[Q] "gapps stopped" loop after CWM restore - T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII

Hi,
I was frustrated with the delay in T-Mobile's release of KitKat for the GSIII, so I decided to root my phone last night in order to try flashing CM11 on it. Rooted my phone with Towelroot, installed ROM Manager and CWM, and created backups on Kies and through CWM. Then I proceeded to do data wipe/factory reset, cache wipe, and /system format. Tried to flash CM11, but got a status 7 error.
I freaked out, so I decided to restore everything from the backup I'd created. Restoration seemed like a success, but now I get the error "Unfortunately, the process com.google.process.gapps has stopped" in an endless loop, and it prevents me and any apps from doing anything. I tried clearing dalvik cache in recovery, but the problem still persists. Read on a few threads that I should flash to stock firmware via Odin, but I'm currently on a macbook, so I can't install it.
tl;dr - Prepped to flash CM11, reached status 7 error, got freaked out, and did restore via CWM, only to get infinite loop of gapp crashes. No access to Odin or PC. Not hard bricked or soft bricked, but essentially useless phone. Help? );

if you can still get to recovery, download latest gapps and flash that

Did you factory reset before or after you restored your back up?

Yeah, I've tried flashing gapps--no avail.
And yeah, I did factory reset/data wipe, cache wipe, /system format 3x each before attempting to restore. Was that wrong? /:

Try to factory reset again

vvnn said:
Yeah, I've tried flashing gapps--no avail.
And yeah, I did factory reset/data wipe, cache wipe, /system format 3x each before attempting to restore. Was that wrong? /:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I'm not mistaken, there is some device ID that will change each time you flash a new rom. It may be something to do with this ID not matching the one in the restored data. Purely a guess but seems logical to me.
Anyway, factory resetting will most likely solve this for you, but I wanted to add that except in certain circumstances, you shouldn't ever manually format /system. (and one format on any partition is sufficient. There shouldn't be any need to format multiple times). If you format /system, you are wiping the O/S off of your device. Then what happens if you have problems flashing a rom, or firmware? I've seen it happen many times and I often end up spending a couple of days working with them just to get the thing to boot up again!
When you flash a rom, the first thing it does is format /system. So there is just no need to do this manually. At least if the rom fails to flash (such as failing the assert checks), youll still have something to boot into. Hope this helps in the future!

I have had the exact same issue. I have a Samsung note 2 N7105. I rooted made a backup in CWM and flashed ditto n3/s5 rom made another backup in CWM. No issues. Got a bit cocky seen as it was my first time doing anything like that. My next adventure was to try a custom kernel (agni). This didn't go so well, so I tried to do a restorw to my working backup of ditto n3/s5 rom through CMW. restore went smoothly and the phone booted. once I opened the lock screen I got the gapps error as described. I had to do a factory reset to get the phone working and then re-flashed ditto n3/s3. I've since flashed other roms and when ever I try to do a restore, I get the issue described. Note I am using the latest CWM. I putting off flashing and trying any other ROMs because of this issue. I do love dn3/s5 but id love to try others. Anyone can help it would be appreciate.

Related

Galaxy Note II Rogers Bootloop (HELP!!!)

I tried installing a rom last week on my Galaxy Note II (Rogers), i followed orders (this isn't my first time flashing roms), and it has been stuck in a constant boot loop.
I've tried everything, wiping cache, factory reset, tried to flash different roms, etc....
I am a mac user (which means Odin isn't an option).
If you guys have any suggestions on how to fix this it would be greatly appreciated.
What rom were you on and what rom were you trying to flash originally? Also what recovery are you using? Need a little more info because usually wiping caches dies the trick. Provide a link to the rom you were trying to flash of your can.
jethro650 said:
What rom were you on and what rom were you trying to flash originally? Also what recovery are you using? Need a little more info because usually wiping caches dies the trick. Provide a link to the rom you were trying to flash of your can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1986893
This is the rom, i was using CMW to flash it, then it made me switch to TWRP (think its called that)......hope that helps.
Sorry I can't be of more help aside of redoing the installation of your recovery and redownloading the rom ( bad downloads happen) and making sure you do all the wipes (cache, dalvik cache and factory reset). If none of that works I'm sure someone more knowledgable than myself will chime in.
I've never run into a bootloop problem myself, but this might help you out :
hxxp://galaxynote2root.com/galaxy-note-2-tutorials/how-to-unrootunbrick-galaxy-note-2-with-stock-firmware/
Good luck
Have you had any luck with this yet? I've been unable to get my phone back up.
QuantumPSI said:
Have you had any luck with this yet? I've been unable to get my phone back up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No luck, but then again i am a Mac user, so its a little more difficult for me to solve this problem.
Anirchy said:
I tried installing a rom last week on my Galaxy Note II (Rogers), i followed orders (this isn't my first time flashing roms), and it has been stuck in a constant boot loop.
I've tried everything, wiping cache, factory reset, tried to flash different roms, etc....
I am a mac user (which means Odin isn't an option).
If you guys have any suggestions on how to fix this it would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put another ROM on an sdcard. Take your battery out then press the button combo for recovery mode before you slip your battery back in. Then it'll force download mode. Reflash the new ROM after full wiping and you should be good.
Sent from my SGH-I317 using xda premium
Definitely a bad ROM. Run a MD5 checker against it prior to copying to the SD card. Note: your SD card could be the culprit.
If you have a recovery installed, ensure you WIPE everything, Fix permissions (i'm on CWM) and reflash the modem and carrier files POST rom install.
I experienced my first boot loop yesterday but I was able to recover from it thanks to a little common sense and patience. :fingers-crossed:
Good luck!
first of all, don't freak out, a bootloop isn't the end of the world. Sounds like it was a bad flash.
ppl above have obviously told you to wipe caches, and all that stuff and if it hasn't worked then you are still down and out.
I would suggest you get yourself into recovery - not going to explain that here as you said you were able to flash other roms and it didn't work and try flashing your nand backup - hopefully you have a nice clean backup from before you flashed. if so, clear caches, etc and then try flashing it it should be back to at least working.
your nand backup will have all your stuff in it as you would have had to backup from recovery, which means you'll at least still be rooted. you can then go ahead and get another rom - check the md5 and flash it

[Q] unable to wipe cache or restore to it

Long story short, I've spend the better part of 2 days trying to get my phone to working order.
I tried to flash the stock 4.0.4 rom into my phone. After I did that, the radio stopped working so i wanted to go back to my previous All-star-v7 rom that i had backup in the external sdcard.
When I was installing 4.0.4 i had to switch from CWM to TWRP to get it to install. I switched back to CWM using ODIN but now when i try to wipe the phone so i can restore a backup, it hangs up on wiping /cache and if i try to restore it hangs up on restoring cache....
What do i do? I had used the infamous super wipe and cache wipe to get the phone into 4.0.4 I think i messed up something because of using those...
update: Strangely, I can restore a backup of 2.3.6 and even though it hangs on restoring /cache. I restart the phone and it boots up to it. I also find that google play is unable to update any of my apps, it looks like it's because of the corrupted /cache. how would i fix it?
update2: i used odin to flash into TWRP 2.6.3.1 and did a cache wipe and it's stuck at "unable to open '/cache/recovery/.version'. anyone know how to fix that?

Cannot install custom roms after a format. Help.

I was on stock Android and yesterday wanted to go for a custom rom. So went to TWM recovery, took a full backup and then I went in to Wipe and, instead of doing a factory rest, I went on did an Advanced Wipe and Format Data. (I think this has caused all the following problems.  ) It cleared all the data on the phone.
Then i used adb push to send the custom rom to /sdcard and tried installing. But the install failed after a few seconds with the following error;
set_perm some changes failed
The last log entry was getting partition information or something.
(However installer log says, formatting system, cache and stuff was successful seconds before the error)
After trying and failing to install few roms, I went on to install the Stock again.
Used adb again to flash the stock. And amazingly it worked. Booting and working without any issues.
But still, when I’m trying to install a custom rom it gets failed in a while. After few trial and errors, I tried restoring my first backup before all this, restore was successful. But when I try to flash a custom rom again I ended up with the same error. Tried with both CWM and TWM.
I tried everything (I hope I’m wrong).
Currently my phone is in working condition with Stock Rom rooted and TWM recovery, kernel_FuguMod_20131015_r1172-4.3
Any idea guys? I hate the idea of having to live with the stock for the rest of my life.

Reboot after booting to recovery

I'm using an AT&T M8, BL unclocked through HTCdev, Sunshine S-OFF, SuperCID.
Yesterday, I flashed PA. Today, I decided to restore my nandroid for Viper.
I rebooted to recovery (TWRP), wiped my data, and then told it to restore my backup of Viper. Almost immediately after doing so, my phone rebooted without completing the restore. I tried then rebooting to recovery, and wiping /system before doing the restore, in the belief that it was a Sense/AOSP conflict. However, TWRP decided to reboot before I could even start the restore.
Now, I don't have an OS to boot to, and TWRP continually reboots 10-15 seconds after it boots.
I've tried updating my recovery, which was successful, but this did not seem to have an effect.
I've also tried clearing cache with fastboot, and while this was also successful, it also has not had an effect.
Has anyone seen this happen before?
Edit:
I've installed PhilZ recovery, and it no longer reboots immediately after booting to recovery. However, each time it starts, it gives a series of "E: Can't Mount /cache/recovery"...etc.
When I try to wipe data in PhilZ, it reboots again. I've tried reflashing PA, but it gave me a "E: failed to set up expected mounts for install; aborting".
OMGMatrix said:
I'm using an AT&T M8, BL unclocked through HTCdev, Sunshine S-OFF, SuperCID.
Yesterday, I flashed PA. Today, I decided to restore my nandroid for Viper.
I rebooted to recovery (TWRP), wiped my data, and then told it to restore my backup of Viper. Almost immediately after doing so, my phone rebooted without completing the restore. I tried then rebooting to recovery, and wiping /system before doing the restore, in the belief that it was a Sense/AOSP conflict. However, TWRP decided to reboot before I could even start the restore.
Now, I don't have an OS to boot to, and TWRP continually reboots 10-15 seconds after it boots.
I've tried updating my recovery, which was successful, but this did not seem to have an effect.
I've also tried clearing cache with fastboot, and while this was also successful, it also has not had an effect.
Has anyone seen this happen before?
Edit:
I've installed PhilZ recovery, and it no longer reboots immediately after booting to recovery. However, each time it starts, it gives a series of "E: Can't Mount /cache/recovery"...etc.
When I try to wipe data in PhilZ, it reboots again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think the recovery was "restored" / flashed to the boot partition but maybe try just in case. Flash the boot.img for Viper ROM and see if it stops the bootloop. After that you can make a clean wipe and install the ROM again, not restore but INSTALL. You surely have the ROM's .zip still?
Reason I suggested boot.img: i cannot get anything to restore with the h3g__001 backups keep getting recovery.emmc.win' is larger than target device '/dev/block/mmcblk0p42 error
mmcblk0p42 is the boot partition, so I don't know why TWRP tried to restore/flash a recovery to boot partition. He solved it by manually flashing boot.img after renaming.
if anyone gets this error heres how i solved it.change the boot.emmc.win to boot.img and it let me restore
Just a suggestion...
So this has been thoroughly confusing.
It seems that I had to clear the cache several times in PhilZ in order to resolve the first error. I tried to flash the original rom zip for Viper, but it still failed even though the "E: can't mount" messages weren't showing any more. However, I was able to re-flash the rom zip for PA, and upon booting, I found that Many of my apps were still there dispite the fact that they should have not been.
I then was able to reboot to recovery and flash the zip for Viper.
No clue what happened, but at least if anyone else has this problem, they'll be able to see how I fixed it
OMGMatrix said:
So this has been thoroughly confusing.
It seems that I had to clear the cache several times in PhilZ in order to resolve the first error. I tried to flash the original rom zip for Viper, but it still failed even though the "E: can't mount" messages weren't showing any more. However, I was able to re-flash the rom zip for PA, and upon booting, I found that Many of my apps were still there dispite the fact that they should have not been.
I then was able to reboot to recovery and flash the zip for Viper.
No clue what happened, but at least if anyone else has this problem, they'll be able to see how I fixed it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The apps will be there if you restored without making changes to the data partition which contains the your userdata. I've converted and changed over from International to Developer edition quite a few times now and not once in all those times did I lose my data, I just never restored the data partition.
Not sure if you have to actively choose whether to flash over data or not, I'm not that big into custom ROMs, only tried Viper ROM and even then I kept my original data.
OMGMatrix said:
I'm using an AT&T M8, BL unclocked through HTCdev, Sunshine S-OFF, SuperCID.
Yesterday, I flashed PA. Today, I decided to restore my nandroid for Viper.
I rebooted to recovery (TWRP), wiped my data, and then told it to restore my backup of Viper. Almost immediately after doing so, my phone rebooted without completing the restore. I tried then rebooting to recovery, and wiping /system before doing the restore, in the belief that it was a Sense/AOSP conflict. However, TWRP decided to reboot before I could even start the restore.
Now, I don't have an OS to boot to, and TWRP continually reboots 10-15 seconds after it boots.
I've tried updating my recovery, which was successful, but this did not seem to have an effect.
I've also tried clearing cache with fastboot, and while this was also successful, it also has not had an effect.
Has anyone seen this happen before?
Edit:
I've installed PhilZ recovery, and it no longer reboots immediately after booting to recovery. However, each time it starts, it gives a series of "E: Can't Mount /cache/recovery"...etc.
When I try to wipe data in PhilZ, it reboots again. I've tried reflashing PA, but it gave me a "E: failed to set up expected mounts for install; aborting".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had that exact same issue as you. What version of twrp were you running when the issue started? Also, did you make any firmware upgrades or downgrades recently?
I ended up just running an RUU and starting over. I was able to adb pull all my files from internal sd card before i ran it.
mattprice86 said:
Had that exact same issue as you. What version of twrp were you running when the issue started? Also, did you make any firmware upgrades or downgrades recently?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was using a version of TWRP that had been bundled with a previous version of Viper that was supposed to have been newer, but was actually 2.7.0.1. I updated to the newest (2.8.0.3) from the TWRP site through fastboot, but that didn't change anything. I had somewhat recently updated to the 3.xxx.xxx.7 firmware, but had flashed other roms since that without issue.
BerndM14 said:
The apps will be there if you restored without making changes to the data partition which contains the your userdata. I've converted and changed over from International to Developer edition quite a few times now and not once in all those times did I lose my data, I just never restored the data partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did a factory reset (cache, Dalvik, data) before attempting the nandroid restore.
It looks like TWRP failed to actually do the reset in the first place, which caused it to get hung up thinking that the storage was actually being used.
OMGMatrix said:
I did a factory reset (cache, Dalvik, data) before attempting the nandroid restore.
It looks like TWRP failed to actually do the reset in the first place, which caused it to get hung up thinking that the storage was actually being used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter mate, if you restore the data partition the backup that you made of data gets restored, period. It'll be another issue worth interest if you deselected "data" while doing the restore. As you clearly stated yourself, you did a factory reset(wipe all) BEFORE you did the nandroid restore(In which case you might have restored "Data" as well), in that case the factory reset doesn't matter at all. If you did it after you restored then, again, it's something different.
BerndM14 said:
Doesn't matter mate, if you restore the data partition the backup that you made of data gets restored, period. It'll be another issue worth interest if you deselected "data" while doing the restore. As you clearly stated yourself, you did a factory reset(wipe all) BEFORE you did the nandroid restore(In which case you might have restored "Data" as well), in that case the factory reset doesn't matter at all. If you did it after you restored then, again, it's something different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you understand.
The restore never happened. It rebooted before anything happened when I told it to restore. Nothing got restored.

Wiped Internal Storage; now phone reboots on loading ROMs

Hey guys,
So last night I accidentally wiped internal storage in TWRP. I guess that messed up my partitions or something, I don't know. Anyway, I can still access recovery, and I've tried to do a restore (one that I made back when I was on stock 4.4.2 I think) but after that it tries to boot, gets to "Android is upgrading... Optimizing app Y of X." and once that operation completes it shows the lockscreen for about a tenth of a second, and the phone reboots.
I'm stumped. Anyone know what can I do?
Sorry if this has been asked a hundred times. For some reason the search function in the forums isn't working for me. And I've been looking for a solution all morning.
EDIT: FYI when I tried the restore I did only System and Data and not Boot, because I was afraid that'd cause more problems.
Did you try restoring and performing a factory wipe before booting the newly-restored ROM?
It seems that Marshmallow based roms aren't working, but Lollipop ones will boot. Not sure why as I didn't have any problem with the same MM roms in the past.
More info:
MM roms wont flash in TWRP; after the failed attempt, TWRP says system cannot be mounted until I either wipe or install a 12.1 rom.
Tried to install a stock rom (4.4.2) and it failed in TWRP. Just says "Error Flashing"
Are you performing a full wipe (system, Dalvik, cache, data) before installing or restoring a ROM? Is the phone running the latest version of TWRP?
audit13 said:
Are you performing a full wipe (system, Dalvik, cache, data) before installing or restoring a ROM? Is the phone running the latest version of TWRP?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes to full wipe. TWRP is 2.8.7.0, so yeah I think it's the newest? Not 100% sure.
Wiping internal storage should not affect the partitions. I'm not sure that TWRP even has the ability to change partitions.
Yes, 2.8.7.0 is the latester version of TWRP.
If you are on the nj2 bootloader, try flashing this in TWRP: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-att/general/rooted-ucufnj1-stock-rom-t2985006
Welp, seems to be all good now. Not sure if I really did anything to fix it or not. I tried to install a stock ROM but it wouldn't boot (stuck on Samsung logo) but after that my CM13 ROM installed properly again. The one CM13 ROM I have still wont install at all - maybe that file became corrupt or something? Not sure if that's even possible.
Either way I'm all fixed up. Thanks for all your help.
Cheers
Glad you got it sorted out. If you do figure out what you did to get it working, post your answer as it may help others that are in a similar situation.

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