Develop Bugs

[Q] No IMEI

I just purchased this phone a week ago off of Craigslist, the phone worked great up until today. I noticed that I didn't have any service. I use a microcell at home so it was no big deal, thought that it had messed up like it does every now and again, however I got out to town where I usually have near full signal and still had none. I opened up settings and "Mobile Data" was turned off, I tried to toggle it back on and it will not allow me to do this. I went in to the "About Phone" part of the settings and the phone shows "Unknown" for cell phone number and IMEI.
This is the stock AT&T version G Pro that has not been rooted. I contacted AT&T thinking this may be a sim card problem or maybe I bought a stolen phone, but everything on their end seemed to be clean. I tried out a friends sim card and still had no luck. Called LG and they said I would need to send it in with a receipt. I don't have a receipt and I won't pay for them to repair the phone, because I'm sure the bill will wind up being more than the phone is worth.
Has anyone else had this problem? Are their any fixes anyone can think of that doesn't involve rooting the device? If not, what steps will I need to take to recover my IMEI so that the phone will actually make/receive phone calls and texts?

charlee08 said:
I just purchased this phone a week ago off of Craigslist, the phone worked great up until today. I noticed that I didn't have any service. I use a microcell at home so it was no big deal, thought that it had messed up like it does every now and again, however I got out to town where I usually have near full signal and still had none. I opened up settings and "Mobile Data" was turned off, I tried to toggle it back on and it will not allow me to do this. I went in to the "About Phone" part of the settings and the phone shows "Unknown" for cell phone number and IMEI.
This is the stock AT&T version G Pro that has not been rooted. I contacted AT&T thinking this may be a sim card problem or maybe I bought a stolen phone, but everything on their end seemed to be clean. I tried out a friends sim card and still had no luck. Called LG and they said I would need to send it in with a receipt. I don't have a receipt and I won't pay for them to repair the phone, because I'm sure the bill will wind up being more than the phone is worth.
Has anyone else had this problem? Are their any fixes anyone can think of that doesn't involve rooting the device? If not, what steps will I need to take to recover my IMEI so that the phone will actually make/receive phone calls and texts?
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Are YOU SURE you did not do anything to the phone? Cause loosing an IMEI requires the USER to do something wrong, like flashing other carrier Versions.

hyelton said:
Are YOU SURE you did not do anything to the phone? Cause loosing an IMEI requires the USER to do something wrong, like flashing other carrier Versions.
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I've had my phone do that before. Wasn't rooted or hacked in any way. I didn't even know of a way to do it. What fixed mine was a **** load of factory resets. And I mean a **** LOAD!!! Luckily it came back and I've been good ever since. Don't know what happened or how but that was very weird.
Note to the wise: I don't care who says what about what! NEVER buy a phone off of craigslist or from anyone for that matter other than a carrier or authorized reseller. Because when it breaks, you can't do **** about it!

hyelton said:
Are YOU SURE you did not do anything to the phone? Cause loosing an IMEI requires the USER to do something wrong, like flashing other carrier Versions.
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Click to collapse
Well I have no reason to lie about something like this. I've only rooted one phone of the dozen or so I've owned and that was a old Galaxy Note.
This morning when I got home from work the phone had 76% battery left, woke up and it was dead. It powered up and showed 2% battery. I went into battery under settings, android system used 26% of the battery. Not sure that's enough to drain the batter while I was asleep.
Must be something definitely wrong in the phone.
Jammol said:
I've had my phone do that before. Wasn't rooted or hacked in any way. I didn't even know of a way to do it. What fixed mine was a **** load of factory resets. And I mean a **** LOAD!!! Luckily it came back and I've been good ever since. Don't know what happened or how but that was very weird.
Note to the wise: I don't care who says what about what! NEVER buy a phone off of craigslist or from anyone for that matter other than a carrier or authorized reseller. Because when it breaks, you can't do **** about it!
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Yeah, lesson learned. Craigslist is usually where I do my cell phone trading and buying.
I'll keep trying resets to see if this fixes the problem. Thanks!

Try to re flash a stock using an LG flash tool it might work as what other users did on their G Pro have the same issues

Still haven't found anything that works.
I'm guessing something has malfunctioned in the phone.

[Q] compatibility of Qualcomm NV tools or similar

Do the Qualcomm NV Tools work with this phone? If not, is there something similar out there?
I'm not sure if my difficulties are because I am trying to use it through Virtualbox with USB pass-through, because this phone is more locked down, or if it is just incompatible. The issue I'm seeing is that no COM port is showing up.
I am using the stock rom with a locked bootloader. None of the mmi codes for entering diag mode do anything.
Any clues?
Thank you.

jstrunk said:
Do the Qualcomm NV Tools work with this phone? If not, is there something similar out there?
I'm not sure if my difficulties are because I am trying to use it through Virtualbox with USB pass-through, because this phone is more locked down, or if it is just incompatible. The issue I'm seeing is that no COM port is showing up.
I am using the stock rom with a locked bootloader. None of the mmi codes for entering diag mode do anything.
Any clues?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
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What are you trying to accomplish?

Rekoil said:
What are you trying to accomplish?
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I'm sure it's exactly as you fear: modify the IMEI.
It is not illegal here in Chile much to my surprise. I learned this when I called the police to report a second hand phone I had just purchased getting IMEI blocked. The most common reason for the lock is that the original customer bought it under contract and stopped paying their bills. The incorruptible policeman told me to take it to a mobile phone tech support shop to get it unblocked. I like to fool around with this kind of thing, so I figured I'd try it myself.
Thank you.

If it makes any difference, I went to the carrier today to turn the phone in in case it was stolen. They confirmed that the IMEI was blocked due to non-payment and handed the phone back to me.

McAfee Lock Help

I'm 99% sure I'm completely out of luck here, because I've got about the worst lockout situation possible. I have a US Cellular G3 that I personally had on US Cellular when it originally came out. I decided to switch to Page Plus prepaid, and purchased a cracked screen Verizon G3 a few months ago. Swapped the board into the good screen, and set the US Cellular board aside. Now I'd like to use the US Cellular board in the phone again, and I made the mistake of factory resetting it first thing. I have no clue what the email is attached to the account, and I can't even activate the phone because I've since removed the ESN sticker and replaced it with that of the Verizon board. I have no idea what the ESN is, so I can't activate the phone. US Cellular won't tell me based on the previous phone number used, and won't reactivate it. I also have no option to connect the phone to wifi. I can see no other option but to figure out what the 6 digit pin is, and I've tried everything I can think of that I might have set it as including the Mcafee defaults, and of course Mcafee won't help at all. I get that this is a security measure, but what a poorly thought out system that won't even allow you to connect to wifi. I have absolutely no way of identifying this phone to Mcafee support, because I can't access the phone to get the ESN from the menu. Is there any workaround whatsoever for this, or am I just out of luck entirely on this board?

You can try this:
https://www.mcafeemobilesecurity.com/forgot-pin.aspx

Samsung Note 10 Plus SM-975X

Hello, this is my first post but sure it not the last!
I have been exposed of fraud! I bought Note 10 Plus on a website called Blocket in Sweden were you can buy everything. The guy told me that the phone was locked to 3 and that was no problem because i have that to. But when he came to me he had activated the phone so WiFi call was on (I didn't know that). I logged in to my google account and then I also connected to my WiFi. Then i tried a call and no problems so I paid the guy and got a receipt and took his ID. But as soon as I went out I couldn't call and did some research and the phone had only 0 as IMEI and in small letters on the back it says that it is a Demo unit and have a serial number and its name is SM-975X . So my question is if anyone have been able to get a phone like this to work? Everything is reported to the police but he had false ID and the phone number has been turned off! I payed 650$ so would be so happy if anyone has an solution of my problem :fingers-crossed :fingers-crossed:

Sadly, there is no solution, only a motherboard replacement would work

Hm, is it so bad! Do they remove the radio parts for everything else works like a charm even WiFi calls and wireless charging both on my phone and to other phones to!
Do you know if the they only remove/disable the radio part and let everything else work?

What I know, is that there is no way to make it work as a regular device, they are intended to be used by vendors, to discourage people from stealing them from showrooms, precisely the cellular part is totally disabled

the IMEI is generally a unique identifier used by networks and such to track devices (stolen or otherwise) without one a device wont work on a network and the only way for a device to get one is from the factory encoded into the hardware, so short of swapping out hardware for a different board that has an IMEI there is pretty much nothing you can do.
as if it was simple to change them people would be able to hide stolen hardware or their tracks when swapping SIM cards. also would get them around blacklisting and other features on the networks.
the IMEI is basically the same as a VIN number on a car, even if you could change it you would need a valid one to register the device on a network.
it's sad but unfortunately all you can use this as is a learning experience, in future only buy from reputable sources that offer some level of consumer protection and always check things like the IMEI as people even sell blacklisted phones as they will turn on and seem to work but will be blocked off the majority of networks.

Yes it was a wakening call, but I have sold and bought 40-50 different phones and other stuff on "Blocket" but this was the first time i was cheated. I had no idea of that you could make WiFi calls otherwise it wouldn't worked! He had receipt and everything so I had no thought that it was a demo phone! Before he came i was looking for a site were you could write the serial number and look if it was stolen but couldn't find any! Apple has one and have used that often and had one guy that tried to sell a iPhone that was stolen!
I talked to a independent repair shop and he was willing to buy it for 200$ so he could use it for parts, then my lost is only 450$ but it hurts anyway

yeah screen battery and a few other parts would still be viable, it's mainly the board with the phone modem on that would be unusable as little more than a demo/home unit.
WIFI calling will still work as it doesn't use any of the phone identifiers other than stuff like the MAC address of the phone WIFI chip that even a demo unit would need.
A quick google should give you IMEI checker sites and it's something you should always check, if you have bought as many phones as you say, you have been very lucky this is the first to have a problem as there is a massive black market for stolen devices that are black listed and such, that is why IMEI checker sites are fairly common as most networks do allow access to blacklist device lists as they don't want them being sold on. so really IMEI is probably the most important thing to check when buying a phone as there are multiple ways it could cause you problems.

Bough from local dealer

I bought s20 ultra from local cell phone dealer off the craigslist. The local dealer seems quite reputable however the guy said IMEI has been changed which got me bit concerned but proceeded to buy anyway. What are the reason for that? Quick search of the internet shows it could be stolen. But I dont see someone from respectable local phone dealer (at least based on their yelp google review) doing that since they are sittiing duck.
I contemplated either to resell back or keep using and for now using. It is wonderful in terms of speed comapred to junk I carried briefly (LG Q70).
However, there is just bit of an easy feeling about using it with IMEI chanegd.
For now, I am doing for e-mail, phone call and various apps but hesitant about using with fin-app (brokerage), bank, ebay apps that involves money.
Any ideas?
What are the chances of mine being compromised? I am setting a common sense here as just because I got from wireless authorized dealer does not mean it is bad and getting a brand new from authrozied dealer (verizon) not necessarly guarantee security.

guyenxda000 said:
I bought s20 ultra from local cell phone dealer off the craigslist. The local dealer seems quite reputable however the guy said IMEI has been changed which got me bit concerned but proceeded to buy anyway. What are the reason for that? Quick search of the internet shows it could be stolen. But I dont see someone from respectable local phone dealer (at least based on their yelp google review) doing that since they are sittiing duck.
I contemplated either to resell back or keep using and for now using. It is wonderful in terms of speed comapred to junk I carried briefly (LG Q70).
However, there is just bit of an easy feeling about using it with IMEI chanegd.
For now, I am doing for e-mail, phone call and various apps but hesitant about using with fin-app (brokerage), bank, ebay apps that involves money.
Any ideas?
What are the chances of mine being compromised? I am setting a common sense here as just because I got from wireless authorized dealer does not mean it is bad and getting a brand new from authrozied dealer (verizon) not necessarly guarantee security.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You bought a potentially compromised phone with a changed IMEI. That means that it's definitely stolen or was owned by someone who didn't want to be traced before being soled as a burner phone.
That being said, IMEI is just device ID. Meaning: Your device is in no way compromised just because a different ID. Surely whoever has the tools and your IMEI can track all your records across the internet and track your current location as well.
But don't worry the tools necessary for such a thing can only be accessed by authorized personnel of respective telecommunication company (Like AT&T) and your local authorities.
Also banking apps have meticulous safety checks before allowing the usage of the app, so don't worry too much.
However that doesn't mean that your phone is secured, as remains the question of how did they change the IMEI of your phone?
There are multiple ways to change an IMEI number but they all include one common point: They all directly affect some component in the device whether it be software or hardware.
So there is the possibility that your current software/hardware is compromised.
My advice? Just get a new phone, or make your phone secure again.
You can start by doing SafetyNet check. If the result is ok then you can be safe. (However as I said before whoever has the methods can still track you)
Flashing the stock ROM of the device then locking the bootloader can help. Also rooting the device then manually checking the device software for issues. Or simply changing the IMEI of your device again. (Only try those methods if you know what you're doing)
It's enough by itself that google, social media platforms and the government can track all your records across the internet whenever they feel like it, I myself wouldn't feel safe with potentially sharing my data with another unsolicited person.
So to answer your question:
Privacy is the issue when you have a potentially compromised IMEI. Not security.
Security is the issue when you have a potentially compromised system.
Hope I answered your question.

You've bought a stolen phone.
Theres absolutely NO REASON to change the IMEI.... EVER. If it has been changed, it is because the original IMEI has been reported stolen, and changing it gets around the cell network blocking it. There is NO LEGAL REASON TO CHANGE AN IMEI
I hope you are not caught with it, its essentially stolen property.