Develop Bugs

For noobs...My first "soft brick" experience...

Wow, I thought I fried my phone tonight. So, since I'm a noob and managed to get my phone back up and running with a little creativity and luck, I thought I'd share so other relatively inexperienced folks could perhaps do the same thing.
I flashed CM10 tonight and followed the instructions (flashed recommended CWM non touch, factory reset, wipe /system, flash rom, flash GApps, flash darkside cache wipe, reboot). When I restarted the phone i saw the CM boot anim for about 2 seconds, and then it froze and the screen went completely black. I thought no problem, i'll just flash the Nandroid I took with the recommended CWM before I got started. (Note: ALWAYS DO THIS.) Anyway, during the restore the recovery locked up on .android_secure. Read about it and tried a rollback - got into download mode and used Odin to flash 5.0.2.6 which I had a TAR for (I didn't have a flashable on my computer for 6.0.1.1 and my internet was tweaking...couldn't download it). All fine, but then realized that Nandroids are not backwards compatible. So I'm thinking, SH*T I have a soft brick that I need to flash stock firmware for now.
Then I remembered...before I changed recovery based on the recommendation, I had TWRP installed and had a Nandroid from earlier today. Additionally I had moved both the install zip and the backup to my external SD card. I was able to re-flash TWRP from CWM and restore my backup - I could have cried when my phone booted properly.
Here were my takeaways, which I'd like to share as I think they may help newer folks:
(1) IT NEVER HURTS TO HAVE TWO BACKUP SOLUTIONS. Flash an alternative and take a Nandroid with it...then switch back if you want to. Then, if one Nandroid or recovery fails for any reason you're good to go with another. Keep flashables both on your external SD card and your computer.
(2) Keep your flashables and backups on your External SD card. Both of the popular recovery solutions allow you to access the external SD, and you're safe should you wipe your internal storage. Flash the alternative recovery, reboot into the new recovery and restore.
(3) For the love of God, DON'T PANIC. You'll probably make things worse, or pollute the forum with posts asking for help before trying to fix your own issue. I did all kinds of dumb crap tonight and got my phone into a wicked loop where the flash was going on and off randomly. It was like a freakin dance party in my living room.
Of course there are other solutions I'm sure, but under my particular circumstances this worked well - and I did it on my own which is a GREAT confidence builder for me as a noob. I hope this helps others.

Need serious help resetting phone

Ok so I used to have a Samsung Captivate and knew how to root and flash ROMs, was pretty used to it.
I tried to do the same on my HOX, but ran into a bootloop and subsequently I think I've deleted everything on my phone. I used Hasoon2000's All in one kit and unlocked my bootloader, flashed TWRP v 2.3.3.0, but my problem arose after I tried to flash the kernel. It stayed in bootloop so I figured I'd back out and just restore back to the backup I made before flashing the kernel. However, after "successfully" restoring back I was still stuck in bootloop somehow. I know this isn't supposed to happen, it's supposed to restore back to the exact state of your phone at the time.
Anyways, I thought maybe I just needed to wipe things. I looked around and found a source that said to wipe cache, dalvik, factory reset, and system. Wipe those 4, but not external storage or android secure. So I wiped those 4 and I intended to try the backup again but it turns out that cleared everything on my phone. Now when I hit "restore" there is nothing to select. I also used to have a custom rom on the virtual sdcard, but that's gone too.
When in TWRP and I go into "install" the only thing in /sdcard is now TWRP. After looking around, it looks like my only option is to mount the phone to my computer via TWRP and somehow download the standard OS for my One X again. Also in the Mount menu it lists "mount system, mount data, mount cache, mount sd card" I can only check the first 3 options and when I do my computer asks me if I want to format it. I guess I can't mount the sd card because I deleted everything?
If anyone has the time to help me out that would be AMAZING. Right now I don't even care about being able to flash my custom ROM, I just want to get my phone back to functionality. I would love a conversation and would be willing to gmail chat if willing.
Also my phone is the ATT version, 2.20 (or I guess it was before I deleted everything).
Thank you in advance for any help.

I guess the fastest way to get your phone working again is using RUU file, you ll find how to do it here (method 2) or here
It stayed in bootloop so I figured I'd back out and just restore back to the backup I made before flashing the kernel. However, after "successfully" restoring back I was still stuck in bootloop somehow. I know this isn't supposed to happen, it's supposed to restore back to the exact state of your phone at the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Restoring backup doesnt restore kernel ( boot.img ), you have to flash it manually with fastboot.

Dude. U think htc offers same freedom as Samsung . U are WRONG. If u flash a rom or restore a backup. U also need to flash boot.img separately from pc. Use fastboot flash boot boot.img. i assume you know the basics. Htc don't have s-off , so writing to nand protected system storage is restricted. If u read a little you might have got this. This will solve boot loop prob
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

Fixed
Thanks Yasounet. I managed to flash viper in the end.

[Q] Help! Rooted 4.3, Backed up, and now cant restore backup

Hello, I recently rooted my wifes Note 2 that was on the latest OTA 4.3. Was not easy BTW. I did a back up in recovery of boot, system, and data. I figured I was good to go and start trying out other roms.
The first one I flashed was Macks Allstar 5.0 rom. Everything was great. Then my wife informed me that she did not have all of her contacts backed up to google and some were only saved to her phone. So then I figure I could just restore the original backup and extract the contacts and be able to install them to any rom.
Thats when everything went wrong. Everytime I tried restoring the back up,it would crash and recovery would do like a reboot. After many attempts I figured id try another version of recovery. After flashing many earlier versions of twrp and trying to restore, I finally was able to complete a restore from version 2.6. I was ecstatic. But then my heart sank again when boot always hangs on samsung logo. And that is where I'm stuck. I am able to flash other roms no problem but cant restore my original backup.
Needless to say my wife is ready to kill me.
Please if anyone could help me I would really appreciate it. I have searched throughout this forum and internet for hours and can not seem to find any help with this issue.
I am thankful to have been able to get this far with the help from the XDA community posts I never needed direct help even with prior phone rootings but this one has got me stumped. Thanks in advance

You need to flash Phil's recovery version 6.0.7.9. If you cant restore your backup with Phil's then I'm thinking you might be sol. Make sure you know where you saved the backup to. It's either on the phone's internal sd or external sd card. Choose the correct location in Phil's recovery and if it isn't corrupt it should work. You may also want to copy your backup onto your pc just in case because that's your only backup and doing a full wipe or odin restore could permanently delete it. Good luck.

tx_dbs_tx said:
You need to flash Phil's recovery version 6.0.7.9. If you cant restore your backup with Phil's then I'm thinking you might be sol. Make sure you know where you saved the backup to. It's either on the phone's internal sd or external sd card. Choose the correct location in Phil's recovery and if it isn't corrupt it should work. You may also want to copy your backup onto your pc just in case because that's your only backup and doing a full wipe or odin restore could permanently delete it. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply. I am at work right now and left the phone with my wife with a working rom. I will try phils recovery when I get home. As far as backups, I have two copies. One on my SD card and the other on PC but if they're both fried I guess that negates my efforts in redundancy. It's hard to believe the backup got corrupt so quickly. I have another backup of the 2nd rom I flashed and that one wont install as well.
Is there something I am doing wrong? If the backup file is corrupt, is there a way to extract contacts seperately out of backup?

Method b.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2648855
My wife does that too. Sorry

ColeTrain! said:
Method b.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2648855
My wife does that too. Sorry
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Life of a married man. Haha!
Well, as my backup file was done with TWRP, I tried method B with TWRP recovery and it wont work so now I'm in the process of trying method A. Will update once I tried it.
I think my problem has to do with TWRP not playing friendly with 4.3 ROMS. If that is the case method A looks like it will work.:fingers-crossed:

alexandnen said:
Life of a married man. Haha!
Well, as my backup file was done with TWRP, I tried method B with TWRP recovery and it wont work so now I'm in the process of trying method A. Will update once I tried it.
I think my problem has to do with TWRP not playing friendly with 4.3 ROMS. If that is the case method A looks like it will work.:fingers-crossed:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly right. Bootloader isn't playing well with TWRP recovery. Phil"s 6.0.7.9 seems to be compatible in most ROM vs bootloader situations. Don't use latest version of Phil's recovery as it doesn't work as well and most people recommend this as well.
If Phil's recovery won't flash your restore then Odin all the way back to stock unrooted LK8 ROM then root it with the Toolkit and flash TWRP from the toolkit at the same time. Then see if you can restore at that point.

Looks like this project has come to an end. My wife likes her new rom and doesn't want to let me work on her phone anymore. She was able to get most of her contacts back I will make sure she backs her contacts to google and I will try to convince her to install Titanium backup to backup all her app data.
Unfortunately all I have is a work issued iphone that I have no interest in jailbreaking. I really don't see the point.
I am still confident that I could have eventually restored her backup successfully with the help here.
Thank you tx_dbx_tx and coletrain for your help.

[Q] Why is "fix permissions" missing from CWM? ... I can't do anything on my phone

[Q] Why is "fix permissions" missing from CWM? ... I can't do anything on my phone
I "broke" my phone using PhilZ CWM Touch, I don't know how?
I did a full CWM backup of my ROM / apps etc to my SDCard, it grabs /data/ /system/ all kinds of stuff into a 4gb ZIP or whatever.
I've done this many times before!
All of this so I could do some quick CM12 testing for a snapchat bug.
Then I restored the CWM backup image from my SD Card
Now, I can't save screenshots or write ANY data to the /sdcard/
"Couldn't capture screenshot: couldn't save. Storage may be in use"
Tried wiping Dalvik cache, no fix.
What do I do here? I'm baffled? ?I thought restoring a CWM backup would recover everything.
This PhilZ touch thing is missing "fix permissions" ?

wizzbang3 said:
I "broke" my phone using PhilZ CWM Touch, I don't know how?
I did a full CWM backup of my ROM / apps etc to my SDCard, it grabs /data/ /system/ all kinds of stuff into a 4gb ZIP or whatever.
I've done this many times before!
All of this so I could do some quick CM12 testing for a snapchat bug.
Then I restored the CWM backup image from my SD Card
Now, I can't save screenshots or write ANY data to the /sdcard/
"Couldn't capture screenshot: couldn't save. Storage may be in use"
Tried wiping Dalvik cache, no fix.
What do I do here? I'm baffled? ?I thought restoring a CWM backup would recover everything.
This PhilZ touch thing is missing "fix permissions" ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Philz recovery is one of the best recovery ever been. Unfortunately developer abandoned
This is the message from developer
Project Status:*No Longer Updated
As I mentioned before, I have a lot of new important projects in my real life. I am very happy to abandon this project for real life alternatives.
CWM is a dead project for now, until some dev resurrects it. I was about to do, until these new projects came.
Current version will probably work a while for many devices. Some devices with new ROM installers could have issues. Just use TWRP or the CM Simple Recovery
If the current version works for you, there is no reason you don't use it though. No need to ***** in all threads because it doesn't work for you. Just move on to other alternatives
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=39433458
Latest update for n7100 was at middle of 2014 if I remember well. Probably u used an outdated recovery. I am using the version 6.48.4 at cm12.1 with no problem at all but I never made with this a nandroid backup.
Sent from my GT-N7100

If you check PHilZ FTP / Mega Upload mirror, he's clearly still updating it? ?.... I dunno
Regardless, I did some reading and the impression I get is version 6.3.xx of CWM removed the "FIX PERMISSIONS" code / option (why the @$#%^ it did this, I do not know)
Ultimately I think that's the issue with my phone, right?

wizzbang3 said:
If you check PHilZ FTP / Mega Upload mirror, he's clearly still updating it? ?.... I dunno
Regardless, I did some reading and the impression I get is version 6.3.xx of CWM removed the "FIX PERMISSIONS" code / option (why the @$#%^ it did this, I do not know)
Ultimately I think that's the issue with my phone, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about other phones but for n7100 sure abandoned.
About the issue now yes looks like permission problem, maybe you try to fix permissions with some other recovery or if you have some apps installed and for this you want to restore your backup, you can restore your nandroid backup after wipe system, cache, dalvik and install the same rom, gapps you had made backup. The installation of the rom at the end of install normally will fix permissions. Also you can try to clean install your old rom, gapps, reboot check if everything is OK and after from recovery again make selective nandroid restore the data only.
Sent from my GT-N7100

Stuck on boot after re-installing stock recovery

Hi, when I got the phone I rooted it by installing TWP recovery, it was all working fine after that until an OTA update popped up, after some research I learned that in order to install OTA updates you need to install stock recovery. Firstly, not knowing entirely what I was doing I installed the stock recovery for the wrong software version. The phone booted however and I tried to install the OTA update, upon restarting I was met with the "red triangle" error screen. I restarted the phone and it booted up fine.
Then having found the correct stock recovery (4.16.401.10) I installed it and ran the update again. It seemed to be going fine with the loading bars moving along nicely when it got stuck on the HTC bootup logo. From here I restarted it and now the phone turns on, shows the htc logo, then gets stuck on a black screen,
Please help, Thanks.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/help/boot-loop-problem-t3194508

ckpv5 said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/help/boot-loop-problem-t3194508
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for that, I guess I should have searched around harder. One question though, you mention that there is a way to restore just system to keep your data, I don't wanna loose all of my data so I'd like to do that, I'm just not sure how to apply that to your guide, what is it that I have to do differently to keep my data?
Thanks.

DarwinW said:
Hi, thanks for that, I guess I should have searched around harder. One question though, you mention that there is a way to restore just system to keep your data, I don't wanna loose all of my data so I'd like to do that, I'm just not sure how to apply that to your guide, what is it that I have to do differently to keep my data?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 options :
1.
In step 8, select dalvik cache, cache, system but don't select data
In step 9, tick only boot & system and don't tick data
or
2.
Make a nandroid backup of your current ROM
Do all the steps, once completed the OTA reinstall TWRP and restore only data from your earlier made nandroid backup

Thank you so much, you're amazing. Just creating a backup now. So once I've flashed the stock rom and the TWRP recovery to restore my data, if I then install the stock recovery again, should it all work fine? or does changing the recovery at any point stop OTA updates working?
The reason I rooted my phone to start with was to use titanium backup to restore apps from a previous phone, so if I can get the phone all stock just with my data, then I don't really need root.
Thanks!

DarwinW said:
Thank you so much, you're amazing. Just creating a backup now. So once I've flashed the stock rom and the TWRP recovery to restore my data, if I then install the stock recovery again, should it all work fine? or does changing the recovery at any point stop OTA updates working?
The reason I rooted my phone to start with was to use titanium backup to restore apps from a previous phone, so if I can get the phone all stock just with my data, then I don't really need root.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's almost same as option 1 above. You need stock recovery for OTA to work.
Most important is the system part must be stock with nothing changed.
Personally, I always do option 2 to make sure OTA is successfully done .. then restore data.
One thing to note ... you don't need to relock bootloader doing all these process.

Also, now that I've created the backup (stored to the phones storage), how do I transfer that to my PC, since the phone doesn't boot, the computer doesn't recognize the storage.
Thanks.

In TWRP you have option to enable MTP then both your internal storage and microSD can be opened on PC
Make sure to use TWRP 2.8.4.0 or newer or latest. I'm still on TWRP 2.8.6.0

It seems I'm on an older version of twrp (2.7.0.2), I made the backup using this version. If I update to a newer version now will the restore work properly?
Thanks.

Usually yes we can restore a backup made with older TWRP version but I'm not so sure about 2.7.0.2 as that is the buggiest TWRP among all versions but very popular because it is included in one very old and not updated toolkit.
Why don't install latest/newer TWRP then redo the backup then transfer to PC.

I'm having trouble viewing files on my pc, I select "mount" from the main twrp menu, it then shows a screen to select which partitions to mount, I tick them, then nothing happens. There's no button to actually start the mount.

I did mentioned enable MTP function ... see below on the right side you should see Disable MTP or Enable MTP (beside Mount USB Storage) .. not those partitions to mount (but in the same screen)

I think you were right about that version being buggy. Those buttons on the bottom were missing. Just installed the latest twrp and I can mount now as the buttons to mount are showing up. Hopefully all will be fine now
Thanks.

Hi, I'm following the guide now and when I try to wipe the phone it doesn't work, I get:
Wipe Complete
Failed
"Unable to mount /cache
failed to wipe dalvik"
This error repeats a few times.
Thanks.
EDIT** scratch that, sorted it

Horray! Everything has now worked out and my phone is back to it's old self with the update, thank you so much ckpv5! you're the best.