[RESOLVED] Unable to get into Recovery mode Viewsonic G-Tablet - G Tablet Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I picked up one of the G-Tablet's when they went on sale last week for $279. I have a little experience rooting Android devices as I use a rooted Nook Color daily for surfing, email and games.
I followed the instructions located on the Cyanogenmod forum here: Installation Instructions
I downloaded the Clockwork file, unzipped it and copied it to the internal memory. When I try to reboot by holding down the power button and the volume up button and letting go when I see the Viewsonic logo, I never see the "recovery mode" text. If I continue to hold the power button and the volume button the unit turns off.
Since the above instructions clearly state to put the files on the internal memory of the device, that's what I did. I know because I didn't have an SD card inserted at first.
When I couldn't get into recovery mode I inserted an SD card, formatted it and copied the files (the recovery folder + the update.zip) onto it by inserting it into the memory card slot on my laptop. Then I tried to reboot into recovery mode and had the same results ... If I let go of the power and volume-up buttons, it booted normally. If I held those buttons the unit powered off.
What am I doing wrong?
UPDATE: I also tried it with both of the CW versions (internal & MicroSD) located on XDA with the same results...
Many thanks!
Doug

Two things...
1) Hold the Volume Up key until you see the words "Recovery Key Detected" in the upper left corner of the screen while the VS Birds logo is on the screen.
2) Make sure it's the Volume Up. If your screen is going black then it's likely that your holding Volume Down and going into APX mode.

K J Rad said:
Two things...
1) Hold the Volume Up key until you see the words "Recovery Key Detected" in the upper left corner of the screen while the VS Birds logo is on the screen.
2) Make sure it's the Volume Up. If your screen is going black then it's likely that your holding Volume Down and going into APX mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply....
I'm definitely holding the volume up... And the screen goes black...
I tried holding the power and volume up continuously.... And then tried releasing the power button when the birds appeared while continuing to hold down the volume up button ... In both cases I get a black screen after about 3-4 seconds.
I'm probably missing something obvious/simple...
CORRECTION... I'm an idiot -- I was holding the volume down button. Yep, I feel stupid.
Thanks,
Doug

You're not an idiot, you're inexperienced ;-)

I resolved this probem - I was in fact holding the volume button down instead of up .... The tablet orientation was different than I originally thought. Thanks to those who replied with helpful info!
Doug

haaha the first post I read I exactly know you press the down volume.

So I have a similar but different problem I was hoping someone can help with. I also just recently purchased a G tablet.Read all the instructions copied over the 2 clockwork mod files to the root folder of SDcard 1, rebooted pressing the +volume. So the notes in the top left. It shows me a picture of a box unpacking like its going to do something. Screen goes black, I see birds again and it boots into the android os.
I have tried it several times, including never letting go of the +volume ever and it just continues to reboot.
I have not put on any mods yet.
Thanks

So I figured out that i did not have clockwork mod in my SDCARD root area, how do i get it there? When I try to copy and paste it from my download area it says paste failed. Im new at messing with tablets. thanks for your help in advance.

kickndave21 said:
So I figured out that i did not have clockwork mod in my SDCARD root area, how do i get it there? When I try to copy and paste it from my download area it says paste failed. Im new at messing with tablets. thanks for your help in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try going to this site as it will answer all of your questions in a way that is easy to understand http://viewsonic-gtablet-for-dummies.webs.com/rom.htm

I am having a similar issue. I have TnT Lite on my tablet now and it is working fine with now issues. I want to install the new honeycomb os on my tablet but I can not get into recovery mode.
I get the "Recovery Key Detected" in the upper left corner of the screen while the VS Birds logo is on the screen then it got to the next screen w/ gtablet logo, then a black screen loads with a box and status bar, then NOTHING it resets.
Any ideas?

lhproscia said:
I am having a similar issue. I have TnT Lite on my tablet now and it is working fine with now issues. I want to install the new honeycomb os on my tablet but I can not get into recovery mode.
I get the "Recovery Key Detected" in the upper left corner of the screen while the VS Birds logo is on the screen then it got to the next screen w/ gtablet logo, then a black screen loads with a box and status bar, then NOTHING it resets.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same exact problem. the box comes up for like 2 seconds and restarts.

Related

TnT Lite issue

I had installed TNT Lite v 4.3.0 a couple of weeks ago and it was working pretty good. But today my tablet has gone into a bad state. Every app that I run results in FC. Even the ADW launcher EX that I had selected default is crashing. It then gives me the options: ADW Laucher, ADW Launcher EX, and the regular Launcher. The plain ADW Launcher also fails, but fortunately the regular Launcher still works so I can access the apps.
But unfortunately almost every app that I am trying fails. The only one that doesn't fail is the Web browser. The Settings starts and I can access Applications menu but once I choose say System Applications, after that if I try to choose some other option such as Installed Application, it crashes as well.
Last night however when I started the tablet the battery was probably down and while it was powering it up, it turned off and then restarted by itself and then turned off, without reaching the lock screen. I don't know if it has something to do with all this.
What do I do now? Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.
A well known issue.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=896395
This is why I'm an advocate of people doing the partitioning right before they flash their first custom rom. This way, they won't have to wipe everything later on.
I could only wonder why people aren't mentioning this in every custom rom thread.
Thank you so much. Will try it out tonight.
Unfortunately it seems I have run into a worse issue (without even doing anything yet). Now when I power it on, it starts and shuts off within a few seconds, just shows the birds for like 5 secs and bang, black screen.
The tablet is fully charged (if I put it on charge the light turns green in no time). Looks like the battery is dead.
You might be dropping into APX mode. Do you know how to use nvflash?
Thanks for the reply. You are absolutely right. After multiple tries it did boot up and I was able to install clockworkmod and it all worked great. It wiped off everything but I could live with that. And I turned it off and back on and it was working fine.
But then it went back into the same mode - shutting off immediately after turning on. I decided to return this tablet thinking that it is bad. But before I would do that I thought to restore it or else Viewsonic won't honor the warranty. So I started reading the thread about restoring the tablet to stock using nvram flash. In that procedure it requires me to put the tablet in APX mode and that's when I thought that maybe it is going into APX without pressing the volume - button.
Anyway I was successfully able to flash nvram. Or so it said. I still have the output from the batch file. But now my tablet is totally bricked. It does not boot at all. No pretty birds for me.
I hope there is some way out of it. Please help.
Edit: After re-flashing and using a different file, it seems to have made it a little better. At least I am seeing the birds again. But the original problem of shutting off, or going into the APX mode without pressing Volume button, has returned. All I am getting is the birds for a few seconds and then black screen. I will continue to retry, and if I see it booting up successfully to the stock, this thing is going back to the factory.
1) What image did you use to nvflash?
2) What happened when the flash was finished? Did it boot normally at least once?
3) Does the screen just stay dark all the time now?
1) First time nvflash_gtablet_46_2010112600.zip and after that it did not boot at all. Only black screen. I flashed it couple of times, no avail. Later I flashed nvflash_gtablet_2010110500.zip. This at least recovered it enough that it shows the birds, but soon after the screen turns black. I have confirmed that it is going in APX mode. If I have USB cable connected to my PC, the PC reports discovering the NVIDEA APX device.
2) It hasn't booted normally since I flashed nvram.
3) No I get the birds, but after that it turns dark.
Ok. Using Bekit's 1105 image...
1) Replace part9.img with the recovery.img out of the clockworkmod installation zip.
2) Put the tablet into APX mode.
3) Type in the command to start nvflash but before you hit the enter key hold down the Volume Up key and continue to hold it down until the flash finishes.
4) The tablet should boot into clockworkmod recovery.
5) Repartition 2048 and 0
6) Clear everything (cache, data and dalvik)
7) You might need to re-nvflash at this point.
Thanks for your response. I tried it. Did not work. When you say Replace part9.img with the recovery.img, does it mean copy recovery.img into the NVFlash directory and rename it to part9.img or leave it as recevery.img. I renamed it to part9.img and backed up the original part9.img to part9.img.tmp. The size of recovery.img and the original part9.img are very different. I am confused. Please help.
K J Rad said:
Ok. Using Bekit's 1105 image...
1) Replace part9.img with the recovery.img out of the clockworkmod installation zip.
2) Put the tablet into APX mode.
3) Type in the command to start nvflash but before you hit the enter key hold down the Volume Up key and continue to hold it down until the flash finishes.
4) The tablet should boot into clockworkmod recovery.
5) Repartition 2048 and 0
6) Clear everything (cache, data and dalvik)
7) You might need to re-nvflash at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that is exactly what I meant.
Are you sure you're holding the volume UP key? Birds and then black screen is APX mode which is normally entered by holding volume DOWN.
Well it goes into APX mode even if I don't press any Volume button at all. That is the problem I am trying to fix. When I press power button (without touching the volume button) the birds come and then black screen. And this is APX mode because if I am connected to the PC it brings up an NVIDIA APX device on the PC.
Now if I press the Volume UP button along with the power button, nothing happens, not even the birds come up.
So the fact that the recovery.img (3.7k) is much smaller than part9.img (16k) is ok? Or I am doing something wrong.
Any ideas?
I was thinking about formatting the gtablet. Please let me know if this is the right move, or there is something else I could try first.
shah123 said:
Well it goes into APX mode even if I don't press any Volume button at all. That is the problem I am trying to fix. When I press power button (without touching the volume button) the birds come and then black screen. And this is APX mode because if I am connected to the PC it brings up an NVIDIA APX device on the PC.
Now if I press the Volume UP button along with the power button, nothing happens, not even the birds come up.
So the fact that the recovery.img (3.7k) is much smaller than part9.img (16k) is ok? Or I am doing something wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A little more than "It did not work" would be helpful.
What step failed? Please tell me what happened after each step.
Did you get into CWM and repartition?
Did you get everything cleared?
What happened when it rebooted?
What was the original filename of the image you tried to flash?
What version of clockworkmod do you have installed?
Have you ever used ROM Manager?
All of this is important and no one can help you if you don't provide enough information.
Oh, I am sorry. Here are the answers to the questions you asked:
What step failed? Please tell me what happened after each step.
Ans: Out of the 7 steps you provided, the steps 1, 2 and 3 worked fine. It is the step 4 that failed (and of course I can't proceed with the steps anymore). In other words I cannot go into clockworkmod recovery.
Did you get into CWM and repartition?
Ans: No I was not able to do so. If I press power and Volume Up key at the same time, nothing happens, screen remains black, not even birds come up.
Did you get everything cleared?
Ans: I believe you are referring to step 6. No, I could not get to that step.
What happened when it rebooted?
Ans: Nothing showed up. Because when Volume Up is pressed while it is powered on, nothing shows up on the screen.
What was the original filename of the image you tried to flash?
Ans: Actually first time nvflash_gtablet_46_2010112600.zip (and this is before you provided the 7-step recipe - see post #6, 7, 8 of this thread) and after that it did not boot at all. Only black screen. I flashed it couple of times, no avail. Maybe that was my mistake. I chose a wrong file. Later I flashed nvflash_gtablet_2010110500.zip. This recovered it enough that it shows the birds now, but soon after the screen turns black (goes into APX mode).
What version of clockworkmod do you have installed?
Ans: v08
Have you ever used ROM Manager?
Ans: No. What is it?
I really appreciate your help.
What happened at the end of step 3?
Did you start holding the volume UP before you pressed the return key for the nvflash? If not... go back and do it again.
Did you continue to hold it until the flash was happening? You must continue to hold it down for at least 5 - 10 seconds after the flash starts.
When the flash was done did it say "Recovery Key detected" on the screen? If it didn't say this that is an indication that you didn't hold the volume UP key long enough.
If all of the above was done correctly and did happen but you didn't get to clockworkmod then what did you get? Did it look like stock recovery?
It sounds to me like you did the nvflash then tried to reboot into recovery.
Its unbelievable. Tonight when I powered it on it started booting up normal instead of going into the APX mode. I was glad. The stock UI came up, but some of my apps like Quadrant, File Expert etc were still there. It also notified me of the Update 3588. So I downloaded it and started installing it. Pretty soon it rebooted itself (sooner than I thought - I don't know if the remaining installation was supposed to happen after the reboot).
But instead of booting up into 3588 it is unfortunately gone back to the same old issue - the birds followed by black screen - aka APX mode. It never booted up after that. No matter how many times I tried to reboot, it goes into APX mode just like before. I don't know what caused it to complete bootup. One thing I noticed was that the battery was totally drained when I started tonight. I don't know if the drained battery somehow took it out of the APX mode. But now it has a little bit of charge because of hooking up to power supply. I have disconnected the power supply and will leave it in APX mode over night and try it again tomorrow when the battery would be totally drained and see if it boots up fully.
To answer your questions though:
What happened at the end of step 3?
The screen went black and after that it stayed black. No CWM.
Did you start holding the volume UP before you pressed the return key for the nvflash? If not... go back and do it again.
Yes, I did.
Did you continue to hold it until the flash was happening? You must continue to hold it down for at least 5 - 10 secondsafter the flash starts.
Yes, I continued to hold it all the way until the flash completed and the screen went black and quite some time after that.
When the flash was done did it say "Recovery Key detected" on the screen?
I don't think it did.
If it didn't say this that is an indication that you didn't hold the volume UP key long enough.
So I guess I need to give it another try. Tomorrow I will try to reboot the tablet again and if it continued to go into APX I will do the nvflash one more time.
If all of the above was done correctly and did happen but you didn't get to clockworkmod then what did you get? Did it look like stock recovery?
A black dark screen. No CWM or stock recovery.
It sounds to me like you did the nvflash then tried to reboot into recovery.
No at the time of nvflash I held the Volume UP button and nothing happened. Since then I have been trying to bootup or put it in CWM Recovery but only thing the tablet wants to do is go into APX mode.
So I guess my theory of "drained battery takes it out of the APX mode" is correct. I tried to reboot the tablet several times but it just kept on going into the APX mode until the battery was completely drained. And then it started booting up normally but it went into some installation (probably the stock 3588 that I had downloaded in the previous successful bootup). And then the green android with the exclamation sign came and the exclamation sign was rotating for a second or two and then stopped. And it looked like it was hung. I waited for a minute or two but nothing happened, so I pressed one of the buttons, I don't know if it was Menu or Back button, and all of a sudden clockworkmod recovery screen came up.
I have attached the picture of the screen. It still shows the green android with the exclamation sign in the middle of the screen, along with the CWM Recovery.
One other thing I noticed and I am not sure if it is normal is that if I choose say Reboot System Now from CWM menu and it shows like 10 entries with many No's and only one Yes. I can only use the volume Up + button to go down, if I try to go up using volume Down - button it does not go up. Is that normal? Is the only way to go is go down using Voume Up button in CWM menus? I have a feeling that my Volume Down button has gone crazy and it is not functioning properly and that is what is causing it to go into APX mode at the startup as well.
Anyway I first attempted "Apply SDCARD:update.zip" hoping that it might continue with the stock 3588 installation, but that failed. You can see the messages in the picture. Then I tried the Factory Reset and it was successful. I then rebooted the tablet. But now again it keeps on going up into APX mode. I will have to wait until tomorrow for it to completely drain battery again and then try to reboot again.
Any ideas? I know it is overwhelming and the behavior is very weird. At this point I am trying to bring it back to the stock firmware so that I can get this tablet replaced under warranty.
There are quite a few things that are not acting normal from what I see here.
Did you try to repartition 2048 and 0? If not, I would start with that then I would format everything and re-nvflash a stock ROM onto it. That might clear things up. If not you could be looking at a hardware reset.

GTab Newbie Downgraded from 1.2 > 1.1 Need help with CWM

I just got this tablet as a early xmas gift yesterday. Coming from the android mobile world. Here's my current problem:
1.I downgraded from 1.2>1.1 Tap UI 3588 sdcard2 is 16g sandisk downgrade successful.
2.I downloaded CWM zip file on to my windows PC unzipped the file copied and pasted both the recovery file with the command line in it and the update.zip folder to Gtablet's internal storage in the sdcard file folder.
3. Powered it down. Then pressed the power button and the vol+ at the same time "recovery key detected" upper left hand corner of the of the viewsonic white screen followed by the "Gtab" logo white screen. Then on the next screen I get to the black screen with the box and the arrow and the progression bar at the bottom and it sits there for approximately 2 secs and reboots back to the viewsonic white screen and it loads up completely until the home screen appears. So i never get to actually access the APX mode. I'm new to this detailed help is needed thanks in advance.....!!!!!!
Its volume- and power for apx
Try Googling Gtab for dummies and learn how to nvflash. Get the file for the 1.2 bootloader with cwm attached and then flash away. I highly recommend trying flashback. Great honeycomb rom.
Sent from my Flashback 10.1 Honeycomb gtablet
lordandroid said:
I just got this tablet as a early xmas gift yesterday. Coming from the android mobile world. Here's my current problem:
1.I downgraded from 1.2>1.1 Tap UI 3588 sdcard2 is 16g sandisk downgrade successful.
2.I downloaded CWM zip file on to my windows PC unzipped the file copied and pasted both the recovery file with the command line in it and the update.zip folder to Gtablet's internal storage in the sdcard file folder.
3. Powered it down. Then pressed the power button and the vol+ at the same time "recovery key detected" upper left hand corner of the of the viewsonic white screen followed by the "Gtab" logo white screen. Then on the next screen I get to the black screen with the box and the arrow and the progression bar at the bottom and it sits there for approximately 2 secs and reboots back to the viewsonic white screen and it loads up completely until the home screen appears. So i never get to actually access the APX mode. I'm new to this detailed help is needed thanks in advance.....!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you have successfully flashed ClockworkMod on your v1.1 bootloader TnT gTab using the stock recovery. So now to test if that is true you just need to boot into recovery by holding the volume up button down while you press the power button.
APX mode is for accessing the gTab at the hardware level. It's used by most of us for NVFlashing if the system gets messed up or if you want to push other boot images or the like. You have to have the right drivers and there a few very lengthy and detailed threads here that cover that topic.

[Q] Help with root

This is my first time trying to root my phone, I'm following the stickied guide for Verizon. I'm pretty sure I'm booting into download mode correctly...holding down the down volume, and power (other guides say Home button as well, but I've gotten same results with or without Home) I'm pressing volume up, I see the Android logo and phone boots up as normal?
Loading up Odin, click PDA and choose 423399_Kernel, plugging in USB, blue COM appears.....I hit start and the message box stays on SetupConnection..it seems to take about 5 or 6 mins, and then a big red FAIL box appears.
I've tried a few times now and keeps failing....is there something I'm doing wrong?
Edit: I've rewatched the video in the sticky, I've noticed my phone doesnt stay on the Android screen after I hit volume up, it just continues to reboot
Edit2: I was booting up wrong, got a Pass!
stringboi said:
This is my first time trying to root my phone, I'm following the stickied guide for Verizon. I'm pretty sure I'm booting into download mode correctly...holding down the down volume, and power (other guides say Home button as well, but I've gotten same results with or without Home) I'm pressing volume up, I see the Android logo and phone boots up as normal?
Loading up Odin, click PDA and choose 423399_Kernel, plugging in USB, blue COM appears.....I hit start and the message box stays on SetupConnection..it seems to take about 5 or 6 mins, and then a big red FAIL box appears.
I've tried a few times now and keeps failing....is there something I'm doing wrong?
Edit: I've rewatched the video in the sticky, I've noticed my phone doesnt stay on the Android screen after I hit volume up, it just continues to reboot
Edit2: I was booting up wrong, got a Pass!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Call me a sissy, but I just used the simple method here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2301720
so did you finally get it working?
a.demarco said:
so did you finally get it working?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did, all rooted......I just wasnt rebooting correctly =)

Lenovo TAB S8-50F stuck in boot loop

I have Lenovo TAB S8-50F that is currently stuck in a boot loop. It shows the white Lenovo and "android" text on black background boot screen for 30 to 60 seconds, then shuts off, vibrates and the screen flickers some white color and then goes back into the Lenovo and "android" text boot screen and repeats.
After some investigation on these forums and Google, I have tried the following:
Hold down Power + Volume Up + Volume Down until I see "fastboot starting...". I wait 5 - 10 minutes and it still says "fastboot starting...", nothing else. I try to connect to my Windows 8 laptop but it doesn't recognize the device.
Hold down Power + Volume Down until I see the boot screen, then let go of Power (keeping Volume Down pressed). Apparently this should boot into a Recovery menu, but nothing happens and it continues to just turn off after about a minute and boot loop
Hold down Power + Volume Up until I see the boot screen, then let go of Power (keeping Volume Up pressed). Same result as above, it still goes into boot loop.
During any of the 3 scenarios above, I can turn off the tablet by holding Power + Volume Up. Also I never saw any other messages like "EFI failed" or "No mounted drive" that other users had problems with.
Is there anyone out there that can help me restore this tablet back to functional state? I'm not sure what happened that caused this to happen.
bump
bump
bump
Your question has been answered on my thread
drop a like on all my past comments to encourage me to help you.
TAP ON THE BOX BELOW TO CONTINUE
x.ak**** said:
like all my comments above to encourage me to help you.
Okay so first of all i will let you know why a phone gets bricked-
>corrupted rom
>some system files got deleted
>rooting
>modding
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
my case
i always keep two phones with me like one for my experiments and one as a backup. In this case i'll be talking about my lyf wind 3 that got bricked.
>actually i was trying to install twrp onto that phone but first i had to root it, and due to the upgraded android security, i wasn't able to do via kingoroot so i tried i-root and it did the job but instead of kingo-superuser i got some ****ty superuser so i tried granting permission to the actual superuser and while doing so i accidentally double rooted my phone (first with i-root and then with kingoroot), which was kinda stupid, so it just deleted some system files and my phone wouldn't boot after that. It just got stuck on the boot logo.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

noooob with nabi2 screwed it up...

hi I hope this is posted correctly... I have a nabi 2 running kitkat that was rooted with kingo root and no twrp, everything stock besides that... I deleted something I shouldn't have and when I restarted the tablet it booted fine until it got to the home screen. as of now I have no lock screen to swipe and no home screen. The home button and back button still show and also make a click noise. so I figure to do a factory reboot and everything would be fine... well I was wrong... it still boots but still no home screen.... at times the background will flash and the time and battery will pop up.
So I downloaded nabilabs thinking that would be able to help me and I believe it will but as I found out when I did a factory reset it turned off usb debugging and will not connect now. so with out screen controls how do I turn usb debugging mode on? is there a line I can send to it to connect? thanks for the help in advanced..
I did search around and found a bunch of great software and roms for it but I really haven't found a similar issue or realized that I found something close to my issue.
Do you have a photo? That would make it easier to know what you’re describing
Your firmware may be corrupted.
I put the link to a new ROM here. If you click click the hyperlink it will be at the top of the screen. Use Fastboot to flash that.
Put Fastboot Protocol on by holding down both the volume buttons and the power button, then when the letters on the top left (held in landscape) of the screen pop up, click the volume - (down) button and then click the volume + (up) button. Your computer will now recognize the device in Fastboot. Then you can flash the ROM.
See if that helps.

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