Develop Bugs

[SOLVED!!] Looping Bootloader or startup and unable to charge to reflash

I really don't know what's just happened...I think maybe my TP2 just decided to die on me.
I was using NRGZ Leo ROM from 22nd Feb. All was going well until my battery ran out today. At the time, my daughter was playing a game on it, not from WM, but from the Android port (Haret). While she was playing, I heard the familiar short vibrate of a soft reset. I know my battery was low and I suspect the battery wasn't charging, although it was plugged in (not sure if Android supports charging yet in the later builds)
Anyway, for some reason, it wouldn't go past the vibrate/Touch Pro2 screen. It just kept resetting and looping back. I attempted to do a hardware reset (power button, talk/send, end buttons) but accidently chose the wrong combo (power button, volume down) and entered bootloader. No problem yet, just reset and try again, right? Only I didn't get the chance, as it reset itself and looped through bootloader.
Now I am stuck in this loop. I can't flash from SD as it wont stay on long enough before self-resetting to find the RHODIMG.nbh on the card. I can't connect to my PC as it wont stay in bootloader long enough before self-resetting for my PC to install the "Windows Mobile Device" drivers, and even if it did, when it self-resets, it would disconnect anyway. I can't connect to MTTY for the same reason. I can't connect to ActiveSync or WMDC as I can't boot to WM to get ActiveSync running on the device.
When plugged in to AC power or through USB, it fires itself up automatically and into this loop, and it wont turn off manually, reset or accept any other button combos to enter RUU (from SD method) or to do hard reset. When it is not plugged in to any power source it won't even switch on.
I suspect it is resetting as it is not charging. I'm guessing that when in bootloader, charging is disabled, and I think this because I was originally getting 3 seconds of bootloader, now I am getting around 8 seconds, but it doesn't get any better than that, and I don't know of a rom upgrade method that can be done in 8 seconds! There are a few seconds of charging time before bootloader kicks in and the orange LED goes out and presumably stops charging. Am I right in thinking there is no charging in bootloader and in the Android port (I am using the latest version from 27/2, rhod100).
Basically, to summarise, I am stuck in bootloader-reset-bootloader loop, I cannot connect to pc in any way, flash from SD, Hard Reset, I have very little or no battery and it won't charge because it keeps going into bootloader where there is no charging taking place and it wont turn off to charge that way either.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I don't hold out much hope though. At the moment, it doesn't seem that I am able to interact with it at all to make it do anything different or to manipulate what it is trying to do. Hopefully someone will see something familiar and maybe have some suggestions.
Oh, and by the way, it's nothing to do with a bad flash. I've been doing this for long enough to know what I'm doing, and I wasn't even doing a rom upgrade at the time. My last rom upgrade was 2 days ago and all went well, and I have been using it without problems since, until now. I haven't flashed my Radio or SPL since HSPL was released, so I know it has nothing to do with that either.
Thanks in advance for anyone who can give any advice at all, or even just take pitty on me! Apologies for all the text. I know it looks boring and may put some people off reading, but I needed to get all the info in.

Are you able to charge when it completely turned off?

can you pull the battery out, put it back in and simply charge for an hour or so to get some juice into the battery?
Then you could maybe reflash it from the bootloader or sd card...

shadixs said:
Are you able to charge when it completely turned off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't get it to turn off, power button has no effect.
clauswl said:
can you pull the battery out, put it back in and simply charge for an hour or so to get some juice into the battery?
Then you could maybe reflash it from the bootloader or sd card...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I take the battery out, obviously, it cuts the power and the looping stops...until I put the battery back in, and it starts itself again. I can't stop the loop and I can't turn the power off or even stop it switching itself on.

matmaneyre said:
I can't get it to turn off, power button has no effect.
If I take the battery out, obviously, it cuts the power and the looping stops...until I put the battery back in, and it starts itself again. I can't stop the loop and I can't turn the power off or even stop it switching itself on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had exactly that problem after a bad romflash. I bought a decktop cradle for the tp 2 that has 2nd. battery charger. Charged the battery and reflash, everything was ok again.
So, juice up the battery and do a hard reset or reflash..
SOMETHING LIKE THIS

I know you prob dont wanna hear it, but id say its a warranty job. Theyll just force flash it anyway so they wont notice the rom you were using.

Cheers guys. I thought it might be the rom. Not sure how though as like I said, my last rom flash was a couple of days ago and it was fine. Guess these things just happen sometimes. I'll try and get the battery charged somehow. Trouble is, I don't know another single person who has a TP2, so it looks like the cradle option I think. It did cross my mind to be honest when I was trying to think of alternative charging methods.
As for the warranty idea, if it can be avoided, I'd rather not take that route if I can help it, but thanks for the suggestion. Lets just say that will remain an option as my last resort if all else fails.
Still open to suggestions if anyone knows of any miracles....any Hogwarts graduates kicking about these forums with a few magic words to spare?

Hey man, I had the same issue when my phone wouldn't for some unknown reason charge.
1) Take our your battery
2) Plug in your DESKTOP CHARGER (not USB from PC!!) to microUSB slot
3) Put your battery back
4) Wait few moments (5 minutes)
5) and you are ready to boot, now you can even charge from USB. No idea why, but looks like booting takes more than 500mA :O
If it wont help, swap those 2 and 3 points

Hey guys! Please give this thread a better title. More related to the problem. Sounds like it could be useful in the future for hopefully very few people.

OK, I will change the thread title. I searched for quite a while but couldn't find any similar cases. But it seems it is more common than I thought since I raised the issue, so a new, more specific title might be more beneficial to other users experiencing similar problems.
For the record, I haven't solved it yet. Waiting on a standalone battery charger I bought from eBay. Didn't really want the cradle. THIS is the one I have bought. I will update on my progress when it arrives.
Thanks for your help to all who have contributed so far.

Hi I have the same problem the phone won't charge or connect via usb I think it is a faulty usb port the phone have & because of that it is causing the phone to go to bootloader.

I've had this happen before, just plug it into the mains charger (wall charger) and let it sit for a while. It will loop a couple times but once there is enough juice in the battery it will be back to normal.
Since you have RHODIMG.nbh on your sd card, maybe taking your sd card out would help it a bit.
There have been other posts with the same issue and plugging it into mains will solve the problem
spark001uk said:
I know you prob dont wanna hear it, but id say its a warranty job. Theyll just force flash it anyway so they wont notice the rom you were using.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true. just the battery is really low, once charged enough to power device after boot, everything will be back to normal.

fone_fanatic said:
Not true. just the battery is really low, once charged enough to power device after boot, everything will be back to normal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like it would make sense. I don't have my wall charger on me now...does the Rhodium not boot up without a battery in it? I thought my old Hermes did, guess I've never tried it with the TP2.

This might sound a little stupid, but I actually know somebody that said it worked for his iPhone (waste of 3-4 mins if not). Plug in the USB charger from PC. Reboot the PC without disconnecting the phone. Wait 3-4 minutes...

Toleraen said:
Seems like it would make sense. I don't have my wall charger on me now...does the Rhodium not boot up without a battery in it? I thought my old Hermes did, guess I've never tried it with the TP2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from what i remember, it won't boot without the battery.

fone_fanatic said:
I've had this happen before, just plug it into the mains charger (wall charger) and let it sit for a while. It will loop a couple times but once there is enough juice in the battery it will be back to normal.
Since you have RHODIMG.nbh on your sd card, maybe taking your sd card out would help it a bit.
There have been other posts with the same issue and plugging it into mains will solve the problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I left it looping for hours....no joy I'm afraid. Just gonna have to wait for this charger to arrive I think
Toleraen said:
Seems like it would make sense. I don't have my wall charger on me now...does the Rhodium not boot up without a battery in it? I thought my old Hermes did, guess I've never tried it with the TP2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fone_fanatic said:
from what i remember, it won't boot without the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely doesn't power up plugged in without a battery. Battery needs to be present. Still waiting on this charger though. I'm hoping it's not one of those where it says the item location is Cardiff (UK) when actually it's in Hong Kong and takes 14 years to arrive

soocerclaude said:
Hi I have the same problem the phone won't charge or connect via usb I think it is a faulty usb port the phone have & because of that it is causing the phone to go to bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really don't think it's the mini usb port as it charges and tries to connect to pc before bootloader kicks in & it all stops.

Hi I found a way 2 get past the bootloader loop just plug your headphones went in bootloader and restarted the phone but it still won't charge or sync with computer.

soocerclaude said:
Hi I found a way 2 get past the bootloader loop just plug your headphones went in bootloader and restarted the phone but it still won't charge or sync with computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well when I unplug the ac adapter, mine doesn't last on bootloader for more than a couple of seconds before dying. Doesn't even get to the RHODIMG.nbh update screen that way - not enough charge (I'm still hoping). Tried charging overnight while looping but still wouldn't charge enough. The trouble is that obviously the bootloader is killing the battery as it's not charging very much.
Got my charger finally....but they sent the wrong one. Waiting on a response from the seller. The "dock" on the charger wasn't big enough, so while the connectors were in the right place to charge the battery, the battery didn't sit flush, so they wouldn't reach the points on the battery itself. Hope they have a TP2 one & it's not just them thinking it's compatible, as it's the only one on the whole of ebay UK that has them in stock in the UK. Don't want to have to wait up to 2 weeks for one from HK.
I will keep you posted anyway.

Hi I brought mine 2 get fix because my warrenty got void due 2 water damage. I think it is the usb port that is causing this, saw in other forums the same thing. Will get back the phone on monday & I will update u on the situation.

TP2 low battery, in reboot loop

I've got a TMOUS TP2 which appears to be stuck in a reboot loop of sorts cause I can't charge the battery.
I've read through the forums and I saw a few similar problems like this but it seems like it those they were stuck at the bootloader, and that's not the case for me.
Basically the battery was down to 14% and I turned off the phone last night intending to charge it this morning. Somehow the battery dropped to 1% by the time I went to turn it on this morning, and it shutdown (really just lost power) right after I started it. So I go to plug it into the wall charger and then:
charge light comes on
after a few seconds charge light goes off
the phone tries to boot (does little vibrate, shows splash)
after the splash screen, phone loses power
charge light comes back on
then tries to boot after a few seconds.
repeat
If left unplugged the phone just sits there dead, but upon plugging it in, it tries to boot.
I've seen it where the phone doesn't have enough power to boot and just needs to be charged for a while, but I can't seem to do that here.
Anyone have any idea how to prevent it from trying to boot after the AC adapter is plugged in?
Thanks

arimp said:
I've got a TMOUS TP2 which appears to be stuck in a reboot loop of sorts cause I can't charge the battery.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're desperate...you might try doing a hard-reset.
Why would that help? I don't know...except sometimes when really stuck it helps to just change the situation...try something completely different.
Of course, a hard-reset deletes all data and applications that you've put on the phone, which is why I suggested it as a recourse if desperate.
Probably keep the phone plugged in while doing hard-reset.

Same problem, solved by itself
Hi,
I had a similar problem with a standard TP2, it was clear a battery fault. Phone was working well with a new battery and, of course, another working phone couldn't boot up with the faulty battery.
I took out the defective battery and let it aside for almost 2 weeks. After that it started to work, but the capacity is clearly smaller.
So from my experience, a hard reset wouldn't help you.
Radu

nradu said:
Hi,
I had a similar problem with a standard TP2, it was clear a battery fault. Phone was working well with a new battery and, of course, another working phone couldn't boot up with the faulty battery.
I took out the defective battery and let it aside for almost 2 weeks. After that it started to work, but the capacity is clearly smaller.
So from my experience, a hard reset wouldn't help you.
Radu
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it goes without saying -- though it's good you did -- that if you have access to another battery that's an obvious thing to try first.
The hard reset is worth trying, in general, for otherwise-unresolvable phone issues.

It's a dead battery. Same exact thing you describe happened to me. Granted, it was because of water damage but same symptoms. Thinking the phone was dead I went and bought a new one. Then I decided to try the new battery, bam, phone back alive. Returned the phone and bought a new battery. By the way, the dash2 battery fits as well. Tmobile stores didn't know it... But the connectors were the same do I tried in the store and it worked.

devis said:
It's a dead battery. Same exact thing you describe happened to me. Granted, it was because of water damage but same symptoms. Thinking the phone was dead I went and bought a new one. Then I decided to try the new battery, bam, phone back alive. Returned the phone and bought a new battery. By the way, the dash2 battery fits as well. Tmobile stores didn't know it... But the connectors were the same do I tried in the store and it worked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it was indeed a dead battery. Oddly I found someone who had a CMDA TP2 from Verizon (mine is GSM TMO), and was able to pop my battery into their phone for a minute or two and charge it to about 5%, then put it back in my phone and all was well. With their phone, plugging in the charger did not cause the phone to start up and then power cycle.
That's really weird "glitch" if you want to call it that. So mental note, don't let the battery run down too far.

TP2 won't boot or charge either!!

Hey guys, I got a real big problem.
I've got a Rhodium100, but it won't charge nor it'll boot.
When connected to original charger or pc the phone starts. Then I can see the HTC logo and it dies again. The battery seems to be totally dead
What I've triend so far:
1. Pulled out the battery
2. Multiple cabels for the charger
3. Soft reset
4. Hard reset (won't complete because the battery is dead)
5. Checked the on/off button (on top)
What else can I do to fix this problem? I'd like to try anything before sending the phone to HTC (did that 2 times before, but with other problems).
This is what happens: MOVIE
Thanks in advance

trilbert said:
Hey guys, I got a real big problem.
I've got a Rhodium100, but it won't charge nor it'll boot.
When connected to original charger or pc the phone starts. Then I can see the HTC logo and it dies again. The battery seems to be totally dead
What I've triend so far:
1. Pulled out the battery
2. Multiple cabels for the charger
3. Soft reset
4. Hard reset (won't complete because the battery is dead)
5. Checked the on/off button (on top)
What else can I do to fix this problem? I'd like to try anything before sending the phone to HTC (did that 2 times before, but with other problems).
This is what happens: MOVIE
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy a new battery and see if that helps. There are some cheap ones on ebay.

I just found another cable and it seems to be he's charging again. But after 5 hours of charging it's still on 40%.
When the battery-level is around 45% it goes downwards to around 38% and then to 45 again..
This is circulating..
How can this be?

You shouldn't let the battery completely die in the first place. A deep discharge of any Lithium Ion battery is not recommended because of this. If you've tried to do a hard reset and it did not complete, you may have destroyed the ROM image. If it doesn't turn back on, flash a stock ROM.
Always try to charge the device before it gets to 5% remaining battery. 10% is recommended, but 5% is the lowest the battery should ever be. Having a second battery is always a good idea. I have two of them and an external battery charger. This way, I can always have a battery able to charge without needing the device just in case something goes awry.
Make sure you do not turn the device on. Leave the battery in the device overnight on the charger without turning it on. If it still does not function after this, you might try purchasing another battery and charger.
If you have time left on your warranty, this is covered by it. Simply call your carrier or HTC and they will fix it for you. It's generally faster to go through your carrier if you have the option to do so.

Thanks for the tips. I followed them and it seems to be my phone is fully working again!

Nothing helps with TP2 reanimation
trilbert said:
Thanks for the tips. I followed them and it seems to be my phone is fully working again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem since august 2010. I've do the same as you flashing some ROM's also restoring original one(T-Mobile), buying new akku ang external charger- but nothing helps When I place battery in phone it switches on by self(seems like power button abridget but I've checked it with testing device), starting showing T-Mobile logo "Stick together" then shows windows logo then backlight fading then device restarts, so it happen infinite till battery fully goes empty. Now on phone is installed original ROM and I can't install any other- in bootloader I can install only SPL's, but other ROM's not installs (flashing process freezes on 0%). I haven't any ideas, somebody can help me? Thank you all.

mrRadja said:
I have the same problem since august 2010. I've do the same as you flashing some ROM's also restoring original one(T-Mobile), buying new akku ang external charger- but nothing helps When I place battery in phone it switches on by self(seems like power button abridget but I've checked it with testing device), starting showing T-Mobile logo "Stick together" then shows windows logo then backlight fading then device restarts, so it happen infinite till battery fully goes empty. Now on phone is installed original ROM and I can't install any other- in bootloader I can install only SPL's, but other ROM's not installs (flashing process freezes on 0%). I haven't any ideas, somebody can help me? Thank you all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a dead battery. If it powers on by itself, then you'll either want to get a new battery or an external battery charger. Make sure you're charging from the wall, and not a USB port.

cajunflavoredbob said:
It's a dead battery. If it powers on by itself, then you'll either want to get a new battery or an external battery charger. Make sure you're charging from the wall, and not a USB port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I do as you suggest - bought new battery and wall charger, but no result. I doubt that new battery or charger is destroyed, but anything is possible... What actually kind of problem if phone couldn't do hard reset, not upgding ROM, also switches on when battery is placed into? 100% fault (discharged) battery?

mrRadja said:
Yes, I do as you suggest - bought new battery and wall charger, but no result. I doubt that new battery or charger is destroyed, but anything is possible... What actually kind of problem if phone couldn't do hard reset, not upgding ROM, also switches on when battery is placed into? 100% fault (discharged) battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I mentioned that you may need to charge the battery externally if it is powering on when you insert the battery. You'll either need a friend's phone to charge it, or buy an external charger. With the external charger, let it sit on the charger overnight, pop it in the phone, and then try again. If using an external charger does not work, then you may want to send the device in for repairs/replacement.

[Q] Galaxy S3 not actually charging after CM10.1 install

I was rooted and running stock att, touchwiz for a while with no issues. It started to get slow and on my nerves (and I was thinking of all the empty promises about this phone like inductive charging, google wallet, JB4.2.2, faster than iphone etc.) so I decided to kick in the bucket and install CM10.1. Install went smoothly, I accidentally installed the wrong google apps, but realized it, reinstalled everything with the correct one, and all is well and dandy.
The entire time, the phone is sitting at 0% battery, so I am assuming I am barely charging enough for the phone to keep up with my usage, but it never actually dies so all is good. The icon says 'charging 0%'. I was messing around in the settings, and got to the LED color settings. Went to change the "low battery" one, and the current active one changes. I go to change the battery charging one, and nothing changes. I unplug the phone, and it immediately goes into shutdown mode due to low battery. I plug it back in and let it sit for like 5 minutes before actually booting it back up, and it boots up but battery is still at 0%.
Basically, battery drained its way down from fully charged to 0, and now won't go back up. The fact that the LED state thinks that it is "low battery" rather than "battery charging" leads me to think it is a bug. I checked the bugs thread that is stickied, and nothing comes up close to what I have. I am using the nightly build from 03-03-2013.

ph7ryan said:
I was rooted and running stock att, touchwiz for a while with no issues. It started to get slow and on my nerves (and I was thinking of all the empty promises about this phone like inductive charging, google wallet, JB4.2.2, faster than iphone etc.) so I decided to kick in the bucket and install CM10.1. Install went smoothly, I accidentally installed the wrong google apps, but realized it, reinstalled everything with the correct one, and all is well and dandy.
The entire time, the phone is sitting at 0% battery, so I am assuming I am barely charging enough for the phone to keep up with my usage, but it never actually dies so all is good. The icon says 'charging 0%'. I was messing around in the settings, and got to the LED color settings. Went to change the "low battery" one, and the current active one changes. I go to change the battery charging one, and nothing changes. I unplug the phone, and it immediately goes into shutdown mode due to low battery. I plug it back in and let it sit for like 5 minutes before actually booting it back up, and it boots up but battery is still at 0%.
Basically, battery drained its way down from fully charged to 0, and now won't go back up. The fact that the LED state thinks that it is "low battery" rather than "battery charging" leads me to think it is a bug. I checked the bugs thread that is stickied, and nothing comes up close to what I have. I am using the nightly build from 03-03-2013.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wipe cache/dalvik and reflash. if it does not clear the issue, full wipe and reflash. report back

Neither worked. I thought maybe I'm just playing around with the phone too much and not giving it a chance to charge, so I plugged it into a wall socket a couple rooms over so I wouldn't touch it. 15 minutes later, I turn it on and it is still at 0% charge. The phone is pretty hot at the charger port.
I'm starting to think this is a hardware issue, because it is also unresponsive when it goes into sleep/lock mode... Won't wake, and can't even call it. The only way to get it responsive again is a hard reset.
I should still have some time left on my at&t warranty, and I have a backup from when I was still on the original recovery. Where does CWM store the recovery files on CM10?
When I was using TW, they were just in a folder on the root called clockworkmod. They are actually still there, a couple "0's" down the line in the file structure... Not really sure what that does... Now the root has no clokworkmod folder, but it definitely is storing backups because I just backed up now, and restored to one when I originally installed CM10, and I can see them both when I select "restore" in the recovery menu. Is there any way that I can put one of my backups from my computer into that folder so that I can revert, unroot, and get this thing swapped out?
The battery has been giving me all kinds of issues since I bought it and all they offered last time I went was a new battery. Hopefully with it being unresponsive as well, they will just swap out the handset.

Update:
I was able to use odin to reflash the original rom, so I am back to the non rooted state. Battery seems to be working fine, and I haven't run into a hang on lock, so it is most likely software related. I am going to redownload all of my apps slowly and see if it is one of my apps causing the hang, but the battery issue seems to still be related only to CM10.1. After all that headache, I could care less if I go back to CM10, but I think maybe you guys would want me to troubleshoot this issue, so that you can possibly fix the bug?
Let me know.

ph7ryan said:
Update:
I was able to use odin to reflash the original rom, so I am back to the non rooted state. Battery seems to be working fine, and I haven't run into a hang on lock, so it is most likely software related. I am going to redownload all of my apps slowly and see if it is one of my apps causing the hang, but the battery issue seems to still be related only to CM10.1. After all that headache, I could care less if I go back to CM10, but I think maybe you guys would want me to troubleshoot this issue, so that you can possibly fix the bug?
Let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try AOKP next time

It seems to me...
It seems to me that the charging problem only happens when there are notifications waiting. As long as there are no notifications waiting, the red LED is on and the phone charges just fine. When a notification comes in and the blue LED starts flashing, charging stops or slows to a crawl or starts discharging. The longer this condition continues, the hotter the phone gets. After clearing the notifications, the red LED comes back on and the phone starts charging normally.
This seems to happen with Samsung chargers and off brand chargers.
Again, I don't know if this really happening. It just seems to all coincide.

therapyco said:
After clearing the notifications, the red LED comes back on and the phone starts charging normally.
This seems to happen with Samsung chargers and off brand chargers.
Again, I don't know if this really happening. It just seems to all coincide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem with at least 3 sammy based roms. If anybody has a solution please let us know. It is definitely related to the notifications.

how/what are you wiping before each flash?

Follow up...
It no longer seems to me that the flashing blue notification LED is the problem. I've identified two other issues with chargers.
The Samsung charger works well and fast, especially when plugged into the power outlet adapter and not computer's USB. I guess that's typical... something about only one pin being available for charging when the USB cable is connected to the port on the computer. The off brand charger (charger only, not USB/charger combo) was much slower and sometimes wouldn't charge at all.
The first I thing did was look at the tips. They are slightly different, but the thing I noticed is that two little "fangs" on the tips were more prominent/stiff on on the Samsung charger. I used a needle to pry/bend those fangs out on the off branded charger so that they pop out more. That resulted in a much more secure/tight connection to the phone and fixed the problem with the battery actually stopping charging or discharging while plugged into the off brand charger.
Next, I compared the power ratings on the two chargers. The off brand charger accepts 100-240VAC, 47-63Hz and 0.2A. Its output is 4.3-5.0V and a MAX of 0.8A.
The Samsung charger accepts 100-240VAC, 50-60Hz and 0.15A. Its output is 5V and 0.7A (seemingly a constant output no matter the input).
I hypothesize that the off brand charger's output is directly related to its input. So, the output at 120VAC input would be about 0.4A and the output at 240VAC input would be 0.8A. The Samsung charger, seems to have a constant output of 0.7A whatever the input is. So in the US with our approximate 120VAC, the off brand charger would put out maybe 0.4A and the Samsung charger would put out 0.7A or 75% more current than the off brand charger. This would explain the difference in charging rate between the two chargers.
I suppose I could get my multimeter out and verify this idea, but I'm too lazy and I'm satisfied with my hypothesis.

This happens to me once every 4-5 flashes. I usually get everything set up, reboot, then power down, remove battery for 30 seconds, power on (without charger), then plug in and it charges normally. If that doesn't work try enabling fast charge (if your kernel supports it).

Fast Charge FTW

[Q] Problem with battery?

I've been away from the Xperia S forums for about 4 months now, since my Xperia S died. I've been using a Samsung Galaxy S II, but i'm pretty tired of it, don't like amoled screens, battery issues, constant reboots, radio problems and it goes on and on.. SO I want to try to revive my Xperia S.. Here is what happened:
4 Months ago, I had just finished flasing a Paranoid Android ROM (4.4.2 KK) and was setting up the phone, had just finished installing some apps and was testing some CPU Governors, I/O Schedulers and things like that, running AnTuTu and Quadrant benchmarks. In the middle of an AnTuTu bench, the phone just shut down (with about 50% battery left) and woudn't turn on again. When connecting the charger, the LED woudn't light up, the phone wouldn't vibrate, Vol Up + Power wasn't working, coudn't enter recovery/download modes. Hard bricked. So I opened up the phone and removed the battery, tryed plugging in again and nothing, so I left the battery outside the phone for a couple of days. After that, I made a quick "short circuit" with the batter, about 1/2 seconds, and plugged it back in, connected the charger and the phone came back to life. Now I could enter fastboot mode, so I re-flashed the stock .96 using Flash Tool, re-rooted, and re-flashed a newer build of Paranoid Android and everything was working fine again. I managed to backup all my photos and documents, and left the phone charging overnight while downloading some apps from the Play Store. When I woke up: dead again, but this time it's different. When I connect the charger the RED LED lights up, but it turns off after a couple of minutes. The rest is exactly the same: can't enter recovery, can't boot, can't fastboot, Vol Up + Power isn't working.. So I took off the battery and tryed a short circuit again, but this time nothing happend.. The first time the the cables heated up quickly and this time nothing happened. So I don't know what exactly is going on. Is the battery completely dead (2 years old phone)? Or is my device unable, somehow, to charge the battery? If there is no charge at all, the short circuit won't work.
Anyone with any experience or any guess? I'm searching for a new battery so I can test it but it's kind of expesive here, about 60USD. I can't stand the SGS2 anylonger, and I'm not buying any phone until the Snapdragon 810 shows up.

I'm having a similar problem: After installing uCyan everything except the battery drain (irrational jumps in the curve) seemed to work. Then at some point the phone died and now is in a charging (red light, some minutes), bootup loop. Sometimes it reached the sys to then instantly die again. I was able to get into TWRP when I fortunately saw the next bootup. But the battery is too low to get stock or any other recovery back. So everything seems broken. I have tried with two USB cables. The phone/battery is over 2 years old.
If any further actions could help, please let me know. Would also love to revive this phone.

ChriMo said:
I'm having a similar problem: After installing uCyan everything except the battery drain (irrational jumps in the curve) seemed to work. Then at some point the phone died and now is in a charging (red light, some minutes), bootup loop. Sometimes it reached the sys to then instantly die again. I was able to get into TWRP when I fortunately saw the next bootup. But the battery is too low to get stock or any other recovery back. So everything seems broken. I have tried with two USB cables. The phone/battery is over 2 years old.
If any further actions could help, please let me know. Would also love to revive this phone.
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try the rubber band trick from here.

Ok I will try rubber band trick then. I think I already did it two times. I would have liked to avoid flashing the stock.ftf back and then doing again the unlocking, rooting and custom ROM flashing.

ChriMo said:
Ok I will try rubber band trick then. I think I already did it two times. I would have liked to avoid flashing the stock.ftf back and then doing again the unlocking, rooting and custom ROM flashing.
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I thought You hadn't done that. You don't need to unlock bootloader again even if You flash stock ftf. And if You intent to flash a Kitkat or Lollipop based ROM, then You can simply skip rooting and all and follow the method from here.