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Ok guys (and gals)..
I personally have a rooted & rom'd Epic 4G. A coworker recently upgraded to their first smartphone, a Samsung Fascinate on Verizon.
Since they know nothing, they asked me to do a few things to the phone for them.
Here's what I've done so far..
Rooted (fully & confirmed) via One-Click Root. Originally tried rooting via steps found here and over on Android Central but it didn't seem to fully root. Some things would run that required root, but others wouldn't (Titanium Backup being one). Bottom line, phone is fully rooted now. Running the stock ED04 rom with no intent to change. This guy isn't a power user, just wants a few things beyond fully stock.
Issue 1 -
Next thing I wanted to do was get Clockwork Mod installed so they could do fully system backups. Tried installing the red Clockwork Mod via Odin found here which somewhat works, but the Backup/Restore functions aren't really operational. If you run a backup, it goes through like it worked, but then when you go to do a restore the first thing I noticed was all the dates on any backups made are set to January of 2000 for some reason. When selecting any of the backups present, it won't restore them. Thoughts? Link to a fully working CWM for ED04?
Issue 2 -
Wanted to flash a good kernel for him so I chose OTB Reloaded v1.6. Flashed via CWM, installed Voltage Control, and all that is working good. The only issue was that after flashing the kernel it screwed up the boot animation. Layered over top of the stock Galaxy S animation and then the Verizon one was the generic "ANDROID" animation. No huge deal, but it irritated me so I tried to fix it by flashing a "stock" Galaxy S boot animation found HERE. The issue now is there is no boot animation at all. After powering the phone on and getting the plain white text "Samsung" the screen goes completely black for a few seconds as the phone boots until you find yourself at the main screen. Any suggestions?
I've searched and looked around a bit but having trouble finding any clear info on either issue. Perhaps it's just me, but it seems like the Fascinate info and sections are very scattered and outdated?
Thanks in advance for any insight, help, tips, info, and/or fixes!!
I think by using this recovery, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=942021, it should fix your problems.
Cool...thanks for the link. I'll give that one a shot and report back.
Ok, so first off, I was interested in the prospect of using the Droid3 camera because I heard it was better and supported high speed video recording (something that I really want on the Atrix) but I heard that you had to be Deodexed. Well, I knew that if I unlocked my bootloader and installed a custom ROM such as Alien or CherryPie, it would work, but I didn't want to unlock my bootloader. I was rooted though.
So then I decided to google how to manually deodex, and I came across the program xUltimate whatever, followed the directions (although it seemed to be intended for the Droid and not the Atrix, I don't think I should've done that) and part of the process through running xUltimate, I got a message saying that I was out of space on my Atrix relating to the process it was in the middle of doing, and was like, oh crap.
My phone didn't start, but I had made a recovery a couple of days earlier in Tenfar's CMW, so I went to restore that. Then when that was restoring, it froze on some process when it was restoring, and I let it try and try for hours, but to no avail, because it had been hours and it was still stuck on the same spot. So I restarted my phone.
Well, then upon my phone starting, everything was gone in terms of my apps, and the stock gingerbread background was there. I thought, well, maybe it's fine and I'll just restore my apps with TiBu, and everything will be fine. That wasn't the case at all because any app that I downloaded from the market with the exception of a few would automatically force close. So I couldn't get TiBu to work, or Superuser, or anything.
So at that point I knew that I had seriously messed up some files on my phone, and I decided I was gonna flash .sbf. So I got the stock 2.3.4 .sbf and flashed it with RSD Lite 5.3.1.
It flashed gingerbread, and when it rebooted, everything looked fine and dandy, but it was exactly the same problem, where apps would force close.
Then as a last hope of solving the problem I tried to use fastboot to recover my phone with the nandroid backup that I had made, but it said that the image file was too large. And that also probably has something to do with the fact that I can't actually use fastboot to do that unless I have an unlocked bootloader, right?
So my question is, how can I fix it? How can I start over fresh (since flashing .sbf didn't wipe everything) so that those system files that I messed with when I was running the deodexing utility are returned to their proper state?
I mean, at the moment, it works as a phone, it receives and makes calls, and I can send texts and take pictures, and use the stock browser, but no other app will open.
And secondly, has anyone gotten the 120fps video recording working with the d3 camera apk?
But of course, more importantly, how do I get out of this rut?
Thank you so much and I'm really sorry for writing so much, I just wanted to give you as much info as possible so that you could come up with the best answer. And I apologize for my stupidity,
Thanks again,
did you try a factory restore after the sbf flash? you have to do that to restore the phone to the orignal state. flashing the.sbf doesn't do it...
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
thank you so much, after doing the factory reset, it works fine now. Now to go mess with it again hehehe.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Glad your sorted as to your fastboot problem. Use moto fastboot as it splits large files for you.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
So, I thought I had fixed the problem, but after unlocking the bootloader, I installed Alien, and the radio is all wonky...I'm not getting service 99% of the time, and that's kinda really bad, and, yes I checked the APNs, and there were no problems there (at least I think, I restored default) and I even tried flashing a radio, which made no difference. And I know that flashing using RSD is bad but I didn't know better at the time so I reflashed stock Gingerbread 4.5.91, but the radio problem is still there.
And could someone tell me what I'm doing wrong because I've tried flashing two different roms (Alien and the Star Wars one) and it seems as if its not actually doing everything that it should, for example the star wars one, there is no camera app, or rather it force closes, and the bootanimation and boot image are stock at&t, and the lockscreen is default....and I even checked the build.prop which should have been modified for the d3 camera and it wasn't modified, which led me to think that anything that involved root access didn't work when flashing the rom. Further proof for that idea is that after I flashed either rom, I lost root access and had to re-root my phone.
This is really weird, and it's starting to bug me because now my phone can't even be used as a phone
Thank you for your help.
After a convoluted process and many mishaps on my part (I bricked it) my phone has a working, rooted and stripped down version of 2.3.6 on it. Which works as intended except the screen is now grainy and the colors are over-saturated. (side note: unfortunately I did not do a backup of the stock firmware-stupid I know)
I'm guessing this is a driver issue with the firmware or gpu because the pictures I took before I tried getting cyanogen on my phone now look very pixelated; almost like one of those cheesy after effects. I tried updating the firmware and it said I was current. Is there a way to update drivers? Do I have to find the original firmware for my phone (I looked on here the forum with the huge list of branded and unbranded and was at a loss)?
Also in my endeavor to attain the cm7 I tried rom manager which never worked even after getting the pre-rooted firmware. It will let me download the new clockwork but it does not appear to flash it and any attempt to install or reboot to clockwork doesn't do anything (gives prompts, I say yes, nothing happens). As a result of following the cyanogen wiki twice it says I have two custom firmwares and I cannot get into clockwork at all. I could the first time through before I bricked it but now I can't. Is there a way to remove the extra kernel?
The only reason I have a working phone is because of Odin. Is there a way to use Odin to install cm7 and would that fix the display issues or am I better off finding the stock firmware and hoping the display will default back to working?
Thank you in advance,
noob
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1313659
Branded? Unbranded?
There is only one variant of the I777 - AT&T Branded. Anything in the Development forum for the I777 will work on an I777.
It's not like the I9100 with a bunch of minor subvariants.
drmorbo said:
After a convoluted process and many mishaps on my part (I bricked it) my phone has a working, rooted and stripped down version of 2.3.6 on it. Which works as intended except the screen is now grainy and the colors are over-saturated. (side note: unfortunately I did not do a backup of the stock firmware-stupid I know)
I'm guessing this is a driver issue with the firmware or gpu because the pictures I took before I tried getting cyanogen on my phone now look very pixelated; almost like one of those cheesy after effects. I tried updating the firmware and it said I was current. Is there a way to update drivers? Do I have to find the original firmware for my phone (I looked on here the forum with the huge list of branded and unbranded and was at a loss)?
Also in my endeavor to attain the cm7 I tried rom manager which never worked even after getting the pre-rooted firmware. It will let me download the new clockwork but it does not appear to flash it and any attempt to install or reboot to clockwork doesn't do anything (gives prompts, I say yes, nothing happens). As a result of following the cyanogen wiki twice it says I have two custom firmwares and I cannot get into clockwork at all. I could the first time through before I bricked it but now I can't. Is there a way to remove the extra kernel?
The only reason I have a working phone is because of Odin. Is there a way to use Odin to install cm7 and would that fix the display issues or am I better off finding the stock firmware and hoping the display will default back to working?
Thank you in advance,
noob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you able to reboot the phone in recovery using ADB?
Its gotten to the point where nothing I try works. I managed to get cm7 installed and it got stuck in a boot loop. Flashed back to the stripped down version again. Everything that could go wrong has. For now I just want to go back to whatever firmware came with my phone out of the box. The startup logo was at&t so I guess I'll go for the branded version (which I can't find on here--its almost 3 am I apologize for my idiocy) and hope the screen issue is resolved.
Thanks again
defeated
drmorbo said:
For now I just want to go back to whatever firmware came with my phone out of the box. The startup logo was at&t so I guess I'll go for the branded version (which I can't find on here--its almost 3 am I apologize for my idiocy) and hope the screen issue is resolved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which you can't find? Someone posted the link to my return to stock guide in post #2 of this thread.
If you return to complete stock using Entropy512's Return/Unbrick to stock package, you will regain the AT&T boot logo instead of any custom boot logo. The phone will be just like it was when you first took it out of the box.
If you want the stock ROM plus root, Entropy has a package for that also. Just flash one of his packages with Odin, or use the One-Click downloaders for his package that are linked in my guides.
Update: You can also download all of these from my Download Repository.
Okay so I did the return to stock without root one click and that went fine. However the display is still not working properly. Solid colors are fine and I even went into the debug screen and tested all the colors. They were brilliant but any dimming or shading of two colors just looks wrong. The only thing that I can think of is the bootloader is wrong. It says my phone is a I9100 which it isn't. However I'm not sure why a bootloader would affect the display. Does the I777 have a different initialization process for the gpu? Or is the issue somewhere else?
drmorbo said:
Okay so I did the return to stock without root one click and that went fine. However the display is still not working properly. Solid colors are fine and I even went into the debug screen and tested all the colors. They were brilliant but any dimming or shading of two colors just looks wrong. The only thing that I can think of is the bootloader is wrong. It says my phone is a I9100 which it isn't. However I'm not sure why a bootloader would affect the display. Does the I777 have a different initialization process for the gpu? Or is the issue somewhere else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That might affect it but I highly doubt it.
So do you have any idea what could have caused it? I tried searching the forums but I couldn't find somebody with a similar problem.
Where exactly does it say your phone is I9100?
It shows "Samsung galaxy s II I9100" before the at&t load screen.
drmorbo said:
It shows "Samsung galaxy s II I9100" before the at&t load screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The return to stock did not complete correctly. This screen appears after flashing a non-stock kernel with Odin/Heimdall.
Entropy512 said:
The return to stock did not complete correctly. This screen appears after flashing a non-stock kernel with Odin/Heimdall.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. The very first method I tried was the heimdall from the cyanogen wiki. I've used various methods without success. However the last effort was to restore the phone and I used the one click stock without root. Was it supposed to restore the bootloader? Also I updated ota and the display works much better. The remaining discoloration/pixelation could have been there all along as I didn't wait long to put cyanogen on it (1 day) and I have nothing to compare it to.
drmorbo said:
Yes. The very first method I tried was the heimdall from the cyanogen wiki. I've used various methods without success. However the last effort was to restore the phone and I used the one click stock without root. Was it supposed to restore the bootloader? Also I updated ota and the display works much better. The remaining discoloration/pixelation could have been there all along as I didn't wait long to put cyanogen on it (1 day) and I have nothing to compare it to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The return-to-stock-with-root shouldn't touch bootloaders - but it should have restored a stock kernel. IF you're getting the "yellow triangle" I9100 boot screen, the last thing flashed with Odin/Heimdall was NOT a stock kernel.
There is no yellow triangle. I used the exe from the link in the first response in this forum. In any case I'll throw a picture of the phone while turned off but charging tonight. The display issues aren't grave but they are noticeable and annoying. Do you know of an app that allows you adjust graphical/display settings? Maybe it would suffice.
I found information concerning my display issues. Apparently it's an issue with the phone. Its called black crush. My phone has this and oversaturated red. So shading details are pixelated and reddish.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1124669
Also I noticed people repeatedly mentioning screen modes under setting>displays however my phone does not have this option. Also all of the mentions have been under the forum for the regular version of the phone not the AT&T variant. Is the AT&T version missing this option or am I blind?
drmorbo said:
I found information concerning my display issues. Apparently it's an issue with the phone. Its called black crush. My phone has this and oversaturated red. So shading details are pixelated and reddish.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1124669
Also I noticed people repeatedly mentioning screen modes under setting>displays however my phone does not have this option. Also all of the mentions have been under the forum for the regular version of the phone not the AT&T variant. Is the AT&T version missing this option or am I blind?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AT&T version is missing screen tuning unless you run a custom ROM that readds it like Serendipity VIII or Unnamed.
Okay cool. So I used the one click with root and the wifi is broken and it won't let me do an OTA. however I had previously used the one click without root and I was able to OTA and that solved the broken wifi. What would be the easiest way to fix the wifi?
Flash cwm>factory restore/wipe (I don't have cwm and I remember the cyanogen wiki way to get cwm messed up my soft buttons--two didn't work anymore)
Or
Flash the 12/21 dd kernel (I did originally try this route. However Odin didn't recognize the kernel. I even repackaged I with just zImage. Still nothing.)
Thank You again Entropy
DrMorbo
Sounds like there is something broken about the oneclick... Try flashing the return-to-stock package with Heimdall. Heimdall also lets you flash kernel zImages without packaging into a tar.
However Heimdall needs its own driver mojo on Windows - I can't really help you with this, I've flashed a device from Windows only once, and that was the Tab 10.1 because Heimdall won't talk to it.
Nevermind. I tried the update a third time. It decided to work (48 hours later). Everything works. Wifi works. The screen is better (I used voodoo screen tuning to greatly diminish the black crush and red saturation. I can finally customize my phone now. Any nifty apps you know of Entropy? (Regular or root needed)
Thank you again Entropy,
DrMorbo
Ok, yesterday I was messing around with chainfires 3D pro. I set the night mode to black so I couldn't see anything on the screen.(In hindsight not such a great idea.) After I realized what those setting did and that there was no way I could use the gui. I then did a Reboot which didn't help, It only booted to the point just before the samsung boot animation. Then all I got was a black screen. So I proceeded to do a factory reset and now the wifi won't obtain the ip address.(tested on multiple routers with no luck). I've done several resets by now with no sign of it making any progress. Everything else seems to work fine. I'd prefer not to flash the stock rom again, but if that's what is necessary could you supply me with a link. Thanks.
Rooted, Stock Rom, Stock Kernel.
Since your device seems to appear nothing has been altered, why not just get it exchanged from where you purchased it. If not, just send it in to SAMSUNG for repairs, I'm sure still under warranty.
If you don't want to send it in or can't exchange it just flash a stock ROM. I'm sure its around here somewhere.
Fixed it.
All I had to do was flash a different kernel xD. Im guessing something just got screwed up.
Not a big problem at all.Just flash another ROM and do a full WIPE--possibly can fix it
I got the S4 back when it first came out, and messed around with some CM ROMs and other custom ROMs that worked fairly well. The big killers for me though were bluetooth audio not working, not being able to use headphone microphones, and the proximity sensor being all weird. So I reverted to stock but kept root, and eventually upgraded to MJ7 while keeping root. When I boot I still get the 'Samsung Custom' bootscreen.
I've never been happy with Touchwiz, and have all of the Samsung features turned off. The stock messaging app is really the thing that bugs the hell out of me, since it takes forever to get messages (sometimes up to an hour, while Handcent will get them right away), and I love my Nexus 7 experience. I'd really like to get as close to a 'Google' phone as possible, but I'm currently stuck on Verizon.
I've tried using GooManager to download the recovery managers again, but it's having problems with 404 errors downloading the scripts. I tried ROM Manager and it says it installs ClockworkMod (6.0.44 in fact), but it refuses to boot into recovery mode. Most of the tools I'm finding are not for MJ7, so I'm kind of hesitant to solutions that aren't for my current version. Since I can't make any backups without being able to boot into a proper recovery mode, that's another kind of notch against using most of the guides.
I don't mind the actual process of doing the work, I'm just not sure where to go from here. What are my options?
dragonmantank said:
I got the S4 back when it first came out, and messed around with some CM ROMs and other custom ROMs that worked fairly well. The big killers for me though were bluetooth audio not working, not being able to use headphone microphones, and the proximity sensor being all weird. So I reverted to stock but kept root, and eventually upgraded to MJ7 while keeping root. When I boot I still get the 'Samsung Custom' bootscreen.
I've never been happy with Touchwiz, and have all of the Samsung features turned off. The stock messaging app is really the thing that bugs the hell out of me, since it takes forever to get messages (sometimes up to an hour, while Handcent will get them right away), and I love my Nexus 7 experience. I'd really like to get as close to a 'Google' phone as possible, but I'm currently stuck on Verizon.
I've tried using GooManager to download the recovery managers again, but it's having problems with 404 errors downloading the scripts. I tried ROM Manager and it says it installs ClockworkMod (6.0.44 in fact), but it refuses to boot into recovery mode. Most of the tools I'm finding are not for MJ7, so I'm kind of hesitant to solutions that aren't for my current version. Since I can't make any backups without being able to boot into a proper recovery mode, that's another kind of notch against using most of the guides.
I don't mind the actual process of doing the work, I'm just not sure where to go from here. What are my options?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well unfortunately for you you're on MJ7 which means your only options right now are rooting and Xposed. Other than that though, there's really nothing else you can do at the moment. If you were on ME7 or MI1 still you could at least run Safestrap, but even then you would be limited to Touchwiz based roms. Unless you're willing to go on the hunt for an MDK S4 you'll just have to deal with your limited options for now. Oh and before you ask, there is absolutely no way to revert back to earlier firmwares. Once you update, you're stuck.
Crawshayi said:
Well unfortunately for you you're on MJ7 which means your only options right now are rooting and Xposed. Other than that though, there's really nothing else you can do at the moment. If you were on ME7 or MI1 still you could at least run Safestrap, but even then you would be limited to Touchwiz based roms. Unless you're willing to go on the hunt for an MDK S4 you'll just have to deal with your limited options for now. Oh and before you ask, there is absolutely no way to revert back to earlier firmwares. Once you update, you're stuck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I know I couldn't revert the firmware to something earlier. Is it possible to revert to stock even? At this point I think I just want to revert it and sell this phone off and get something else. I don't care about KNOX status, just getting it back to stock so that whomever buys it won't keep getting security notifications.
dragonmantank said:
Yeah, I know I couldn't revert the firmware to something earlier. Is it possible to revert to stock even? At this point I think I just want to revert it and sell this phone off and get something else. I don't care about KNOX status, just getting it back to stock so that whomever buys it won't keep getting security notifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I believe it's possible, I found this thread that gives you an Odin image to flash: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2507217
The security notification was actually fixed and supposedly an update was pushed out, but maybe yours didn't grab the update properly? I'm not sure, but that Odin image should get you back to factory stock. If I were you I would get an HTC One if you can live with not having a removable battery and sd card.
Awesome, thank you very much.
I'm re-flashing today take it back. I'll have a look at the HTC One, since it wasn't out when I got my S4. I know that (at the time) the S4 was the only Android phone I had found, with the One a close second but not available. I would really love a Google phone, but I get the feeling that will probably never happen on VZW.