Re-typing this entire question because the forum ate it before posting it.
SGH-M919 (NOT T-Mobile, but a carrier called GCI.)
Contract was bought-out by another carrier so I could get an iPhone. Trying to get the Galaxy reset to factory condition so it's re-usable.
Galaxy was encrypted to comply with work email requirements. I needed to reset the phone quickly and couldn't find the factory reset menu option so I gave it the Volume Up + Power salute. I chose to erase user data / factory reset. I later read that this method may cause issues if the phone isn't DEcrypted first.
When the phone boots up it wants the encryption key. (I wanted the user partition WIPED, not just emptied.) If I intentionally give it the wrong key it keeps asking for one. If I enter the correct key it briefly shows the outline of the green Android logo then the screen goes black. Phone is not dead because my Mac recognizes it as a network interface when the phone screen is blank. The menu and back keys don't respond or illuminate, however, if I reboot the phone, enter the encryption key and then repeatedly tap the menu button until the green Android image disappears the buttons will stay illuminated.
I don't care about what was on the phone. I wanted it to be as if I had just turned it on for the first time.
Should I try having the carrier, who no longer services the phone, try to re-flash it? I've tried making heads or tails of how to flash it myself but the fact that it's locked to a tiny carrier it's next to impossible to find any helpful info. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
So here is my situation:
The screen of my nexus 5 broke to the point it's basically unusable. You can sometimes see the lockscreen when you press it at a certain point but the touchscreen is unusable. When
the screen is turned on it also starts pressing on random places on the screen. I suspect this is because of a short circuit?
Anyway I really need my data back. Not just the pictures but also contact's (Google don't save all my contacts in the cloud)
I don't necessarily want to repair it because I have an other one one in mind but the data on it is really important to me.
I managed to get the screen unlocked once via a keyboard and then copying the pictures via windows but the phone
would lock really fast again disallowing me to copy my pictures.
side note: my phone is rooted.
Any advice? How do I recover my data?
Thanks in advance.
If you can just get it to the bootloader screen (press volume down button when powering on), you could use a tool like WUG's root toolkit to do a backup, or just get into recovery and back up files that way.
Also, if you can boot into your custom recovery, you can then attach to your computer and copy files from storage that way (pictures at least).
Not sure about your contacts... why doesn't google back them up, it's set up that way by default, unless you turned it off.
g01851 said:
If you can just get it to the bootloader screen (press volume down button when powering on), you could use a tool like WUG's root toolkit to do a backup, or just get into recovery and back up files that way.
Also, if you can boot into your custom recovery, you can then attach to your computer and copy files from storage that way (pictures at least).
Not sure about your contacts... why doesn't google back them up, it's set up that way by default, unless you turned it off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is that is it basically impossible to see anything on the screen.
Hey Everybody
I have troubles since i clicked a button in my status bar. I removed EVERYTHING from my home and lock screen (i cant even tell witch one i see). There are no Icons at all. only my desktop background is visible and working (animated bubbles). there is no button working except from power button (and its menu to restart). a friend of mine was able to get a screenshot with some button-combination (vol+ + home?)
first: i am not an expert with android, but have a lot of experience in working with Linux shells.
what i have done:
maybe it has something to do with it or not, i don’t know:
i enabled multi view / multi window or extended desktop (sorry i don’t know the name, and as there is nothing shown...)
i opened my status bar and there were some new icons (next to the small watch in the right corner), witch i haven’t seen so far and clicked it. than it opened a "new" screen with only my background.
as i thought it is maybe only a "dead" app i tried to restart my phone. but: there is only that screen working. no PIN question, or something.
i tried to reset dalvic and normal cache. -> no change.
i use RESURRECTION REMIX 5.7.3. on N7100
Recovery TWRP 3.0.2-0 is still working and
i hope somebody can help me to solve my problem without factory resetting. i wont reinstall everything.
thanks a lot
Are you able to restore a TWRP back up? You could try flashing the ROM again without wiping.
theoretically, yes, but i did not have on. so i cannot flash it.
i am searching for an commandline option to change the settings. but i have no clue where to search, and in what files the configuration lies...
I just rebooted today without making any changes, and once my OP3 finished rebooting, I just got a black lock screen with no response whatsoever. If I hold the power button, I get the reboot dialog, I can take screenshots and they save, and the capacitive buttons react to input. When I reboot into safe mode, the exact same thing occurs, except the lock screen isn't black and says "safe mode". I literally just can't use my phone, period. If I boot into TWRP, I can still access my files after decrypting. It just seems like systemui refuses to start, and I'll have to reset the phone. Has anybody else experienced this?
Could you solve the Problem? Had the same. Only solution for me was full reset.
Flash a newer Rom and see
Alright, this is a weird one! Only of few instances of the mystical "pixel is starting..." screen show up online and I'm mostly out of ideas at this point.
First, some background:
I was still on the December 5th update (QQ1A.191205.008). Stock, unlocked, rooted with Magisk. I hadn't yet flashed the patched Magisk boot image, it was running only by fastboot boot pachted.img. The only root-related App I had installed was Battery Charge Limiter.
What happened:
I created a custom theme & changed my wallpaper. I then used Activity Launcher to launch the "hidden" System UI Tuner. While in there I disabled the clock in the system tray. I also went into the "Plugins" menu and toggled the "enable" toggle on, then off (I thought more plugin options, whatever they may be, were hidden since they were not enabled...). I fiddled with a few more settings hiding/showing icons and hit the home button.
When I returned back to the homescreen, my wallpaper had changed back to the default Pink/purple Pixel 3 wallpaper. "Huh? System UI Tuner must have reset this." I changed the wallpaper again but it didn't even change. After a few more attempts (tried changing just lockscreen wallpaper, just homescreen, both; nothing would actually change), I rebooted the phone.
Upon booting back up, I was greeted with a "Pixel is starting..." screen that won't go away. This occurs before the lock screen, prior to letting me enter my PIN.
Attempted recovery steps already taken
Rebooted many times. (Which which would have booted the factory boot.img; see above background)
Tried booting into "safe mode." (Same "Pixel is starting..." screen comes up with the words "Safe mode" in the bottom left)
sideloaded the most recent OTA for my device (QQ1A.200105.002)
Booted corresponding Magisk patched boot.img
Has this happened to anyone before? Can anyone think of a way recover anything at this point? Luckily I had adb enabled before this happened and it still functions; logcat doesn't show anything that seems helpful, though. Since I cannot unlock the device, I can't use adb to recover any data. I really wish adb had a means of unlocking via PIN!
My next step is likely going to be to flash a factory image (probably QQ1A.191205.008 as that was what I was using prior to this happening) with "-w" removed and praying I can at least unlock the phone.
Data recovered!
Edit: Wow! I wasn't able to fix the "Pixel is starting..." issue, but I was able to use adb to recovery all my data. I will follow up with what I did shortly! Dodged a bullet... unbelievable!
I couldn't fix the "Pixel is starting..." issue. Factory Flashing (after removing -w) QQ1A.191205.008 resulted resulted in being stuck at the "G" screen. I flashed the QQ1A.200105.002 factory image (again with -w removed) and was left in the same "Pixel is starting..." state.
Here is where things get interesting:
Over adb I launched the Settings app:
Code:
adb shell am start -a android.settings.SETTINGS
Next, I went into "Security," which prompted for my PIN, and then removed the screen lock. After doing this, I was able to get into /sdcard in the ADB shell, something that was not possible before.
Back in the settings app, I enabled USB File Transfer and copied all my files & photos off. I was also able to launch apps from within the apps list in Settings. This let me export settings/data from other apps that allowed it. :good:
So it seems that entering your PIN in the Settings app also unlocks the phone!
Thanks for describing this and how you ended up resolving it. I am seeing the same "Pixel is starting". Flashing the (March 2020) factory image didn't fix mine either.
I was able to get into Settings by pulling down the notification shade while the "Pixel is starting" message shows. I removed my fingerprints and PIN.
I don't seem to be able to launch apps from within the apps list in Settings. Can you describe how you did that?
I've tried this:
Settings-->Apps & notifications-->App info--> {select any app and tried clicking on icon at top of screen} Nothing. Poked around a bit and tried various things but couldn't figure out how to launch an app from here. Thanks in advance.
docdl said:
I don't seem to be able to launch apps from within the apps list in Settings. Can you describe how you did that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There should be a "Open" shortcut just below the app icon to the left of "Uninstall" (or "Disable" if it is a built-in app).
_Ra1n_ said:
Alright, this is a weird one! Only of few instances of the mystical "pixel is starting..." screen show up online and I'm mostly out of ideas at this point.
First, some background:
I was still on the December 5th update (QQ1A.191205.008). Stock, unlocked, rooted with Magisk. I hadn't yet flashed the patched Magisk boot image, it was running only by fastboot boot pachted.img. The only root-related App I had installed was Battery Charge Limiter.
What happened:
I created a custom theme & changed my wallpaper. I then used Activity Launcher to launch the "hidden" System UI Tuner. While in there I disabled the clock in the system tray. I also went into the "Plugins" menu and toggled the "enable" toggle on, then off (I thought more plugin options, whatever they may be, were hidden since they were not enabled...). I fiddled with a few more settings hiding/showing icons and hit the home button.
When I returned back to the homescreen, my wallpaper had changed back to the default Pink/purple Pixel 3 wallpaper. "Huh? System UI Tuner must have reset this." I changed the wallpaper again but it didn't even change. After a few more attempts (tried changing just lockscreen wallpaper, just homescreen, both; nothing would actually change), I rebooted the phone.
Upon booting back up, I was greeted with a "Pixel is starting..." screen that won't go away. This occurs before the lock screen, prior to letting me enter my PIN.
Attempted recovery steps already taken
Rebooted many times. (Which which would have booted the factory boot.img; see above background)
Tried booting into "safe mode." (Same "Pixel is starting..." screen comes up with the words "Safe mode" in the bottom left)
sideloaded the most recent OTA for my device (QQ1A.200105.002)
Booted corresponding Magisk patched boot.img
Has this happened to anyone before? Can anyone think of a way recover anything at this point? Luckily I had adb enabled before this happened and it still functions; logcat doesn't show anything that seems helpful, though. Since I cannot unlock the device, I can't use adb to recover any data. I really wish adb had a means of unlocking via PIN!
My next step is likely going to be to flash a factory image (probably QQ1A.191205.008 as that was what I was using prior to this happening) with "-w" removed and praying I can at least unlock the phone.
Data recovered!
Edit: Wow! I wasn't able to fix the "Pixel is starting..." issue, but I was able to use adb to recovery all my data. I will follow up with what I did shortly! Dodged a bullet... unbelievable!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey! I just ran into the same dilemma. I toggled the "plugins" setting in System UI tuner (by mistake), and my wallpaper went black. Then I decided to just reboot. I'm in the same "Pixel is starting" loop you described. I'm also stock, rooted with Magisk, on the January update. I just found that I can get into adb, but I'm a loss of what do to from here. I can't believe toggling a system UI tuner setting could cause a catastrophic crash. How did you end up solving this? Were you able to flash the full factory image while preserving your data? I honestly have no idea what do to at the moment. I'm gonna have to use an older device and research this more after work.
Edit: I was able to remove my security PIN via launching Settings through ADB, and therefore getting into some apps. I guess I'm more bothered by having to set up the device from scratch then I am losing any data. So time consuming. I'm assuming you ended up wiping the phone entirely and flashing a full factory image in the end? Geez. I miss my Moto devices and TWRP...
Ditamae said:
Hey! I just ran into the same dilemma. I toggled the "plugins" setting in System UI tuner (by mistake), and my wallpaper went black. Then I decided to just reboot. I'm in the same "Pixel is starting" loop you described.
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Click to collapse
Interesting! Exact same order of events.
Ditamae said:
Edit: I was able to remove my security PIN via launching Settings through ADB, and therefore getting into some apps. I guess I'm more bothered by having to set up the device from scratch then I am losing any data. So time consuming. I'm assuming you ended up wiping the phone entirely and flashing a full factory image in the end? Geez. I miss my Moto devices and TWRP...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I wiped completely. Used it as an excuse to flash LineageOS, something I had been planing on doing for a while anyway. I load very little on my devices to begin with so really its just typing in a few passwords.
Since you have root, if you want to mess around with trying to fix it without resetting, does the following directory exist on your device: /data/data/com.android.systemui.tuner
If so, take a look at the files within; that should be where SystemUI Tuner saves the settings you have selected. Maybe rename the directory & reboot so the settings can't be loaded?
Edit: Don't try messing around with anything until you're sure you got all of the data off the device though!
_Ra1n_ said:
Interesting! Exact same order of events.
Yes, I wiped completely. Used it as an excuse to flash LineageOS, something I had been planing on doing for a while anyway. I load very little on my devices to begin with so really its just typing in a few passwords.
Since you have root, if you want to mess around with trying to fix it without resetting, does the following directory exist on your device: /data/data/com.android.systemui.tuner
If so, take a look at the files within; that should be where SystemUI Tuner saves the settings you have selected. Maybe rename the directory & reboot so the settings can't be loaded?
Edit: Don't try messing around with anything until you're sure you got all of the data off the device though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a great idea about renaming the directory. When I'm home from work I will try to figure out how to copy internal user data to my PC and then I'll look into that directory. Do you know how to enable file transfer via adb or thru the Settings app (launched via adb)?
I did utilize the system UI tuner to disable my alarm icon from showing in the status bar, so I'm hoping I can perhaps find the file associated with the plugin specifically and rename that. Hmm. Only this is systemless... Might not be possible. This is my first rooted device without full read/write capabilities. Not sure how I feel about systemless.
Otherwise, other than time, the only bummer to all this is that I think I'm going to lose the Magisk module YouTube Vanced, as it's not longer supported.
Anyway, thanks very much for your help so far.
Ditamae said:
That's a great idea about renaming the directory. When I'm home from work I will try to figure out how to copy internal user data to my PC and then I'll look into that directory. Do you know how to enable file transfer via adb or thru the Settings app (launched via adb)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your luck is as good as mine, you should be able to just plug in the device and enable file transfer (Settings > Connected Devices > USB > "Use USB For ... File Transfer."
Note that, as explained above, I had to remove my security PIN in settings before that worked, though.
_Ra1n_ said:
Since you have root, if you want to mess around with trying to fix it without resetting, does the following directory exist on your device: /data/data/com.android.systemui.tuner
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was able to backup my data, and use Solid Explorer with root to search through system files. But, I don't see that directory. I see: data/data/com.android.systemui but no systemui.tuner. Any other idea where those systemui tuner files might be lurking? I'm an RN with a kindergartener home from school, and as much as I love tinkering with Android, now is not a good time.
_Ra1n_ said:
Interesting! Exact same order of events.
Since you have root, if you want to mess around with trying to fix it without resetting, does the following directory exist on your device: /data/data/com.android.systemui.tuner
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wondering if you have any other troubleshooting ideas before I install a full factory image...
My device boots now, partially. It seems that after I disabled lockscreen security, my phone boots, but without all gesture navigation, status bar, notification overlay. Essentially all SystemUI elements appear missing. The devices behaves as it did immediately after I accidentally toggled the UI tuner "plugins" setting, before I rebooted. It's unusable as a daily, but I did get my data. As I said previously, I could not find the directory: /data/data/com.android.systemui.tuner. Seems odd. I wonder where those setting preferences are hiding. Any help/ideas would be much appreciated.
Ditamae said:
Just wondering if you have any other troubleshooting ideas before I install a full factory image...
My device boots now, partially. It seems that after I disabled lockscreen security, my phone boots, but without all gesture navigation, status bar, notification overlay. Essentially all SystemUI elements appear missing. The devices behaves as it did immediately after I accidentally toggled the UI tuner "plugins" setting, before I rebooted. It's unusable as a daily, but I did get my data. As I said previously, I could not find the directory: /data/data/com.android.systemui.tuner. Seems odd. I wonder where those setting preferences are hiding. Any help/ideas would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the slow reply. Unfortunately I'm mostly out of ideas.
I'd ask in the general Android Help subforum: https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help
You'll likely get more eyes on the question (where does SystemUI Tuner store it's settings & how to reset them) and hopefully someone with better knowledge on Android settings/preferences can provide some incite.
Homeboy76 said:
Guide
Do #4 'keep data', then #9 to root.
Make sure you have the latest SDK platform-tools, there is a link in the guide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing the factory image with -w removed to keep the data won't help. The issue is that SystemUI Tuner saved some setting (related to enabling the mysterious "Enable Plugins" option) that prevents the phone from completely booting up. A factory flash retaining data will retain the setting that SystemUI Tuner screwed up.
_Ra1n_ said:
Flashing the factory image with -w removed to keep the data won't help. The issue is that SystemUI Tuner saved some setting (related to enabling the mysterious "Enable Plugins" option) that prevents the phone from completely booting up. A factory flash retaining data will retain the setting that SystemUI Tuner screwed up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Ditamae Rain is correct. I have edited my post.