I troll here a lot for information, as I fix devices for friends for free, so if I'm posting up for help here it means I've run out of internet solutions and energy. Mods, I've spent a week searching and reading through threads, no single thread solved my issue which is why I'm posting up; please move the post if it better fits elsewhere.
The Phone: T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S4 SGH-M919
Current Firmware: M919UVUFNK2 Stock T-Mobile (M919UVUFNK2_M919TMBFNK2_M919UVUFNK2_HOME.tar.md5)
Current Bootloader: M919UVUFNK2 (also verified with getprop ro.bootloader)
Current Baseband: M919UVUFNK2
PDA: M919UVUFNK2
Hardware Revision: REV0.7
Current Android Version: 4.4.4
Current Kernel: 3.4.0-2437203 [email protected] #1 Mon Nov 17 19:20:38 KST 2014
Current Build: KTU84P.M919UVUFNK2
Device/Product: jfltetmo
CSC Code: TMB
Firmware CSC: (blank)
Active CSC: TMB
Product Code: SGH-M919XXXTMB
GPS Works: Yes, verified
BT Works: Yes, verified
WiFi Works: Yes, verified (all bands, secure and unsecure)
Sound Works: Randomly, causes issues. When it does work it is crystal clear
Network Radio Works: Yes, verified
Battery: 2 new batteries, one OEM and one Rav
IMEI/ESN: Free and clear, verified to be a TMO device by TMO
Error Messages Seen (if any): "Process system isn't responding"
Odin Versions Used: All 3.x up through 3.10.6
Alternate ROM Tries: Candy5 v2.1.0 jfltetmo
Alternate Recovery: TWRP 2.8.4
Odin "Double-Flash w/o Auto-Reboot" Used: Yes, multiple times (even triple and quadruple times)
FSCK Used: Yes, no issues detected
The Story:
I was presented with a challenge, fix a phone which just came back from the manufacturer. Sadly, not the first time I've had to clean their mess up. It was sent in under warranty because of screen bubbles, and returned with an OEM LCD, and a new battery. And, before anyone asks, the manufacturer refuses to take a look at it again. It's now out of warranty (by a month or so) and they said it worked fine when it left their hands. Yes it did, but only for a few weeks. From the time they shipped it back out until it crashed, nothing had changed on the user's end, no software additions or anything.
Appeared to only need re-flashing. After it booted and reached the unlock screen it seemed fine. If you unlocked the phone, it would immediately freeze up. When it did this it would usually be frozen for about a minute or two and then reset itself. Most of the time it would return to the lock screen, sometimes it would hang on the T-Mobile flash screen. One time I was able to get in but once it started syncing messages it locked up again. It had the latest firmware (M919UVUFNK2).
I used OEM recovery to wipe the cache and return it to factory fresh. It quickly booted up to the lock screen and everything seemed fine, I swiped and moved around the menus like normal. Sound was random though, sometimes it would work, sometimes not. Wifi, Bluetooth, Data .. everything worked like it should. I began to notice, however, that anytime something tried to use sound (ringer, notification, changing the volume) the system would lock up and stutter somewhat. Eventually it got to the point where it would just hard-lock every time sound was used. So I wiped it fresh and clean again--I wiped it several times in a row infact, just to be sure.
Again, everything seemed fine but sound would be random, and sound always seems to trigger issues. A few times I immediately muted all audio as soon as I factory-reset and rebooted the phone, in order to see if that mattered. One of those times it locked up within 2 minutes of use, and the other times it locked up eventually. It seems to last longer when audio is muted, but I wouldn't correlate that directly because it's not easy to scientifically prove.
In order to see what might be going on I went to install CatLog from the sdcard, but that needs root to work properly. I tried using SuperSU and CF-Auto-Root (jfltetmo/sghm919) to no avail. What happens when either of these methods are used: They run flawlessly and say everything is good, but upon rebooting the phone locks up at the Tmo flash screen. No matter what I do, rooting causes it to lock, and when it's locked the phone gets ultra hot as if the CPU is stuck in a loop.
After re-flashing the stock rom umpteen times and getting the same issues, I tried finding a PIT file to no avail. Gave up on that. For giggles I tried previous TMO stock roms. I realize that you normally can't do this, and some advise against it, but when you're up a creek it sometimes doesn't hurt to try, and I've had this work on other phones in the past. I tried ll of them actually, in chronological order of release so as to simulate upgrading:
These wouldn't flash to the phone at all:
M919UVUEMK2
M919UVUAMDL
These flashed/took and actually worked without an issue, they just all eventually locked up like NK2:
M919UVUFNH7
M919UVUFNB4
M919UVUAMDB
I re-flashed NK2 another 20 times or so, still producing the same problem. Decided to try 5.x out in case that might solve something. So far I've only tried 1 rom for it, Candy5. Several times I was able to get it to boot and use it just fine. One time it actually lasted almost 2 days. Since I'm talking about Candy, the folks did a fine job with it, I really like the layout/aesthetics. Free plug there.
Sadly, it crashes under Candy as well. Same problem as with NK2. Boot crashes, boot loops, sound issues. I've since sucessfully reverted to NK2. Presently it's sitting on my desk receiving emails, downloading apps and working just fine. I have all audio disabled. It's been going for about an hour. (edit, right as I posted this it crashed and rebooted itself)
My Theory:
Theory 1: The reason I want to re-PIT is because I theorize something in the filesystem, somewhere, has taken an epic dump. The more the phone is used the quicker it crashes--this happens almost every single time, and battery/CPU temps are normal. After a certain amount of use/time, the phone craps itself. Storage use isn't always sequential, so something is mapped as good when it isn't, and when it's put to use it dies. One way I correlate this with sound is that perhaps the system doesn't cache the soundbyte, so when it goes to read the file it craps.
Theory 2: Same as above, but instead of storage, the problem is bad RAM causing the same data corruption/issue. No easy way to solve this. I will be stress-testing the RAM chips tonight. Update: I stress-tested the CPU and RAM using some available apps, and ran it for quite a long time. Didn't seem to cause or exacerbate the issue any.
Closing:
Anyone have any ideas? I thought maybe re-PITing the thing may help, but couldn't find any files on it. The only other TMO S4 I have access to is a friend's who doesn't want it rooted (a requirement to read a PIT file I've been told). I appreciate any advice/input on this matter. Would be nice to get this thing going.
Did you pay for the repairs using a credit card? If so call the card company and contest the charge since it wasn't fixed properly.
It's not my device, and as stated in the post, it was repaired under warranty at no cost to the consumer.
Related
Well, this sucks. Upgraded from the Hero to the Desire Z 1.5 weeks ago. Downgraded it, rooted it, tried out a few ROMs, settled on Virtuous Unity and all was happy.
I used the phone in the car this morning as a GPS, 3G data connection was working fine, etc. I had a couple of client meetings, after which I pulled out my phone to check for messages. I noticed there was no mobile signal at all. I figured it was building interference, so I went outside. Still nothing. Wifi was working fine, GPS was working fine. I enabled airplane mode, then disabled it again to see if that would kickstart things. Still no go.
I decided then to power cycle the phone to see if that would help. It went through the usual reboot cycle, displayed the lock screen, then the SIM unlock screen. Then no matter what I do or don't do, about 5 or 6 seconds later, the screen suddenly goes black and the phone reboots.
Now it just does the same thing over and over again. The phone boots up fine, displays the lock screen briefly, then the SIM unlock screen, then it crashes and reboots. Whether I unlock the SIM or not doesn't matter. Within 5 or 6 seconds, the phone will reboot. I can see notification icons popping up, so everything appears to be working fine otherwise.
I have not changed anything on the phone this morning: it was sitting in my pocket the entire time. Same ROM, same radio firmware. I restored last night's nandroid backup just in case, but it didn't help. I thought perhaps it was VU's built-in overclocking that wasn't agreeing with the phone, so I restored a MIUI-based backup. No go. I went all the way back to the stock (but rooted) Bell Desire Z image I took when I first got the phone. Still no go.
I've tried booting up without the SIM card, and without the SD card. Nothing works. I'm guessing the phone suddenly developed a hardware problem. It would be something that is triggered soon after the OS has successfully loaded. Maybe something to do with the 3G radio?
There are no obvious errors or kernel panic messages in logcat. Everything appears to be proceeding normally, until it just comes to a dead stop. Anyone have other suggestions I can try?
Search this forum for "boot loop" and you'll find some things to try.
Thanks, burtcom, but none of the threads I checked apply here. Other boot loop problems more often have to do with the phone rebooting while the boot animation is still playing. My phone successfully boots and is in the process of loading user apps when it crashes. Also, most reports come as a result of something attempting to root their phone and then installing a ROM. I've already made it past that stage. I am able to boot into CWM, do my nandroid backups and restores, etc. The ROMs have all been working fine up until some point this morning. The fact that several different ROMs now all have the same problem makes me suspect a hardware issue.
Moved my SIM and SD card back over to my Hero, and everything works fine there, so I strongly suspect some hardware just broke on the DZ this morning. I'll try flashing a new radio firmware, but I can't see how that would fix anything, since the old version was working just fine all along.
taob;15238893I'll try flashing a new radio firmware said:
Huh... so I flashed the latest Bell Canada 26.06.02.25_m2 radio.img, (up from my old 26.03.02.18_m3 firmware), and now the phone no longer crashes. I'm thinking maybe it isn't an issue with old vs new firmware, but that the old firmware was somehow corrupted during the course of the day. Re-flashing the original radio probably would have worked too, but now I have the latest one...
Hopefully this will help someone in the future with the same problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone no longer reboots, but I still had the problem of not picking up any signal whatsoever (voice or data), even though wifi and GPS work just fine. APN settings were verified to be correct. It turns out I had to go into Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks -> Network operators -> Search network and manually re-register my phone on TELUS. Bizarre.
I had the same problem, update your radio and flash this zip on the Unity Thread
"For people experiencing random phone Freezes, this is due to overclocking, it's solved by lowering max speed.
Just flash this patch over: (link is on the thread)"
That's a different kind of problem, sengalang. My phone was working just fine overclocked to 1.2 GHz for over a weeks, so why would it suddenly start crashing like this? Problems due to overclocking tend to result in reboots at random times, and not at 100% predictable times like my problem. I did also boot with the MIUI and stock DZ ROMs, which do not overclock... same problem. Thus the root cause was not CPU speed.
Ok so i have one of the weirdest bugs ever.
Background:
I was running stock rooted rom w/out cwm for about a week. (i had rooted using cwm then installed superuser and then flashed a stock kernel over that so i was rooted, but stock.)
On October 4th i realized that any playlist i made in the music app were dissapearing after a reboot. While troubleshooting that, i realized that ANY changes i made to the phone (Installing apps, downloading files, text message and phone logs) would be erased after a reboot. Furthermore, any files i delete form internal sd reappear after a reboot.
Every time i reboot my phone it goes to the exact configuration it was on October 3rd. The phone still makes calls, uses web, texts, has the apps that were installed prior to oct 3rd etc... just it resets to that every time i reboot.
Things ive tried to fix it:
I have tried using Odin to go to flash a stock kernel, cwm kernel, and countless other kernels. The Odin flash goes through like normal, and it says success and the phone reboots; however, in about phone the kernel is the same and the config of the phone is still Oct 3rd. So that means that even though the odin says it flashed successfully, there is nothing actually being flashed.
Since i am stock i have also tried doing a factory reset and wiping cache through the stock android recovery, again these act like they have done the restore, but when the phone boots it is still in oct 3rd configuration.
I have just ordered a usb jig today, should have it by friday and i will update to see how that works.
I have posted this thread for informational purposes. I dont think anyone else has this problem, or what has caused this problem. It might very well be some user error on my part. Just posting this in case someone else encounters this in the future.
If you have any ideas/suggestion on how to fix this please let me know.
I know that i can just take to sprint and get exchanged but i first want to try to see if i can fix on my own, and since the phone still functions to make calls, texts and everything else its not a super major problem, except that any new stuff i add to my phone disappears.
Short version:
Use CWM or TWRP to (1) format sdcard, (2) erase dalvik cache, (3) erase cache and (4) factory reset. This seems to resolve at least one source of random reboots. If installing a new ROM, do that first and then followed by the four steps, then boot into the new ROM. Step (1) may be the important one (in which case it might, in principle, be possible to solve the problem while saving userdata), but I don't know.
UPDATE: It was working fine and I had to spoil it all by installing MIUI, just for kicks. Now, the old problem is back and the solution above doesn't seem to work. Looks like this is not a completely reliable solution...
* * * * *
Long version:
My wife's GNex was in a very bad way. It is entirely stable in Android 4.0.2. But if either upgraded or flashed to anything else, will randomly reboot. Actually, it's not even that random--it will reboot on its own within a couple of minutes of idle with the screen off. I tried all sorts of things--flashed different ROMs, radios, etc.--factory reset multiple times. Googling turns up lots of chatter about random reboots but little by way of viable solution. I figured that the problem may be hardware related. But all Samsung's servicing did for me is to return the unit to 4.0.2. At that time, 4.0.4 was just released and the local servicing centre hadn't even received their copy of the ROM (for yakjuwx). In the end, I 'solved' the problem by rooting and disabling the OTA update notification. (My wife wasn't bothered by the fact that she wasn't running the latest Android version. And the phone works fine in 4.0.2 otherwise.) Work and life caught up and I didn't think much of the matter after that.
That was about a year ago.
Recently, I migrated my wife to a brand new GNex, and took the opportunity to try my hand at solving the problem again. I flashed the latest 4.3 ROM, the latest stable CM10.1, Paranoidandroid, etc. But no matter what I tried, somehow, the phone is stable only with Android 4.0.2 (ICL53F). A chance find online mentioned something about data corruption on the sdcard as a source of problem, and that the usual factory reset doesn't actually reformat the sdcard (it only marks it as empty). Putting 1 and 1 together, I used CWM to do the things listed above (see "short version") and now, the phone is running stock 4.3 (JWR66V), stable CM10.1 and Paranoidandroid without random reboots so far. So now, I am a happy camper, though with one extra, fully functional white GNex.
Footnote: If you don't understand what I said in the short version, it's best you don't try doing anything yourself without first reading up on fastboot commands. This is one place to start. I am not responsible for anyone bricking their device fooling around.
Thanks for reading.
Update to my adventure.
Just about resigned to the fact that the phone is back to its old ways. The old tricks no longer work. What happened next?
1. Left off for more than a day (I gave up).
2. Installed AOSPA PARANOIDANDROID 3.96--using CWM, installed ROM, GApps, wipe dalvik, wipe cache, format sdcard.
Weirdly, the phone now seems fine. It hasn't rebooted by itself after 30+min in sleep. The old problem was that it will invariably reboot by itself in within 2 minutes from screen off so even if there are other problems, the old one is not there anyway.
Something in the steps above seems to have made a difference.
Still monitoring.
I've done a lot of digging through the forum and can't find an answer, so forgive me if this is an already-answered question.
I have a T-mobile S4 with a camera stuck on the classic "updating camera firmware" error message with black screen. If I open Snapchat the front facing camera will work, but with a slight delay in projection.
Here's the thing...this has happened on two separate phones now and on both of them it happened about 48 hours after I signed into the phone with my google account. Is it possible there is some kind of malware attached to my google account?
In the newest phone I have done a clean full wipe using TWRP, then Odin-flashed a full firmware package I found here on xda (recovery, OS, modem, kernel). Cache wipe and factory reset immediately after rebooting from Odin mode. Still have problem.
Have switched out known good cameras from other phones, and the phone I'm working on was functioning perfectly until I signed into it with my account. Totally stumped here, and really need some assistance.
Phone is:
M919 logic board in I337 body
Kitkat 4.4.4
Baseband: M919UVUFNH7
Kernel: 3.4.9-6281449, [email protected] #1
Build: KTU84P.M919UVUFOK3
Security software version: MDF v1.0 release 3, VPN v1.4 release 2
If anybody's got some ideas, please let me know!
Ok, no answers yet but plenty of views, so either this is an extremely rare issue that no one knows a solution for, or it's a ridiculously stupid question that everyone knows the answer to. I'm going to try and keep a log of what I'm doing with this phone in case any other rookies need assistance in the future.
So far I've flashed three different versions of stock Kitkat onto the phone....OH3, OK3 and NH7. When I flash OK3 my build number doesn't match my baseband (baseband reads NH7)...not sure what's going on there. Also, if I flash OK3 I lose my wifi....do not have this problem with other versions of firmware. Each flash is done after a full clean wipe with TWRP.
I found a thread that mentions an almost identical camera issue being caused on an M919 that was flashed with Nottache Xposed framework for AT&T phones. The OP said they could fix the issue by wiping the framework off the phone. Since my M919 motherboard is installed in an I337 body, I'm wondering if this is something related to a compatibility issue between T-Mobile and AT&T components. Best lead I've got so far.
Two posts have mentioned a fix. One says he opened Google Edition Camera Photosphere and his problem went away. He was running a different machine than mine so I haven't tried this yet, but I'm doubtful. The other user said they have only been able to solve the cam issue by installing a stock modded kernel by @jovy23. All the links I've found to this kernel are dead now, so no dice there.
I'm gonna put my M919 motherboard into an M919 body, wipe and flash stock rom again and see if somehow that does anything.
As a side note, I started getting "SIM not inserted" errors just before I began flashing different roms, and since the initial flash I've lost my SIM completely. So now I've got no camera, no SIM card being read, and sometimes losing wifi. I need this phone for work, so this is kind of sh*tty.
You cant downgrade once youve updated to OK3. The order would have to have been NH7, OH3 then OK3. It seems like mabey its not flashing correctly. Try a different odin program 3.04 3.07 3.09 are good ones. Flash it twice, untick auto reboot and manually power off and back into download mode and flash again. Dont use adv reboot menu to boot into download or it may not flash correctly. If that doesnt work I'm not sure what else to try. Good Luck
Ok, latest update for future readers...
It seems that lordodin912 is right when he says that flashing to OK3 means you can't flash backwards to a previous baseband/build. I hadn't seen that info anywhere so I didn't know about it. I'm not sure how to go about finding this kind of info on the forum but it would have been nice to know ahead of time. Anyhow...thank you for that information lordodin.
Here's where I'm at now:
-I was originally on NH7 with the camera error and sim card error. Flashed NH7 full stock after doing a full wipe and still had problems.
-Flashed OK3 full stock after full wipe and still had the problems, and also lost wifi capabilites (as in the phone wouldn't turn on wifi at all). At this point the baseband read as NH7 but the build read as OK3. I don't know why.
-Tried flashing OH3 after that (didn't know any better) and it wouldn't take. At this point wifi capabilites returned but still no cam and not reading sim card.
-Flashed OK3 again and wifi returned but still no cam and no sim. A couple hours later I powered the phone off and then back on, and Samsung then notified me of OTA updates. This update notification hadn't appeared before I manually rebooted the phone. I took the updates and now have wifi, sim card is being read, and my camera appears to be functioning properly as well. About 20 minutes or so after the updates are applied, the sim card error returned and told me to restart the phone. I did so and now the phone is reading the sim card again.
Right now my best guess is that when I was on NH7 I had accidentally made some app and update settings changes that prevented me from receiving some of the important OTA updates connected to camera and sim functioning, and this caused incompatibility between certain parts of the firmware that had been updated and others that had not. Trying to flash OH3 failed to solve the issue because I had already flashed OK3 before that and you can't go backwards from OK3. I don't know why the initial OK3 flash failed to fix anything, but I'm guessing the flash just didn't take as well as I thought it did. Flashing OK3 twice in a row seems to have done the trick, I presume because it reset and updated everything so that all firmware was compatible with itself.
I don't know how this could have happened (I try to be very careful about what I freeze and uninstall), but it's the most likely culprit because after flashing the latest firmware manually (twice) and allowing OTA updates my phone returns to proper function. Why OK3 didn't work correctly at first is beyond me....I don't see why it should have taken a few hours or a second reboot for OK3 to begin offering updates but whatever.
I'm doubtful that the camera will continue to work after the next 48 hours, but we'll see. I'll report back in with what happens after a few days go by.
Leaving an update here as I said I would.
For two months the phone has been functioning properly. Camera, sim and wifi have all been good. About one week ago my camera started acting glitchy again and then stopped working. The problem is the same as before- upon opening camera app the screen is black with a message saying "updating camera firmware", then nothing happens. This occurred around the same time I started using google hangouts frequently...don't know if that is related to the issue or not.
Yesterday the phone began showing the error message about sim card not being read, and then today it stopped reading the card altogether.
I repeated the same procedure that seemed to fix these problems two months ago and it hasn't done the trick. Full clean wipe of phone using TWRP, then installation of Chainfire's Autoroot, then flashed OK3 stock firmware twice with battery pulls between installations. Factory reset immediately after install of stock ROM. When connecting to wifi, no OTA updates appear. Camera not functioning, sim card not being read.
Phone shows baseband and build number are matching. I have no ****ing idea what the problem is with this phone. Beyond frustrated.
Anyhow, I'll keep updates going as long as I am working with this thing, maybe it'll help someone later. Anyone knows anything that could help, feel free to chime in.
EDIT: Apparently this was a result of using the wrong setting for enabling hotspot in PropsConfig. Because all that stuff was set during bootup, deleting apps wouldn't change the situation. Setting worked fine on my Pixel XL, but not here. Changed the setting and all is well.
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So, this is a weird issue I was curious about and may have missed on my searching. Every time I reboot the phone, when I got to log in it immediately follows up with a soft reboot. It's been happening for a while, and I'm not sure the source of the issue.
Running stock 12 ROM and rooted, but I disabled SU, modules, and Nova and am still running into the issue.
Might be quicker and easier to back up your required files and just factory reset.
Texan1 said:
Might be quicker and easier to back up your required files and just factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*sigh* I kinda made this post to avoid that step.
somethingsomethingroot said:
*sigh* I kinda made this post to avoid that step.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know, it's just that it sounds like you've already disabled some things that could be causing it, which hasn't helped. If it was me, with something like constant reboots, I'd want to start fresh just to make sure they are eliminated for good
somethingsomethingroot said:
So, this is a weird issue I was curious about and may have missed on my searching. Every time I reboot the phone, when I got to log in it immediately follows up with a soft reboot. It's been happening for a while, and I'm not sure the source of the issue.
Running stock 12 ROM and rooted, but I disabled SU, modules, and Nova and am still running into the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen reports of "random" (=not intentional) reboots after
+ booting up the phone
+ using the FP scanner
+ making videos or shooting photo
+ doing a firmware update (I've seen both reports of ppl that "officially" OTAed & used manual flashing)
+ doing nothing
+ doing something
Some were able to fix their issues by factory resetting, some needed replacement devices. Some reported that even after a factory reset, the issue still persisted, but they were able to fix it by NOT using a backup via cable, some reported that even the Google Drive backup "corrupted" their phone (fix after setting up everything by hand from scratch). Some even reported their issues to get fixed via a software update.
So it seems to be connected to hardware (= replacement device) and/or software simultaneously (=fix via reset).
Strange this is since there are also numerous reports of Samsung owners that upgraded to A12 about random reboots. So it might even be something Android 12 related, or it's just Samsung also implementing similar bugs without it being A12 related (unlikely, since the reports seem to be centered around people using the new A12 update).
I also had the random reboot problem (~ 6 times a day, when doing nothing, it just rebooted when the phone layed on the table in idle). I wasn't able to fix it via a reset, so I got a replacement device.
I also have the "random" reboot problem on my Pixel 3 since upgrading to Android 12 (never had any issues all the years I've been using that phone), so that issue is clearly caused by A12, but I haven't troubleshot it/ tried to solve it, since I don't actively use the phone currently.
Aside from trying a factory reset and minding the backup issue (especially backups that you got from phones that did NOT have Android 12), there is not much more that you can do (ofc you could also use the Pixel repair/android flash tool to do a "clean" install of Android on your phone). Next step would be to contact Google.