Dear amazing XDA android developers,
I need your help. You have an opportunity to help someone in need and at the same time do something fun and challenging.
But first a little backstory.
Over the last two years, my car has been broken into numerous times. I've had an old smartphone stolen(my treo 650 which I repurposed for gps nav), a stereo stolen, car chargers stolen. My car dash ripped open. I got another stereo from my grandma for christmas which was stolen a month later, even without the faceplate on it. I've also had my garage door beaten in(not to gain access, just to beat it, I suppose). I lock my car at night, but I also have clinically verifiable ADD, and I can never remember for absolutely sure every single night if I locked it - or if they're getting in some other way.
So you're probably wondering why I'm posting this on the Android hacking forum. I need your help catching the hoodlum who is doing this. I bought a new android phone, the thunderbolt, and it replaced my very aging Droid Eris.
What I want to do is activate the Eris on a second line for a month, and use a rom with specially cooked features to make sure it works flawlessly. I need a rom that can do a fake shutdown, where if you hold the power button and choose shutdown from the menu, it'll do a throbber or some other indicator and then shut off the screen, but continue to run. I plan on supergluing the battery case to the phone. I need the tracking apps to never quit from memory no matter what, and I need the GPS to be accurate and the phone to be stable. I plan on running multiple tracking apps(in case one fails). I have a 3500mah battery for the phone so I'm not terribly concerned with battery life. I need the indicator light blinking fairly often to attract attention. Since the Eris has that nice big white light under the trackball I thought that would help more. I also need to hide the tracking apps from the phone home launcher as well.
I'd leave this specially prepared phone on the dash of my car at night, and when it gets stolen(which I bet will take less than a month to happen), I will be able to call the police and find the neighborhood hoodlums and restore order. I've already talked with the police and they've said if I got them the GPS coordinates they can take action to retrieve the phone.
Can you help me with these features and fight crime in the process?
I wasn't sure if this was the right forum to post this in. I know there's a lot of Eris specifics, but I also know this could be a useful project for others with other phones as well who suffer from vandalism and regular thievery.
I will reward the forum with the story of what happens and the result.
Related
First I would like to introduce myself to these fine forums.
I am I_like_noob but commonly go by the handle "notch" on other parts of the web- most notably the minecraft forums.
I have been active in the phone modding for 50 years. I still remember getting my first rzr as a youngster. You seem to have a great community here and I hope to become a part of it.
I am attempting to do a battery mod on Mesmerize where I modify the connections in my battery bay for mesmerize. When the connections are done being modded I will estimate that I will be able to fit 25 watch batteries into my phone. Not only would this allow for easy hot swaps for when I'm on the road (I am a credit default swap salesman) but it would also increase the battery life of my phone to as much as 25 years! I figure that if a battery watch can power a watch for 25 years then 25 batteries can power my phone for 25! please tell me if there is anything wrong with this.
Now to my problem- I am unable to remove the battery cover on my mezmerize. I have melting it off but the only thing that accomplished was making my phone not turn on anymore. In order to alleviate the heat problem I currently have the phone in a bucket of ice water. Please tell me how else I can fix the phone.
Guys please help me with this. I only got this phone yesterday and I really wan't to mod it.
Thank you so much for your time.
buuuuump buuuuuuuuuump
Title says most everything.
I was traveling across country when my Charge's battery gave up on me. I did like this phone. I stopped in Fargo, ND at a local verizon store and asked if anyone around had a battery. they were helpful and looked all around plus where I was traveling to. No batteries in stock. Of course I could buy one online but that would take days to get delivered. When traveling 1400 miles, one doesn't want to go phoneless for long incase there is trouble.
So I upgraded to a Note 2. I like it a lot but I still don't want to let the charge go away too quickly. I have a neighbor who could use it on his wifi. If only I could find some batteries cheap. My neighbor is legally blind and uses a motorola droid 2. I think he is only able to text because he can tactile feel the buttons on his screen. Regardless, I would like to give him this charge to try if I can find a decent battery cheap enough.
That is about it. I have moved on to a Note 2 and want to keep this charge alive. Any help would be appreciated. Especially if I can keep my low sighted neighbor connected.
God bless
Gonk
Gonkulor said:
Title says most everything.
I was traveling across country when my Charge's battery gave up on me. I did like this phone. I stopped in Fargo, ND at a local verizon store and asked if anyone around had a battery. they were helpful and looked all around plus where I was traveling to. No batteries in stock. Of course I could buy one online but that would take days to get delivered. When traveling 1400 miles, one doesn't want to go phoneless for long incase there is trouble.
So I upgraded to a Note 2. I like it a lot but I still don't want to let the charge go away too quickly. I have a neighbor who could use it on his wifi. If only I could find some batteries cheap. My neighbor is legally blind and uses a motorola droid 2. I think he is only able to text because he can tactile feel the buttons on his screen. Regardless, I would like to give him this charge to try if I can find a decent battery cheap enough.
That is about it. I have moved on to a Note 2 and want to keep this charge alive. Any help would be appreciated. Especially if I can keep my low sighted neighbor connected.
God bless
Gonk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
easy enough. i did this when I gave the Charge to my son. after rooting and installing tweaked 3.2, I was able to install apps like android firewall to prevent his games from accessing the internet.
I then set the phone to airplane mode, then turned on wifi. only problem is that each time the phone reboots, you'll need to enable wifi.
hope this helps.
Gonkulor said:
Title says most everything.
I was traveling across country when my Charge's battery gave up on me. I did like this phone. I stopped in Fargo, ND at a local verizon store and asked if anyone around had a battery. they were helpful and looked all around plus where I was traveling to. No batteries in stock. Of course I could buy one online but that would take days to get delivered. When traveling 1400 miles, one doesn't want to go phoneless for long incase there is trouble.
So I upgraded to a Note 2. I like it a lot but I still don't want to let the charge go away too quickly. I have a neighbor who could use it on his wifi. If only I could find some batteries cheap. My neighbor is legally blind and uses a motorola droid 2. I think he is only able to text because he can tactile feel the buttons on his screen. Regardless, I would like to give him this charge to try if I can find a decent battery cheap enough.
That is about it. I have moved on to a Note 2 and want to keep this charge alive. Any help would be appreciated. Especially if I can keep my low sighted neighbor connected.
God bless
Gonk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also just left the SCH-I510 for the SCH-I605 (this week). Loving the new toy.
Not sure if I can help you in respect to your low sighted neighbor...
Cheap batteries are on eBay, if you don't mind wait. search for "sch-i510 oem battery", last I checked they ran $6-7ish.
I am playing around with a WIFI only ROM to use as foundation for a music player. Not sure if there will be tangible benefits of disabling the non-WIFI Radios, but it might be fun to see. If you are interested let me know...
No promises on when I'll have something to share. For the most part I've got it built, just need to teach myself how to package it as a recovery install zip, or make an ODIN Image.
PS for your neighbor a tablet with a larger screen might be in order. I've got an Acer Iconia A500 that I just rooted/unlocked/ROMed last week. I noticed they are getting cheap on swappa. With ICS+ and the Xposed framework and app settings module you could customize the fonts... just thinking out loud.
PSA: *This will be crossposted in xda HTC One X and HTC One X+ forums, I hope cross posting is allowed, haven't seen it mentioned in rules.*
Hi all,
Quick disclaimer: I've been lurking parts of xda now and again for a couple years now, have flashed a couple of phones and tablets now and again for mainly practical reasons, recently getting more interested in it as a ""fun" interest or "hobby".
SO: I am very aware that this is my first post, the rules, search function, etc. ..
BUT: After extensively searching both google and specifically xda to help me resolve this issue *myself*, I decided to create an account and post. I'm sorry if this Q should have been put in the newbie thread, my assessment was that it probably has no place there.
ALSO PLZ NOTE: What was meant to be a succinct summary and question somehow turned into a condensed but complete rundown of events, so here is a...
TL;DR:
- Replaced HTC One X+ display/digitizer unit myself, ran fine for 5 weeks.
- Then: flashed twrp 2.7x or 2.8, not sure anymore, before installing Android HD Revolution 33.1 by mike1986, and following the official instructions, which ran great for about week until my phone spontaneously BRICKED THE F*CK OUT COMPLETELY.
(yes, true brick, paperweight, robot-corpse, whatever)
=> Question: IS "RETROACTIVE/RETROGRADE BRICKING POSSIBLE/A "THING"??
If so, what could I have done wrong? (POSSIBLY something to do with a bootimage of firmware that I was sure I had the up to date version of... dunno though).
=========================================================================
About 6 weeks ago:
- Cracked the display of my HTC One X+ badly by dropping it onto concrete-type floor at a rave/party
=> Decided to try and replace it myself, researched for a good while (talking several days here, 90s/00s kids),
=> Decided to replace the display/digitizer unit myself to save money and gain knowledge.
Repair process was challenging and nearly as nerve wracking as playing the WSOP (not kidding, have played it three times), had an issue immediately after putting it back together where it suddenly wouldn't charge AT ALL anymore (NO LED), and overheated, and had unusually fast battery drain of its remaining charge (which never ran out completely before resolving that issue, since I kept turning it off whenever possible).
=> Took it apart and put it together again XX times until realizing the power switch flex cable kept slipping out of its two (jawbone?) connectors during putting it back together (I was doing something wrong with the flex positioning).
=> This resolved the issue.
=> Felt like a hero and that I win at life (since this phone has a rep as being hard to meddle with, and this was my first time even opening, let alone taking apart a smartphone).
=> Continued joyful phone shenanigans for over one month.
=> THEN: Decided to root it, mainly because there was a particular app I wanted that required root ("Quick reply for Whatsapp/Pushbullet", for the curious).
My previous, very limited rooting/flashing experiences =
- Google Nexus One (CWM/Cyanogen) a few times, years ago
- Galaxy Tab 10.1 (CWM/Cyanogen 10.1 ages ago, TWRP/Omnirom Kitkat 4.4.4 recently) a couple times.
So, did my research (or so I thought..?) for this particular custom ROM, decided to go for Android Revolution HD for HTC One X/+ 33.1 by mike 1986 (because it looked fckin awesome, and it was, while it ran) and loved the sh*t out of my "new" phone for about a week. Especially the vastly improved battery life seemed almost surreal, a big deal for a fixed-battery phone.
Then, ONE FATFUL EVENING in a bar, I remember looking at my phone and seeing 35% left, (days before it would've been an amazing 70-80% on an avg. day), which may not be relevant as it was my birthday, so had been using it a lot that day => may be a moot point
- Next time I looked at the phone ( < 1 hour without active use for sure) it was dead.
"Hmmmm," thought slightly drunk me. Whatever, charge it later, weird sh*t happens.
- Got home later, charged it over night after booting it with usb cord attached (mains).
Seemed normal, I even set an alarm.
=> Alarm never rang because it was in a powered-off state again come morning, despite all-night charging.
=> It booted to HTC logo. Seconds later, it turned off again. Held down power again, all I saw was the soft touch buttons flashing red a few times. After this it unexpectedly became (or was secretly crowned):
!! COMPLETE AND UTTER FCKNG KING BRICK OF BRICK COUNTRY AND ATTACHED TERRITORIES !!
No power on with or without volume up/down held for whatever amount of time;
No charging, no heating up when "charging";
No LED in any colour or flashing frequency, ever;
No response after hours and days of charging on different USB cables on PC/wall socket;
PCs and laptops don't register a sign of anything when it penetrates their port parts, etc etc...
...
.Even that semi-mystical bright-light-exposure-while-charging "light sensor manipulation" thing (which apparently worked for a lo of people with similar issues) did nothing for the cause.
Promotion: *Paperweight status successfully acquired.* Yay.
=====================================================
Now, obviously my first thought was that the power flex that gave me trouble during display replacement probably slipped again., somehow (I had taped it down solidly I thought).
=> SO I opened it once again, flex position seemed ok, but I wasn't sure of its functionality as it did look kind of battered from the somewhat unprofessional repair I had conducted on it (which I openly admit to, though I really did try my absolute best).
- Spontaneously took mainboard/battery combo to a local independent phone/accessory shop after being told they'd take a look for free
(I was in there was in there buying a microsim adapter so I could use my ancient Nexus One, since my GF has my old S2 now, which she kindly offered back, but its hers now, so nah. Great phone though.)
=>Shop's advice echoed my thoughts: Flex cable may be screwed, I may have damaged it by bending in the wrong direction/too often, and that damage somehow didn't manifest until much later. I didn't mention the recent rooting + flashing as I deemed it irrelevant at the time.
Their secondary thoughts: Battery or mini-usb port fukt, (which would require soldering, which they don't even offer).
=> SO, feeling confirmed in my layman's assessment, I cheaply got a pristine new replacement flex on ebay, double checked all videos/tutorials, implemented the damn thing with considerably more skill/experience and even higher anticipation. What happened next was shocking:
Absolutely nothing, obv.
=> Did an additional epic f*ckton of internet/forum research, found similar problems and some resolutions, but no real answers, probably because my main problem translates to a kind of hybrid question.
So here I am now am with my core question:
Is it possible to FULLY brick an HTC/any smartphone but not become aware of this until one week later, when the device dies OVER ONE WEEK of reliable and amazing performance?
(and if yes, what aspect/stage of the flashing process is this likely related to?)
If the answer is NO, it must be a hardware fault with probability rank (I think)
:
1.) Battery dead for whatever reason
2.) Mini USB OR mainboard/integral component (equal rank as not sure), possibly caused by incompetent repair, but why or how would this express itself over a month later??
3.) Other, which I'm not aware of.
While researching new ROMS for the N1, I realized that I may have messed up on the "bootimg part" of the flashing process of the Revolution ROM, a part I found v. confusing in the instructions, even after rereading them many, many times. It was about the most recent firmware, which I was pretty sure I had anyway, since it was unrooted before and I do remember installing some firmware updates over the air.
I still did my best to follow the instructions though.
=> Maybe this has something to do with it, i.e. the hardware can't accept a charge because the software allowed it to become too uncharged (a fairly paradox concept to me, but apparently it can happen. Guess it's like a BIOS-type thing).
Thank you for anyone who read this far!
As it stands, I refuse to give up hope so soon after experiencing that rush of having fixed it myself.
Any specific or general help, tips, hints, pointers, replacement phones (One M8 or S5 plz., Iphones will go straight on ebay) would and will be greatly appreciated!!
The obvious choice is to get a new battery and see what happens, but I'm not sure if I wanna sink any more money into this phone, only to later find out the mainboard is at fault (not worth the money replacing), AKA "get a new phone without a contract", which would more than suck for me financially atm (Im ignoring my N1 here, which I love, but don't wanna be stuck with, esp. as it has the standard-issue broken power button (which I actually had repaired once under warranty, back in the ol' days of yore some prefer to refer to as 2009.
So guys: What's my move, if there is one, besides going to a local/online service centre (I live in Germany btw.) and probably paying unproportionate cash money to even have it looked at?
Cheers, thanks, merci, danke
PS: Just saw the polling function, so I attached one just for the hell of it, to see what happens (never used one before).
If you feel both qualified AND so inclined as to pass judgement on this here serious business, please indicate what you think may be the cause of my issue.
*BUMP 1*
Come on guys, I know it's a wall of text, but can't someone at least answer the TL;DR?
=> Is is possible to flash a custom rom which then (possibly because of improper installation) causes the phone to brick about a week later?
Simple question surely!
Starting a thread about the Cellallure Miracle 6.0 S dual sim factory unlocked phone. There is so very little info from the manufacture and anywhere on the internet. These phones are great for the fact they are unlocked, support all bands, take two SIM cards, and are fully programmable. The problem is there is no real instructions or help for the phone. So I am asking for any and all info to program and use these phones. I have Metro PCS so I am looking for specific info on this, but I am hoping to have a complete guide for as many carriers as possible with these phones. Thanks!!! :good:
Was thinking of returning
It hasn't been that great of a phone for me. the dual sim thing never really worked and the screen is wanky. battery is so-so (I think 'cuz) I use an old Kyocera travel charger that's 350mA overnight. also doesn't stay connected to BT devices. as an added inconvenience, the sim cards and micro SD are stacked in such a way that you have to pull the battery and use an exacto knife or needle to get them out; there is no spring load on the SD so its really hard to get out from under the sim slots. I just checked here (XDA) to see if anyone had made the OS better. I might keep it if there's a chance it can be improved. I just turned off the screen lock and removed my google account. there was no option to remove the IMAP account and when I tried to remove the Opera mini account I received an error message saying this operation is not allowed by your administrator. OK check this out; heres the menu from a bootup whilst holding down the Vol- and power button ( with typical 1 sec release and repress of said power button):
Oh wait I need to have image hosting to do that huh? anyway it said Factory Mode: Auto Test, Manual Test, Item Test, Test Report, Debug Test, Clear eMMC, Version (which brought up a really cool page in neon green) and Reboot.
CellAllure Miracle 6.0 S = The best $32.98 I've spent in a long time.
After severely busting up the screen & then some on the POS Samsung (shouldn't be allowed to call itself a Galaxy) ON5 and tearing my ACL at the same time roughly 3 months ago I'd been in desperate need of a new phone. Hell, I've needed a new phone since about 5 minutes after I got that ON5, but that's neither here nor there.
I had, and still do, grandiose ideas of replacing the busted up screen on my nearly brand new Lumia 1520 but even I had to admit that taking on a project of that magnitude with that type of complexity was biting off more than I could chew. So needless to say I've suffered with low-end, sub-par mobile devices for longer than any relatively tech savvy and attractive blonde female ever should, but I didn't want to invest another penny into a crappy phone that I'll hate within 41 minutes of ownship, so I suffered for my cause patiently waiting for "The One" to present itself when the time was right. I was planning on a Nokia 6/8 or a Blackberry KeyOne, or even possibly splurging on The Essentials Phone, but then I ran across a deal while crusing the clearance inventories of a few of my favorite big box retailers for the CellAllure Miracle 6.0 that I couldn't pass up, even if I wanted to., plus it was an added bonus that I found said deal on my B-day weekend. SCORE!!
I picked up this amazingly quick, fluid and I'll even say lovely lil mobile device for the super low clearance price of only $32.98 at a Target store that was only 7 miles from my house. Granted, I have a Target on my backyard, but for whatever reason the Miracle 6.0 hadn't been marked down from full price ($129.98) yet even though they had 5-6 sitting on the rack. I found that price at only 4-5 stores, but others had it proved at $54.98, which is a steal for a phone this awesome.
My uncle had to have his iPhone 6 plus replaced once again because of the known flaw in the motherboard the same weekend and as has he's setting up his iPhone 6S Plus I'm happily setting up my Miracle & my uncle had to stop and look at my phone for a second. He did a double take. He was me again how much I paid for it and then shook his head while handling his overpriced Apple scam of the season when he realized that my phone was not only comparable to his, but better than the iPhone in many ways and I paid less than the going rate for a take for a tank of gas for my phone.
I'm beyond satisfied with it, but like you said, there is little to no information to be found online about the phone itself, any MODs for it, or even info on how to take a flipping screenshot with the damn thing, which is what I'm trying to do. I was hoping that I'd find more info here since you guys are my go-to source when I need a plethora of information asap about a mobile device. But if looks like you're just as lost as I am.
Hopefully we will be able to gather up enough info in the near future to compile compendium of knowledge,
tips, tricks, hacks, and the like for all users of the CellAllure Miracle 6 0 S to enjoy for years to come!!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
SS
SS - power + volume down or hold down the power until the reboot/shut down menu pops up. Last option is SS..
But hopefully you've figured some of this out by now lol
Cellallure miracle 6.0s battery fix
Hey if anyone is having issues with the battery life on this phone just fully charge it with the phone off and install the battery calibration app .I did this and it fixed my battery problems. As for the programing its easy to connect to any network just call service provider give them your imei and that should get the call and text working buy if online is not working I'll post steps to fix that.
typing issues
Has anyone else noticed or experienced the difficulty typing on this phone? I will be typing and letters that I have typed just disappear.
I'm sure I'll get some haters, who think I am simply nuts but this is a REAL problem that I've got to solve.
For the last 6 years I've had a mysterious stalker and hacker, who renders most of my and my family's devices nonfunctional and breaks into my accounts and generally makes my life much harder. It has recently come to light that it isn't a hacker SINGULAR but at least 3 guys, hellbent on destroying me: my daughter's father, her uncle, who is a military hacker and their friend, who managed to ingratiate himself with me, until my daughter's father confessed, when I confronted him with evidence against him and his brother, saying he didn't mean for it to get this out of hand. Well, thanks for the heads up but it's a little late, because it IS this out of hand and the wheels of justice grind slowly.
Meanwhile, I am still hacked, even worse now, because his brother got out of the military and moved back to town and has a lot more time and access now. Calls and texts are being intercepted so frequently, that I now use Google Voice/Hangouts to communicate, knowing that nothing I say is ever private but at least people get my messages and I get their calls that way.
I'm looking for a job and I need a device that he won't be able to spy on, so I went to Best Buy and purchased a phone card and moderately priced android phone and took it home to resume my job hunt. I planned never to call any of my usual contacts with the phone but just use it for work stuff. Within hours, it was acting buggy and when I restarted it, it did not go to the regular black screen that says "your device is encrypted for security" but showed my regular background and said "please enter your password when starting android". On my note 8 and 9, that would often happen and when I went to security options, secure startup would be disabled. I checked and secure startup was still supposedly enabled. In ADB "adb shell getprop ro.crypto.state" returned "unencrypted".
I returned the phone and purchased a Google Pixel, hoping their physical security device MIGHT be more effective than Knox at protecting me from this guy. I purchased a brand new sim card and spent another 50 bucks on a phone card, from a different company.
Since my daughter's father has moved within a half-mile of me (despite having no contact with her and very little with me) 4 times now, I speculated that he was, perhaps, using a directional yagi antenna to scan my area for new device beacons and then (skip forward a few steps) find out what apps are installed on those devices, to determine if they are mine. With that in mind, I never even turned the Pixel on at my house.
That night, I took the phone to a random emergency room with secure wifi, to which I know the password and proceeded to set it up. I made a new google account, as usual and installed a bunch of random apps, such as black dating apps (since I am white, I figured that, if my theory was right, it might throw them off my scent) and games I would never play and apps for banks of which I am not a member. By the first time I restarted the phone, still at the emergency room, it had the exact same problem. It purported to be encrypted but (adb later verified) it was not. Apparently, the cheap phone faired slightly better than the pixel, in this department, because the first one was reencrypted upon reset, while the Pixel was not. I never activated or inserted a sim card in the pixel and while I had my regular phone and tablet along with me, they were powered off, in the car.
I was pretty sure, after the first phone was compromised, that I was onto something with my beacon frame theory but it would not explain what happened at the emergency room, unless there is a tracking device in my car, which IS likely, because I continually find my car torn up in all sorts of ways. They even broke off the panel on the driver's door with lock and window switches and the lid of my center console and I continually find the carpet pulled away from the trim. Then again, they also put something caustic in the wiper fluid tank, which destroyed both tank and windshield, so it could also have all been done simply out of malice.
Having no better ideas, I ran a bug detector over my car and found that there IS a radio signal being emitted from somewhere around the gearshift or cd player. I took apart the area around the gearshift and found nothing. In that department, the only remaining possibility is that they've actually put something inside of the cd player itself, the screen of which quit working a while back. I have the ribbon cable to fix it, so maybe I'll get lucky when I crack it open in a bit. The signal DOES appear strongest at the CD player but it could be anything, even catalytic converters can emit radio signals.
Assuming my bug theory is wrong, does anyone have any other idea of how these guys could have discovered and hacked those phones? I've got to find a way to evade these people or I'll never have anything like a normal life, until they're finally in jail.
Wow!
I have not heard of such hacks, even when it comes to national security.
What is the motive of these three people ?
I have no clue but with there skill in not sure an iphone would fare much better