I apologize up front if this is has been previously asked. I found lots of helpful info on here searching through old threads but being a bit of a luddite I was a bit confused exactly which situation applied to me. I live in China and recently bought a s3 I9300I and attempted to root it using the chainfire method from the video on this site. Odin declared success but when the phone rebooted it just went back to download mode with a message at top saying, "Could not do normal boot, ODIN MODE." Turning it off and on, removing battery and retrying Odin flash produce no results. The most important thing of course is just to get the phone back to functioning but I'd also like it rooted if at all possible. I read that using Odin to install a custom kernel would root it and I would not be at all opposed to a good custom kernel. I read something about a binary counter that may need to be reset but that seemed to require doing something with the actual phone functions which don't seem to work. Odin still recognizes it when I plug it in and attempts to let me redo the rooting but it just shows a progress bar then reboots right back into download mode. Sorry if this is basic stuff but I'm kind of terrified of bricking this thing and am just not sure what the best course of action is here. Thanks for any help you can offer.
Chinese stock firmware is different to the international, there is a special thread in general forum on rooting etc.
Do you have a link to that thread? I have looked and cannot find anything that seems specific to this problem.
Please. Searching for "China" or "Chinese" gets me absolutely no relevant results. If this has already been covered can someone please direct me to the thread. I really need to get this phone working and am at a loss. Thanks.
Hi, first time posting, but I've lurked for a while.
First of all, I apologize if I am in the wrong forum which I probably am.
Also, please be patient with me as I just got out of the hospital and all of my rooting knowledge -- what little I had -- is lost somewhere in my brain. I am still recovering so I am not at 100%.
Anyway, I have a Samsung Galaxy Victory LTE 4G with Virgin Mobile. A year or so ago I was able to root this this. I have no idea how I did it but I did.
Anyway, it only has Android 4.1.2 on it when I rooted it. I'd like to unroot it and hopefully get an OTA update. But I've had some trouble. I read online that I could just unroot by going to the settings of SuperSU and checking the unroot option, which I did. But I may have messed around with it and disabled update settings as it doesn't do anything with I attempt to click update in the settings of my phone. I think I disabled "update" services a while back, for some reason.
Apps say my phone is not rooted but I imagine some of the adjusting I did is still in the phone and so it's in a weird root/unroot limbo state or something. Again, sorry, I wish I could remember all of this.
So I've been reading up on how to unroot it but I cannot find the custom firmware to this thing online. I think I had it at one time on my PC but I've had to reformat and lost everything. Samsung's site pulled it. It's a model SPH-L300. I was thinking I need to root it again, and then try to properly unroot it? But not sure.
Anyway, I try to boot into download mode (pwr + vol down) and it goes into Odin mode but is stuck at the message "downloading -- do not power down". I can pull the battery and get it to power up as normally.
Just today I downloaded Odin, SuperSU and a newer TWRP tar file. But I don't think that will allow me to do what I want, which is essentially unroot to get an OTA update or worse case start over with a fresh install of the original firmware, which I cannot find online.
If this is confusing, sorry. I guess I am just asking for advice on what to do and how I should do it. Thanks., and sorry for the long rambling post.
CG1138 said:
Hi, first time posting, but I've lurked for a while.
First of all, I apologize if I am in the wrong forum which I probably am.
Also, please be patient with me as I just got out of the hospital and all of my rooting knowledge -- what little I had -- is lost somewhere in my brain. I am still recovering so I am not at 100%.
Anyway, I have a Samsung Galaxy Victory LTE 4G with Virgin Mobile. A year or so ago I was able to root this this. I have no idea how I did it but I did.
Anyway, it only has Android 4.1.2 on it when I rooted it. I'd like to unroot it and hopefully get an OTA update. But I've had some trouble. I read online that I could just unroot by going to the settings of SuperSU and checking the unroot option, which I did. But I may have messed around with it and disabled update settings as it doesn't do anything with I attempt to click update in the settings of my phone. I think I disabled "update" services a while back, for some reason.
Apps say my phone is not rooted but I imagine some of the adjusting I did is still in the phone and so it's in a weird root/unroot limbo state or something. Again, sorry, I wish I could remember all of this.
So I've been reading up on how to unroot it but I cannot find the custom firmware to this thing online. I think I had it at one time on my PC but I've had to reformat and lost everything. Samsung's site pulled it. It's a model SPH-L300. I was thinking I need to root it again, and then try to properly unroot it? But not sure.
Anyway, I try to boot into download mode (pwr + vol down) and it goes into Odin mode but is stuck at the message "downloading -- do not power down". I can pull the battery and get it to power up as normally.
Just today I downloaded Odin, SuperSU and a newer TWRP tar file. But I don't think that will allow me to do what I want, which is essentially unroot to get an OTA update or worse case start over with a fresh install of the original firmware, which I cannot find online.
If this is confusing, sorry. I guess I am just asking for advice on what to do and how I should do it. Thanks., and sorry for the long rambling post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll want to download this to a PC: http://www.mediafire.com/download/n...5_L300SPTAMG5_1308964_REV00_user_low_ship.tar
Find the Odin program - 3.04 or newer, open as Admin and load the tar file in the PDA or AP slot (depends on which Odin version).
Put the phone in Download mode. Connect to PC. Make sure drivers load. Should show COM:XX (where XX is any number, doesn't matter as long as it shows up). If so, hit Start, and after the md5 is checked, it will reload the entire software and firmware to the phone. Can take 5-10 minutes. If you bootloop after a successful flash, then perform a factory reset in recovery.
Info found here: http://androidforums.com/threads/vi...tamg5_1308964_rev00_user_low_ship-tar.895291/
Thank you immensely for that! I will try that. And thanks for the FW, I've been looking all over for it!
CG1138 said:
Thank you immensely for that! I will try that. And thanks for the FW, I've been looking all over for it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome. My Google-Fu is strong.
This will save you 8-12 hours of your time if you are lucky. This means that it also includes the meaningful links of 8-12 hours of searching. Sentences in italic are important. 1 link is for the Odin official website, the rest are re-links back into XDA.
The device in question is a SM-925T Tmobile S6 Edge.
The problem was this. I rooted my phone and messed around with Greenify and the Play store. To prepare for rooting, I allowed unknown downloads, unlocked the bootloader, and turned my security lock off (I had set it to a finger print lock). After I was done rooting, I immediately locked the bootloader again(<--A mistake that caused my bootloop/ soft-brick). After I was finished messing with the above apps (Greenify, etc), I wanted my phone to restart. So I held the Power button and selected restart, while I was on the lock screen (may not be important). I noticed that it took a long time to restart, and upon closer examination, I noticed another error under the "kernel is not seandroid enforcing" (which appears to be natural for rooted phones). The error was "Custom Binary blocked by FRP Lock". It was a new error. I investigated this new problem using the internet , and this dude was panicking like hell, but he didn't appear to fix his problem. He did hint that returning to the bootloader to its locked state was a mistake. Looked a bit more and this guy pointed to another thread, which introduced me to flashing and more importantly his fix, which was to flash the stock 5.1.1 image through odin. He used this link, which contains all the stock firmware for the majority of the new Samsung S6 and S6 edge versions. To make a long story short, most of these fixes involved flashing your firmware to the stock version. So I went to the Odin Website, and downloaded every version, as a couple threads have said that different versions worked for them. Here is a thread with everything you need for Odin. Now, after sorting through and finding micro USB cables that are detectable by Odin, an important step because Odin might develop a pattern of detecting then failing to detect your device through that cable, and testing all the usb 2.0 ports, I was ready, and had Odin with my stock firmware. Odin kept saying "NAND Write", then in the next line "FAIL". This was annoying as Odin wouldn't detect my device again unless I unplugged it, restarted it to download mode, then restarted Odin before plugging it back in. I got confused and found links for somehow fixing the .tar files, stock roms, .pit files (DO NOT MESS AROUND WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT THOSE THINGS DO), and other threads/websites that say to boot into recovery mode , factory reset, then wipe your cache. I could only do that once. After me messing around with all of the above file variants and supposed fixes to help with my issue, I couldn't boot into recovery mode, it got stuck on the "Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge" logo. It did not fix the NAND write failing. There however, are a lot of websites allowing you to download stock software for your phones, and I don't think I can link them as it might break a rule. Surprisingly, some have claimed that using a stock file for another device worked to fix their problem. This thread, which convinced me to use Smart Switch when it failed for everyone else, was very useful, although I recommend downloading Smart Switch from the official website of Samsung. None of the Odin flashing had worked so far, including the Roms and .pit files so I tried Smart Switch. I opened it, and upon selecting the "more" tab on the upper right corner, a bunch of tabs drop down. One should be "Emergency Software recovery and initialization". I had to find my S / N (Serial) number, and I was very confused on how to obtain that number as I was locked out. But to obtain it, do the same process to boot into download (hold volume down, home key, and power key), but stay on the prompt and don't go to the screen that has the word download in the middle. Don't do anything other then reaching the prompt confirming if you want to install a custom ROM. Then, press the home key and it should show your S / N number along with your IMEI number. Once I imputed the code I saw on my phone into Smart Switch, it told me to connect the device. Now, by this time, I realized that Odin only detects my device if it is actually in the download screen. Why shouldn't my computer? I booted into Download on my phone and followed the steps on my computer, making sure that the computer can recognize my phone while it is using a valid USB port and Cable. And after some waiting, for me, my problem was fixed and I could use my phone again, it reverted to it's out-of-box state. I hope this drawn out but very specific explanation helps you guys. It's my first post And also, this thread confirms that you can use a USB hub for flashing(at least for ROMS), Smart Switch, and for rooting.
Thank you for this detailed account, however nothing of the above has worked for me. Odin won't flash the firmware of 5.0.2 (and I tried 5.1.1) and Smart switch does not recognize the device to do anything. BTW phone has been rooted for months and last night decided to turn on its FRP lock randomly and now I'm stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Explain throughly what you have tried. Especially different ports, cables, and computers. Did you have the right device drivers? Did you do anything else?
I followed your footsteps and and the step where it has to show me the S/No and IMEI, it only shows IMEI number. I am unable to find the S/NO any suggestions?
Xalmey said:
I followed your footsteps and and the step where it has to show me the S/No and IMEI, it only shows IMEI number. I am unable to find the S/NO any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
press vol down home keys and power key once you get to the first blue screen release vol and power keep holdind home but I already tried smart swich didn't help
5.1.1 has FRP lock auto turned on whenever you have a google account on the device... This is probably going to cause a lot of problems with all newer devices that get rooted. I even tried removing all google accounts, flashed recovery and flashed boot img back to stock after rooting and still FRP was bricking the device. I got supersu onto the device, all working fine for a 3rd time, as soon as I added a google account onto my device and restarted, it was FRP lock blocked and soft bricked again.... I used kies to restore to factory again, re-rooted it for the 4th time when I finally discovered an option in developer options called OEM unlock, Turning OEM unlock on turns off the FRP lock security feature.
My conclusion, If your going to root 5.1.1 make sure you remove all accounts from the device first, do not change google passwords for 72 hours prior to rooting, once rooted, YOU MUST TURN OEM Unlock ON in settings>developer options before adding any google accounts to the device.
Hi everyone!
I also got a Samsung S6 Edge + from a friend with custom binary blocked by FRP. I don't know what he was planning to do but I guess it was rooting.
He said he want me to backup any files before I try anything. Don't know how to proceed. But as suggestion, I want to ask if using "fastboot oem unlock" command would fix that.
EsperaKing said:
Hi everyone!
I also got a Samsung S6 Edge + from a friend with custom binary blocked by FRP. I don't know what he was planning to do but I guess it was rooting.
He said he want me to backup any files before I try anything. Don't know how to proceed. But as suggestion, I want to ask if using "fastboot oem unlock" command would fix that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure fastboot isn't for Samsung devices. Hard to back up any files u less you can get into TWRP or the phone. If you flash stock firmware is highly likely the files will be wiped
callumbr1 said:
I'm pretty sure fastboot isn't for Samsung devices. Hard to back up any files u less you can get into TWRP or the phone. If you flash stock firmware is highly likely the files will be wiped
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no TWRP recovery on the phone. Yeah you're right about backing up files. I don't even know how to proceed and I can tell you I have huge experience on that stuff, rooting flashing custom recoveries and roms, etc... but in this case, I can't say if files can be backed up.
EsperaKing said:
There is no TWRP recovery on the phone. Yeah you're right about backing up files. I don't even know how to proceed and I can tell you I have huge experience on that stuff, rooting flashing custom recoveries and roms, etc... but in this case, I can't say if files can be backed up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only way is to 're flash the exact same firmware he is currently using now using the 5 files firmware package. But yo ensure csc_home is used so the data will not be wiped.
callumbr1 said:
The only way is to 're flash the exact same firmware he is currently using now using the 5 files firmware package. But yo ensure csc_home is used so the data will not be wiped.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for you reply.
Please can you tell me where I can find such software or how to do it clearly! I know how to use Odin but I don't know how to exclude user_data to be wiped. Thank you
Bonafid3 said:
5.1.1 has FRP lock auto turned on whenever you have a google account on the device... This is probably going to cause a lot of problems with all newer devices that get rooted. I even tried removing all google accounts, flashed recovery and flashed boot img back to stock after rooting and still FRP was bricking the device. I got supersu onto the device, all working fine for a 3rd time, as soon as I added a google account onto my device and restarted, it was FRP lock blocked and soft bricked again.... I used kies to restore to factory again, re-rooted it for the 4th time when I finally discovered an option in developer options called OEM unlock, Turning OEM unlock on turns off the FRP lock security feature.
My conclusion, If your going to root 5.1.1 make sure you remove all accounts from the device first, do not change google passwords for 72 hours prior to rooting, once rooted, YOU MUST TURN OEM Unlock ON in settings>developer options before adding any google accounts to the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you thank you thank you!!! This is exactly what I was looking for I had just rooted my note 4 running 6.0.1 and had no idea what the oem option was as no rooting method talked about it at all so naturally as soon as i added my Google account phone restarted and locked up.
Kies was the answer I needed as frp lock was active in download mode and my factory reset in recovery failed everytime but running Kies firmware upgrade and entering my model and serial number it installed perfectly in download mode with frp lock still active saved me alot of hassle ?
Hi. I have spent the past 10 hours trying to root my phone and install an XtraLite type of ROM because I am so sick of have 75% of my RAM used up when I haven't even started using the phone. I softbricked my phone, and after hours of trying to solve every minor issue that came up I finally found a solution and managed to flash a stock ROM. I have a lot of questions that I would love to get answers to because I am a little bit confused right now.
My history.
Bootloader
I spent so much time googling this and I decided to trust one site that said, if you can't find the "OEM Unlocked" option in "Developer Options" then your bootloader is probably already unlocked. This was the closest I got to an answer, along with many people with SM-G925F saying the root was successful for them without doing something to their bootloader. Can someone please clarify what I need to do with the bootloader with my EU SM-G925F?
Flashmode/Download Mode
Prior to this I spent very long trying the "adb-windows reboot bootloader/flashboot-windows oem unlock" without any results. However I somehow came to the conclusion that "Download" mode for my Samsung was no different. Any clarification on this subject please?
Rooting
The first rooting guide I trusted was the CF-Auto-Root page. This is where the bootloader question was raised but as I came to the conclusion that the bootloader already was unlocked, I decided to give it a shot. I downloaded SM-G925F file, added it to AP on Odin, and flashed my phone. Now my phone was locked in a bootloop. According to CF-Root page "A modified recovery and cache partition will be flashed, which will install (only) SuperSU, then clean-up the cache partition and re-flash the stock recovery. For the root to work, the device must reboot into recovery. Most devices will do this automatically after flashing these files, but in case that does not happen, please boot into recovery manually.". As you probably guessed, my phone never booted into recovery mode, and I was never able to manually do it either since the phone was in a unstoppable bootloop. Did I do something wrong here or misunderstand anything?
ROM Instructions
My first choice was: http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...xtrestolite-deodexed-mod-edition-1-3-t3119968
I failed the first step, never even managed to root with CF-Root. And regarding TWRP, I did download the correct version "twrp-3.0.0-0-zerolteeu" I assume. However, many descriptions say my phone needs to be rooted before I can install TWRP so I never tried to install it. Even if, I couldn't find a detailed enough description of how to install TWRP. All it says is "flash it". Problem is, I am not sure if I am supposed to be in "Download mode" and use Odin loading TWRP into "AP" or how does this work?
Never got to the ROM installing, but it would be nice to have something more detailed than "Put it on your phone, install it". Like, do I enter recovery mode and navigate to the rar file and chose to install it? Not sure how this works.
My solution to bootloop
This part took me the longest. For those stuck in a bootloop. Holding DownVolume + Power button for at least 15 sec will simulate disconnection of the battery. This helps you turn you device off. Also, if you nothing happens, make sure you unplug the USB cable as it keeps trying charge and show the status it tries to boot and keeps looping as a result. I could always manage to get into "download mode" through DownVolume + Home Button + Power Button no matter what, and I am grateful for that. I managed to find the exact build I was using on my phone "G925FXXU3COJ1_G925FOJV3COJ1_G925FXXU3COI9_HOME". But everytime I tried to flash, it always failed in the end. I spent hours on google. Someone mentioned something about it failing on a certain point of the writing, involving hidden.img. I googled for info on how to resolve this, and someone suggested to rename hidden.img to hidden.tar but it did not help. I also read some threads regarding using a matching PIT file and there were about 7 different ones to chose from. I tried them all without success. Finally I read something about removing hidden.img from the ROM. I renamed the ROM from .tar.md5 to .tar. Unpacked it, and then repacked it without hidden.img using tar-Tool from these forums. The following flash of the new created tar.md5 (without hidden.img in it) was successful.
Slave for stubborness
Unfortunately since I spent so long getting through this horrible experience, I would feel bad have wasted an entire day just to get a phone that is now reset. I could have done that in 30 seconds. However I am persistent to get this working and I am truly grateful for any help you people can supply my with. I did manage to root and ROM my old S3 but that was a while ago and I only remember a few small things about Odin and so forth. However things seem much more complicated now than before.
Thank you in advance,
Alex
Hi guys. Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I have rooted several phones a few years back such as HTC's etc. However i have been running into a problem with the J5. I believe I have installed the samsung drivers, i have rooted the phone on the software itself via kingroot, however when I try to run ODIN it detects the phone COM/USB port however when I try to flash any of the recovery files it looks as if its going to start to do it then says 'FAIL' and when I look at the phone nothing happens (when its in blue recovery mode) it just says Custom Binary (Recovery) Blocked by FRP Lock - I have tried to search this on the forums but cant find many solutions for it with regards to the J5 - Does anyone have any suggestions? I dont mind the phone and would like to install custom kernel on it to allow for slight overclocks etc as its quite a nice bang for buck phone. but I have spent hours and can't seem to find a solution. There was one post that seemed to suggest if you downloaded a 'CROM Services' APK whilst in android and run that it might work, however this is a new J5 on the latest android and the CROM Services APK file in that link doesnt seem to want to run when i install + try to run it on this android
Any suggestions are welcome! Really wrecking my head over this one
FRP lock means that you have to enable OEM Unlocking in Developer options and/or remove the Google account. FRP is Factory Reset Protection, introduced with Android 5.1.1. Prevents someone from just grabbing your device and wiping it and using it easily. Also, you need to be in Download Mode, not recovery to flash custom kernels and recoveries. You aren't wanting to or trying to install a custom bootloader. That is a whole nother thing.
Thanks for the info! That one option has solved it for me! I will go from here and see how it goes. Thanks alot!