Restoring /data partition yields an unlockable phone - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi everyone,
I have a Xiaomi A2 which went into a bootloop due to a buggy OTA update. It's a bug in the update, and a lot of people are affected. See this post for details.
I really a rather vanilla setup (original Android One ROM). The only exotic thing I did was to unlock the bootloader. Everything else is untouched.
When I installed the Oct 2020 OTA update my phone went into a boot loop. So I booted on TWRP from fastboot, and using adb pull /dev/block/mmcblk0p69 data.img I got an entire disk image of my data partition on my PC.
Using fastboot I then flashed the previous-working OS (version V11.0.14.0.QDIMIXM) but then when I boot my phone I now have a weird problem: my PIN isn't recognized anymore! If I try and remove /data/system/locksettings.db from TWRP, then it does remove the PIN and I can "log in" with a swipe, but then the phone gives me a never ending spinner. I assume something is wrong with File-Based Encryption and the fact that I didn't provide a PIN.
Question: why is my PIN not working anymore? How can I get it to work?

Related

[SOLVED] S9+ Fails to Unlock After Latest Pie OTA Update

Hey all,
My phone updated today and ever since I cannot move past the initial lock screen. When unlocked, the UI appears to crash and send me back to the lock screen. My pin code works for turning the phone off, restarting the phone and putting it into emergency mode, which indicates some sort of UI crash.
Because this is a new account I can't post a link to a video of the issue directly, but the YouTube video code is: 8ZhlH-Tt-NU
I have tried the standard fixes like wiping the cache partition and booting into safe mode, but these don't seem to make any difference. Unfortunately I never logged into my Samsung account on this device, so their 'Find My Mobile' service is not an option. I am however signed into my Google account on the device and it does have wifi/network enabled.
The phone is running PPR1.180610.011/G965FXXU2CSA8
On the phones internal memory is a bunch of photos from a recent trip to Japan, I'm a fool for not backing these up sooner but I would hate to lose them.
Has anybody experienced anything like this before, and is there any way for me to get back into the phone, or atleast recover the photos that I took?
Thanks!
Edit:
One potential route out of this I can see is sideloading the same or a subsequent OTA update using ADB to hopefully fix the issue. Unfortunately despite some digging I can't find any updates that will allow installation from: PPR1.180610.011/G965FXXU2CSA8
If anybody has any information on this specific firmware version (Is it beta 3? beta 4? ect.), its installation path and where files relating to it may be listed/hosted it would be appreciated. Also how disasterous would it be to take a mismatched OTA upgrade and modify the metadata to allow it to be sideloaded onto the phone? I assume this would almost certainly break the OS completely but I'm not too sure.
You can try to flash your firmware again with ODIN, but with the HOME_CSC (Important!)
profi_fahrer said:
You can try to flash your firmware again with ODIN, but with the HOME_CSC (Important!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply Profi I had no idea using HOME_CSC would retain user data. I have tried flashing a few different versions of Pie (wish HOME_CSC) using Odin but with no luck, every time the phone boots I have the same problem. Do you know if there is a sure way to downgrade to Oreo while retaining user data? I have seen a few posts of people attemping this and getting stuck in bootloops, eventually requrining them to factory reset.
To give a final update on this. I attempted the Oreo downgrade, upon reboot the phone was stuck in a bootloop so I updated to Pie again. When the phone booted I tried the pin code as quickly as I could, and after some glitchy graphics on the screen it unlocked. From here I turn on the stay awake while plugged in feature in the developer options and managed to transfer all my data over to PC.
I don't believe it was the firmware changes that actually made any difference, because any further attempts to put my pin in, to remove the pin code for example, failed and cause the same crashing behaviour.
All data is recovered, I have factory reset the phone and all appears to be behaving as normal again. If anybody stumbles upon this with the same issue, all hope is not lost, but unfortunately I was unable to determine a realiable way to overcome it. It seems in this case it was just dumb luck.
Thanks for the assistance.

Cannot setup PIN/pattern after rooting Galaxy S9+ (SM-G965F) (Android Pie 9.0)

I'm using Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus (SM-G965F) (Android Pie 9.0) and I rooted my phone by using Magisk, after that I cannot setup PIN or pattern. After I setup PIN/pattern and I go to add biometrics screen, when I confirm my PIN/pattern, there's a popup tell me that "PIN/pattern is incorrect."
How I root my phone ?
1. Flash stock Android Pie firmware via Odin
2. Flash TWRP recovery
3. Boot into TWRP
4. Wipe data
5. Flash RMM-State_Bypass_Mesa_v2.zip
6. Flash no-verity-opt-encrypt-samsung-1.0.zip
7. Flash kernel ElementalX-S9-2.01.zip
8. Flash root file Magisk-v18.0.zip
9. Reboot
Did I do something wrong ?
OMG! Finally I've found someone reporting the same issue! My situation is a bit different, but the result is the same as yours. I have a Samsung Galaxy S9 (SM-G960F), and here are a few things worth noting:
I flashed the latest Pie-based firmware for the LUX-region from updato.com through ODIN
I flashed twrp-3.3.0-0-starlte.img.tar through ODIN
I tried flashing both no-verity-opt-encrypt-samsung-1.0.zip and no-verity-opt-encrypt-6.0.zip, and I flashed RMM-State_Bypass_Mesa_v2.zip
I did not flash a custom kernel
Finally, I flashed Magisk v19.2.zip
Everything seemed to work just fine (during my limited time on Pie), but I encountered the same weird behaviour as you when trying to set up my fingerprint. If I dared to reboot my phone after that, it got stuck in some weird loop where the SIM unlock screen will show for a split second, and then turn off again for a moment. That pattern was repeated continuously, and sometimes it rebooted itself. I could basically not get back into my phone.
Please, PLEASE, tell me you've figured this out!? Or if not you, then somebody else. For now, I've restored the backup I made through TWRP prior to flashing Android Pie, so I'm back to a rooted version of Android Oreo. I'll probably stay there unless I have a solution for this problem, cause I just can't see myself using my phone without root access.
The joys of being a power user...
Same problem
I'm using a Samsung S9 (SM-G9600) and my rooting process was quite the same as yours. Phone works just fine, but I can't seem to set any kind of lock screen (including fingerprints, which forbids me from using fingerprint unlock on other apps too).
It's Samsung security stuff, you'd have to remove it to be able to use security again.
As to what exactly you need to remove, I'm not really sure.
Anyone got any updates? I got the same problem. I tried removing the *.key files in twrp to reset the Pin. It does work and it resets the pin asking for a new one but when i set it to 0000 and try to register a fingerprint it says the pin is incorrect.

Nokia 7.1 constantly restarting (possibly after the upgrade to Pie)

Hello!
My dad was using Nokia 7.1 for a while but recently he asked for help with his phone which is constanlty restarting... Looking into other threads, I can see it is kind of known problem, so I hope you can help me somehow. The phone is running now on 00WW_3_51F. He doesn't remember what was recently done with the phone but I guess he simply updated it do Android 9.0... When I power on the phone, it boots correctly but restarts after few seconds (sometimes it's longer, up to 1 minute).
- I have already reseted phone to factory default but problem remained.
- I have tried to boot it in safe mode but same problem occurred.
I managed to access Settings>Advanced>Updates and noticed that there is an update available (V3.54H) with size 1299.4 MB. When I started to download it, phone crashed...
I was able to download V3.54H OTA from another thread in this forum with size 119MB (pretty weird...) and I am wondering if there is any chance to update it manually from SD Card or Fastboot. Assuming there is V3.51F version installed, can I simply execute command fastboot update update.zip in fastboot? Will it install only this patch to exisiting OS or replace it?
Do you have any other ideas how to fix it?
Thanks!

Error 7 - Assert failed / Work around gone wrong, Honor 5x bootlooped, no touchscreen

I have used the search function, but to no avail. Also, sorry for no log files – cant access them (see below).
I used a work around „Error 7 – Assert failed“ while trying to flash Lineage OS (lineage-16.0-20200104-nightly-kiwi-signed.zip) for my honor 5x (this work around: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2522762). I was positive that the .zip i used was for my specific phone and that the twrp was the current one. Even after updating to most recent twrp, the error 7 persisted (I did perform the corrext wipes of storage). After „forcing“ the phone to install the .zip anyway (overriding the assert check with the workaround) , my phone is now bootlooped, or worse (stupid me, i guess). During the first restart after flashing, things seemed fine for a few seconds, the lineage logo started to appear for a short while, but disappeared and now only the honor logo appears. It mostly bootloops. I can still access fastboot mode and, with a little luck, also recovery, but touch screen isnt working. Some fastboot commands work, but some do not seem to work, although i am not very experienced with fastboot and cant tell for sure. I have a nandroid backup available.
My questions: How to save the phone? I would be happy to return to stock for now, just to sort things out from there. I couldnt execute most guides to return to stock, since i have no access to twrp (touchscreen no longer reactive). I‘m happy for all ideas.
My firmware KIW-L21C432B160

LG V30 Stuck in First time boot, can't get back in TWRP

Hi Everyone,
Since LG was shutting down their developper tools on the 31st of December, I decided it was time for me to finally install Lineage OS. Unfortunately there occured some problems however. I was hoping some of you could help me troubleshooting and possibly fixing it!
The version I wanted to install is the following version, LineageOS 18: https://www.cyanogenmods.org/lg-v30-lineageos-18/
The guide refers to the following guide to install TWRP, this was done succesfully: https://www.cyanogenmods.org/forums/topic/how-to-install-twrp-and-root-lg-v30/ . I did however lose my phone's data, but I've accepted that already.
I then proceeded to following step, the flashing LineageOS step, in the guide: https://www.cyanogenmods.org/forums/topic/flash-install-custom-rom-twrp-recovery/
In this step a problem occured. It stated that the drive I tried to flash to was encrypted. I could flash LineageOS however I could not boot into it. I needed a password to unencrypt the data. I did not have this password (it was not my phones PIN, SIM PIN or Google account). I wanted to try the flashing process again but format the drive first (since I lost my data anyway, I didn't really care). After formatting the system needed a reboot.
The reboot however is stuck. It always goes instantly to the 1st time boot of Lineage OS (while I haven't reflashed yet). It just gets stuck there (I left it on overnight, still no signs of progress). I tried force rebooting using the powerkey+volumedown, that still works, but I can't turn it completely off. Some googling shows that people suggest reflashing the Lineage OS, but that clearly doesn't work because I can't get into TWRP.
I am currently trying to let Lineage OS drain the battery completely and then upon fresh start up try to boot into the TWRP menu and refresh.
The model I have is the LG V30 H930 (no T-Mobile variants or whatsoever).
Some questions that I have:
1. Did I screw up my phone?
2. If 1. is "No not yet", what are some possible solutions?
Kind regards,
Hidde

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