[Q] Do I have a brick? - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have a Windows 8 PC and I rooted my i9300 using Mark Skippen's excellent toolkit (not a paid endorsement, BTW - I just have used his kits on other devices and love them) and was successful in flashing an insecure boot image, root, and busybox. I then installed and SuperuserSU and TWRP and made a nandroid of my system safely tucked on my microSD card.
My problems started when I tried to install CM10 for the i9300 and Gapps (I checked before I downloaded the ZIP from CM's site and I thought I had gotten the correct ZIP). For reasons I can't figure out, I got stuck in a bootloop at the CM logo. And when I say stuck, it wouldn't stop even after I pulled the battery and put it back - I would put the battery in and it would resume with the bootloop at the CM logo. I then tried to get into recovery using the keys on the phone and it still wouldn't stop. I couldn't find a solution with a cursory search and I couldn't get my PC, I couldn't get it to recognize my my phone when I plugged it it.
In what I know was a fit of frustration and stupidity, I tried to get Kies to "Emergency reformat my phone" and it kind of worked. The CM boot loop went away, but not it will only display the "Samsung Galaxy SIII i9300" logo and then shuts off. So, now I was wondering if anyone knows if there's a way to get my phone working again or if I've finally succeeded in making myself an expensive brick and I need to just start over again with a new one?
I don't mind constructive criticism and offers of last rites, but I'd appreciate if folks keep the plain old flame or troll posts to themselves. And, as always, any help or directions to locations/ threads to see if my SGS3 can be resurrected are especially appreciated.
Thanks all!

Can you get into download mode?
VolDown + Home + power

Have you tried using a usb jig?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app

No jig, but I can get into download mode! :good:

WA_Bob said:
No jig, but I can get into download mode! :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try CWM recovery. Problems appear every now and then with TWRecovery.
Just put it in download mode and flash a new ROM. I'd suggest JB if you wanna use it.

Okay - with some hair pulling and the SGS3 toolkit, I'm back on stock, rooted so all is right with my new toy. Thanks all for your help! I wouldn't have done it without you all!

Related

[Q] Help...unable to go into Recovery.

Hi everyone. I have a samsung galaxy s vibrant on android 2.2. I am a total noob with any modifications but am going overseas next month and wanted to unlock my phone. After looking into rooting etc. I downloaded odin and darky's ROM resurrection edition. I followed the prompts to go into recovery and wipe etc. and remove battery and turn back on. After using odin and restarting my phone now just flashes the start screen showing galaxy s GT-I9000. I can't enter recovery mode just download mode. I'm unsure what to do and even tried mounting another recovery file on odin which lead me to the same point. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Try re-flashing it and see if that works, sometimes that's all it takes. It's possible you just had a bad flash.
I've tried about 5 times now and it seems to keep failing to boot after flash and sticking on the initial boot screen and flashing on and off. Is there a way to download and flash an original ROM and mount on odin to start over?
Try getting into download mode. Hold and continue to hold up & down volume controls while holding in the power button. When the Vibrant logo comes up release only the power button. If you do get into recovery that way scroll down to install zip from sd card and install whatever rom you've got on there that you want to use. Let me know if that works or not.
I can still only get into download mode. I've tried flashing again with both ROMs I have and they both are doing the same thing. Holy frustrating lol
Spike84 said:
I can still only get into download mode. I've tried flashing again with both ROMs I have and they both are doing the same thing. Holy frustrating lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look for a hard surface... concrete for example.. now take your phone and throw it as hard as you can... Just kidding don't do that, that's a permanent reboot. I know the frustration, I've been there many times. You may want to go back and read through the noob guide, I'm not sure what else to suggest. Hopefully someone else will read this and have a better suggestion. Good luck.
haha yeah the thought crossed my mind. I appreciate your help. I'm still reading through the forum. Most instructions seem to require me to reach recovery mode or usb debugging. My phone is no longer being recognized on the computer but odin is obviously still recognizing so I'm going to try a fresh 2.2 on odin and see if that works.
Good luck, I'm rooting for ya. If that does not work and your close to a T-mobile store I'd just run it in and have them check it out, they may have to replace it.
Thanks again. I'm actually in Canada and using a sub provider from bell "virgin mobile".

[Q] Stuck on Vibrant splash, can't recovery/download via hard buttons.. HELP!

i've read almost every single post related on this subject, tried almost everything but no go.
recently, i installed SS-6 to my girlfriend's Vibrant but she didn't like it, so i attempted to revert to my nandroid from the original stock rom.. nandroid gave an MD5 error and did not installed.
at that point, i had already wiped data/cache, prior to nandroid.
i rebooted the phone, and now im stuck on the Vibrant splash.
i have tried to go to recovery mode via hard buttons but no go. i actually tested with another Vibrant and on that one, im able to get into recovery so it is not that i'm missing pressing a button or what not. been trying anxiously to see if im able to go either to download mode or get into cwm and flash cyanogenmod!
tried to use ODIN/ADB in order to boot into cwm to flash another rom, but it doesn't see the phone. ive already installed samsung drivers.
if i connect the charger, the battery indicator doesnt come up. it stays on that lined-circle screen forever, even after taking the USB cable out.
please help!
EDIT: added [Q] and added some more grammar errors.
any help is highly appreciated.
I had this same problem... The only thing that would fix it was this thing I had to buy called a Jig. It was less than $8 (with free shipping) on eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fix-Download-Mode-USB-Jig-Samsung-Captivate-Galaxy-S-/140520601309
It delivered in 2 days and my phone is working perfectly now
just ordered one!
thanks!
one more thing, are you able to just install a different ROM through ODIN or ADB without having to do the full wipe? im wanting to save the contents of the internal SD.
thanks again

[Q] Bricked (seems unique)

I've tried to look for this problem and haven't found anything similar. If it's already been addressed please direct me to the previous thread, if this is in the wrong place please move it.
I rooted my Galaxy S II a while ago and it's been working great. I wanted to try Cyanogen mod 7 and so I followed the instructions on their website. Trying to use ROM manager gave me a weird error message telling me that there was an invalid signature or something, despite toggling everything and wiping the cache to turn it off. So I followed the "method via recovery" instructions. I did everything exactly as it is there, including the Google apps stuff, and it all seemed to work perfectly. Then I rebooted it hoping for it to boot into CM7, and instead, when it turns on it goes to the screen saying Samsung Galaxy S II with the yellow triangle underneath, and stays there. Every time it turn it on it goes to that screen and doesn't change. It's now been like that for half an hour. I can start it up into download mode, and I've tried flashing zImage to it again, but no change.
I have a NANDroid backup (it's backed up with CWM anyway), and I've copied the backup to my computer, but I have no idea how to apply it when the bloody thing won't turn on.
I'm using Linux with Heimdall (the cross-platform Odin clone).
Please help me. Unfortunately I have no internet in my flat so I won't be able to see any advice until tomorrow unless it;s given in the next ten minutes. God I really hope the thing's ok.
Hi
Do you have jigg? ( if you don't have it buy it from ebay or ask some friend of you )
With jigg you can enter download mode and then flash the stock rom.
Pull battery, wait 10s, then boot while holding power+vol-up+home. This should get you in recovery. Then restore nandroid.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
TheGhost1233 said:
Pull battery, wait 10s, then boot while holding power+vol-up+home. This should get you in recovery. Then restore nandroid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't believe it was this simple, I knew power+vol-down+home got tme to downloading but I didn't know that got me into recovery. Everything's recovered now.
Thank you Dutch people!

[Q] odin failed, flash recovery.bin cwm

i was trying to root a phone for someone and after odin completed it said it had failed.
the phone is a telus samsung t959d running froyo.
I followed the instructions from (I would post the url for the link but i am not allowed to.)cyanogenmod's wiki, after it failed I rebooted the phone and it got stuck on the screen in the attached pic. I have tried to boot back into download mode to no avail. From the screen it's stuck on I cannot get any tool to register the device as being present, adb, heimdall, zdiag, etc... I even tried fastboot out of desperation.Before I used odin I tried to get the phone to boot into the bootloader but it only ever went to either recovery or a normal boot and I tried every button press combo I could think of and found and nada.
Even running adb reboot bootloader just made the device boot normally. I think that if I could get it to boot to fastboot usb i could then try fastboot. I am new to rooting devices and have successfully rooted my HTC EVO3D and got s-off and simlock removed for any carrier. So I do know how to follow instructions properly, why flashing the recovery.bin failed I don't know and every fix I seem to find says BOOT TO DOWNLOAD MODE. if I could do that I wouldn't be having this problem lol. Anyway can someone please help me figure this out. Thanks. ANd if you need any further info please let me know. I don't want to have to give my friend my phone due to a software issue.
And YES I did pick PDA not anything else.
machv5 said:
i was trying to root a phone for someone and after odin completed it said it had failed.
the phone is a telus samsung t959d running froyo.
I followed the instructions from (I would post the url for the link but i am not allowed to.)cyanogenmod's wiki, after it failed I rebooted the phone and it got stuck on the screen in the attached pic. I have tried to boot back into download mode to no avail. From the screen it's stuck on I cannot get any tool to register the device as being present, adb, heimdall, zdiag, etc... I even tried fastboot out of desperation.Before I used odin I tried to get the phone to boot into the bootloader but it only ever went to either recovery or a normal boot and I tried every button press combo I could think of and found and nada.
Even running adb reboot bootloader just made the device boot normally. I think that if I could get it to boot to fastboot usb i could then try fastboot. I am new to rooting devices and have successfully rooted my HTC EVO3D and got s-off and simlock removed for any carrier. So I do know how to follow instructions properly, why flashing the recovery.bin failed I don't know and every fix I seem to find says BOOT TO DOWNLOAD MODE. if I could do that I wouldn't be having this problem lol. Anyway can someone please help me figure this out. Thanks. ANd if you need any further info please let me know. I don't want to have to give my friend my phone due to a software issue.
And YES I did pick PDA not anything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I kept reading other threads and sadly I din't pully the battery first before disconnecting the usb and repartition may have been checked as I see that it does the as default for my version. Also i turned off ODIN as I was hoping a reboot of my computer might help. I will keep trying to find an answer till someone gets back to me. this post may not even show up if I can't do a second post if no one has replied first.
Everyone was a nub at one time wasn't it FUN hahahahahaha sob cry
machv5 said:
I kept reading other threads and sadly I din't pully the battery first before disconnecting the usb and repartition may have been checked as I see that it does the as default for my version. Also i turned off ODIN as I was hoping a reboot of my computer might help. I will keep trying to find an answer till someone gets back to me. this post may not even show up if I can't do a second post if no one has replied first.
Everyone was a nub at one time wasn't it FUN hahahahahaha sob cry
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried a jig and that didn't work. There must be some way of getting the device to give up on completing a task i no longer can give it due to ODIN being shut off.
Why is it that the "how to root/unlocks" never have the "if x fails then do these steps etc..." Had the how to had "pull the battery before disconnecting USB and don't reset or shut off ODIN" I wouldn't be in this mess. I realize that it's user beware but a few important steps like that in case of a fail would go a long way to you guys not shaking your heads. Instead of "silly nub hahahahahaha". No offence but I get that a lot and try to remember that when I teach someone how to use a computer. I am new at phones not at everything.
Further Developments Please can someone help?
I was giving someone a new memory card and they had a Samsung SGH-I896 it has an EB575152VA battery and the one I have the T959D has an EB575152VU battery. I exchanged my battery for hers by accident somehow and when I plugged my phone in it didn't go to the phone triangle computer logo screen it booted to recovery and said it couldn't charge the battery and kept rebooting to recovery. I got my battery back and it booted back to the phone triangle computer logo again. Grrrr....
The other thing I saw while the recovery screen was an error message that said
Code:
E:/data/fota not accessible
(may not be 100% accurate I don't have the battery to check right now but can get it again if need be) anyway I now see that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. i have the correct stock firmware for the device I tried flashing it while in recovery but the phone kept rebooting before anything got done. My question is how can I get the dang phone to stop asking for Odin and go to recovery so I can flash stock firmware and ROM back to it? As I cannot as far as I know give it what it wants because I reset Odin and nothing seems to see that the phone is connected to the computer. I am going to try the other battery on a full charge to see what that does.
I am new at all this and want to get it fixed. I cannot afford to send it off to a service center and besides that I want to do it myself as I want to become a developer and droid technician. I would gladly donate to anyone but am still trying to get Google to accept my pay-as-you-go credit card and I don't have PayPal either. Which is really frustrating when it comes to giving back. I posted a Q&A on how to without PayPal or CC but as of the last time I checked no one has gotten back to me about it.
The CyanogenMod guide is flat out WRONG. I've tried to change it, but anything I do is reverted in an instant. I also tried to use it to install the ROM only, ended up bricking my phone and it took me hours to unbrick. That's how I became acquainted with XDA.
So, to get this straight:
1. you're using the stock USB cable
2. you remove the battery
3. you hold volume down
4. you plug in the usb cable
5. after a few seconds, you release volume down
6. the screen does not display a yellow triangle with an android
Posted from my Galaxy Tab with CM10
MultipleMonomials said:
The CyanogenMod guide is flat out WRONG. I've tried to change it, but anything I do is reverted in an instant. I also tried to use it to install the ROM only, ended up bricking my phone and it took me hours to unbrick. That's how I became acquainted with XDA.
So, to get this straight:
1. you're using the stock USB cable
2. you remove the battery
3. you hold volume down
4. you plug in the usb cable
5. after a few seconds, you release volume down
6. the screen does not display a yellow triangle with an android
Posted from my Galaxy Tab with CM10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is correct. If you think that my idea below is a bad one or if I downloaded the wrong firmware package please let me know and /or you have a fix that will work? ty
I have though come up with an idea that may work. I am going to charge the "wrong" battery in erm the right phone lol and then use it to trick the device into booting into recovery instead of the cellphone triangle computer (CTC, for want of a better acronym) The I896 battery ends in a V not an ? (sorry can't rem don't have it on me) from the I896 model I think it is, plugging it into USB with the power off sends it to recovery with the "battery cannot be charged " message instead of the CTC screen.
I tried it but the charge in the battery was too low and rebooted. I am hoping that with a full charge (as long as I don't power on the phone first as this will make it go to CTC logo again.
I am hoping that I can install the update.zip that I made by first unzipping the T959UVJFD_firmware.tar I downloaded then unpacked and then repacked into an update.zip as I don't think that it will read the package as a tar file and if it's not called update.zip The recovery is still stock. If I get the phone working I am not going to try unlocking and rooting it again. I will just post two separate adverts one as a carrier locked device and the other one (higher of course to cover buying the unlock from Telus) as carrier unlocked and then I will buy the unlock code if the blah blah you get the drift. sorry for rambling on.
oh and I can't rem if I said this or not, In recovery it "E:/data/fota not accessible" I don't know what that means yet I have been busy with other things and haven't looked it up yet.
Since you can get into at least some version of recovery, your bootloader is intact and you should be able to unbrick it. You ought to be able to get into download mode using a download jig. You can get one on ebay for a few bucks or you can make one yourself. There's a guide floating around here somewhere that lets you make one from a microusb cable.
Posted from my Galaxy Tab with CM10

[HELP] Recover hardbricked Galaxy S2

I was using @Lysergic Acid cm-13.0-20161114. I picked my S2 to check the hour and the screen didn't turn on so naturally I held the power button to restart it. The phone didn't boot past the "Galaxy S2 etc." screen. I tried to open TWRP and the splash screen appeared but it didn't get past that, no TWRP menu. I tried to flash stock ROM with Odin, it failed. The same happened trying to flash modified kernels with custom recoveries. So now I'm stuck with a message that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again."
I've had to recover my phone many times in the past but TWRP always worked, this time it didn't.
Is there any way to solve this? I have important information inside the phone. Would a USB JIG be of any help?
Simeonico said:
I was using @Lysergic Acid cm-13.0-20161114. I picked my S2 to check the hour and the screen didn't turn on so naturally I held the power button to restart it. The phone didn't boot past the "Galaxy S2 etc." screen. I tried to open TWRP and the splash screen appeared but it didn't get past that, no TWRP menu. I tried to flash stock ROM with Odin, it failed. The same happened trying to flash modified kernels with custom recoveries. So now I'm stuck with a message that says "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again."
I've had to recover my phone many times in the past but TWRP always worked, this time it didn't.
Is there any way to solve this? I have important information inside the phone. Would a USB JIG be of any help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Odin should be able to flash the stock firmware while on the screen that says "upgrade encountered an issue" as long as you had USB debugging enabled.
You can also try booting a debrick.img from ext sdcard if you can find the debrick.img specific for your device.
I DO NOT GIVE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE
Droidriven said:
Odin should be able to flash the stock firmware while on the screen that says "upgrade encountered an issue" as long as you had USB debugging enabled.
You can also try booting a debrick.img from ext sdcard if you can find the debrick.img specific for your device.
I DO NOT GIVE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nevermind, I tried flashing a 3 part stock JB rom that worked for some people. It didn't work for me and now the phone doesn't even turn on. RIP
Now I have a white S2 (Galaxy S2 forever lol) that a friend gave me until I buy a phone next year with the Snapdragon 660, or if I get a job (I'm a student), an even better phone with the Snapdragon 835.
Simeonico said:
Nevermind, I tried flashing a 3 part stock JB rom that worked for some people. It didn't work for me and now the phone doesn't even turn on. RIP
Now I have a white S2 (Galaxy S2 forever lol) that a friend gave me until I buy a phone next year with the Snapdragon 660, or if I get a job (I'm a student), an even better phone with the Snapdragon 835.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the device vibrates when you hold power but doesn't boot then the debrick.img may still work, just in case you're curious enough to attempt fixing it for learning purposes.
I DO NOT GIVE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE
Droidriven said:
If the device vibrates when you hold power but doesn't boot then the debrick.img may still work, just in case you're curious enough to attempt fixing it for learning purposes.
I DO NOT GIVE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The S2 doesn't vibrate when you turn it on (at least the i9100 model), but don't worry it's completely dead. No boot, no recovery, no download mode, no nothing. If I'm bored enough I might buy a new motherboard from AliExpress in the future cause they're really cheap.

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