Develop Bugs

soft bricked my phone

Merry Christmas everyone. I tried to resolve this issue my self but was unable to. I had stock 4.3 rooted and flashed MOAR. MD5 matched. Everything seemed ok but when I flashed, it was stuck on "updating apps" for over 20 min. I did a battery pull. My phone started and I was able to go to TWRP recovery. I did a cache wipe and factory reset with plans of reflashing but everything was gone, including my nandroid. I tried to flash stock firmware from http://samsung-updates.com/ it said "failed". I cannot get back into TWRP. Is there any way I can restore to 4.1.2? Or 4.3? I just want to get the phone working again. Ideally I would like to get root back but my main priority is obviously just to get the phone working. Thank you.

jeppuda said:
Merry Christmas everyone. I tried to resolve this issue my self but was unable to. I had stock 4.3 rooted and flashed MOAR. MD5 matched. Everything seemed ok but when I flashed, it was stuck on "updating apps" for over 20 min. I did a battery pull. My phone started and I was able to go to TWRP recovery. I did a cache wipe and factory reset with plans of reflashing but everything was gone, including my nandroid. I tried to flash stock firmwa.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar bad expreience with updating my rooted S3,
to recover your phone try to get md5 recovery room and install it using odin, try to get the one that called recovery (runs stock 4.0.4) then you can update by Kies to 4.3.

If stock means the Samsung update you need to flash the 4.3 firmware. If stock means the de-Knoxed version from here, I would start by flashing a new recovery image then reinstalling the de-Knoxed one.
Can you not get into any recovery at all?

mjkubba said:
I had a similar bad expreience with updating my rooted S3,
to recover your phone try to get md5 recovery room and install it using odin, try to get the one that called recovery (runs stock 4.0.4) then you can update by Kies to 4.3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MD5 recovery room (or rom I googled both)? I could not find it. I'm sorry i have never done this before...could you post the link for it?

Kevets said:
If stock means the Samsung update you need to flash the 4.3 firmware. If stock means the de-Knoxed version from here, I would start by flashing a new recovery image then reinstalling the de-Knoxed one.
Can you not get into any recovery at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I press the volume up, home and power button it says "firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in kies and try again."
I installed the de-knoxed version..I would like to go back to the de-knoxed version if possible. Is there a way to flash new recovery image through ODIN...again, I'm not very confident in my abilities right now and don't want to flash anything to make it worse. Would it be possible to send me a link with what to flash. Thank you

Sorry I meant rom not room, but youv still can get it from the dev "room" forums. I got it from there.
sorry I cant post links here yet, i dont have the enough posts, but google "unroot sprint galaxy s3" it's one of he first links and once you get the md5 file you can use it with Odin, it's a simple process.

fixed it
Fixed it, got to keep root also. Flashed a new recovery image through ODIN (link for recovery in case anyone else needs it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=38079994). Then flashed ROM. Thanks for your help guys.

URGENT!

Hey guys I was recently trying to flash back to stock so that i could carrier unlock my device, but when I was trying to flash using cwm, I kept getting status 7 error, so I read up on that and learned that cwm doesn't like certain roms.
After reading that, I used twrp, which allowed the rom to flash.
Now's where it gets bad..
the rom was booting fine, until i realized it was stuck at the boot animation for about 10 minutes.
I went back to the thread and asked how long it should take on first boot, they said 4 mintues...
I can't get back into recovery mode.. (actually i could never get into recovery mode using hardware bottons, i had to use apps such as ROM Manager)
I'm trying to use odin to flash recovery img, but no dice..
Can someone please tell me what I should do?

You can't go back to stock through recovery. You have to flash the stock image through Odin.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app

mrzhadow said:
You can't go back to stock through recovery. You have to flash the stock image through Odin.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was a custom touchwiz rom. I thought that was possible.
Could I flash stock through odin in my current situation?

Fash the latest frimware using Odin
Can you get your phone into Download mode? Power whitle holding volume down, if you can then flash CWMR using odin
Download CWMR touch or non touch from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2405433
Doing this help me skip some odin errors from previous failed attempts to flash stock frimwares (I don't know if you're having the same problem)
If you successfully flash CWMrecovery, you should be able to flash official 4.3 firmware(T-Mobile) and put your phone back to stock.
create an account with sam mobile for faster download this download can take 1-4 hours SamMobile was like 20 minutes for me, this is the link for the latest frimware for
(T-mobile SGH-M919 !!! ONLY !!! ) http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/3/?download=22280
If you can get your phone back to stock this is my advice to you: root your phone right-away so you can reset your flash counter using triangle away.
I suggest the following rooting method is safe, it worked for me and did not affect my flash counter
Safe root --> http://www.w0lfdroid.com/2013/12/Safe-Root-Android-4.3-Galaxy-S3-S4-Note-No-Warranty-Void.html
use triangle away to reset your flash counter to Zero
Triangle Away ----> http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/orig-development/2013-10-04-triangleaway-v3-10-t1494114
Good Luck
jacob66 said:
It was a custom touchwiz rom. I thought that was possible.
Could I flash stock through odin in my current situation?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

jacob66 said:
Hey guys I was recently trying to flash back to stock so that i could carrier unlock my device, but when I was trying to flash using cwm, I kept getting status 7 error, so I read up on that and learned that cwm doesn't like certain roms.
After reading that, I used twrp, which allowed the rom to flash.
Now's where it gets bad..
the rom was booting fine, until i realized it was stuck at the boot animation for about 10 minutes.
I went back to the thread and asked how long it should take on first boot, they said 4 mintues...
I can't get back into recovery mode.. (actually i could never get into recovery mode using hardware bottons, i had to use apps such as ROM Manager)
I'm trying to use odin to flash recovery img, but no dice..
Can someone please tell me what I should do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did oyu make a nandroid backup of your stock rom before flashing a custom one?
If so, just restore it.
If not, use Odin.

Skipjacks said:
Did oyu make a nandroid backup of your stock rom before flashing a custom one?
If so, just restore it.
If not, use Odin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah but i switched recoveries and everyone on my cwm got deleted
but i'm back up and running, i just didn't know how to fully wipe on twrp, someone helped me out with that.
thank you for the help

napacastro said:
Can you get your phone into Download mode? Power whitle holding volume down, if you can then flash CWMR using odin
Download CWMR touch or non touch from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2405433
Doing this help me skip some odin errors from previous failed attempts to flash stock frimwares (I don't know if you're having the same problem)
If you successfully flash CWMrecovery, you should be able to flash official 4.3 firmware(T-Mobile) and put your phone back to stock.
create an account with sam mobile for faster download this download can take 1-4 hours SamMobile was like 20 minutes for me, this is the link for the latest frimware for
(T-mobile SGH-M919 !!! ONLY !!! ) http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/3/?download=22280
If you can get your phone back to stock this is my advice to you: root your phone right-away so you can reset your flash counter using triangle away.
I suggest the following rooting method is safe, it worked for me and did not affect my flash counter
Safe root --> http://www.w0lfdroid.com/2013/12/Safe-Root-Android-4.3-Galaxy-S3-S4-Note-No-Warranty-Void.html
use triangle away to reset your flash counter to Zero
Triangle Away ----> http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/orig-development/2013-10-04-triangleaway-v3-10-t1494114
Good Luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your information, I've solved my problem by getting back into twrp! thanks! hopefully this thread will help someone out in the future

[Q] N7105 in boot loop

I have a Samsung galaxy note 2 LTE n7105 in a boot loop, i was trying to flash ''http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2761937'' but under the installation a made the mistake of wiping everything on the device including the rom that was saved on the internal phone memory, i also had a 4.4 bootloader and Philz CWM touch recovery..
so when i put the device in download mode it does it fine and odin finds it, but it wont go in recovery, it just shows the bottom touch keys of the recovery then goes into a boot loop again, i would like to flash it to stock again without unrooting it if possible but i need to know whats wrong here?

athoxworld said:
i would like to flash it to stock again without unrooting it if possible but i need to know whats wrong here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Recovery must work fine since you didn't messed it up. Try again and try to flash rom from sd card. If not, flashing stock rom using odin is the next best option (will remove root though). Goodluck.

Fixed
erljayp said:
Recovery must work fine since you didn't messed it up. Try again and try to flash rom from sd card. If not, flashing stock rom using odin is the next best option (will remove root though). Goodluck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fixed the problem, just flashed stock 4.4.2 rom with odin and it was in fully working order, then i flashed CWM Touch with odin then installed the the rom i wanted in the first place, jumped over deleting everything, and now it works great ^^

[Q] Phone really seems to be bricked

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can help, but I'm not too optimistic. I have a SGH-M919 (T-Mobile Galaxy S4) that had a tripped KNOX bootloader and I had been installing custom ROMs on it. I wanted to ODIN back to stock, but it has caused all kinds of problems.
I was using ODIN v3.09 to ODIN the NB4 complete .tar file from Sammobile under the "AP" section with only Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time checked. It got what looked like about 95% complete and then showed FAILED. It gets to a point where it will say:
"Complete(Write) operation failed"
Upon rebooting, the phone says "Firmware upgrade ecountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again."
The phone will go into Download mode still but it will not go into Recovery mode.
After the above combination failed, I've tried using ODIN v.3.07 and v1.85, different official and unofficial firmwares (NB4, MK2, Fenny's NB4), tried various USB ports on my computer, and even tried another computer. Each time ODIN fails, and sometimes much earlier in the process.
I also tried installing using Kies after all of the above failed, but Kies will not recognize the phone at all.
Is it dead, or does anyone know of something else I can try? Upon my searching, most recommendations to "brick" problems seems to just be to ODIN like I did above =/.
Thank you for any help!

Have you tried flashing recovery and then booting right away to it?

serio22 said:
Have you tried flashing recovery and then booting right away to it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was able to flash a recovery, which is good news. The one I had on hand was Philz, which I could go straight into. Now I have a problem with /data not being able to mount, and no ROM I install from recovery seems to boot, even a full nandroid backup... Any ideas from there?
UPDATE: I flashed TWRP 2.5.0.2 and was able to format /Data, reinstalled a ROM, and it booted!! Thanks so much!!

Mralexander006 said:
UPDATE: I flashed TWRP 2.5.0.2 and was able to format /Data, reinstalled a ROM, and it booted!! Thanks so much!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good! That's what I was gonna suggest

Mralexander006 said:
I was able to flash a recovery, which is good news. The one I had on hand was Philz, which I could go straight into. Now I have a problem with /data not being able to mount, and no ROM I install from recovery seems to boot, even a full nandroid backup... Any ideas from there?
UPDATE: I flashed TWRP 2.5.0.2 and was able to format /Data, reinstalled a ROM, and it booted!! Thanks so much!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi. I'm having the same issue here. Can you please elaborate on what you did exactly? Thanks

hyperenigma said:
Hi. I'm having the same issue here. Can you please elaborate on what you did exactly? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive read forums and trying different things for 6+ hours and was having no luck.
i read that someone took it to a best buy where they have a samsung kiosk because they can reflash the firmware.
i took it there but they were unable to reflash it.
they had the same problems i was having.
i literally just tried odin again and it worked.
i think mayb them hooking it up to their computer did something to it which then allowed me to get it to work.
if that doesnt work you can also send it back to samsung to have it reflashed,
both are FREE of charge. ( most people dont know that.
best of luck to you.

Hey sorry, have been swamped with work. Did you ever get it working or still need help?

Using ODIN to flash a complete ROM would always fail, bit have you tried flashing just TWRP recovery? For me that worked, and from there I could reformat the /data folder, and flash a new ROM in recovery. Never was able to use Odin for a full ROM but that method was good enough.

[Q] Flashing stock firmware in Odin doesn't change anything

tl:dr I've been trying to flash the stock firmware using Odin but nothing seems to change after I reboot.
SGH-T889
TWRP v2.6.3.1
Devil Kernel
Jedi X Rom (20)
I had this setup for a few months until this morning when my phone had shut off on its own some time while I was sleeping. Turning on the phone would only load up to the Devil Kernel Splash screen. I can get into TWRP but it asks me for a password that I never set. After some searching, I'm assuming that this is because my data partition has possibly been corrupted.
I've tried doing a factory reset in TWRP, it says it's successful but practically there is no change. The console states that it is unable to mount /efs, /cache, and /system.
I tried using 'Format Data', but choosing this options only seems to reset TWRP because I see the TWRP splash screen and then am asked for a password again. From my understanding, shouldn't formatting the data should remove any encryption?
I tried to just reflash the stock firmware to reset everything but every time I finish flashing in Odin, Odin states that everything is fine but there is no change on my phone. I still only see the kernel splash screen on boot.
I've tried doing an Emergency Firmware Recovery through Kies but Kies is unable to do anything after it detects my device version.

kyang321 said:
tl:dr I've been trying to flash the stock firmware using Odin but nothing seems to change after I reboot.
SGH-T889
TWRP v2.6.3.1
Devil Kernel
Jedi X Rom (20)
I had this setup for a few months until this morning when my phone had shut off on its own some time while I was sleeping. Turning on the phone would only load up to the Devil Kernel Splash screen. I can get into TWRP but it asks me for a password that I never set. After some searching, I'm assuming that this is because my data partition has possibly been corrupted.
I've tried doing a factory reset in TWRP, it says it's successful but practically there is no change. The console states that it is unable to mount /efs, /cache, and /system.
I tried using 'Format Data', but choosing this options only seems to reset TWRP because I see the TWRP splash screen and then am asked for a password again. From my understanding, shouldn't formatting the data should remove any encryption?
I tried to just reflash the stock firmware to reset everything but every time I finish flashing in Odin, Odin states that everything is fine but there is no change on my phone. I still only see the kernel splash screen on boot.
I've tried doing an Emergency Firmware Recovery through Kies but Kies is unable to do anything after it detects my device version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Odin the UVALJ1 ROM (i use the Mr. Robinson rooted version). I have been down that road before. I had to flash 2x before it fixed my devices file system.
Then install the current TWRP recovery as 2.6.3.1 is not the best option. From there you should be able to get started again.

Coug76 said:
Odin the UVALJ1 ROM (i use the Mr. Robinson rooted version). I have been down that road before. I had to flash 2x before it fixed my devices file system.
Then install the current TWRP recovery as 2.6.3.1 is not the best option. From there you should be able to get started again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tracked down the ROM that you're referring to by mrRobinson but after trying another 4 times I'm still getting the same results.
Can you clarify your second line about TWRP recovery? I tried seeing if TWRP was the problem since I could not format data but I cannot flash any new recoveries (stock, CWM, or older versions of TWRP). Does anyone know of any alternate means other than flashing through Odin?
Thanks for the reply though, hearing that other people have had similar problems gives me some hope.

kyang321 said:
I tracked down the ROM that you're referring to by mrRobinson but after trying another 4 times I'm still getting the same results.
Can you clarify your second line about TWRP recovery? I tried seeing if TWRP was the problem since I could not format data but I cannot flash any new recoveries (stock, CWM, or older versions of TWRP). Does anyone know of any alternate means other than flashing through Odin?
Thanks for the reply though, hearing that other people have had similar problems gives me some hope.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the UVUCMK7 version. That might do it.
Your version of TWRP is old. Try the current version for better results. My first issues with corruption involved 2.6.3.1 though I can't implicate it directly.

Coug76 said:
Try the UVUCMK7 version. That might do it.
Your version of TWRP is old. Try the current version for better results. My first issues with corruption involved 2.6.3.1 though I can't implicate it directly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again for the response! Flashing recoveries in Odin isn't giving me any results so I'll try getting an external sd card and flashing version 2.7.2.0 from within TWRP.

kyang321 said:
Thanks again for the response! Flashing recoveries in Odin isn't giving me any results so I'll try getting an external sd card and flashing version 2.7.2.0 from within TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coug76 said:
Try the UVUCMK7 version. That might do it.
Your version of TWRP is old. Try the current version for better results. My first issues with corruption involved 2.6.3.1 though I can't implicate it directly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I can't seem to change my recovery. Odin will supposedly pass but the version stays the same in my phone. Within TWRP I cannot mount my external sd card so I can't flash from there either.
I tried to see if I could do something with ADB but TWRP won't let me go into ADB side load because it cannot mount /cache.
Any ideas?

Download the ODIN flashable version of TWRP and flash from within ODIN. That will get you at least a new recovery. From there you can restore/etc. I had a similar issue a few weeks back. My partitions got corrupted and doing the standard full ODIN, regardless of which ODINversion/firmware combo I used, resulted in me having a stock recovery with literally nothing else. System, cache, data....nothing would mount. I thought I was permanently soft bricked. Each ODIN flash seemed to go well, but upon booting up, the phone would immediately go into stock recovery with those mounting errors. I used the ATT version of twrp 2.7.2.2...or whatever the latest version was because it had the partition repair option that the TMO version hasn't been updated to yet.
Install the recovery from ODIN.
Boot into recovery.
Click the wipe tab. Then do the advanced wipe...select one partition at a time then click on the 'repair partition' option. I think only cache, system and data can be repaired. The others won't let you repair. Will give an error saying failed or not repairable or something like that.
That's what helped me get out of my dilemma. Fortunately, I had a stock backup on an SD card I was able to restore at that point. If you don't, flash a new ROM, log in, then download Mobile ODIN from the market. You can then flash full firmwares from within the phone itself and get back to 100% stock, minus boot loader. But if you're already on the 4.3 bootloader then there won't be any problems.
I'll check back to see if you had any success. It worked for me, but I offer no guarantees.
Good luck.

carlz28 said:
Download the ODIN flashable version of TWRP and flash from within ODIN. That will get you at least a new recovery. From there you can restore/etc. I had a similar issue a few weeks back. My partitions got corrupted and doing the standard full ODIN, regardless of which ODINversion/firmware combo I used, resulted in me having a stock recovery with literally nothing else. System, cache, data....nothing would mount. I thought I was permanently soft bricked. Each ODIN flash seemed to go well, but upon booting up, the phone would immediately go into stock recovery with those mounting errors. I used the ATT version of twrp 2.7.2.2...or whatever the latest version was because it had the partition repair option that the TMO version hasn't been updated to yet.
Install the recovery from ODIN.
Boot into recovery.
Click the wipe tab. Then do the advanced wipe...select one partition at a time then click on the 'repair partition' option. I think only cache, system and data can be repaired. The others won't let you repair. Will give an error saying failed or not repairable or something like that.
That's what helped me get out of my dilemma. Fortunately, I had a stock backup on an SD card I was able to restore at that point. If you don't, flash a new ROM, log in, then download Mobile ODIN from the market. You can then flash full firmwares from within the phone itself and get back to 100% stock, minus boot loader. But if you're already on the 4.3 bootloader then there won't be any problems.
I'll check back to see if you had any success. It worked for me, but I offer no guarantees.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already have TWRP 2.6.3.1. In trying to see if that version is a problem, I've tried flashing a different version through Odin but it doesn't have any effect (the version will always stay as 2.6.3.1 regardless of what I flash through Odin).

So it's been a week since my issue started and I haven't gotten any further since I started.
I've tried flashing a new pit file to no avail (stuck on get pit file mapping). I've also tried doing a nand rewrite but I get a nondescript error.
As of this point I've given up and am just going to use an old phone lying around until my contract is up. If you've found this thread because you've had similar issues I wish you better luck than I had.