So I have an old SPH L710 that received its last OTA update before June 2014. Its 4.4.2. I've since moved on to another phone and this S3 is strictly for WiFi at home. No service provider. I'm a tech nerd building and repairing computers for the last 25 years so naturally learning how to gain root access and tweak got my attention. I've been a XDA lurker since 2012 BTW and have learned a lot just by reading. Today I need help that I can't seem to find by reading.
About a month ago I thought it would be fun to root my S3. Towelrooted, flashed Super SU, removed Knox and updated binary. Then I flashed Busy Box. All went very smooth and off I went to play and learn by reading these awesome forums.
After a couple a couple if weeks I decided to try some custom ROMs. I installed Odin on my laptop and TWRP on my SD card. Flashing TWRP via Odin went fine. Then I tried several ROMs that are specifically for my device. I wanted to try some of the Lollipop or Marshmallow ROMs. I followed the instructions exactly as I should, but I couldn't get any of them to work. Every ROM I tried put me in a boot loop. I was seeing unusual text in TWRP like, couldn't mount data and md5 not found while they were in the process of flashing.
So I decided to look for some older ROMs and found SlimKat 4.4.4
Followed the instructions and flashed ROM with Gapps usingTWRP and it worked! I don't understand why I can't flash newer ROMs on this phone. Is there something I've overlooked or is there additional files I need to flash first?
Sorry for the long post. Its late and I really want to try a newer ROM. SlimKat is awesome. My battery lasts MUCH longer and system is zippy. The only thing I don't like is Superuser is included with the ROM. Super SU is what I prefer, but unfortunately I'm stuck with it I until I find a solution to successfully flash a more up to date ROM.
Related
A couple of weeks ago I bought a Galaxy Note 2 from Simple Mobile began to experiment with it. Later on I managed to root it, but I accidentally flashed a recovery via Rom Manager which after a restart broke my phone.
After that I flashed a OTA through Odin of Verizon 4.1.2. The system booted and everything but the radio was missing meaning that I could not text or use 3G. I looked for many ways to restore it but none worked.
I later on flashed a T-Mobile ROM thinking it will help restore the radio and it did successfully flash the ROM through the recovery. But the ROM turned out to be 4.3 and the radio still didn't work. Later on in the same day I flashed an OTA of T-Mobile through Odin and that's when this happened. My phone bootloops really fast when I turn it on. The recovery doesn't show up at all. And every time I flash anything through Odin it fails. I've felt ashamed all this time and it took me a while to reflect and face what I've done and decided to post on here to get help.
Thanks for reading! Any help is appreciated. I will try every method that gets posted and will post back results.
Chronosin said:
A couple of weeks ago I bought a Galaxy Note 2 from Boost Mobile began to experiment with it. Later on I managed to root it, but I accidentally flashed a recovery via Rom Manager which after a restart broke my phone.
After that I flashed a OTA through Odin of Verizon 4.1.2. The system booted and everything but the radio was missing meaning that I could not text or use 3G. I looked for many ways to restore it but none worked.
I later on flashed a T-Mobile ROM thinking it will help restore the radio and it did successfully flash the ROM through the recovery. But the ROM turned out to be 4.3 and the radio still didn't work. Later on in the same day I flashed an OTA of T-Mobile through Odin and that's when this happened. My phone bootloops really fast when I turn it on. The recovery doesn't show up at all. And every time I flash anything through Odin it fails. I've felt ashamed all this time and it took me a while to reflect and face what I've done and decided to post on here to get help.
Thanks for reading! Any help is appreciated. I will try every method that gets posted and will post back results.
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Click to collapse
I have a very similar problem. hope you get help on this, I have been trying to fix this problem for a month.
The 4.3 update is where the issue came from if it will allow you to flash try using a custom rom to get you out the boot loop but because the 4.3 bootloader is locked you now have another issue you will now have to run a virtual rom and there is a certain way you have to do it or you will completely brick your phone try researching first Google your phone model with the rom build 4.3 root you have to root it now before you can do any modifications at this point
Sent from my SCH-I605 using XDA Free mobile app
Hello everyone.
As the title says I recently got my hands on a Samsung Vibrant. I have it from a friend who just left the apartment we lived in together for 5 months as she didn't need it anymore. It currently has a MIUI ROM on it and I'd like to change it to sada23's unofficial CM 11.0
The problem is however that my only previous experience with flashing ROM was with a Samsung Galaxy Chat when I slapped Jelly Bean on it which was only released in a few countries. So I went right ahead but found the amount of things I have to do overwhelming compared to when I just used ODIN on the old phone.
I'm trying to tell what the current status is of the phone and this is what I've been able to come up with so far. (also after googling what everything is and does lol)
- MIUI present so custom ROM install definitely possible
- When I booted into recovery mode I saw it has: "Semaphore CWM Recovery v6.0.1.9" (which I presume is outdated)
- BY default the MIUI ROM apparently has a superuser app (which lead me to think that the device is rooted), however everytime I try to use an app that requires root I encounter errors.
I just did a backup using the recovery mode with semaphore cause I saw this is usually a first step in all the guides I've read. However from here on out I am completely clueless on what to do because all the guides were so different from eachother and I have a feeling my phone is in a vague situation. (root/not rooted?)
So I was hoping someone here could point me into the right direction and help me get to CM from MIUI. Thank you in advance.
I'll be following this thread.. kinda in a similar situation. Although a bit worse. I had an old vibrant in a drawer from years back in mint condish!.. last thing I did was root and install recovery. Unfortunately I'm a stooge and without thinking threw a 4.4 rom zip on the phone.. booted to recovery and cleaned and tried to flash.. bottom line i'm in a bootloop now... and I gave up when odin wasn't detecting the phone.. I"ll figure that out eventually, but it would be great to just have a 4.4 Odin tar for a quick and painless install... or at least a tar from a 4.0 with root and recovery to make the 4.4 upgrade easy.
Also would be interested in knowing if the 4.4 roms work well.. Gps will be most important to me since I plan to use this as my jogging phone.
alrighty.. let's get this party started!
Edit - I think the best thing for you to do is odin back to stock then root install custom bootloader and then flash your new rom, I've heard that you can go straight to kk from stock but the guy who posted above me has problems because of that so I would try flashing an ICS ROM for the recovery first, and don't forget to make a nandroid backup
You can find all the files and programs you'll ever need here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1982728 in NOOB_IN_NEED 'S ref thread
Hope I was of some help if I was hit the thanks button
sent from the depths of paradise - Jamaica
using SGH-T959
ROM: unofficial CM11 4.4.4 by sada
Kernel: stock
Hi,
I rooted my phone and flashed a couple roms on it long ago back on 4.1.1. I hadn't done anything knew with it for a long time and I never allowed any OTA updates or anything like that. I recently picked up a smartwatch and I needed to move to a newer version to be able to get the app to use with the smartwatch. I am quite rusty and it seems like a lot of things have changed. I tried downloading one of the new lollipop roms and also picked up an older one from 4.4 just to try them out. I went to flash the lollipop one and I'm guessing there was probably something I was missing for later updates or something cause it failed.
I was running an old version of TWRP and thought maybe that needed to be updated. I downloaded a TWRP downloader program in the playstore and supposedly downloaded the newest version but when it rebooted I was stuck on the samsung logo and even letting it sit for 30+ minutes it never would progress. So, I then figured I was stuck on this so I looked up how to get back to stock and I used ODIN to get back to stock. Now, I think I'm not longer rooted and will have to go through the root process again. What path should I take to be able to get to the newer versions? I'm trying hard not to mess it up.
Thanks for any advice you can give!
Hellron
I actually figured out what to do. I had to update my TWRP and I just used ODIN to update it. I tried to use the app in the appstore but it didn't work.
desperate with bootloop on GF850F
hey guys!
i'm really desperated now, i'm trying for two days to flash a new rom on my phone and troubleshoot the problems.
my phone have a bootloop and i cant break through it. i want to install a custom rom (SM-G850F Galaxy Alpha OzcanRom Aroma Lollipop v2.5 (07.08.2015)) and followed all steps correctly, but something went anyway wrong.
maybe there was a crc error while download the rom, i didnt know it because i deleted the old file and downloaded a new. now i have the problem that i cant upload it to my phone, i tried to update to the newest adb (1.4.2.) (and using this tutorial).. but when i want to push it to the phone, the console output is: "error: closed". so i googled for more information and how to fix that and came to a thread here on xda , but nothing will work.
normally i'm able to handle technical problems, i've rooted and installed custom roms on a few phones.. but this time, i'm feeling like a real noob. i'm sure, this is just a little problem and i'm only to fixed on the wrong place.
if somebody could help me, i would spend a little reward for the hero who saved my day!
What should work always is flashing stock ROM for any region with Odin. This should produce a bootable phone. Then you can go for TWRP and flash OzcanROM.
Keep in mind that you can't install OzcanROM over a 4.4.4 ROM because Ozcan is 5.0.2 based and you need the stock bootloader for 5.0.2 on your device first. This is also done by flashing stock ROM with Odin.
For fast downloading of the 5.0.2 firmware try SamFirm.
Hi guys I want to post my experience for future reference. Bought this phone (in Athens, Greece) because it's crazy value for money. After a week or so I was really satisfied with it. Just wanted some more Marshmallow features, like multiwindow. So I did my research and ended up following a related guide : steps-to-root-moto-e-2nd ge n. Everything went well, I unlocked the bootloader, flashed twrp, the phone rebooted and I chose to flash SD card as internal, and I was able to install my apps and settings. Then again following the guide steps I tried to flash SuperSU. This resulted to an endless bootloop, where the message " YOU HAVE UNLOCKED THE PHONE S BOOTLOADER....." kept showing up. So I started reading related post from many forums, most of them reproducing the same solutions, like "find your phone's official firmware and reflash". I downloaded many firmwares, all of them appeared (to me at least) suitable for my phone, but none of them had any result. The bootloop continued. I couldn't even flash ROMS from SD card, obviously because of the internal memory format I had done the first and only time the phone booted. Two days had passed and I was really frustrated, ready to take it to service ( or throw it against the wall). Until now I didn't want anything else but the official firmware. But what the heck, after so much efforts, anger and disappointment there is nothing wrong in trying new things. So when I came across the guide about installing cyanogen 13 on my phone, I decided to give it a try. TOTAL SUCCESS!!!! Now my phone is really "flying", is really fast and the most important: is really working again. Although I went through a second flashing of cyanogen 13 because I had the lame persisting idea to flash SuperSU again, with the same frustrating results. So the bottom line, and the reason for this post is : do not flash SuperSU on this phone because you will soft brick it, and don't get caught up with a "hunt" for the right firmware, you will only loose time and some sanity. This is my advice: Go ahead and install cyanogen, it is really great and has insane features. Big thanks to all the guys developing and contributing, you really saved me big time!!!!
vagfyt said:
Hi guys I want to post my experience for future reference. Bought this phone (in Athens, Greece) because it's crazy value for money. After a week or so I was really satisfied with it. Just wanted some more Marshmallow features, like multiwindow. So I did my research and ended up following a related guide : steps-to-root-moto-e-2nd ge n. Everything went well, I unlocked the bootloader, flashed twrp, the phone rebooted and I chose to flash SD card as internal, and I was able to install my apps and settings. Then again following the guide steps I tried to flash SuperSU. This resulted to an endless bootloop, where the message " YOU HAVE UNLOCKED THE PHONE S BOOTLOADER....." kept showing up. So I started reading related post from many forums, most of them reproducing the same solutions, like "find your phone's official firmware and reflash". I downloaded many firmwares, all of them appeared (to me at least) suitable for my phone, but none of them had any result. The bootloop continued. I couldn't even flash ROMS from SD card, obviously because of the internal memory format I had done the first and only time the phone booted. Two days had passed and I was really frustrated, ready to take it to service ( or throw it against the wall). Until now I didn't want anything else but the official firmware. But what the heck, after so much efforts, anger and disappointment there is nothing wrong in trying new things. So when I came across the guide about installing cyanogen 13 on my phone, I decided to give it a try. TOTAL SUCCESS!!!! Now my phone is really "flying", is really fast and the most important: is really working again. Although I went through a second flashing of cyanogen 13 because I had the lame persisting idea to flash SuperSU again, with the same frustrating results. So the bottom line, and the reason for this post is : do not flash SuperSU on this phone because you will soft brick it, and don't get caught up with a "hunt" for the right firmware, you will only loose time and some sanity. This is my advice: Go ahead and install cyanogen, it is really great and has insane features. Big thanks to all the guys developing and contributing, you really saved me big time!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's an issue with SuperSU when it tries to install in systemless mode.
Flashing it this way seems to do the trick, and has been confirmed by multiple users on this board: http://androiding.how/root-moto-g-2014-marshmallow/
If you're using CM13, there is no need to flash SuperSU. CM13 has its own root pre-installed, you can turn it on in Developer Options.