tried to install apps that need root permission it would say I don't have root access. I couldn't delete bloat apps and Super Su didn't show any apps and there isn't much I can do with it. So I guess it didn't work? Either way I wanted to try a different rom. Was gonna give Cyanogenmod a try. But every time I try to install it I get the little "Android bot laying on his back" thing and it says status 7. I tried to flash CM10, CM10.1, CM10.2, CM11. Nothing worked, same thing every time. Even tried different SD cards just in case of a mess up.
The phone itself works fine for now, calls and text work, wifi works. And it says there is an update, but when i hit accept, it reboots to recovery mode, does the "android fallen over" then boots back up.
Now here is my stupid part, I didn't backup the original cause the guide didn't say to. (Not blaming them, i should have know better) So I am assuming I have a messed up version of 4.3 and Cyanogenmod doesn't know what to do with me. I'm not sure. Here is where I am stumped and I have no idea where to go from here.
I posted this by accident in the wrong forum here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/help/tried-rooting-s3-didnt-help-t2879278
But someone decided to help me anyways (thank you so much). They said all i need to do is update my recovery. so I went here
https://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/d2lte/
And now I am running PhilZ 6.48.4, but I am still getting status 7 when I try to install CM11. I have tried CM10, CM10.1, CM10.2 and CM10.2.1 as well. I have been at this for days and i am going crazy because nothing I do seems to work. Does anyone have any idea what is wrong with my phone? Thank you so much in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
only thing i can think of Is Odin the stock rom and start all over with trying to root......
I don't know how to explain it, but now everything is working perfectly....
I went back to the first site I posted about, Redownloaded everything, did the whole thing over, and root worked just fine. So I thought I would try my luck with CM11 and BOOM, working perfectly.
I have been tearing my hair out trying to get this to work for days and days and now, poof, it's all working. I dunno how, but I will take it. Thanks for the advice in both threads.
Mumonk said:
I don't know how to explain it, but now everything is working perfectly....
I went back to the first site I posted about, Redownloaded everything, did the whole thing over, and root worked just fine. So I thought I would try my luck with CM11 and BOOM, working perfectly.
I have been tearing my hair out trying to get this to work for days and days and now, poof, it's all working. I dunno how, but I will take it. Thanks for the advice in both threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get towelroot, is an apk that root your phone with one click, after that just download your favorite super user from the market and done.

[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

Sprint S3 Not Working With 5.0+ Lollipop Roms, Works Fine With 4.4.4

All I want..... Is an S3 with AICP on Sprint's network.
Two weeks ago I bought an S3 for $50, started playing with it, easily flashed AICP and TWRP 2.8.7.0 Recovery. Everything was awesome, until Sprint couldn't activate it. I flashed back to stock through Odin, Sprint still couldn't activate it (problems with programming). There was no Sprint boot screen, so assuming that was the main problem I found "SPH-L710_ND8_Full Restore_UNROOTED.exe" that restored the Sprint boot logo and viola! I had Sprint 4GLTE and talk and text.......... But now, this little devil S3 won't flash Roms that are 5.0 or newer. I have tried AICP, PAC-ROM, Vanir, Exodus.... all just boot to the boot logo and stay there, but when i try Gummy 4.4.4 it boots and works fine.
I always wipe cache, dalvik, & use correct gapps. Using TWRP 2.8.7.0 and have tried two other recoveries with same result. Tried flashing L710VPUDNJ2_L710SPRDNJ2_L710VPUDNJ2_HOME.tar.md5 through Odin and then reflashing recovery and retrying ROM, same result.
Right now its working fine with gummy 4.4.4 but I want 5.1-6.0 because that's the only way I will feel ok about having an S3 I'm sure I'm forgetting some details as this has been a two week off and on thing trying to get this phone to work, so if I am please forgive me and have pity (I'm using a blackberry Q10)
Why will lollipop roms not boot?!?!?!
Please..... help me obi wan kenobi...... you're my only hope
Papa Z said:
All I want..... Is an S3 with AICP on Sprint's network.
Two weeks ago I bought an S3 for $50, started playing with it, easily flashed AICP and TWRP 2.8.7.0 Recovery. Everything was awesome, until Sprint couldn't activate it. I flashed back to stock through Odin, Sprint still couldn't activate it (problems with programming). There was no Sprint boot screen, so assuming that was the main problem I found "SPH-L710_ND8_Full Restore_UNROOTED.exe" that restored the Sprint boot logo and viola! I had Sprint 4GLTE and talk and text.......... But now, this little devil S3 won't flash Roms that are 5.0 or newer. I have tried AICP, PAC-ROM, Vanir, Exodus.... all just boot to the boot logo and stay there, but when i try Gummy 4.4.4 it boots and works fine.
I always wipe cache, dalvik, & use correct gapps. Using TWRP 2.8.7.0 and have tried two other recoveries with same result. Tried flashing L710VPUDNJ2_L710SPRDNJ2_L710VPUDNJ2_HOME.tar.md5 through Odin and then reflashing recovery and retrying ROM, same result.
Right now its working fine with gummy 4.4.4 but I want 5.1-6.0 because that's the only way I will feel ok about having an S3 I'm sure I'm forgetting some details as this has been a two week off and on thing trying to get this phone to work, so if I am please forgive me and have pity (I'm using a blackberry Q10)
Why will lollipop roms not boot?!?!?!
Please..... help me obi wan kenobi...... you're my only hope
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you the original Sprint S3 and not the new Sprint Triband S3 then you should not have any problem at all! How long are you waiting on it to boot? I had the new Triband model and I had and I thought the lollipop roms wouldn't boot either but I had to give it 5-10mins sometimes on the 1st boot!
RootSuperSU said:
If you the original Sprint S3 and not the new Sprint Triband S3 then you should not have any problem at all! How long are you waiting on it to boot? I had the new Triband model and I had and I thought the lollipop roms wouldn't boot either but I had to give it 5-10mins sometimes on the 1st boot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have let it sit overnight a few times now.... just to make sure. With the Gumy 4.4.4 Rom it only took about 2 minutes which I was shocked by.
I feel like I have literally tried everything.
Papa Z said:
I have let it sit overnight a few times now.... just to make sure. With the Gumy 4.4.4 Rom it only took about 2 minutes which I was shocked by.
I feel like I have literally tried everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea Kitkat roms don't take very long on 1st boot anymore. But as for lollipop what all roms have you tried flashing?
There's only 2 reasons I can think of that they might not be working. 1st is your model SPH-710T or SPH-710 and 2nd are trying to flash a custom kernel with it?
Another thing I feel like is worth mentioning.... When I first flashed the AICP Rom I played with it for a few days so i had all my stuff installed. Realized I had to flash to stock to activate on Sprint so i made a Nandroid backup of my AICP 5.1 setup. When i restore this backup it boot loops as well.
Tried restoring everything except data, wiped dalvik and cache, all using the same twrp recovery. So strange...
RootSuperSU said:
Yea Kitkat roms don't take very long on 1st boot anymore. But as for lollipop what all roms have you tried flashing?
There's only 2 reasons I can think of that they might not be working. 1st is your model SPH-710T or SPH-710 and 2nd are trying to flash a custom kernel with it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried AICP, PAC-ROM, Vanir, Exodus.... all just boot to the boot logo and stay there. Mine is the SPH-L710 not the triband 710T. The Roms I tried to install, as far as I know, come with the kernel in the ROM zip. I have tried AICP and the pac-rom with just the rom zip and gapps, as well as with a few custom kernels just to see if it would change anything.
Ah another thing, may be unrelated because I only get this when flashing AICP and Pac, it says "unmount of /system failed; no such volume" and then flashes boot img and seems to be successful.
When I flashed exodus and Vanir it does not say this, and all seems to go perfect..... buuuuuut still boot loops/gets stuck at boot animation
Even tried flashing rom and gapps via adb sideload
I have a bad esn l710 in really poor condition. Just flashed the same recovery, same AICP rom, same gapps, all from the same SD card, and this one is working fine. Boots up in just a few minutes.
So i have to be missing something or something is wrong with the one I can actually activate.
EDIT: So "unmount of /system failed; no such volume" error doesn't matter, same thing happened on the bad ESN device that booted up fine.
Update (if anyone cares lol): I flashed both devices completely to stock with the "SPH-L710_ND8_Full Restore_UNROOTED.exe" and then did the exact same thing to both devices, twrp>aicp rom>gapps>dalvik>boot, the bad ESN crap device boots AICP fine, the good condition good ESN one boot loops forever.
I am at a loss here, both devices are exactly the same SPH-L710, flashed to stock completely, but the one with a good ESN that would actually work will not boot lollipop roms. I disassembled both devices to look for hardware differences of any kind, they're identical (with no signs of damage). The only difference is the bad esn one is a slightly deeper shade of blue. I'm pulling my hair out.
I even tried using the force, but my midichlorian levels have never been that good.
Who knows man
I've seen this only a couple times. One guy had luck. When it was stuck, he just kept randomly hitting the power button and eventually long pressed until it was about to reboot (screen freezes for a second) and when it shut off, held home and volume up so it booted recovery when it came on. Then just rebooted system, and this time it booted. Also, sometimes when going back and forth between KitKat and lollipop, you need to wipe internal storage. Make sure you have the latest twrp too (2.8.7.0).
Just shots in the dark, but you never know.
I saw one member who was never able to boot lollipop roms, you would be the second. So its pretty rare.
Well you now know 3 people that cant flash lollipop roms on an l710 NON tri-band.... Ive tried all of them including a couple of Vanir 6.0 roms and the ONLY one i could get to take was a BeanStalk 5.01 rom and a Candykat only after flashing its KitKat predecessor... All KitKat roms work just fine.. Curious,, as I also used the same odin non- rooted rom to get back to stock and after that had trouble flashing lollipop roms period.. Maybe something with the symlinks in that un-rooted rom??? I'm at a loss myself...
madbat99 said:
I've seen this only a couple times. One guy had luck. When it was stuck, he just kept randomly hitting the power button and eventually long pressed until it was about to reboot (screen freezes for a second) and when it shut off, held home and volume up so it booted recovery when it came on. Then just rebooted system, and this time it booted. Also, sometimes when going back and forth between KitKat and lollipop, you need to wipe internal storage. Make sure you have the latest twrp too (2.8.7.0).
Just shots in the dark, but you never know.
I saw one member who was never able to boot lollipop roms, you would be the second. So its pretty rare.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As the only possible solution I have not tried, I will attempt to randomly press/long press the home button as it boots and then boot recovery..... lol
What's even weirder is it worked fine with AICP lollipop just about a month ago, before i had done anything to it. but I repeated all the things i did to it on another s3 and that one still worked fine with lollipop roms.
nexusdread13 said:
Well you now know 3 people that cant flash lollipop roms on an l710 NON tri-band.... Ive tried all of them including a couple of Vanir 6.0 roms and the ONLY one i could get to take was a BeanStalk 5.01 rom and a Candykat only after flashing its KitKat predecessor... All KitKat roms work just fine.. Curious,, as I also used the same odin non- rooted rom to get back to stock and after that had trouble flashing lollipop roms period.. Maybe something with the symlinks in that un-rooted rom??? I'm at a loss myself...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used that same unroooted Odin rom on a bad esn s3 and it works fine with lollipop roms. So strange
Edit: no idea what symlinks are
I have similar probl.
After 4 months with CM12.1 I'm flashing NJ2 and upd. to OH1.
After THAT - I cant to flash anything ROM lollipop and higher.
I dont know, what is it.
I was waiting for 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, a day!
I dont know, I dislike TW roms, help anyone!
CyanogenMod 13.0 D2SPR
...I dunno, wanna start from scratch?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-sprint/development/rom-d2spr-cyanogenmod-13-0-t3248561
- Use the Sprint-made TWRP .img in the OP with Flashify (from the Play Store)
- Flash a CM 13, add GApps (from OpenGApps), and a recent SuperSU.
I'm a bit of a half-no0b, so I may be talking out me pants.
Bonne chance!
DavidovDI said:
I have similar probl.
After 4 months with CM12.1 I'm flashing NJ2 and upd. to OH1.
After THAT - I cant to flash anything ROM lollipop and higher.
I dont know, what is it.
I was waiting for 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, a day!
I dont know, I dislike TW roms, help anyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad I'm not the only one. Someone has to know how to fix this.... somewhere.
Papa Z said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one. Someone has to know how to fix this.... somewhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep!:crying::crying::crying:
I had the same problem. Try this. It worked for me today.
I have a d2spr (originally from sprint). It is now activated with boost. L710VPUDOH1 bootloader and baseband. CF-Auto-Root-d2spr-d2spr-sphl710.tar.md5 flashed with odin for root. twrp-2.8.7.0-d2spr.img.tar.md5 flashed with odin as recovery. I backed up Apn's with "APN Backup & Restore" app. I wiped system, cache, dalvik, data. Flashed cm-12.1-20151117-SNAPSHOT-YOG7DAO1K7-d2spr.zip... . Flashed pa_gapps-modular-full-5.1-20150315-signed.zip. I Wiped Dalvik. The device booted smoothly within approximately 7 minutes. I had full function as far as I could tell. Everything worked well. Ran this setup for about a month. I decided to restore a stock w/root backup made with twrp2870. Bootlooped until I learned to wipe internal sd when going back to 4.4.2. I wiped the internal sd and successfully booted stock w/root backup. When I tried to go back to cm 12.1 backup, I ran into the same problem... boot loop for hours. Multiple times. Backups and different nightly zips. I found and flashed every custom recovery I could find for this device to try to make it work. Eventually... while I had twrp-2.8.7.2-d2spr.img as my recovery (not sure if it makes a difference or not). I found this...
(apparently the link is not allowed due to my lack of posts with this forum)
im pasting from another page at this point...
Ha! Got it! Visited the #cyanogenmod channel on freenode irc and there were some VERY helpful people there. So I've got a few instructions.
Flash the latest TWRP recovery via ODIN. (2.8.7.0-d2spr at the time of writing).
Flash your CM 12 zip file
On your PC (with adb installed) run the command "adb shell dd if=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist of=/sdcard/persist.img"
Then run "adb pull /sdcard/persist.img" (This will give you a backup of the persist partition in case anything goes wrong)
Run the command "mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist"
Run the command "adb reboot"
If it boots into OS, great! Reboot into recovery and install the lastest gapps package.
I did it from adb in a Cygwin64 Terminal. The device booted my cm12.1 backup the first time I tried. I think it would work just as well with adb from a windows command prompt. I only found this on another page. Credit goes to someone from "#cyanogenmod channel on freenode irc". Hope it is as much help to all of you as it was to me.
HouseHG said:
I have a d2spr (originally from sprint). It is now activated with boost. L710VPUDOH1 bootloader and baseband. CF-Auto-Root-d2spr-d2spr-sphl710.tar.md5 flashed with odin for root. twrp-2.8.7.0-d2spr.img.tar.md5 flashed with odin as recovery. I backed up Apn's with "APN Backup & Restore" app. I wiped system, cache, dalvik, data. Flashed cm-12.1-20151117-SNAPSHOT-YOG7DAO1K7-d2spr.zip... . Flashed pa_gapps-modular-full-5.1-20150315-signed.zip. I Wiped Dalvik. The device booted smoothly within approximately 7 minutes. I had full function as far as I could tell. Everything worked well. Ran this setup for about a month. I decided to restore a stock w/root backup made with twrp2870. Bootlooped until I learned to wipe internal sd when going back to 4.4.2. I wiped the internal sd and successfully booted stock w/root backup. When I tried to go back to cm 12.1 backup, I ran into the same problem... boot loop for hours. Multiple times. Backups and different nightly zips. I found and flashed every custom recovery I could find for this device to try to make it work. Eventually... while I had twrp-2.8.7.2-d2spr.img as my recovery (not sure if it makes a difference or not). I found this...
(apparently the link is not allowed due to my lack of posts with this forum)
im pasting from another page at this point...
Ha! Got it! Visited the #cyanogenmod channel on freenode irc and there were some VERY helpful people there. So I've got a few instructions.
Flash the latest TWRP recovery via ODIN. (2.8.7.0-d2spr at the time of writing).
Flash your CM 12 zip file
On your PC (with adb installed) run the command "adb shell dd if=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist of=/sdcard/persist.img"
Then run "adb pull /sdcard/persist.img" (This will give you a backup of the persist partition in case anything goes wrong)
Run the command "mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist"
Run the command "adb reboot"
If it boots into OS, great! Reboot into recovery and install the lastest gapps package.
I did it from adb in a Cygwin64 Terminal. The device booted my cm12.1 backup the first time I tried. I think it would work just as well with adb from a windows command prompt. I only found this on another page. Credit goes to someone from "#cyanogenmod channel on freenode irc". Hope it is as much help to all of you as it was to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I flashed mine back to stock and sold it.... got a good deal on an S5 and flashed MOAR to it.
I found this thread a while back and attempted to do what it says to do, but I couldn't get it to work for me. What exactly does running those commands do that suddenly makes it work?
I think it either reformats or converts the persist partition to ext4. I'm not 100% sure yet bc I haven't had time to look into it.
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

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