Softbricked t999, out of ideas - T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII

Alright this is my first post here so I hope you'll bare with me. I'll give you the anecdotal account first and get any details that are needed when I get home from work, so here goes...
Friend of mine got a refurbished S3. Later we find she needs a newer firmware than the stock 4.3 to use pokemon go so I tell her I'll put cm13 on it and she'll be at 6.0 and it should run fine. In the process of trying to put cm13 on I find that the recovery error I'm getting is telling me that it's actually a sprint S3 even though the model number in the software and under the battery says sgh-t999. So I try the sprint cm13 file and it boots and seems to work fine. Weeks later we discover she hasn't been receiving calls. No notification, nothing. Everything else works, she has Internet, she can call out, she even gets voice-mail notifications if people leave them. This is no good, so I try to roll her back to stock (sgh-t999 stock) after trying some other simple fixes that didn't work. (just soft fixes not flashing anything weird) But next thing I know the phone is soft bricked and all the tuts I see just say to push this .tar or that .img and pass or fail the phone never boots and I haven't had any kind of recovery menu since the first flash. The counter is at 17 or some-****ing-thing. At this point I've tried both sprint and t-mobile roms just out of desperation but nothing has gotten me out of the softbrick. The download menu also identifies it as a sgh-t999.
I hope someone here can help. Best as I can remember that's everything besides any logs you guys want to see.

Download (i.e. Odin) mode is where the phone's "real" model # is located. Since it is a identified as an sgh-t999, you should be flashing TWRP and CM13 for the d2tmo: https://twrp.me/devices/samsunggalaxys3tmobile.html
Maybe try again with a fresh flash of TWRP and CM13?

Flashed TWRP and it passed on Odin but I can't get into the recovery using the usual method.

Reflash TWRP but uncheck everything in Odin except f reset time. After completing the TWRP flash, remove the USB cable from the phone, remove battery, replace battery, press home, volume up, and power to power up the phone. Once the phone starts to power up, release the power button but hold down home and volumue up.

No idea why it worked that time but I've got TWRP up again. Going to boot into CM13 if I can and see if it's receiving calls yet.

All working, thanks guy!

Related

[Q] My phone won't boot all the way...

So, at the risk of posting too much info (instead of not enough) I'm going to start at the beginning:
I rooted my wife's S3 and loaded TWRP and Paranoid Android. It ran fine, but there was a camera issue, so she wanted me to restore it to the stock ROM. I did this (to 4.1, I believe, whatever was out in August). Again, it ran fine and I was planning to restore the root access, but did not.
Later, it was dropped in Hibachi sauce (not sure this is relevant, but in case) and we put it immediately in rice. It worked fine, other than the touch screen intermittently ceasing to receive touch commands.
When the updated ROM came from Samsung, my wife installed the update and the phone continued to work fine, other than the screen issue.
She was tired of the issue and decided to sell it to buy an iPhone (shudder) so she did a factory reset. This is where the issues began (I included the previous steps as I'm not sure which may have caused the current issue).
Upon the factory reset, the phone would only boot to the beginning of the AT&T logo loading. I thought it may be something she could fix through Kies and suggested she try that, so she did. The phone would then boot to a screen in Odin mode that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again." We did this and there was no help.
I can get it to boot into recovery (the default one now) and have tried to reflash that and the stock ROM that I did previously and only can get two actions: either the freeze at the AT&T logo (if I use Odin to flash the ROM) or the above message in Odin mode (after trying to fix from Kies).
I'm not sure what to do at this point and would appreciate any and all help you guys can provide. I've lurked around and learned quite a bit to flash my ROM and my wife's from you guys, so I'm really hoping I can learn more from this.
Thanks in advance!
Fearborn said:
So, at the risk of posting too much info (instead of not enough) I'm going to start at the beginning:
I rooted my wife's S3 and loaded TWRP and Paranoid Android. It ran fine, but there was a camera issue, so she wanted me to restore it to the stock ROM. I did this (to 4.1, I believe, whatever was out in August). Again, it ran fine and I was planning to restore the root access, but did not.
Later, it was dropped in Hibachi sauce (not sure this is relevant, but in case) and we put it immediately in rice. It worked fine, other than the touch screen intermittently ceasing to receive touch commands.
When the updated ROM came from Samsung, my wife installed the update and the phone continued to work fine, other than the screen issue.
She was tired of the issue and decided to sell it to buy an iPhone (shudder) so she did a factory reset. This is where the issues began (I included the previous steps as I'm not sure which may have caused the current issue).
Upon the factory reset, the phone would only boot to the beginning of the AT&T logo loading. I thought it may be something she could fix through Kies and suggested she try that, so she did. The phone would then boot to a screen in Odin mode that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again." We did this and there was no help.
I can get it to boot into recovery (the default one now) and have tried to reflash that and the stock ROM that I did previously and only can get two actions: either the freeze at the AT&T logo (if I use Odin to flash the ROM) or the above message in Odin mode (after trying to fix from Kies).
I'm not sure what to do at this point and would appreciate any and all help you guys can provide. I've lurked around and learned quite a bit to flash my ROM and my wife's from you guys, so I'm really hoping I can learn more from this.
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So is it stuck on the AT&T Logo? Or Samsung Logo?
UnknownTroll1 said:
So is it stuck on the AT&T Logo? Or Samsung Logo?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was the AT&T logo, it's currently the Odin. If I flash it again with the stock ROM, it'll be the AT&T logo again, but it doesn't completely load the AT&T logo. The Samsung one loads and then the AT&T starts to load, but doesn't finish playing.
Anyone?
Yes, Odin to stock unrooted, then go ahead and factory reset by holding volume up + home button on first boot. Done.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
jblparisi said:
Yes, Odin to stock unrooted, then go ahead and factory reset by holding volume up + home button on first boot. Done.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If this works (I'll try it when I get home) I will be so grateful! BTW, do you happen to have a decent link to a stock ROM? If not, I'll Google it tonight.

[Q] Touchscreen and sim reader both stopped working at same time

I have the ATT sgh-i747. I was using it as normal. The battery was low and i could not charge it before it got to 0%. After it died, I connected the charger and started it back up. When the screen came on, the "no sim-emergency calls only" message was there and the touch screen did not work. Also, the time and date were off. it said 3:59 September 15th. I tried the normal reset (take battery out, replace, turn back on) several times and still the same thing. I had just replaced the sim reader a month ago, as well as the rear camera and speaker, and everything was working as normal. I opened the phone up to make sure all connections were set. Still the same message. I did a factory reset and after I turned it on, still, the touchscreen does not work and it says no sim. I find it odd that both these things would stop working at the exact same time. Also the phone is long past its warranty. Any ideas on what this could be?
Anyone?
Have you tried flashing another ROM?
I don't know how to do that, if you could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.
Before anyone can give you advice, we need as many details as you are able to provide.
Was your phone running a stock ATT ROM? What ROM was it running? Are you able to boot into download mode?
Stock Rom, phone is not rooted and I can boot to download
What stock ROM? It's important that anything you flash does not try to downgrade the bootloader if you were on stock 4.3 or 4.4.
I'm not 100% sure. I want to say 4.3. There was a software update for the phone that automatically downloaded about a week ago but im not sure if that is related.
Since you received an update a week ago, you may be on KK.
I suggest flashing Philz Touch recovery via Odin and see if you can boot into recovery. In recovery you can see if the digitizer responds.
Flash the latest tar version from here in Odin: https://goo.im/devs/philz_touch/CWM_Advanced_Edition/d2lte/

[Q] help - i think my phone is temporary bricked

hi,
so i just got my s6 edge for sprint shipped to me (it wasn't activated to any service when i got it). here is the order of events i took:
1) tried to activate my service, but there was a delay in porting the #
2) while waiting for them to port it, i rooted it, installed twrp and a rom (this was when it was on 5.0.2)
3) they called and said they were ready to port, but the new rom didn't have the activation software in it. so i stalled them and said i would call back. i then reverted back to stock using odin.
4) got the number ported and was fine using the phone at that point.
5) this is where the day turned bad...... i didn't realize that coincidentally today, a new firmware was released to 5.1.1 and the phone auto-updated to it while i wasn't looking
6) i went to go re-root it using the same 5.02 root and now my phone is stuck. it's sitting on the "Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, Powered by Android" screen and in the top left in red it says "RECOVERY IS NOT SEANDROID ENFORCING"
7) i tried to restore it back to the stock using odin, but it errored in the download mode (i don't remember the error off hand)
i can get into download mode, and that's about it. i had to let the phone's battery die on it's own to turn it off (this phone gets super hot, btw)
so i guess what i need to know is how to restore back to factory default again, now that it thinks it's on 5.1.1. is there any hope?
I'm in the same boat as you, I think the only hope is to wait until the firmware is available to download and install it via Odin. Let me know if you've had any luck getting it up and running again. I had to switch back to my old phone for the time being.
bbacon said:
I'm in the same boat as you, I think the only hope is to wait until the firmware is available to download and install it via Odin. Let me know if you've had any luck getting it up and running again. I had to switch back to my old phone for the time being.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
check this post, download the tar and flash it in odin. it worked for my phone!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=61650724&postcount=142
it got me into a recovery image that worked and i was able to factory reset in there. my phone is booting properly now. (after it reboots when done, it took a bit on the first title screen to do anything, just be patient)
Thanks man, that worked great. Although I found out in the process of trying to fix it the past few days, I must have flashed a non-compatible kernel because once it boots the touch screen is unresponsive. I guess I'll have to wait until the firmware download is available after all. Thanks again for the help though

Failed to mount /data and frozen after factory reset, HELP!

I have what's probably a unique situation, though I hope not. For background info, I bought two I747s, one white and one blue, each with issues, but I intended to put parts together to end up with one good one.
When I did a factory reset on the blue one via the recovery menu, it returned a bunch of errors along the lines of "failed to mount /data." Then when it rebooted it would hang on the Samsung logo. Back in recovery mode it returns more of the same errors just booting into recovery mode, and factory reset still returns more of the same errors and doesn't fix anything. I flashed 4.3 with Odin in an attempt to fix it, but I got the boards mixed up, and that one had 4.4 on it, not 4.1 like I thought. I'm pretty sure it's hard bricked now (that whole can't downgrade thing) because it's unresponsive to everything. Though my computer does recognize that it's plugged in, more on that later.
So I figured, fine, I screwed up, I'll just use the other board with 4.1 on it from the white phone. Except when I did a factory reset on that one, it did the exact same thing! Same errors, same problem stuck at the Samsung logo. Except this time I'm not flashing sh*t until I know exactly what I need to do to fix it. In another post where the guy had the same issue with 4.1.1, it was solved by flashing 4.3 with Odin. And another post where the guy had no idea what version he had, he just knew it was lower than 4.3, his problem was also solved by flashing 4.3, But since my last efforts failed miserably, I'm very reluctant to try it until I get some knowledgeable input. I don't remember exactly which version is on there, it's 4.1.something. I'd also prefer not to upgrade beyond 4.1 because I'd like to unlock it and from what I'm reading you can only do it for free if you're on 4.1. So I guess I need a link to an Odin flashable 4.1 package?
As for the poor blue phone that used to have 4.4.something, and was mistakenly flashed with 4.3, I've heard about JTAG but I don't quite understand it, and I'm not sure it would work in my case since a lot of what I'm reading says that bricking which occurs from downgrading is often unfixable. However, Windows recognizes that a device is plugged in when I attach it via USB. It shows up in the Device Manager as QHSUSB_DLOAD. I am currently researching more on this and the method of booting from an SD card, except I don't have an SD card reader at the moment.
Any assistance, advice, links, information, and plain ole encouragement are always welcome and appreciated.
For the phone running 4.1, flash any stock rom in Odin. After flashing, boot into recovery and perform a factory reset, then boot the phone and use the free method to sim unlock. The important thing is to have the stock 4.1.1 dialler in order to access the hidden menu options?
For home hard bricked phone, you will have to try the debrick image method. If it doesn't work, a jtag service should be able to force flash a rom to the phone.
Wow, that was like a crazy fast reply!
What if the phone is 4.1.2? Can I still flash 4.1.1? I'm on the hunt for a 4.1.1 stock rom now.
Yes, you can flash 4.1.1 from 4.1.2.
audit13 said:
Yes, you can flash 4.1.1 from 4.1.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently not always. I downloaded and flashed 4.1.1 with Oden 3.07, it rebooted, showed the android image like it was updating, progress bar finished, and then it just went blank. Now both phones are in the same condition of being hard bricked and showing QHSUSB_DLOAD in the device manager.
This is strange. I have downgraded approximately 10 i747m phones from 4.1.2 to 4.1.1, unlocked using the free method, and re-flashed back to 4.1.2 after unlocking.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2371897
What options did you check in Odin? Where did you get the 4.1.1 ROM? I ask because the stock ATT 4.1.1 rom was apparently removed from sammobile.com.
How did you confirm that the phone was running 4.1.2?
I checked only auto reboot in Odin.
I found this link sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SGH-I747/ in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-att/help/downgrade-att-running-stock-4-4-2-rom-t3170938 , 7th post
The download was going absurdly slow, so I googled the exact file name being downloaded which was, I747UCDLK3_I747ATTDLK3_ATT, and found a google drive link at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_UTWXKFnZoNVFdSVjJEZlMwZjA/edit which was the first result after searching for the file name if that link doesn't work. I'm downloading the slow one now to compare it to the one I got from google drive.
I'm unsure if the phone was 4.1.1 or 4.1.2, that's why I asked if it's possible to flash 4.1.1 on top of 4.1.2. I was only trying to do a factory reset originally and had no intentions of flashing anything. I just wanted to wipe out all the crap on it from the previous user so I had only glanced at the version out of curiosity to see if it was unlockable via the free method. I remember it was 4.1.something.
I have an SD card reader on order. Hopefully I'll be able to unbrick one of them.
Do you, or anyone else, have any idea why a simple factory reset would cause errors like I described and then hang on reboot? At that point both phones were 100% factory and I hadn't done anything to them except put a battery in them to power them on. I've done a factory reset on four other S3s and this didn't happen.
It is definitely possible to flash 4.1.1 over 4.1.2 because the bootloader could not be downgraded until the mjb version.
That's what I've been reading. So where did I go wrong? Any idea why a factory reset would screw up like that?
Did you confirm the bootloader before flashing?
audit13 said:
Did you confirm the bootloader before flashing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, because I had no intentions of flashing it when I tried to do a factory reset. Then after that went bad it wouldn't boot, and I don't know how to check the boatloader when a phone will only go into recovery mode.
Where did you see reference to 4.1? It's possible that the modem or baseband was 4.1 but the bootloader was 4.3.
Under about device and then Android version. The one where if you tap it a lot you get the jellybean android that pops up. It wasn't the baseband version because that's a much longer number with the model number in it.
That screen doesn't tell you the bootloader.
As I said, I didn't check for the bootloader version before I ran into trouble because I only wanted to do a factory reset and I didn't intend to flash anything. I wouldn't imagine that it would have a different bootloader than the OS version unless that can happen without any user intervention because the previous owner was only concerned with selfies and games. She certainly didn't modify anything.
I cant explain what happened. This has never happened to me after flashing about 10 phones.
I believe it has something to do with the errors that were produced while trying to do a factory reset. What bothers me is that both phones did the exact same thing. Normally I'd say it was something I did, except that I didn't do anything but put a battery in them, boot up, find lots of junk installed, and then attempt a factory reset. On the first phone, I rebooted into recovery and tried it from there. On the second phone I tried it from inside the OS. Same results on both. The phones ran fine before that.
Any advice on how to do the boot from an SD card, or how to do the JTAG thing? I've been reading a lot but the information jumps around a lot. I'm comfortable with soldering and have an IT background if that helps.
It's possible that the recovery was corrupt or the partitions were corrupt.
Whenever I factory reset a phone, I always boot into recovery to do that, not from within the ROM.
Sounds to me like you did nothing wrong.
Did the previous owner have the phone from the time it was new?
Edit: for the phone that you flashed with 4.1.1, Odin said "pass" in the status window and the it auto rebooted?
audit13 said:
Did the previous owner have the phone from the time it was new?
Edit: for the phone that you flashed with 4.1.1, Odin said "pass" in the status window and the it auto rebooted?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know for sure if she had it from new. Yes, for both phones Odin said pass in the window and then it rebooted. I had walked away when Odin finished with the first phone. I came back and it was dead. The second one I watched and it showed the android with the wireframe in his guts and the progress bar which moved across, and then it just went blank.
There were error messages about the partitions when I did the factory reset IIRC. Perhaps the recovery or the partition was corrupted like you said. It's just odd that both had the exact same identical problem with the exact same results. That's why I think that it must have been something I did, except that I didn't DO anything other than initiate a factory reset.
I took an i747m and reflashed stock the Telus 4.4.2 ROM.
In download mode, you should see the green Android guy with the words "Downloading...Do not turn off target" and a blue progress bar moving from left to right.
I did not check reset in Odin. Once it finished flashing the ROM, I removed the USB cable, removed the battery, replaced the battery, and booted the phone. I the Android guy with the wire frame for a few seconds, the screen went blank, and the phone started up with the Samsung logo.
Since you were getting errors with mounting the different partitions, you may have needed to flash the PIT and PDA files but I can't really say for sure as I have never encountered this problem.
I normally verify everything before I use Odin because phones that I have been given to fix have had all sorts of weird configurations.
You'll have to try the debrick guide. of use a jtag service. You could also do what I did and that is to look for people with phones that have a damaged screen and buy they at a steep discount.

I Bricked and Unbricked my day one V30 in one night (How to not be completly screwed)

I picked up my UK V30 H930 yesterday all fine and saw that LG have unlocked the bootloader on my model so I went ahead and tried it along with trying the alpha TWRP build
So I thought id write about what went wrong and how I recovered from it.
I made the mistake of letting the phone auto update to 10v software verion before I did this. As I had 10f on before when I bought the phone.
I went to load in all the software needed to unlock the bootloader and proceeded to do so but in my haste of the user data being wiped taking a longer then I thought it would I unpluged the phone to try "fastboot flash unlock unlock.bin" again . No such luck already unlocked. It booted back in fine so I thought everything was ok but that was the moment I thought could have caused my entire night to be ruined.
I thought with the bootloader saying it was unlock it was now fine to flash TWRP on now so went to do that and discovered it would no longer boot into the rom anymore coming up with the LG V30 Logo and just staying put. Thought it must be my 10v software version messing it up. Ok ill try to flash a 10f stock kdz. After about an hour or so of 'Finding my feet' with the phones boot methods for download mode, Fastboot and recovery I found that twrp was being strange with mounting the phone tried otherways eventually got the phone talking to the pc by using uppercut with LGUP and having the phone in download mode and the port com channel in device mananger set to com 41. After about 4 tries of flashing KDZ's to the phone it would just come with a "erasing" circle and proceed to get stuck on boot logo again so I messed about with .dlls and tried to other methods. Still nothing.
Now I tried LG Bridge's "Update error recovery" and I was actually talking to the phone for the 1st time so i let it do its thing which took well over an hour to download the kdz file. "Fine just work please". it got to the updating stage at 5% and froze and the phone being in download mode hadnt done a thing. I tried again but still nothing. Eventually now at 6am and having been up all night I went to give up but I manged to get it on to fastboot mode and by chance came across "flashing lock_bootloader" tried and it and it locked tthe bootloader back up (this thing of LG saying it cannot be undone must be rubbish?) now before I tried anything I rebooted the phone . IT BOOTED! onto the fresh 10v KDZ i had installed on it but before anything I wanted to see if it would now run with a unlocked bootloader on its own with no TWRP installed. It works! Now i just need a method of rooting but im now ready at least.
Hope this helps anyone with simular troubles.
Also had some trouble yesterday after trying out some Magisk modules.
On reboot it sometimes got stuck in the LG V30 screen, and sometimes even the bootanimation came up, but it didnt finish the boot lol
Only installed and adblock btw, and tried the Xposed module. Uninstalled that again btw. Now only using Adblock.
Phone also seems to need Power + Vol- to force shutdown for me, not only Power like other phones. Also didnt manage to find a way to boot into recovery when the phone is off, only found a way to get into the factory reset screen ?
sadly i dont have a working sdcard currently (my 3 year old 128GB one is read only for some reason, atleast changes dont get applied), so ill wait for a new one to mess around more ^^
Also working on a LOS14.1 build atm (it compiled, but didnt adapt all parts of thr device tree yet, and no idea if i have all vendor files lol)
SGCMarkus said:
Also had some trouble yesterday after trying out some Magisk modules.
On reboot it sometimes got stuck in the LG V30 screen, and sometimes even the bootanimation came up, but it didnt finish the boot lol
Only installed and adblock btw, and tried the Xposed module. Uninstalled that again btw. Now only using Adblock.
Phone also seems to need Power + Vol- to force shutdown for me, not only Power like other phones. Also didnt manage to find a way to boot into recovery when the phone is off, only found a way to get into the factory reset screen
sadly i dont have a working sdcard currently (my 3 year old 128GB one is read only for some reason, atleast changes dont get applied), so ill wait for a new one to mess around more ^^
Also working on a LOS14.1 build atm (it compiled, but didnt adapt all parts of thr device tree yet, and no idea if i have all vendor files lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive just managed to get 10f on so ill retry flashing twrp now.
Are you sure your sdcard doesnt have a little read/write switch on it . Im sure i remember so of them used to have one.
Dreamxtreme said:
Ive just managed to get 10f on so ill retry flashing twrp now.
Are you sure your sdcard doesnt have a little read/write switch on it . Im sure i remember so of them used to have one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope, doesnt have one. Neither windows nor Linux fail at writing on it, or when deleting files, but as soon as I re-insert the SDCard all changes are reversed. Formatting doesnt work anymore, unknown error. Tried that in Windows, Linux and in the Phone (Androids formatting crashed, TWRPs produced an error after it timed out)

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