I9300 Bootloop - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi guys.
Today I turn on my galaxy s3 and it displays a motionless lockscreen (I can't turn the screen off, nor do anything with the touchscreen). It has already happened twice or three times.
I reboot it holding the power button for some time, and it bootloops.
ROM: Omnirom 4.4 (I've had it for 2/3 weeks, worked well)
KERNEL: Boeffla Kernel
RECOVERY: Philz 6.0.4.8 (I also have Aroma file manager)
It has happened some times already since I installed this ROM and I had fixed it flashing the xposed-disable zip, but this time it didn't work.
I think if I do a factory reset and reinstall the ROM everything will work, but I really can't lose all the stuff I have there (e.g. notes, contacts, SMSs, whatsapp chats...).
I cleared cache, dalvik, pulled out the battery, updated to the latest nightly via recovery; nothing worked.
Tried to unroot via Aroma FM, didn't manage to.
/dev/log is empty for Aroma FM, if I "ls" with the console it shows there are the regular folders, but I can't "cd" them for logs.
I attach the last logcat got from the Aroma FM console.
Is there any way I can get my phone back to work? Or can I save all my data?

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Fanaticism said:
Hi guys.
Today I turn on my galaxy s3 and it displays a motionless lockscreen (I can't turn the screen
off, nor do anything with the touchscreen). It has already happened twice or three times.
I reboot it holding the power button for some time, and it bootloops.
ROM: Omnirom 4.4 (I've had it for 2/3 weeks, worked well)
KERNEL: Boeffla Kernel
RECOVERY: Philz 6.0.4.8 (I also have Aroma file manager)
It has happened some times already since I installed this ROM and I had fixed it flashing
the xposed-disable zip, but this time it didn't work.
I think if I do a factory reset and reinstall the ROM everything will work, but I really can't
lose all the stuff I have there (e.g. notes, contacts, SMSs, whatsapp chats...).
I cleared cache, dalvik, pulled out the battery, updated to the latest nightly via recovery; nothing worked.
Tried to unroot via Aroma FM, didn't manage to.
/dev/log is empty for Aroma FM, if I "ls" with the console it shows there are the regular folders, but I can't "cd"
them for logs.
I attach the last logcat got from the Aroma FM console.
Is there any way I can get my phone back to work? Or can I save all my data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about the bootloop issue, I would just do a clean install and start again, but if your recovery is working, mount internal sd card as usb storage and copy what you want to keep to your computer.

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You don't need to wipe data partition were your stuff is located. Just format system and flash the same rom again via recovery. This will wipe any init.d scripts and uncommon apps or frameworks which causing bootloop.
Only ROM, do not install Boeffla kernel.
If this will not help than make backup of data partition via CWM and copy this file by adb to PC where you will be able to extract needed data.
____________________________________________
P3110 / I9300 / I9100 / NEXUS 5 / iPAD2

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Thanks for your replies!
I've already flashed the latest omnirom zip, which formatted /system in order to be installed (didn't it?).
What do you mean by "uncommon apps or frameworks"? What will I actually lose if I format /system?
However I'm making a backup of /data anyway.

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System partition store only main system files, system settings and frameworks ie xposed framework, busybox binaries. All normal apps and their settings and data are stored on data partition ie SMS, emails etc.
Formatting system is good practice before flashing different android versions but also helps to get rid of all unnecessary scripts and garbage from old ROM.
You will not loose anything important from your private data.
And you are right, usually installer script formats system partition before copying new files but sometimes strange things happens it will not harm but may help.
____________________________________________
P3110 / I9300 / I9100 / NEXUS 5 / iPAD2

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SirKunon said:
System partition store only main system files, system settings and frameworks ie xposed framework, busybox binaries. All normal apps and their settings and data are stored on data partition ie SMS, emails etc.
Formatting system is good practice before flashing different android versions but also helps to get rid of all unnecessary scripts and garbage from old ROM.
You will not loose anything important from your private data.
And you are right, usually installer script formats system partition before copying new files but sometimes strange things happens it will not harm but may help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've formatted /system and installed the latest Omnirom zip (before getting the bootloop I had an earlier version). I've turned on the device and it shows a dialog:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Like if I've wiped dalvik cache. It says "Android upgrade" "Launching apps".
EDIT:
Rebooted. Now it bootloops "as usual".
Maybe I need to wipe /boot? I don't know what to do. :S

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Try different rom, cyanogenmod maybe?
Or try to launch the system in safe mode by hitting left capacity button (menu) after powering on the phone, but I don't know it works on custom roms.
Finally if you have your backup you can factory reset your phone to check it will start clean or it is a hardware failure. You can restore your backup later.
Do not format boot partition.
____________________________________________
P3110 / I9300 / I9100 / NEXUS 5 / iPAD2

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SirKunon said:
Try different rom, cyanogenmod maybe?
Or try to launch the system in safe mode by hitting left capacity button (menu) after powering on the phone, but I don't know it works on custom roms.
Finally if you have your backup you can factory reset your phone to check it will start clean or it is a hardware failure. You can restore your backup later.
Do not format boot partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks mate. I will try that today, and let you know this afternoon.

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I've deleted some of the last modified folders and files in /data (apps-asec, system, .sto...), formatted /system, installed the latest omnirom, and this time it boots normally; altough it is impossible to use the phone, as "Google play services has force stopped" dialogs continuously appear.
Anyway, it looks like the whole /data folder has been wiped (maybe when the system recognizes something is missing from there, it wipes the whole thing), as apps don't have their data any more; altough some configurations have been kept (wifi passwords for example), and of course my apps have been kept as well (in fact I only deleted some folders from /data). It looks like the problem lies in /data.
Is all the data I'd like to preserve in "/data/data"? In that case I could try to restore only /data/data and see if the phone boots.
However the "force stop" dialogs problem is annoying.
Thanks for your help mate!

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Don't wipe manually. Asec, you have removed , is virtual data folder.
Just make sure to have full backup of system. Choose backup, advanced, and select all partitions in CWM. When it's done connect to PC and copy backup in safe place.
Enter recovery once again and select wipe data factory settings. Wipe also cache, system and dalvik from advanced wipes menu.
Flash ROM and Gapps.
Flash SuperSU zip package if you like.
Reboot system and wait until first long boot finishes.
Config your Gmail account and wait for app restoration protocol.
If everything works fine reboot phone once more and load system. Check is it OK.
If so reboot into recovery and backup this clean system with all partitions, even efs.
Repeat copying this backup to PC procedure.
Now you can try to restore only data partition from first backup via recovery mode.
Choose restore, advanced and select only data partition.
Wait for restore and reboot.
Check if it's working, or not. If you got bootloops again then something is wrong with that data partition. Can't say what it may be.
____________________________________________
P3110 / I9300 / I9100 / NEXUS 5 / iPAD2

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SirKunon said:
Don't wipe manually. Asec, you have removed , is virtual data folder.
Just make sure to have full backup of system. Choose backup, advanced, and select all partitions in CWM. When it's done connect to PC and copy backup in safe place.
Enter recovery once again and select wipe data factory settings. Wipe also cache, system and dalvik from advanced wipes menu.
Flash ROM and Gapps.
Flash SuperSU zip package if you like.
Reboot system and wait until first long boot finishes.
Config your Gmail account and wait for app restoration protocol.
If everything works fine reboot phone once more and load system. Check is it OK.
If so reboot into recovery and backup this clean system with all partitions, even efs.
Repeat copying this backup to PC procedure.
Now you can try to restore only data partition from first backup via recovery mode.
Choose restore, advanced and select only data partition.
Wait for restore and reboot.
Check if it's working, or not. If you got bootloops again then something is wrong with that data partition. Can't say what it may be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It bootloops, so the problem lies in /data. If I manually copy in /data "apps", "apps-lib" and "data", the new rom does not see them. I will restore apps and data with some nandroid extractor.
Thanks for you help.
Last thing: I'm now trying to restore apps+data with this app, but it kepps saying "unable to create applist". How can I restore them? Is there any better app for this purpose?