[Q] Phone stuck after update - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have been using JB I9100XWLSN_I9100OXXLS8_NEE for several months without problem. Rooted, with PhilZ-cwm6-XWLSN-OXX-4.92.3-signed.
3 days ago I updated to I9100XWMS1_I9100NEELS1_NEE with no problems. Today the phone stuck and when I booted into recovery I saw the default recovery not Philz. So I flashed it again (the newer version)
But I had a boot loop, so I tried to restore nandroid backup, it didn't work.
I tried to reinstall earlier ROM (LSN) but it gave errors.
Now I can only boot to Philz recovery without doing anything.
How can I restore the phone to anything which works, so that I can root it again.

Back to stock via Odin/download mode, re-root your phone, restore nandroid or reflash custom rom/kernel & start again from scratch.

I did as you said. Flashed the earlier ROM with ODIN but still cannot boot. I just read the Galaxy S II logo at the start and the phone will not start.

Boot into recovery - factory reset ?
Edit - Failing that, search for Hopper8's 'Odin troubleshooting' thread. There's a link to a 3 part firmware in that thread, try flashing that via Odin if you can't factory reset or it doesn't work.

All right, trying.

Well I booted, thanks. If you don't mind, can you guide me further? I'll just write what I intend to do:
1- Boot into recovery and flash Philz again.
2-Using Philz, will try to restore Nandroid backup. I had copied the backup to my computer. As Philz had errors restoring the backup, I copied the one on the computer to SD card, but the MD5 had changed. So I had to disable MD5 check in Philz. Is it normal to change after copying?

Yep those steps make sense. Simply copying a nandroid from your PC back to your phone (I've done this in the past) shouldn't normally change the MD5. The only way the MD5 would change is if any of the files/directories are different in any way.
I guess you're only going to find out if this makes any difference when you try to restore the backup.

Unfortunately, the backup did not work. You need this once in a while and it fails... So dissappointing. I will have to install everything manually. Lots of backup to put into the trash!
Thanks a lot.

Maybe see what you can salvage from the nandroids you have with some of the various apps on GP that allow you to extract files from nandroids (Nandroid Browser, etc) ?

OK. I'll give a try. It would be quite an help if I rescued some.
I also have a Titanium Backup. I'll check if it does most of the job.

Yep, you should be able to get most of your apps/settings back easily with Ti given you'll be restoring them to the same rom/kernel setup. Just remember not to restore system apps or settings. Hopefully you'll be able to pull other stuff out of your nandroids (contacts/call logs/sms/calendar/etc) with those apps I mentioned if you don't have those backed up to Google/elsewhere.

Actually, I just need Call logs and SMS. Most of other stuff are already online, no problem with Contacts, etc.
I had an earlier backup of SMS but will see whether it works or not.
If Nandroid Browser saves these, all will be OK.

I restored almost everything. Just some hours spent.
Thanks again.

Good job, glad you got everything working as it should again. I know doing everything from scratch is a pain, I did a completely clean install on an I9505 on Friday night which took a few hours. You're welcome

Related

Nandroid restore how long should it take?

I got myself a bricked OV, was able to fastboot and flash new images.
Now it boots up directly to Android System Recovery, from where I got a copy of a stock nandroid backup.
When I first tried to restore, it said to go to adb and run nandroid-mobile.sh, couldn't figure out how to get it to work from within adb shell.
Then I formatted the SD card as FAT32, put the nandroid backup, back into it.
This time the restore worked. After select this directory, it goes
Restoring: ..............................................................
It's been about 10min and the dot just keeps moving. None of my other phones have taken this long.
I followed method 1 on this page to get new images flashed.
http://androidforums.com/optimus-v-...-optimus-v-rooting-roms-tutorials-thread.html
I tried flashing the stock ROM on the next post, which didn't do anything either. Kind of stuck on what I'm supposed to do at the moment.
Any suggestions?
Hrm I flashed CWM instead and ran the same nandroid backup.
It worked this time, but when I do a system reboot, it still just goes directly to recovery.
Well all I had to do was flash the Xionia Recovery from
http://forums.androidcentral.com/op...st-boot-loop-issues-caused-factory-reset.html
and it fixed itself at this point.

Corrupted Clockworkmod?

This is my first time posting.
I am a noob, but I am trying to get beyond that. I have flashed kernels and ROMS to my GT-I9100, with success. The other day, I was going to flash a new ROM, and I tried to make a Clockworkmod backup of my current ROM...while the phone was charging. Is this a major blunder?
The reason that I ask is that CWM crashed in the middle of the backup, and now I can't enter CWM recovery and the phone doesn't boot properly. I just get stuck in a bootloop. I can get into download mode. I used Pistachio's post about how to fix a soft-bricked GS2 to flash back to stock thru Odin. Then I used CF-ROOT to re-root the phone. After that, everything works fine, and I can get to Android recovery mode. Then when I try to flash a ROM, Titanium Backup must be restoring the previous version of ROM Manager, and I get stuck in the same bootloop when trying to get into CWM recovery.
Is Clockworkmod corrupted? Did the recovery partition get corrupted? Should I flash back to stock, delete ROM Manager, then re-install it? Should I bite the bullet and delete my Titanium Backup folder, then re-install everything from scratch? Should I flash back to stock with Pistachio's .PIT file and tick RE-PARTITION?
I looked for an answer specific to this problem, and cannot find the exact same scenario in any other threads. There are similar problems, but I think that I have a CWM app or recovery partition problem, or I may have a NAND rw corruption. I don't think that it is a NAND rw corruption though, because I can flash different kernels and ROMs.
I have been using Resurrection Remix versions 2.2, 2.4.1, and 2.5.3.
I have been using Siyah 3.3.2 kernel.
Please help, and excuse my noobness if I am beating a dead horse with this question.
Sounds like Rom Manager borked CWM/CWRecovery, which it seems to do on SGS2 quite a lot.
Most of the scenario you outlined in para.3 of your post (back to stock, delete ROM Manager) sounds like a good WTG, but do not reinstall it.
If you're going to use a kernel which has CWM/CWRecovery (like Siyah), do not use Rom Manager at all. Uninstall it & keep it that way. CWM/Recovery can do pretty much everything Rom Manager can, and you're playing with fire having both on the phone. Eventually Rom Manager will bork CWM again if you use it.
In the first instance, go back to stock, re-root your phone & reinstall the rom/kernel you're wanting to use. If Rom Manager is installed by default, uninstall it before you do anything else. With a bit of luck, you shouldn't have to do anything else (like messing around with PIT's which you also mentioned in para.3). If you batch restore your apps with TI, make sure you don't restore Rom Manager.
Thanks for the speedy reply.
I will try what you have suggested, but how do I flash the .zip file from my phone without ROM Manager? Do I have to do it through Odin?
Yep, that's right. Get an Odin flashable rom from Intratech's thread (search for it on here). If links in that thread don't work, search here or Samfirmware.
Edit - And once you've got your phone back up & running the way you want, use CWRecovery to do all your flashing.
My apologies, I should have been more specific. I want to flash the RR 2.5.3.zip. Should I still download it to the PC, then flash through Odin, or can I use Android recovery to do it through the phone?
OK. Let's rewind a bit.
What state is your phone in right now ?
I am flashed back to stock, and about to use CF-ROOT.
OK. Root the phone, CWM/Recovery will be installed by default. Once the phone is rooted, reboot into CWRecovery, flash your RR zip & you should be GTG. Just remove Rom Manager if it's installed as part of that process before you do anything else (including backing up). If you're going to restore a backup, again, uninstall Rom Manager immediately after you restore.
OK, after I flash CF-ROOT, I will re-install Titanium Backup, and delete ROM Manager to be safe before proceeding. Then I will flash the ROM.zip and test CW recovery and reboot again. I will reply after doing so.
Thanks
ARRRGH!
After flashing CF-ROOT I cannot get to the splash screen upon reboot. I made sure that I ticked USB debugging before flashing the kernel. I can still get into download mode and CWRecovery, so I flashed back to stock, and tried again to no avail. I tried flashing the RR 2.5.3.zip, in CWRecovery, and it flashed. I get to the splash screen but no further. I feel like a terrible noob now, because yesterday I had the phone flashed to stock and rooted no problem. Is there something that I am missing? I made sure that I used the proper CF-ROOT kernel.
So you're getting bootloop when you flash RR ? Have you tried booting into recovery & doing a wipe/factory reset ?
I believe that I am fixed.
I restored a Nandroid backup of my stock ICS from right after my original rooting, and the phone booted fine. I did a wipe/factory reset and wiped cache. Then I flashed RR 2.5.3. The phone rebooted fine again. I IMMEDIATELY uninstalled ROM Manager and made sure it was out of Titanium Backup as well. I have rebooted several times, normal, download, and CWRecovery, and everything works as it should. I think that I am getting over my noobness.
I WILL NEVER INSTALL ROM MANAGER AGAIN...DOWN WITH ROM MANAGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Except for the Little Alex icon, that's still pretty cool.
A thousand thanks for your help. At least I was on the right track when I first asked for help. I was pretty sure it was a problem with ROM Manager, because when it crashed, it started this whole mess. I'll be sure to press the THANKS button for your help, and I'm going to thank Pistachio for his thread as well.
Not n00bness, stuff happens sometimes ;-) You weren't the first person to get tripped up by Rom Manager (I did not long after I got my phone), and you won't be the last.
Yep you had a fair idea of what might have caused it, and your detailed OP certainly made it a lot easier to work out WTF was causing the problems.
No probs. Glad you got it sorted ;-)

I need twrp

I'll try to keep this short:
I STUPIDLY....tried to use the new CM installation of the mod via my pc (their new method). I had made a backup of my original at&t firmware on my internal card...using my preferred method, TWRP.
Now, once the CM installation completed, it gave an error and I decided the heck with that, and I installed Rom Manager back on my phone and selected my original backup; and then....it booted in the CWM recovery and guess what....when I go to restore from sdcard, it CANNOT FIND THE BACKUP.!! I rebooted and looked in rom manager, and its there. Now at the top of the rom manger window, it it showing twrp as the recovery method, but when reboot, it goes only to CWM.....HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to get my backup rom back on my device!!!
Forgot to mention: Once I got the error, it did boot into CM and now I'm stuck on CM. From there, I reinstalled Rom Manager and tried to restore from my backup.
chrisxpierce said:
I'll try to keep this short:
I STUPIDLY....tried to use the new CM installation of the mod via my pc (their new method). I had made a backup of my original at&t firmware on my internal card...using my preferred method, TWRP.
Now, once the CM installation completed, it gave an error and I decided the heck with that, and I installed Rom Manager back on my phone and selected my original backup; and then....it booted in the CWM recovery and guess what....when I go to restore from sdcard, it CANNOT FIND THE BACKUP.!! I rebooted and looked in rom manager, and its there. Now at the top of the rom manger window, it it showing twrp as the recovery method, but when reboot, it goes only to CWM.....HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to get my backup rom back on my device!!!
Forgot to mention: Once I got the error, it did boot into CM and now I'm stuck on CM. From there, I reinstalled Rom Manager and tried to restore from my backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you may have to use fastboot to flash twrp recovery. Or try to sideload it.
rdyfor_wteva said:
It sounds like you may have to use fastboot to flash twrp recovery. Or try to sideload it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was able to use ADB to flash it, and when I rebooted, TWRP was there, but...my backup did NOT appear in my backups. I have since flashed a different from; figuring by chance something might be cleared up, guess what.... When I open Rom Manager, my backup is there, (and twrp is indicated as recovery) it FRICKEN REBOOTS in CWM and from there, I can't see my backup; or anything in my storage!!! The only backup I see using CWM is one that i created using CWM and its NOT the one I want/NEED!
I'm thinking hard about trying to return it, again, to stock (unroot), but that's what started all my issues in the first place! LOL!
My problem unfortunately remains, in that I have a backup created in TWRP, that I can't restore to! Is it possible to use ADB to restore a nandroid back up:? I have the backup saved in my adb folder, it is however not a zip file, it saved as just a folder.
chrisxpierce said:
I was able to use ADB to flash it, and when I rebooted, TWRP was there, but...my backup did NOT appear in my backups. I have since flashed a different from; figuring by chance something might be cleared up, guess what.... When I open Rom Manager, my backup is there, (and twrp is indicated as recovery) it FRICKEN REBOOTS in CWM and from there, I can't see my backup; or anything in my storage!!! The only backup I see using CWM is one that i created using CWM and its NOT the one I want/NEED!
I'm thinking hard about trying to return it, again, to stock (unroot), but that's what started all my issues in the first place! LOL!
My problem unfortunately remains, in that I have a backup created in TWRP, that I can't restore to! Is it possible to use ADB to restore a nandroid back up:? I have the backup saved in my adb folder, it is however not a zip file, it saved as just a folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
your problem is Rom Manager quit installing it.
use es file manager and move your backup to the new twrp folder
I'm guessing the old backup is in data/media/twrp/backup/ move it to data/media/0/twrp/backup
reboot to recovery (twrp) and restore and your all set
clsA said:
your problem is Rom Manager quit installing it.
use es file manager and move your backup to the new twrp folder
I'm guessing the old backup is in data/media/twrp/backup/ move it to data/media/0/twrp/backup
reboot to recovery (twrp) and restore and your all set
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SPOT ON, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! One happy camper now thanks to you! !!!
chrisxpierce said:
SPOT ON, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! One happy camper now thanks to you! !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
your welcome ...glad i could help

Phone not booting (Is it soft brick?)

Hei,
I was running 4.3.1 Dirty Unicorns and wanted to flash Smartdroid.
So, flashed Devil recovery and tried to flash the ROM.
It gave me message that there's an error in the zip file.
I was just playing with the options available in the recovery and selected some option, which I don't remember now.
After that, the went into bootloop. "Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300" appears on the screen and the phone reboots again and again.
This loop continued.
The phone could be put in Download mode.
Then, I flashed CWM 6.0.4.4 and flashed 4.1.2, which I downloaded some time back.
It went on well. I could boot the phone and had set it up.
However, I couldn't connect to network.
The IMEI was some default one.
Rooted the phone and tried to restore the backup of efs folder using HC-Ktool.
After restore, when I booted the phone, it didn't boot.
"Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300" appears on the screen and the phone reboots again and again.
I tried flashing the ROM again, CWM again etc etc.
Nothing worked.
In one occasion, after installing CWM 6.0.4.4, I restored from NANDROID backup. Restore was successful.
But, it wouldn't boot.
Same "Samsung Galaxy S3" appears on the screen and the phone reboots again and again.
Once, I flashed Dirty Unicorns ROM from zip via CWM. Still the same.
What is happening and how to solve it?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Babloo
Wipe Data/Factory Reset -> Download mode
Flash latest Android 4.3 from Sammy through Odin, preferably XXUGMK6 or newer.
Hei,
This worked!!!
Thanks.
Why flashing 4.1.2, Dirty Unicorns didn't work and this one worked?
If you can explain, that will be helpful to all.
Now, though the phone is booting, the efs folder is corrupted.
IMEI number is not what it should be.
I have a backup of the efs folder taken using HC-Ktool long back.
So, the ROM on which efs folder was backedup will be different that the ROM I have now. (Does it make any difference?)
Can I just root and restore that efs folder using HC-Ktool?
Thanks for the help!!
Regards,
Babloo
Edit:
If I flash CWM Recovery 6.0.4.4 and restore the NANDROID backup that I took before I started screwing my mobile, will everything be fine?
Sounds like you tried to flash a corrupt file, always check the md5 before you flash.
EFS is totally separate to the rom, format the partition, restore your backup then factory reset should return your imei on the current rom.
Nandroid will not fix the efs, unless you used a custom backup process that included the partition -the default settings would not do this.
Hei,
"format the partition, restore your backup"
For this, can I just root the phone and use Ktool to restore backup?
If you suggest any other procedure, pls give me more info.
-Babloo
Hei,
After the previous post, I could restore my phone from NANDROID backup that I took yesterday, before the whole mess.
After that, I tried to restore the efs folder using HC-Ktool from efs.img.
It gives the message that restore is completed.
But, after reboot, the IMEI remains the same wrong one (the generic 004999...)
The size of efs.img is 20.48 MB.
I tried to restore using the terminal method.
With the command "unmount /efs" I get error message "sh: unmount: not found"
How can I restore the efs and get back my IMEI?
When I tried to "open" the img file in Windows, it couldn't open. It says that the file is corrupted.
Could it have been really corrupted or it is just that Windows is unable to open it?
I restored the efs using the same backup file.
Why is it not working now?
-Babloo
You are trying to skip essential stages and hurry to finish, but your partition is still corrupt -you can't restore anything to a corrupt partition.
Search and read someone who has succeeded doing the same thing, follow their guide exactly.
Hei,
boomboomer said:
You are trying to skip essential stages and hurry to finish, but your partition is still corrupt -you can't restore anything to a corrupt partition.
Search and read someone who has succeeded doing the same thing, follow their guide exactly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been searching for a proper procedure to format the efs partition since your post.
Whatever I found didn't work for me.
Can you please point me to any post that you know?
-Babloo
Guys,
Any ideas?
-Babloo

[Q] Phone unrooted and I can't get it to root again

My phone unrooted and for the life of me I can't get it rooted again. I'm using the Omnirom nightlies on a Galaxy S3 GTI-9300 (4.4.4 KitKat). A couple days ago it started popping up some errors on boot (First error was something about Keyguard and then the next were about android.system crashing, every time I clicked OK the same error would reappear not letting me do anything on the device), so I went into recovery and installed the newest Omnirom nightly. It fixed the problem but I lost supersu and root access, so I tried recovery again and reflashed supersu, the mod, gapps and root still didn't take even though all flashes were supposedly successful. I also downloaded the .tar file from here galax ys3root. com/cwmtwrp-recovery/ and flashed it with Odin and even though it said it did it successfully the phone is still not rooted. After the .tar I retried flashing supersu from recovery but still no root. Oh and idk if this is relevant because it did it before I lost root access, but whenever I flash supersu with CWM it says I might have lost root access and asks if I want it to try and fix it, giving me No/Yes options. I've tried both but they don't seem to affect anything. I didn't try factory restore because I have apps with valuable data that I don't want to lose until I can back them up, but Titanium won't do it without root access.
Framework is corrupt, full wipe and reflash firmware. Use a nandroid to restore your app data with titanium.
boomboomer said:
Framework is corrupt, full wipe and reflash firmware. Use a nandroid to restore your app data with titanium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Restoring it isn't the problem though, getting it backed is. My current backup isn't up to date and I can't make a new one without root
Nandroid happens in recovery.

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