The slow death of my Note 4 - Sprint Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello!
Everything was working fine until my phone started acting up about 6 months ago. The screen began to become unresponsive, apps crashed when switching between them and random reboots occurred frequently. I thought back then it had to be software related, so I completed multiple factory resets, and completely removed everything on my phone. It became slightly more usable, but these crashed and random reboots still occurred.
Last week, my phone continued to reboot, but a new problem occurred-it no longer would turn on after the reboot. I tried plugging it into the wall, pressing the volume down + home + power to force bootloader mode, but it wouldn't turn on at all. The fix was I had to remove the entire case, take out the battery and put it back in the phone. After that it would turn on, but only for a few minutes before another random reboot occurred and I had to remove the entire battery again. My phone is now virtually useless as I cant before even the basic functions, calling and texting without it becoming unresponsive or shutting off and not turning on.
I narrowed it down to the eMMC chip. I am almost certain that is corrupt, because during some of the reboots it would fail and throw me into download mode with the error:
mmc0_read_fail
or something along those lines. My last attempt at recovering the phone was to the stock rom PE2 with a PIT file (I had created before I started flashing custom roms). Each time I would attempt to flash with ODIN it would result in a:
mmc0_write_fail
However, I was finally able to get the PIT and PE2 firmware to flash. Now I have a half-working phone that will randomly reboot still and in order to turn it back on, the battery has to be pulled out for a minimum of 15 seconds.
New Issue I just noticed: When the screen turns off when the phone is inactive, it won't turn on again after pressing the power or home buttons. Only solution to this is once again, pull battery and hope I boot into system again.
I am pretty sure there is no fix to this problem on the software side, but let me know if you have a suggestion! Thanks!

Same situation. This thing is a lemon!

Sounds like hardware failure.
Replaced the battery yet? My original didn't last fifteen months before it started shutting the phone down. It's the first thing I think of when someone reports having to pull the battery.
Are you checking battery capacity before the battery pull by plugging in when it shuts down? Mine showed 0%. Before the shutdown, it may have indicated as high as 30%. It gets worse.
You didn't mention capacity when plugged so I thought I'd ask.
Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

One of my note 4 had same issue. Its a hardware issue. I was able to get the phone working by using a heatgun on the motherboard to try and reflow the solder on the chips. The phone works like brand new after the heatgun but the phone would only work for like 3 or 4 days before crapping out again. Ultimately ended up buying a used motherboard on ebay with a clean esn and its working perfectly again.

My wife's Note 4 started the random reboot thing and screen being unresponsive thing last week. She said it randomly started after installing Snapchat, so she uninstalled it hoping that would fix it. It didnt. I put a new battery in it thinking the original was bad, but still same issues. Then did a factory reset but that didnt work. After a lot of searching I stumbled on to someone who mentioned downloading an app called Wakelock. I did and phone has been running smoothly for several days now.
I also recently did the most recent update hoping that would fix the issue, it didnt but during the install I did get one error of emmc read failure or something like that. May just order a used/new motherboard just in case.

Just be careful when swapping out the motherboard as it essentially is taking apart the whole phone including the removal of the LCD.

Related

[Q] SPH-L710 reboots in recovery Battery, power button issues possible

I have read the other posts regarding the rebooting issues of the Sprint Galaxy S3 variant, but I seem to have a touch more difficult problem. My phone constantly resets and seems to be getting worse. It now will reset in the middle of recovery. I was able to wipe the cache and dalvik and then it started resetting even more frequently in recovery and made reloading the rom impossible. It even resets in the download screen. So it makes it impossible to use Odin and other applications. If anyone has any ideas let me know. I have a few possible options that I am pondering. The following is what led up to this if you need some background:
A week ago, I noticed that my battery suddenly was not charging when wifi was on. I turned it off thinking it was some glitch and reset the phone and plugged it in to charge. It said it was at 100 % some hours later. then I turned it back on again and within a couple minutes, it said it was at 22%. So I hard reset and then plugged it into the wall, but it was still not charging. I had go somewhere,so I plugged it into the car charger and enabled fast charge. I turned on my data and all the sudden it rebooted, lost my wifi password, but when it came back on, it was charging properly. So I thought it was just some odd glitch. Charged properly for days.
Then I noticed the phone starting to randomly reset maybe once very other day when texting. I was actually going to put on a new rom tomorrow thinking maybe my old one had become corrupt. Then it suddenly increased drastically tonight to where it was starting to reset constantly. I thought maybe the button was stuck, and pulled off my otter case to make sure it wasnt being pressed down oddly, but it continued. Then I went into recovery and was able to wipe the cache and dalvik before it got really bad and now it won't even let me stay in recovery for any length of time. I almost got a rom loaded when it reset and its been resetting faster than ever. Becoming unresponsive to button presses as well. Even when I could get into the recovery, it would keep showing "swipe screen to open," as the power button was apparently continuing to activate or the phone was trying to reset itself. And yes, I have tried a battery pull several times and then tried to get into recovery, only to be booted out right as I see the recovery screen if I get there.
So that is my problem. I can't flash odin or anything else as the phone just keeps resetting. Part of me thinks to get a new battery and try to see if that doesn't solve my issue, as maybe the battery is causing the phone to reset? But part me is also thinking maybe the power button has gone sticky suddenly? It won't charge it seems as the red light will not come on and it keeps resetting before the battery charging icon can even come up. Any help or advice would be appreciated. I am leaning towards the battery going bad suddenly and shorting out the phone. I now have the battery, which last I saw was at 48% (It was charging when this happened), out of the phone and am waiting till morning to hopefully pick up a new battery. But I would appreciate any insights into this issue.
Thank you very much
Same issue
I'm having the same issue described above with the S3 constantly rebooting. I can get into download mode but it restarts a few seconds into the flash. I have tried a different battery but that did not solve the problem - I am also thinking it's a power button issue... any suggestions?
mawamd said:
I'm having the same issue described above with the S3 constantly rebooting. I can get into download mode but it restarts a few seconds into the flash. I have tried a different battery but that did not solve the problem - I am also thinking it's a power button issue... any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just had my phone replaced for same reason ( Thank god for insurance) Download mode would last about 5 seconds, Recovery would do the same. I managed to get a stock restore with flash counter reset to boot as i was walking into the Sprint store for the techs to look at this lol.. Same exact thing happened on my S2. Power button is done. If you have INS call and get it replaced (Took me about a week for new phone)
I read some post on possibly using Samsung Kies to flash a new ROM, but that was for the international version. I would be curious if anyone has ever tried this or if its possible to replace the power button with a part replacement? I have ordered an S4 but this time I will make sure to use the home and left touch pad more often to unlock the phone and save wear on the power button. I wold still be interested f anyone has found a fix for this.
mawamd said:
I'm having the same issue described above with the S3 constantly rebooting. I can get into download mode but it restarts a few seconds into the flash. I have tried a different battery but that did not solve the problem - I am also thinking it's a power button issue... any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So after looking around, I am pretty convinced this the power button,as people describe on this question. If you don't have insurance, I see there are selling replacements or you can pay someone to replace and fix the power button fairly affordably on ebay. I might go the second route, as I want it fine right and the man had a 100 percent rating positive, and I dont really know what I am doing lol. Thanks everyone for your answers.

Random Reboots?

I was just wondering if anyone else has an issue with their Note 4 rebooting randomly with no external input. This started happening with the Android 6.0 update both on the download from here and the AT&T official release, Any Ideas? I've already purchased a new battery due to a separate issue, any idea?
I had the same problem. The phone would freeze and randomly reboot. Sometimes the system crashes and asked me for the typed-in password (not fingerprint). Sometimes when I charge the phone, and unplug the power cable, the charging led stays lit and the battery has to be pulled. I decided to switch the battery with my wife's Note 4 and see if the effects remained. So far I haven't had any problems after switching the battery, so I believe the battery may be the cause of all these issues. I'll keep you updated on the issues.
I'm back. The battery replacement didn't fix the reboots. I think my phone's hardware is permanently damaged. :crying:
have you downgraded?
and can you help me with my problem?[
AlexanderDAB said:
have you downgraded?
and can you help me with my problem?[
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm downgrading to stock 5.1.1 right now. I'll keep you updated. I placed an order for a Galaxy S7 Edge International Version (G935F) yesterday.
ajumatt said:
I'm downgrading to stock 5.1.1 right now. I'll keep you updated. I placed an order for a Galaxy S7 Edge International Version (G935F) yesterday.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you downgrade to Android 5.0.1 and help me with my problem?
its something completely different to this topic
I've been having the same issue, started about 2 weeks ago. phone would start being sluggish then if I continue tapping on screen, it'll reboot. At least once I saw it go into recovery & reinstall firmware(?). Another time it just sat at the bootloader screen waiting for software download or something till I took out the battery. Most likely it's a software issue related to 6.0 update or updates afterwards. taking out the SD card helped a bit.
but basically got annoyed & upgraded to LG V20 today. Coincidentally, there was another person at the AT&T store with a Note 4 having the same issue.
Mine just rebooted twice on me a while ago, first is emergency calls only now the reboots then what. And yes the slow charging is a problem too. MM got serious issue dam att
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using XDA-Developers mobile app
adavis1201 said:
I was just wondering if anyone else has an issue with their Note 4 rebooting randomly with no external input. This started happening with the Android 6.0 update both on the download from here and the AT&T official release, Any Ideas? I've already purchased a new battery due to a separate issue, any idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
use wakelock its an app u get it from play store.it makes ur cpu always running.some how it fixes the problem of random reboots. dl it and set it to partial lock (the 5th option)
Same problem. Just started a few weeks ago. REALLY frustrating having to enter my password every 3-4 minutes. NEVER buying another Samsung, too many damn issues with this phone.
My reboots tend to happen once the phone goes below 60% battery. It's fine above 60%. Once it goes below 50%, the reboots tend to happen with any intense network activity. The phone will often go from 50% to 22%. I forgot what the 30's and 40's look like. I will try the Wakelock app.
Ugh. I posted about this a few weeks ago. It's started happening more frequently and will occasionally go into a boot loop or show 0% battery even though there's a charge.
Has anyone found any solution? I haven't tried wiping / resetting but I'm getting close to trying it.
Here is a cautionary tale for you. My completely stock, unroooted phone started acting the same exact way. On the 4th or 5th battery pull (to fix a frozen screen) it just crapped out. It's totally unresponsive. Deader than a door nail. Tried everything. The download mode, discharging by power button depression/battery removal, etc. Adb shell command does not detect it. Nor Odin. Computer throws up a qhsusb_bulk error when I plug it into pc. I have NO CLUE how to fix it & I am desperately seeking a solution. Please proceed wisely with your oddly acting phones & don't let this happen to you.
k.babymamma said:
Here is a cautionary tale for you. My completely stock, unroooted phone started acting the same exact way. On the 4th or 5th battery pull (to fix a frozen screen) it just crapped out. It's totally unresponsive. Deader than a door nail. Tried everything. The download mode, discharging by power button depression/battery removal, etc. Adb shell command does not detect it. Nor Odin. Computer throws up a qhsusb_bulk error when I plug it into pc. I have NO CLUE how to fix it & I am desperately seeking a solution. Please proceed wisely with your oddly acting phones & don't let this happen to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same issue. Just got off the phone with Samsung support, all possibility of having this particular phone with this particular issue sent in for evaluation has been suspended. Translation, they know it is an issue and will not stand by the changes they push to their products (latest OS). I am researching the prospect of legal action since THEY pushed the new OS against my request. Shouldn't that affect the warranty or coverage? Consulting my attorney friends as we speak. Will let you know. I am not sure how WakeLock will help, it is not going to sleep, it is repeatedly power cycling through a kernel process until the battery overheats or it reboots.
Same issue
Since Marshmallow, my 910A will get sluggish or freeze, shut down, sometimes reboot and sometimes just brick (temporarily). Sometimes--more often in recent days, I get a "dll_mmc read fail" message and the target that says do not stop downloading. No matter what I've tried--factory and soft resets, cache clearing, battery pull, replacement, and SD card switch, contacting AT&T and Samsung rep--it doesn't seem to change. This is a daily issue and becoming more frequent. Any suggestions or do I just need a new phone? Thank you.

D850 Screen unresponsive randomly HELP!....please?

Hello everyone, I just recently got a G3 and it was working fine for the 1st 2 days, no issues. I was sending a text to a friend earlier today and after it sent, it completely froze. After doing a soft reset it took forever to boot up. Once it booted up, it seemed to be fine. about an hour of operation, the screen looked as if it was freezing because it wasn't recognizing any of my touches. i decide to flip the phone sideways to see if it was actually frozen but it changed to landscape just fine. Sometimes it comes back to life then goes off again shortly after, and other times, i have to soft reset. I've tried the following to no avail.
Took the phone apart and cleaned both connectors.
Re-flashing the rom.
Trying 4 other roms.
Returned to lollipop stock.
I can't figure this out for the life to me and worked my ass of to be able to buy this phone. Any help would be appreciated as I can't afford to spend any more money on it!
I also have this issue, it's been ongoing for a few weeks. There will be short periods where it can work just fine, then it just freezes up and does not register any inputs. The content on the screen continues to run as if nothing happened (videos and games keep playing). Turning the screen off, waiting a couple minutes, then turning it on can sometimes give me another minute of use until it freezes up again. Also of note, when the screen is unresponsive and I press the power, it will dim to very low levels for a few seconds before going fully black. When the screen is being responsive and I press the power, it goes straight to black, as is normal and expected. From my testing, I've concluded:
1. This issue is not app dependent. It can occur at any time, and is not caused by alarms or overlays, such as blue light filters.
2. The issue is not from the specific battery I use. I've switched out between multiple batteries and used different chargers, none seem to affect the frequency of freezes.
3. Temperature may have something to do with this. When waking the phone after it's been sitting out in the cold, there seems to be a higher likelihood that it will be unresponsive. This is not always the case, which makes concluding that the issue is hardware related difficult, but some correlation seems to exist.
4. This issue started occurring shortly before I began having the popular "SIM Card Removed" issue, which I've yet to resolve (though can sometimes get the SIM card to work)
I am running stock 6.0 D85030p AT&T. I will post here again if I figure something out, but I have been trying for weeks without much success.

LG G3 Keeps shutting down - is it hardware?

Few days ago my phone began to shutdown either immediately or after a short freeze of the system. This happens in many situations, although mostly outside/when I'm on the move (I tried disabling GPS but it didn't help). Usually when I switch it on again it either shutdowns just as the lockscreen appears or doesn't work at all until I remove the battery for at least 10 seconds. The latter sometimes helps and the phone works properly for a couple of hours and the whole thing start over. I tried clearing cache, restoring factory defaults, changing the software completely (Fullmics, LineageOS) but nothing helps. I made sure that this is NOT battery related - I have a spare one and it's all the same.
I'm not sure whether the issue is hardware or software related. Here are my suspicions:
Why it might be a software issue:
- Just before the phone shut down for the first time I noticed that the upper part of the display stopped working - I simply could not pull down the notification bar. I rotated the screen and noticed that the same thing happens to the menu buttons which obviously replaced notification bar in the upper part of the screen. Eventually it turned out that this is not a defect of the screen and that part of the screen simply froze. After reboot it worked normally for a while and then froze again. After changing the software the problem seems to be gone.
- When I'm in recovery mode (TWRP) the phone usually is stable, it shut down only once or twice
Reasons for hardware:
- For a couple of months now the Wi-Fi is not working properly. It disconnects and whenever I try to reestablish the connection it goes into "Saved->Connecting->Saved". Maybe this is just the next step towards the graveyard?
- It's about 6 months since the warranty has expired
Have you experienced this and/or have any idea what's going on?
EDIT: With time it was more and more difficult to turn the phone on and keep it running and right now it's not turning on at all.
EDIT 2: I made it run again. TWRP works perfectly but once I reboot to System it shuts down almost immediately.
Nobody has any idea?
I'd guess it's the battery.
When I bought my G3 in Oct 2015, I had random reboots aswell, nothing helped (turning off mediascan, restore kdz via LGFlashtool 2014 etc.).
So I went ahead and bought another battery (7000mha) from ebay.
Never again suffered from those annoying random reboots
(Inserting the old battery, makes the reboots reappear, so that is postivie proof for the battery thesis).
-Rye- said:
I'd guess it's the battery.
When I bought my G3 in Oct 2015, I had random reboots aswell, nothing helped (turning off mediascan, restore kdz via LGFlashtool 2014 etc.).
So I went ahead and bought another battery (7000mha) from ebay.
Never again suffered from those annoying random reboots
(Inserting the old battery, makes the reboots reappear, so that is postivie proof for the battery thesis).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I wrote above, I have two batteries and the problems exists with both of them.
In that case try this:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/lg-g3/general/g3-hardware-problems-solved-bsod-screen-t3597086
Regarding your battery: You didn't only get "original" batteries ? I have a third party one... All original ones I had so far failed me...

Lg G3 brickeD?

Weird thing happened to my lg suddenly
1) Touchscreen totaly unresposnive
2) Pressing power button brings up the power options with a huge delay (about 5 seconds), cant choose any of the power options because touchscreen doesn't respond to touch.
3) Hard restarting the phone with battery out, reboot takes forever (around 7 minutes) end up on the login screen with error codes "service is disabled" and "process system isn't responding", cant choose to terminate the option because touchscreen still is not responsive.
4) Did a forced factory reset. The reset menu seemed fluid and the reset itself seemed fluid enough, but when i got the setup the phone screen (get started screen) i was hit again with the "process system isn't responding" error. Also the huge lag of the OS and power button delay came back. Touchscreen also didn't work
Tried to take out sim and sd card, same result.
Funny thing: screen flipping is totaly fluid and flips on the fly.
update: The touchscreen suddenly started responding, but after about 4 seconds it became unresponsive again. Seems to be a hardware related problem.
After some extensive search i finally found a forum where similar symptoms exist:Google: "screen_becomes_unresponsive_after_5_10_seconds_of"
Gonna open her up and try the foil trick when i have time.
I can't really say but my original G3, from 2014, started behaving similarly last August. Screen was fine but I believe the emmc was failing. I remember going through batteries while trying to get the phone to boot fully. It would get so far and then restart itself. Before it got that serious there were errors, unresponsiveness, and lag.
Did full wipes, reformats, flashed different ROMs, to no avail. With older ROMs (Lollipop f.i.) the phone would constantly power off during boot. Always had to pull and reinsert battery. With newer ROMs it was better in that I got reboots instead. After awhile the phone would shut off or reboot even in TWRP.
Eventually I administered last rites. It had a good run.
LG G3 D851, AOSP-CAF 6.0.1, NanoDroid, MultiROM, XDA Legacy
Yeah i guess so, i assume the problems mostly came because of the overheating issues over the years, just like gpu has, constant temp changes on demand. I wonder would a oven trick to the logic board do something useful?
I baked my old gtx 780 and it has been running like a champ for almost 5 months now (Y)
Anyway i noticed that if i put my G3 in the freezer for about 10mins, the phone is alot longer responsive then just mere 5 seconds. Maximum i got was about 3 minutes lol. Guess i gotta carry a mini freezer with me from now on...
Update: After doing a 10minute bake @ 185C to the motherboard, the phone has been working fine. Will let you know if this problem comes back. If not then the bake did the trick.

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