Help for Post Kitkat update problems - Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Writing this to help others. After a whole day of agony and frustration, throwing phone on the floor, etc. I have found and resolved the issue.
Symptoms were:
- programs like youtube, gallery, internet, Settings and others, not responding and freezing phone.
- stuck on network preparing,
- phone freezing after screenshut off
- really slow wifi and mobile data
- phone hanging trying to reboot or shutdown
- phone # codes didn't work
- sdcard not mounting, no access, and stuck on preparing sdcard
- no text messages, showing up hours later
- not being able to update prl or profile
- recovery not loading or if it did load, clearing cache and factory reset did nothing
- many odin flashes whether it were NAB or NC5...same problems
I happened to in desperation pull the sdcard out while the phone was on and noticed that if phone was frozen it freed up. inserting it again made apps freeze and stuck on preparing sdcard. THE UPDATE CORRUPTED THE SDCARD and it being in the phone is what is causing the problem.
I did a fresh odin flash and didn't put sdcard in and phone is normal and no issues. put card back in...issues returned, removed and almost went in trash.
Now i ended up putting the "corrupted sdcard" into another phone and it would not recognize it either. Last ditch effort before throwing sdcard out, i put it in computer and windows was able to see the contents. Relieved...i was able to copy all files to pc. Then for giggles i did a quick format of the same filesystem. stuck the blank sdcard back in the note 3 and low and behold it prepared sdcard quickly and it was mounted with correct free space. I then copied all files i had backed up to the pc onto the sdcard and ALL IS WELL.
I couldnt find no where on the internet that this was the exact problem. Was a terrible experience and posting this to help those that are in same boat. Got luckly, would have never guessed it was all caused by sdcard being in the phone.

Related

[Q] GS3 crashed, won't restart, hangs on the Samsung splash screen

Hi there,
I really hope you can help me.
A few days ago my phone tells me my memory is running low. I took a look, and low and behold there's feck all memory left. Which is odd because I'm careful about what I install. So, to begin with I download App2SD to move some applications to the SD card. App2SD then tells me that I have no external memory card, or it's virtual memory - which is odd, because all my music is on the SD card and I've no problem playing any of it. So, a few days later the phone tells me the SD card is no longer working, and I should try reformat it, today being the first day I've had some time free I decided to see if I could rescue some photos before formatting it, so I plugged in to my computer to browse the phone and see if I could see the SD card and photos.
After further inspection I discovered that the camera hasn't been saving pictures to the SD card as I'd originally set it to, so there's over 4GB of photos on the main memory, causing my low memory problems. So I started moving photos from the phone memory to the computer, copying and pasting onto my laptop, then deleting from the phone.
While doing this the phone kept crashing and restarting. Eventually (after many reboots) I managed to free about 1.5GB of the phone memory.
The phone crashed again. This time however, I get a message saying something along the lines of "cannot encrypt device, please reboot the phone".
Since then when I power up the phone I get "Firmware Upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again".
I tried rebooting but nothing happens, the phone hangs at the start up screen (after the Samsung logo, where the model number is displayed).
I've tried re-installing the firmware with Kies, which didn't work. Then I tried the emergency recovery, which also didn't work.
Has anyone got any advice??
I'm running the official Samsung binary.
I use nova launcher.

[Q] Phone wont boot and cant flash anything

Okay, this is quite a long story, so I apologise in advance.
I decided to update my Galaxy S2 today to a newer ROM (SuperNexus 2) with the latest version of Android. I was coming from a CM9 build. I went through the usual process of backing up data and performing a full NANDROID backup via CWM Recovery, booted the phone again and transferred the backups to my PC via USB. These files transferred fine.
I then downloaded the zip files for the new ROM and proceeded to copy them to the internal storage of my phone. The copy dialog in Windows said that it was "discovering items" and stayed like this until I turned off USB transfer mode on the phone and removed it (ie. the files failed to copy) This happened a number of times and I didn't get anywhere. I have plenty of space free on the SD card, but just to make sure I started the phone in CWM again and formatted the SD card, and since I was going to do it anyway, the data and cache partitions too. When I booted the phone again, the files still wouldn't copy. I managed to copy a text file to the phone which was about 32kb but anything larger just seemed to fail.
I then went back into CWM and decided to partition the SD card, as I thought that it may have been corrupted somehow and needed to rebuild the filesystem. This however, caused even more problems as trying to format the SD card (In CWM) now just reported "Error, can not mount E:/sdcard".
Feeling fairly frustrated, I decided to download the Stock ICS ROM for the Galaxy S2 and install it via Odin, thinking that the problem was probably with CWM. The install went fine, but upon reboot the phone just stayed on the boot animation, no matter how long I left it. To make sure the install went smoothly I decided to try and reinstall the Stock ROM via Odin again, but now Odin didnt seem to get past the "Initializing.." stage.
So all in all, I now have a phone which wont boot into Android, cant copy anything to internal storage, and Odin wont seem to connect to.
I am convinced this is a software issue and therefore fixable. But maybe the internal storage was not working correctly in the first place. I have installed many ROMs before and never had such issues.
Anyone know anything about this or how I could potentially fix it? Thanks so much in advance!
Benji1992 said:
Okay, this is quite a long story, so I apologise in advance.
I decided to update my Galaxy S2 today to a newer ROM (SuperNexus 2) with the latest version of Android. I was coming from a CM9 build. I went through the usual process of backing up data and performing a full NANDROID backup via CWM Recovery, booted the phone again and transferred the backups to my PC via USB. These files transferred fine.
I then downloaded the zip files for the new ROM and proceeded to copy them to the internal storage of my phone. The copy dialog in Windows said that it was "discovering items" and stayed like this until I turned off USB transfer mode on the phone and removed it (ie. the files failed to copy) This happened a number of times and I didn't get anywhere. I have plenty of space free on the SD card, but just to make sure I started the phone in CWM again and formatted the SD card, and since I was going to do it anyway, the data and cache partitions too. When I booted the phone again, the files still wouldn't copy. I managed to copy a text file to the phone which was about 32kb but anything larger just seemed to fail.
I then went back into CWM and decided to partition the SD card, as I thought that it may have been corrupted somehow and needed to rebuild the filesystem. This however, caused even more problems as trying to format the SD card (In CWM) now just reported "Error, can not mount E:/sdcard".
Feeling fairly frustrated, I decided to download the Stock ICS ROM for the Galaxy S2 and install it via Odin, thinking that the problem was probably with CWM. The install went fine, but upon reboot the phone just stayed on the boot animation, no matter how long I left it. To make sure the install went smoothly I decided to try and reinstall the Stock ROM via Odin again, but now Odin didnt seem to get past the "Initializing.." stage.
So all in all, I now have a phone which wont boot into Android, cant copy anything to internal storage, and Odin wont seem to connect to.
I am convinced this is a software issue and therefore fixable. But maybe the internal storage was not working correctly in the first place. I have installed many ROMs before and never had such issues.
Anyone know anything about this or how I could potentially fix it? Thanks so much in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I9100?
Can get to DL mode?
Can get to recovery?
Get an older Odin version and flash siyah just to see if it can be flashed again.
If you can get to recovery, Nuke Script is the way to go.
It sounds to me that maybe your memory is corrupt...
Not just yet, smells like soft brick.
Sent from the little guy

[Q] M8 rebooting after taking picture? Pictures corrupt?

So I've got a strange problem with my phone. Sometimes after I snap a picture the phone freezes and reboots and the pic I took is corrupt (saving to phone storage). More interesting is that my microSD somehow decided it was going to corrupt and be unusable as well. I noticed this after trying to take pix and they would all be corrupted when saving to SD.
Anyone ever seen this before? Going to try a factory reset today and see if that solves any problems.
Running stock rooted ROM.
More info about your device like is it
Unlocked?
Custom recovery?
Rooted?
S-OFF?
ROM if at all?
Was the sdcard you inserted new or did you use your device to format it.did you select the option to save to the external sdcard .
I think after doing a factory reset you should format the sdcard with the device and than use "SD fixer" from the play store if rooted and give it a go again.this is all with no info about your device specifics
Stock rooted ROM. Clockwork Mod. Not unlocked.
The SD card came out of my Note 3 which I had been using fine for about a year and it never had a problem. In fact it seemed to work fine in the M8 for a couple of weeks. Card can be read from but not written too either by the phone nor a computer. It will no longer format either. I've tried formatting in computer and in phone as well, no dice.
After that all started happening I switched my camera back to saving yo internal memory. That's when my phone would start locking up and rebooting randomly when I would take a pic. Doesn't happen all of the time just randomly. When it does happen and the phone comes back up the pic shows up in the gallery as corrupt.
Just did a factory reset last night and bought a new card. So far so good.
Nice to know all is good now
Will report back if problem reoccurs and especially if the new SD card somehow gets corrupted beyond repair again.

[Q] my phone's internal memory has been set to "read-only"

This is happening to me. Any help on how to set interneal memory to read and write. i cannot save any file to my phone from any apps.
I'll apreciate your help.
"Let me first apologize for the length of this but hopefully someone will be able to help. I have a Sprint Samsung Galaxy S3 SPH-L710 running 4.4.2. I recently attempted to use CMInstaller to load Cyanogenmod (I use otter1 on my Kindle and love Cyanogenmod and I really dislike Samsung's OS and bloatware) but it failed. It would get to the point of "Loading OS" and then the android picture on my phone was laying flat with a red triangle over its chest (I'm guessing that means error). CMInstaller then completed and said everything was successful. My S3 then gave me two yes/no questions but no matter what I answered, it eventually just returned to the stock Samsung OS with no root or superuser. From what I have been reading, this is due to Knox and I need to root my phone and remove Knox. I've found several helpful forums on xda-developers on rooting my phone and deleting Knox.
My issue though is that apparently somehow my phone's internal memory has been set to "read-only" or affected in some other way. The phone still works as a phone and it has allowed me to install apps and I can transfer files to and from both the internal memory and the SD card using my computer. But I've noticed that some apps are acting very strangely.
Amazon Kindle: will not download any books or register that I transferred ebooks to the Kindle folder (and yes, they are in the right folder and the right formats). When I attempt to download a book, the pull down menu for the phone gives me an error of "N/A - Download unsuccessful. Tap to try again." When I tap on that, it goes to a download screen that just sits there and does nothing. If I click on the book in the Kindle app it gives me an error of "Unable to Download. A network connection is required to download your Kindle title. Please connect to a network and try again." During these errors I have network connection (I am able to get online using the Dolphin browser) and have tried multiple different wifi networks and Sprint's network in many different geographical locations. I have tried using my wife's Amazon account on my phone with the exact same result.
Dolphin browser: Will not download anything to the internal memory (immediately results in a "Download unsuccessful") and fails to recognize my external SD card (when attempting to choose it as a download location it displays the message "Can't find file or directory. Please make sure your SD card is ready, and USB Mass Storage is turned off.") My phone is not connected to my computer during this.
Google Drive: Immediately fails to download any file.
doubleTwist: When attempting to set the music location to internal memory, doubleTwist says "It appears that your device has been set to read-only." Can access the SD card and play music found there.
All of the stock Samsung applications can access both internal memory and the SD card with no problem. The camera can save pictures to the internal memory and the SD card, the stock browser can save files with no problems, the voice recorder can record and save without issue and My Files can move, copy and delete files on both the SD card and the internal memory. It could argued that I just use Samsung's apps but I hate Samsung's apps and most of the time there are all hidden/disabled.
All of this started after CMInstaller failed. Is there any way to fix this? More importantly will this stop me from (or mess up) rooting my phone, obliterating Knox and loading Cyanogenmod? Part of me just wants to leave the phone as is since it still works (for the most part) but another, bigger part of me wants to remove Samsung's hold on my phone even more than before."
Hi,
I will have your thread moved to your device section so those that own your device can help.
Good luck!
Problably your problems are caused by CM-installer. Espec., because it tries to change recovery, too. Very comfortable, very fragile. I suggest to rebuild everything. You loose all your settings and data except those on extSdCard. Btw: there is no Knox on S3.
Save your data, as much as possible.
DownloadMode. Flash the newest firmware with Odin.
RecoveryMode. FactoryReset.
You should have a working system now. If yes:
DownloadMode. Root with cfAutoRoot and Odin.
Flash TWRP2.8.1.0 with Odin.
FullWipe. Flash any custom-rom, you want. FactoryReset.

Ext. SD Card write problems

As the title says implies, I am having trouble writing data to my external SD card - both through the phone and while connected to a PC.
Background: Got the S4 about a week ago. It was on NK1. I rooted, de-bloated, and made back-up in SafeStrap. Discovered I had to run the KK SD Card fix, but was able to write to the SD card afterwards. Yesterday, while trying to copy a file to the SD card while connected to a PC resulted in a failure (Device stopped responding or was disconnected error). After that, the whole phone went wonky - Titanium, Root Explorer, File Manager, etc... wouldn't open and/or run properly after wards. Several reboots and the problem persisted.
Figured I would just restore my back-up. Well I screwed something up and got stuck in a boot-loop - I odined back to NC5 (figured I didn't need to be on NK1), and re-rooted. Setting my phone back up I realize I can't write to the SD card again. I run the SD Fix but to no avail. Opened Root Explorer and looked at platform.xml, which has all the correct permissions (as in this post).
What's going on and how do I fix this? The SD card is a pretty important feature for me. I can write to and copy to the internal storage either through the phone and while connected to a PC, but not the SD card. FWIW, the SD card works flawlessly in my old phone, so I know it;s not the card.
Going nuts here.
Thanks,
Edit - So playing around with another (lower capacity) SD card I find that everything works perfectly. When I get time this weekend I will have to reformat and/or get a new card. Strangely, the problem card still works good in my old phone. Very weird.
Turns out the sd card was/is bad. Found a great deal on a 64gb card and it's working great.
So now for more noob questions: What is the correct procedure for restoring and or flashing roms with safestrap? On my other phones I'm used to entering recovery (TWRP) and wiping data/cache/dalvik, formatting, doing a factory reset, etc, then flashing and or restoring.
When I attempted to restore my backup on my S4 (as described above), I wiped data, dalvik, & cache. After that I either did a factory reset or format (can't remember which), the phone automatically rebooted, and that is when I got stuck in the bootloop and couldn't enter safestrap recovery. I am interested in flashing Eclipse but would like to know the exact procedures to avoid losing the ability to enter safestrap.
Thanks for the advice.

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