Hello all!
This is my first foray into the world of custom Android systems, and I'm having a hell of a time with it... if somebody would be able to help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.
First off, the situation:
I am on Sprint, and I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S3 (SPH-L710) from Sprint to use as a backup phone, I used it for a while on Stock, then deactivated it so I could give it to my wife. First though, I wanted to put a custom ROM on it, and experiment/play around a bit and see what this world of options could do for me. Long story short, I ended up flashing an AICP ROM, and everything seemed to go smoothly, but when I went to activate the phone on my account again and it would not work no matter what I tried (details below). I figured maybe I could activate on the stock setup then just restore my custom setup, so I tried to revert to my stock ROM backup and I couldn't do anything because I was constantly getting messages that various programs had closed... Then I tried to wipe and restore my custom ROM backup and I get stuck in a boot loop... so I tried to flash a stock recovery and I get stuck in a boot loop... I'm out of ideas here, and now I'm stuck with a phone I can't use or do anything with, and I can't activate.
Details:
The initial rooting/install process seemed to work ok, and was fairly straightforward. I followed various guides on http://galaxys3root.com/ to get my phone rooted and backed up (Don't recall which ones now, but I've read through so much by now I don't know if it matters...).
My phone:
Samsung Galaxy S3 (Sprint) SPH-L710
Modem: L710SPRDNJ2
My Desktop:
Debian Linux
Here's the steps I performed:
Rebooted phone in Odin mode
Downloaded CWM S3 Sprint Recovery from the http://galaxys3root.com/ website (can't find the link any more)
Flashed the CWM recovery using Heimdall then rebooted phone into CWM
Installed SuperSU through CWM, then rebooted
Checked that the phone was rooted successfully (it was), then ran Titanium Backup on the whole device to my SD card, then copied the backup files to my desktop computer
Rebooted into CWM, and performed a backup through CWM, then rebooted and copied the CWM backup to my desktop.
Downloaded AICP Rom for my phone from here: http://downloadandroidrom.com/file/GalaxyS3Sprint/roms/AICP/aicp_d2spr_lp-10.0-RELEASE-20150707.zip, put it on my SD card, then installed it through CWM and rebooted
At this point, I was happy with how everything was working, so I did some minor theme customizations then made another backup through CWM, and copied it to my computer, but I did NOT run Titanium this time...
After all of this, I tried to go ahead and activate it through the Sprint web service. This process failed continuously with an unhelpful error message of "Sorry, this device can't be activated right now". I then got on Chat to see if they could activate it manually, and then the problems began. They did their thing activating the phone, but when I booted up I got no data connectivity, and couldn't make calls, and the SIM was not changing over to the new number. I was on the chat with them for over an hour trying to get the situation resolved, but that finally ended when they started asking me to punch in ## codes, because I discovered that none of them worked on my custom ROM. Some quick research told me that this was non-trivial to get around so I had them switch everything back and I started researching the issue.
I found this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626638&highlight=sph-l710 that looked like it would let me do what I needed from the custom ROM, but I couldn't tell if it would fix my problem for sure, so I figured "I'll just restore my stock setup from that backup I took, activate it and update, then start over". This is when things got really frustrating...
First I rebooted into CWM, went to 'backup/restore', and restored my stock backup
Rebooted, and as soon as I got past the lock screen, I get inundated with messages of various apps being closed unexpectedly.
I researched a bit, discovered the issue may be caused by stale dalvik cache, so I rebooted into CWM, cleared the dalvik cache, formatted the /cache partition, then tried to restore the stock backup again, but this time I get stuck in a boot loop.
I then rebooted into CWM, tried to restore the backup of my AICP ROM, only to be stuck in a boot loop as well.
Trying to get into any usable system, I rebooted to CWM, cleared dalvik cache, then formatted /cache, /data, and /system just to be sure, and re-flashed the base AICP ROM I started with. This worked fine, and before long I had stock AICP back
Since I still couldn't get the phone to activate in the custom ROM, and my backups are apparently completely useless, I rebooted into CWM, wiped dalvik, /cache, /data, and /system again and tried to install a different stock ROM I found in the XDA forums (here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-sprint/development/stock-rom-4-4-2-t3010642) only to be greeted by another bootloop
At this point I've spent well over 24 man-hours trying to get this to work, reading, researching, flashing, etc all to no avail. Nothing I do seems to work, and it seems like every article, tutorial, or forum thread I read either has nothing to do with my device, is too old, or doesn't describe my problem.
I'm at wits end, and am so frustrated I'm ready to just give up and smash this device and buy a new one... My questions to the community are as follows:
I know I screwed up on a couple of things, but in my initial research of doing this there was no indication that these were even things I needed to watch out for... Is there any more organized sources of information for doing this sort of thing?
Does anybody else out there use Sprint on a custom ROM, and if so how you you pull this off
Where else have I screwed up, and how can I fix this situation? (My end goal is still to get the S3 onto Sprint with a custom ROM)
What can I do differently next time? I would like to figure this out and do it to other phones and devices I have, but if it's this much trouble every time, I just don't have the time to mess with it.
Thank you in advance, and I appreciate any information that the community can provide.
This sounds like a CWM problem to me. If I were you, I'd boot the phone into Odin Mode and flash TWRP ( www.twrp.me ) then try flashing the latest aicp nightly downloaded from the official site ( www.aicp-rom.com ). Check the md5sums on everything! Then maybe try flashing a touchwiz ROM and activating your phone. Remember that you need to wipe the internal storage when you go between KitKat and lollipop.
I'm fairly certain you have to do activation with the stock Touchwiz roms -- once the phone is activated you can flash a custom.
You should go into recovery and wipe everything (System/data/etc) EXCEPT for the External SD Card
Power off - pull the battery for a few - power on directly into download mode
Odin NJ2 back onto the phone and reboot and activate it (skip through most of the setup since you'll flash a custom after)
Once you know it's activated and working under the stock Touchwiz, then again power off and Odin TWRP recovery
Then you can go back into recovery, wipe everything except External SD, and flash the custom rom back on.
Looks like swapping CWM for TWRP did the trick.
Flashed TWRP no problems, and put CleanBean on there to get the phone activated. Still wouldn't work automatically over the Sprint website, but I got on chat with them and they fixed me right up. Downloading a fresh copy of AICP now...
Is it worth it to keep the CWM backups I made earlier, or should I just go ahead and flush them? I figured just get rid of them since restoring them wasn't working anyway, but I figured I would ask.
Now to move all the data over to the new phone. Thanks so much for your help guys!
afarris01 said:
Looks like swapping CWM for TWRP did the trick.
Flashed TWRP no problems, and put CleanBean on there to get the phone activated. Still wouldn't work automatically over the Sprint website, but I got on chat with them and they fixed me right up. Downloading a fresh copy of AICP now...
Is it worth it to keep the CWM backups I made earlier, or should I just go ahead and flush them? I figured just get rid of them since restoring them wasn't working anyway, but I figured I would ask.
Now to move all the data over to the new phone. Thanks so much for your help guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get rid of them. TWRP can't restore CWM even if the backup is good
So...
Last week, my wife's Tab S went into a bootloop. She runs complete stock, we haven't rooted, or anything. There had been a notification about an update, but she hadn't touched it. She'd updated to Lollipop at some point last year, but hadn't applied the absolute latest update. One day last week, she just turned it on, and it started bootlooping.
Because it was so stock, there were no backups, no nandroids, or anything like that. No Custom Recovery. I told her "well, we can just do a factory reset. You'll lose everything, but once we get you back up and running, it'll just re-download everything from the Goog." So we factory reset it. Looked good for a minute, booted into the first screen, enter in your Wi-Fi password, all that. As soon as we got the Wi-Fi password entered, however, it re-booted. And keep rebooting. Bootloop city. No problem. I walked her through (over the phone) using Odin to flash the latest Lollipop firmware. No dice. It appeared to flash successfully, but still bootlooped.
Over the weekend, I tried using Kies to flash the most official firmware I could find. Everything was successful -computer recognized the device, was able to download "direct from the source," as it were, but it got stuck at 69% twice before failing. I read somewhere that one had to run Kies in administrator mode to get it to successfully complete. So I did, and it got past 69%, successfully completing the flash. STILL NO LUCK. STILL WITH THE BOOTLOOPS.
Last night, I realized that I hadn't flashed in Odin using Administrator Mode. Tried it, using latest 5.0.2 (XAR-Cellular South). Flashed successfully, all appeared well. Still bootlooped.
So, I'm stuck. I can get into recovery, I can get into Download Mode, I can successfully flash. I just can't get the darn thing booted.
Thoughts, anyone? Should I try flashing a Custom ROM? How hard is that using Odin? Thanks in advance.
Ok this will take a few tries but here is my method of dealing with this situation
1) Flash stock using Odin
2) AS SOON AS the screen goes blank, start holding Power+Volume Up+Home
3) When recovery boots, release the buttons
4) Use the volume buttons to select "Wipe data/factory reset"
5) Press power to confirm
6) Reboot
If that doesn't work, you may either:
1) (more likely) Installing a ROM will fix the problem
2) (unlikely but possible) You might have worn NAND pages, which I doubt but could cause this behavior.
Nandr0idC0nsumer said:
Ok this will take a few tries but here is my method of dealing with this situation
1) Flash stock using Odin
2) AS SOON AS the screen goes blank, start holding Power+Volume Up+Home
3) When recovery boots, release the buttons
4) Use the volume buttons to select "Wipe data/factory reset"
5) Press power to confirm
6) Reboot
If that doesn't work, you may either:
1) (more likely) Installing a ROM will fix the problem
2) (unlikely but possible) You might have worn NAND pages, which I doubt but could cause this behavior.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll try these steps tonight when I get home, and report back!
All right, here's something interesting. Before I tried your first step, I remembered that the other night, I left it stuck at the Samsung logo -it was just kind of stuck there, and since the behavior was a little different than I'd seen before (not continuous bootlooping), I thought I'd boot into recovery and wipe. I did, I wiped (factory reset), and rebooted. The tablet booted into the first screen, Accessibility/Wi-Fi, blahblah. This was where it usually rebooted. On a hunch, I bypassed entering in my WiFi key. I then bypassed almost everything else (Samsung account, Google account, etc.), expecting that the tablet would reboot at any moment. But I made it to the front apps page, where it shows you the side-launcher, the Magazine-Flipboard thingie, and whatnot. Wi-Fi still not connected, though. I opened up the app drawer, and scrolled around. Looked really good for a moment. I even took a picture with the camera, and viewed it in Gallery! Feeling brave, I thought, "well, maybe it just needed a couple of minutes before firing up the radio." So I went into settings, and inputted my WiFi key. It connected. And rebooted into its bootloop. (getting so tired of that boot-sound).
Went ahead and flashed the most original stock firmware I could find. As always, flashed successfully. As soon as it booted, I made my way to recovery, and wiped, per your instructions. No luck. Bootloop again.
It's something in the WiFi is what I've come to think as a result of the above. Which I don't entirely understand, as I thought the radio got re-flashed with the firmware.
I'm ready to try flashing a Custom Rom. Can I do that through Odin, or should I try and flash TWRP, and do it through there? Will TWRP flash without a working (bootable) OS?
All right. Thanks for your response!
Try this as a test.
First make a full backup of every partition with twrp including the EFS <<IMPORTANT!
Get it booting again without wifi then root the device and delete the EFS folder or delete it in recovery.
Reboot the device and try and enable wifi.
ashyx said:
Try this as a test.
First make a full backup of every partition with twrp including the EFS <<IMPORTANT!
Get it booting again without wifi then root the device and delete the EFS folder or delete it in recovery.
Reboot the device and try and enable wifi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got TWRP installed. Won't backup. Fails at 16% (system partition, I think). Just powers down to battery indicator in the middle of the backup. Looks like it backs up the EFS, though, since it's the first one. And when I go into TWRP's Restore option, there's a backup there (though I don't dare try and restore it).
Now I have to figure out a way to get the Custom ROM and GAPPS I downloaded onto the tablet without a reliable boot... It's gotten to the front screen a time or two tonight, but starts looping even when I bypass the WiFi setup.
Entered adb/TWRP interface. Tried to push two files, a Custom ROM file, and a GAPPS file. The ROM failed, with some sort of "Error 7," incompatible data, blahblah... Just out of curiosity, I tried to push the GAPPS file, and that failed after about 6%, and the tablet powered off.
I'm running out of ideas.
copied a custom rom to a USB/OTG stick (thumbdrive), and plugged it in. Fired up TWRP, tried to install. Wouldn't. Wouldn't install GAPPS, either. Looks like the only way it wants to flash anything is through ODIN or KIES.
The Latest...
All right...
I remembered that sometimes the TWRP version mattered. When I installed TRWP last night, I installed the latest and greatest, 3.0.2. Last night after I gave up, I remembered that sometimes, the latest and greatest TWRP doesn't install things perfectly. So, this morning, I downloaded TWRP 2.8.6-ish onto the USB/OTG device, and re-flashed the recovery partition. To be honest, I was surprised that TWRP was even able to flash that (but the TWRP image is only like 9.8 MB, so...)...
Got TWRP 2.8.6.0 flashed, and rebooted into TWRP. Immediately decided to try and re-flash the custom ROM that I'd tried unsuccessfully to flash last night, since the thumbdrive was still plugged in. Resurrection Remix Lollipop. Lined up GAPPS in the queue, as well. The ROM *appeared* to flash better than it had in TWRP 3.0.2, but it was sort of hard to see... GAPPS failed, and I was prepared to watch another round of bootloops. It did bootloop, sort of. The RR splash screen appeared, said that it was installing (or preparing) xx out of XX apps. Then, it rebooted. I figured it was doing its bootloop thing. However, it got to the same screen, "installing xx out of XX apps. Except that XX number had gone down, and the xx number had gone up. It repeated this action about 4 times --the last time I saw it reboot, it was "installing 1 out of 2 apps." And then...?
It booted into the RR lockscreen.
Of course, there were no GAPPS. In fact, there are something like only 20 apps total on the tablet. But it appears somewhat stable at the moment. (See picture).
Afraid to try and connect WiFi, afraid that it'll just bootloop.
Speaking of bootloop. At one point, once we got it booted, my wife hit an option in the Settings. LCD Density, I believe. As soon as she hit it (she literally just placed her finger over the 320 default option), the tablet rebooted. No loop, though. Rebooted straight back to the RR lockscreen.
So I appear to have a somewhat stable OS flashed onto the tablet at the moment. No GAPPS, though. No WiFi.
Anybody have a suggestion on where to go from here? I have my doubts as to whether or not I can even back up this configuration.
Sorry about all the updates. I kind of figured that if *anyone* else ever goes through what I'm going through, they'll have some sense of all the different things that can be tried in resurrecting a bricked/bootlooping device. I appreciate everyone's efforts to date -thank you so much, @Lightn1ng and @ashyx.
All right, because I can't leave well enough alone....
I got WiFi up and working. Tablet still stable and working. Wheeeee.... No GAPPS, though.
Downloaded GAPPS, second-smallest package from opengapps- only 128M (5.1 ARM package). Downloaded it in Android, from the tablet! Tried to flash it in TWRP. Failed, tablet rebooted halfway (not even) through. Now it's bootlooping again...
I should've left well enough alone, and waited for someone. Have tried re-installing Resurrection Remix, but tablet keeps failing to flash. Might have to try and flash a different TWRP. I don't know...
Have you tried another Gapps? Also, is this the WiFi only model or the LTE model we're talking about?
Lightn1ng said:
Have you tried another Gapps? Also, is this the WiFi only model or the LTE model we're talking about?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's the WiFi-only model - SM-T800.
It's kind of weird. I thought it might be some sort of internal memory problem (like the worn Nand pages you mentioned), since almost anything I try to do in TWRP fails (although I was able to flash an entire Custom ROM the one time AND get it booted) -but backing up isn't working, whether it's to internal/external SD. And the fact that I can flash perfectly (subjective term there) well using Odin or Kies tells me that whatever problems the tablet is having, something's getting through.
I'll try a different GAPPS package. Right now, though, TWRP isn't letting me flash hardly anything, and moving files back and forth on this thing is just awful.
AGH - I was so close!
daina said:
It's the WiFi-only model - SM-T800.
It's kind of weird. I thought it might be some sort of internal memory problem (like the worn Nand pages you mentioned), since almost anything I try to do in TWRP fails (although I was able to flash an entire Custom ROM the one time AND get it booted) -but backing up isn't working, whether it's to internal/external SD. And the fact that I can flash perfectly (subjective term there) well using Odin or Kies tells me that whatever problems the tablet is having, something's getting through.
I'll try a different GAPPS package. Right now, though, TWRP isn't letting me flash hardly anything, and moving files back and forth on this thing is just awful.
AGH - I was so close!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running out of ideas!
Maybe somebody else with a T800 could backup their entire EMMC using
Code:
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/sdcard/full_nand_dump.bin
And you take the file on your tablet and do
Code:
dd if=/sdcard/full_nand_dump.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0
And restore YOUR efs folder using TWRP.
THIS IS A DANGEROUS OPERATION AND I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING THAT GOES WRONG!
---------- Post added at 08:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:57 PM ----------
@ashyx Any more ideas before I go ahead with my evil world domination plan to recover this device?
I wouldnt carry out any risky operations until a full backup can be made with twrp or you may end up with an unrecoverable device.
If twrp cannot backup the system partition then there is an issue with the partition.
Try backup again and post the recovery log, it may contain some relative information.
I have the same issues and have tried eveything. I was rooted and running the latest Pheonix rom on my sm-t800. Last Wednesday (8-10) I starting getting boot loops out of nowhere, no new apps nothing just a daily driver. I've been through everything on here and have gone back to bone stock but to no avail, the boot loops just keep coming. I can connect to wifi and get things set up but if I try to use anything more than 'light usage' the tab starts its boot loops again and rows fits for about 10 minutes and always different timing on the boot. Sometimes it will make it to the Samsung logo, sometime only to Tab S and sometimes about 10 seconds of usage.. I know this isn't helping much but wanted to let you know there are more of us with the same problem. Will be blab to try anything to help said issue.
Exactly the same issue on my LTE version.
Samsung support just asked me 230€ for a new motherboard.
I refused to repair. I think it is related to nand memory..
Hello I have both the 8.4" and 10.5" I updated the 8.4" to Android 5.02 nothing but boot loops my other is still on 442 and I wont be updating it as its working fine. I have been reading a few posts and the problem was right in front of me all the time I have 2 internet connections 2.4 GHZ and 5.0 GHZ if I connect to the 5.0 GHZ I get boot loops but if I stay on 2.4 GHZ no problems what so ever so I may just install a custom rom and my 10.5 tab and stay clear of the faster internet.
srfairhurst said:
Hello I have both the 8.4" and 10.5" I updated the 8.4" to Android 5.02 nothing but boot loops my other is still on 442 and I wont be updating it as its working fine. I have been reading a few posts and the problem was right in front of me all the time I have 2 internet connections 2.4 GHZ and 5.0 GHZ if I connect to the 5.0 GHZ I get boot loops but if I stay on 2.4 GHZ no problems what so ever so I may just install a custom rom and my 10.5 tab and stay clear of the faster internet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not just update to Marshmallow? Absolutely no issues for me.
ashyx said:
Why not just update to Marshmallow? Absolutely no issues for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now i figured out its the wifi thats causing the problem i will update to android 6.01 or if i can find a good custom rom il risk that.
daina said:
It's the WiFi-only model - SM-T800.
It's kind of weird. I thought it might be some sort of internal memory problem (like the worn Nand pages you mentioned), since almost anything I try to do in TWRP fails (although I was able to flash an entire Custom ROM the one time AND get it booted) -but backing up isn't working, whether it's to internal/external SD. And the fact that I can flash perfectly (subjective term there) well using Odin or Kies tells me that whatever problems the tablet is having, something's getting through.
I'll try a different GAPPS package. Right now, though, TWRP isn't letting me flash hardly anything, and moving files back and forth on this thing is just awful.
AGH - I was so close!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DrinkSlinger said:
I have the same issues and have tried eveything. I was rooted and running the latest Pheonix rom on my sm-t800. Last Wednesday (8-10) I starting getting boot loops out of nowhere, no new apps nothing just a daily driver. I've been through everything on here and have gone back to bone stock but to no avail, the boot loops just keep coming. I can connect to wifi and get things set up but if I try to use anything more than 'light usage' the tab starts its boot loops again and rows fits for about 10 minutes and always different timing on the boot. Sometimes it will make it to the Samsung logo, sometime only to Tab S and sometimes about 10 seconds of usage.. I know this isn't helping much but wanted to let you know there are more of us with the same problem. Will be blab to try anything to help said issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
and the rest of story??
i can flash TWRP in download mode, and i can intall zip by TWRP , the lineage rom,
but, cant odin flash official md5 file, it stucks on logo.
Ok I am having some serious issues as of late, I am far from an Android expert but have been using and rooting them since Android started, and I am also a Linux user. So as stated in the subject I have been getting these issues (not always together).
Recovery will disappear after a normal reboot.
Root will disappear after a normal reboot.
WiFi is "broken" after a normal reboot (is disabled, and can't be enabled).
My status bar disappears.
This has happened across a few different roms, but my main is Team OctOs Oct-N. This is making no sense to me at all. These things will happen after a ROM has already been setup and working for a time, that is what has me scratching my head. The only thing I can think of is some system has changed in the Pixel XL ROMs that I don't know about or something. I always start from a fresh phone, flashing google images, installing the rom the proper way, I always follow the devs install procedure for the most part (depending on the ROM) it is flash rom, flash vendor, flash twrp, reboot into twrp, flash gapps. Everything goes good it runs fine, and then some time after, sometimes a few days later, sometimes a few hours later, one or a combo of the issues listed above happen. I though maybe there was an issue with the actual rom. So i decided to try 1 or 2 other roms but some issue still arrives. Also when twrp wont boot (because it apparently disappeared) I reinstall it properly, and one would think I would be able to boot back into the existing system, but it don't, it always boots right back into twrp.
I am at a complete loss and the only thing I can think of is something has changed with the Pixel system that I am unaware of. Any info would be great I know that this is not a good description on what is actually happening but that's it I have no idea at all. Have a great day and thanks.
I have found that to get TWRP to stick I have to flash the zip and whatever else I'm flashing, then boot into my rom, then boot back into fastboot TWRP and flash the TWRP zip again, then boot back into the rom.
Root is tricky on this phone. Nobody can really answer what's going on there without knowing what month bootloader you are using, what app and what version of the app you are trying to use to root.
The other problems really sound Rom related. If you want to go from a truly fresh start with no chance of any corruption on either partition you might want to run flash-all.bat of the Google factory image separately to partition a and then to partition b. That cleared up problems for me in the past but I'm not sure why.
You might also consider running stock and seeing if the WiFi or status bar problems persist.
xxxtncxxx said:
Ok I am having some serious issues as of late, I am far from an Android expert but have been using and rooting them since Android started, and I am also a Linux user. So as stated in the subject I have been getting these issues (not always together).
Recovery will disappear after a normal reboot.
Root will disappear after a normal reboot.
WiFi is "broken" after a normal reboot (is disabled, and can't be enabled).
My status bar disappears.
This has happened across a few different roms, but my main is Team OctOs Oct-N. This is making no sense to me at all. These things will happen after a ROM has already been setup and working for a time, that is what has me scratching my head. The only thing I can think of is some system has changed in the Pixel XL ROMs that I don't know about or something. I always start from a fresh phone, flashing google images, installing the rom the proper way, I always follow the devs install procedure for the most part (depending on the ROM) it is flash rom, flash vendor, flash twrp, reboot into twrp, flash gapps. Everything goes good it runs fine, and then some time after, sometimes a few days later, sometimes a few hours later, one or a combo of the issues listed above happen. I though maybe there was an issue with the actual rom. So i decided to try 1 or 2 other roms but some issue still arrives. Also when twrp wont boot (because it apparently disappeared) I reinstall it properly, and one would think I would be able to boot back into the existing system, but it don't, it always boots right back into twrp.
I am at a complete loss and the only thing I can think of is something has changed with the Pixel system that I am unaware of. Any info would be great I know that this is not a good description on what is actually happening but that's it I have no idea at all. Have a great day and thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has been a real challenge with this phone (but I'm enjoying it). Anyway, the way I got a good stable set up is flashing the factory image to both slots (a/b), then adb/fastboot to twrp.img and flash ROM, then boot up. Then again the twrp.img and flash the twrp.zip and boot up. Then do the root and boot up , then go back and do the kernel (since it's EX and I want the gestures, I boot it up rooted before I flash EX). This works for me although I'm using Pure Nexus ROM. Hope this helps you, looks similar to what was posted by jhs39.
So here's the story. My phone hasn't been updated since April. I was warry because I messed it up that time and lost some data. So I finally get around to updating it again. I updated to Pie stock. It went well. I then installed a custom rom, pixel dust. It went well. I rooted it, no problem, restored some stuff, etc. This happened last night. I couldn't get Always on Display to work, but whatever.
So today, I am uninstalling apps that I no longer want, setting up widgets, etc. I go to attempt to restore some data from Titanium Backup, to avoid having to sign into everything again, see if that works. If not, no big deal. I notice, however, that magisk is gone! Where did it go? It was just there last night!
So I'm like ok, let's just reflash magisk. It's a no go. Now I get bootloops. After being stuck on the pixel dust animation for a bit, it boots into recovery. I don't know what went wrong, the very same magisk was working last night, and can't remember root disappearing out of the blue like that before.
This is all in slot A. My slot B is empty according to TWRP. Not sure how that happened. My i tried to flash the rom, it corrupted while copying to the phone, so I flashed with ADB sideload. That worked fine, but one consequence is that I don't currently have the zip of the rom on the phone. I also did not bring a USB cable to the office with me, didn't expect to need it. So I won't be able to use a USB to transfer a ROM or anything until later today.
Any ideas what happened? Is it possible to fix this soft brick without a USB cable before I go home? Is it possible to fix without losing all the setup I have done so far? Critical data is backed up to Titanium, Google Cloud, and my work Mac. But I would prefer to not need a full wipe if possible. How do you use both slots?
Thank you very much.
Ok, So Here's The Deal.. The Thing.. The WTF
So I had an older version of the Scorpion ROM installed and working fine for a while and wanted to change it up. I downloaded the newest TWRP. Both image and installer.zip, newest Magisk and RR 7.
I flashed the latest stock and you know, followed all the proper steps and after I flashed RR 7, it wouldn't boot up. (Not the issue) as others have had the same issue with RR 7. I left a post about that on the RR 7 thread and went about reflashing stock and proceeded to find a different ROM to check out.
No matter what I try to flash: Lineage, Scorpion, RR 7, dotOS the same thing happens... Everything flashes like it should, but then it won't boot, AND THEN every time I boot back to TWRP to try something else the haptic feedback vibration thing on the pixel 3 xl goes banana sandwich crazy and won't shut off until I reboot to fastboot to flashall to start over. LOL
And not only that but when I jump back to TWRP to try to flash something else stored on the phone, it says the storage is empty and there are nothing available in the menu. And I couldn't get a screenshot but there were some errors that have popped up in twrp as well...
Could This Be An Issue WITH TWRP itself? Because it does it with every single ROM I have flashed today. It's very strange. I have never ran into any issues like this when flashing ROMs, Kernals, etc.
I'm lost. Any help would be awesomely appreciated.
UPDATE: It now vibrates constantly in TWRP and when I reflashed to factory it did the corrupt software screen so I gave it a good ole' factory rest and then it was is stuck in a loop at the G while conecting and disconnecting to the USB over and over and over... now back to corrupt software screen.
I guess I'm just going to have to reflash Stock and just leave it.
Update 2: Still Give The Corrupt Software Thing After Performing FlashAll - soooooooooooooooo
Slo-mo Designs said:
Ok, So Here's The Deal.. The Thing.. The WTF
Could This Be An Issue WITH TWRP itself? Because it does it with every single ROM I have flashed today. It's very strange. I have never ran into any issues like this when flashing ROMs, Kernals, etc. I'm lost. Any help would be awesomely appreciated.
UPDATE: It now vibrates constantly in TWRP and when I reflashed to factory it did the corrupt software screen so I gave it a good ole' factory rest and then it was is stuck in a loop at the G while conecting and disconnecting to the USB over and over and over... now back to corrupt software screen.
I guess I'm just going to have to reflash Stock and just leave it.
Update 2: Still Give The Corrupt Software Thing After Performing FlashAll - soooooooooooooooo
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Couple of things. Yes there was an issue with v3.2.3-4 TWRP and the vibrator, but that is separate from your boot issues. Go to the dedicated TWRP thread. As for your updates, 1) an FDR just deletes your data and so would not solve your issue. and 2) Guessing you removed the -w switch from the flash-all script or you would not be getting the corrupt software screen. Run the script again with the wipe switch in place, allowing it to wipe your partitions and start over. You've already deleted all your data with the FDR so it won't matter. Best of luck!
Always late to the party.
v12xke said:
Couple of things. Yes there was an issue with v3.2.3-4 TWRP and the vibrator, but that is separate from your boot issues. Go to the dedicated TWRP thread. As for your updates, 1) an FDR just deletes your data and so would not solve your issue. and 2) Guessing you removed the -w switch from the flash-all script or you would not be getting the corrupt software screen. Run the script again with the wipe switch in place, allowing it to wipe your partitions and start over. You've already deleted all your data with the FDR so it won't matter. Best of luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So yeah... I just now logged back on and saw your response [I have had notification issues on everything from Reddit to FB since I have had the 3XL]
About the response, I have had the issue with it showing the corrupt software screen a bunch when flashing new stuff. The reason I perform the Factory Slap is because it allows me to enter the menu where I have the option to "Boot from ADB" or whatever it says, sideloading seems to be the only way I can make progress when it starts giving the corrupt error.. The reason I didn't perform the full wipe but I can't remember exactly why now since that was over a month ago.
But I finally got it fixed, and I was going to repost because I had found a way to prevent the vibration thing from happening in TWRP but by the time I got around to posting, the new update had fixed it. Lol