Database Info

Fighting a lost cause?

I've got a rooted (Super SU, but the original root manager was Superuser) LG C800 that I was having problems with. To be specific, I installed some apps on to the system. Some of these apps would be Titanium Backup for root, Avast Mobile Security, ROM Tool Box Lite, Super SU, and a quite a few others. From day one they seem to be kicked right back to my S.D. card, but not all at the same time, and some would stay on the system. I read where I should move the apps back to my S.D. card and try to re-install them on the system minus the data. When I did, the phone went nuts. Now it stays in a restart mode but never fully boots up. Can I salvage it, and if so, please tell me how?! I have tried the hard reset/recovery boot where you hold down the power button, volume, and a few other keys, but it did not work. I'm a broke college student and can't really afford to buy a new phone. I used this one for everything including tethering it to get my assignments done at home and turned in on time. Please help! I'm open to suggestions....... My phone will be completely off. When I plug it into my computer, via U.S.B., it automatically turns it on whether I want it to be on or not. Then it starts off in "reboot recovery" mode, will boot all the way to the point to where the home screen would normally turn on, but then it starts in that "boot loop" all over again but never fully boots up before going back to the beginning of that "boot loop" yet again. I can't even get it to register on my laptop as being plugged in. The reason I took the apps I placed on the system off was because sometimes when I'd re-boot the system the apps would be on the system and sometimes back on my S.D. card without my involvement of any kind other than rebooting my phone. Is completing a Nandroid recovery or re-installation of my ROM even possible with my computer no longer recognizing it as even being plugged in? From what I can tell it won't be. Am I fighting a lost cause or is it salvageable?
Rooted myTouch Q 4G, a.k.a. LG C800
I believe it has a 2.3.4 GRJ22-perf, and then something like 2.6.35.7? I can't remember off the top of my head, and I can't pull it up on my phone anymore or else I'd double check.

Have you tried booting into recovery?

(More about my phone from the original post) Honestly.........I'm not what you may consider technologically inclined. I have however done about as much research online concerning this matter as any one person can do. I've looked it up on all major sites, and many smaller ones too, that post remedies for phone, or "human" if you'd rather, malfunctions. They all talk about still being able to reach a home screen or doing the whole holding the power and volume decrease buttons until I "reboot recovery" screen appears (if that's what you're referring to as doing a recovery reboot as). Don't forget the one where you hold hold the power and volume decrease buttons along with the "A" and "F" keys as well. I even tried one from here where you're supposed to push the genius button after the Android figure leaves the screen. My phone won't allow me to do either. Basically if it's online, I myself, or this girl that's been staying with me, have tried it without any results. On the initial boot the Android figure and the box with the arrow coming out of it show up and it boots until just about the point that it use to switch over to the home screen and it will start the whole "boot loop" over again. The thing is though that the Android figure and box aren't there any other time after the first boot, and with every boot loop it makes after that, the time is reduced from the beginning of the loop to the end when it starts all over again. The phone won't shut off unless I remove the battery and even though my laptop no longer recognizes the device, when I plug my phone into it or another power source and it's off, it automatically turns itself on and begins that boot loop all over again. there is one thing I have yet to try. I read on one site where I could download a custom ROM on my S.D. and then try reboot it, but it never makes it to the point in which the files on my S.D. card are ran, much less scanned. I am still 100% open to any and all suggestions in the diagnosis of this issue. I may record and place a video on one of the more popular "tube" sites to better show or further explain what's happening and then come back on here to post the link?! Feel free to reply back if it's possible you can help before I'm able to complete that later this evening. And thanks for any and all help in advance to everyone.

[Q] Nexus S i9020A Bricked due to failing power button - Odin seems the last hope?

Hi everyone,
INTRO:
So the power button on my Nexus S broke. No big deal, I remapped it to the search button and used the volume rocker to wake the device; an option that was embedded in Cyanogenmod9.
Then I upgraded to CM10... since I did that on top of CM9, my volume rocker option was still enabled, but the option is no longer in CM10's GUI.
I had some annoying issue and thought maybe I should wipe my phone; which I did.
Sadly, I realized that my "wake using volume rocker" option was no longer enabled, and there is no GUI to turn it back on.
I then found a .zip package that was supposed to enable the option but, I guess I went too fast, now my phone is stuck on a bootloop.
THE PROBLEM:
Since my power button is broken, I cannot navigate in the fastboot menu to recovery and fix the ROM.
Worst, since the power button is somehow shorted (i.e.: it powers on automatically when I insert the battery) Fastboot is not working properly and my PC never sees my phone, so you can forget about fastboot boot recovery.img
So: boot loop, power button broke, no recovery, no fastboot. =(
I searched quite a bit and found out you could get the Nexus S in download mode and get it to work with ODIN using a USB JIG.
I made myself such a JIG and successfully put the phone in some kind of download mode where my PC sees it, fastboot devices yields nothing *but* ODIN sees the phone!
So a glimmer of hope except for the fact that finding the .tar files for the Nexus S seems impossible...
Thoughts? Suggestion? TIA!
Francis // XC3N

Oh BTW:
-Yes I saw the other posts, but none of them mention the odin files
-Yes, I know fastboot is better; but it's not working and:
-No, I can't see the device on 3 different PCs using 3 different OSes and 3 Different cables when in fastboot mode
I mean by that last line that *nothing* shows in device manager in Win7 or XP and *nothing* shows in lsusb on ubuntu
So unless someone has an idea it looks like Download mode is the only way my PC sees my phone...

My power button done the same thing, I googled around and found a solution that worked for me.
It's somewhere here on xda but I don't got the link, basically everytime I booted into the bootloader I couldn't move the cursor with the volume button because the phone thought I was holding the power button, so I carefully tapped the casing around the power button and rebooted the bootloader and eventually I had control, it took 5-6 attempts to get it going but it did fix the power button for me.
I think it's something to do with the micro switches giving out after a certain number of uses.
Also it started screwing about recently so I just blew into the casing through the power button and it's behaved ever since.
In short, tap it until it works, once you have control of fastboot plug the usb in and your pc should detect it
Hope this helps, Good Luck
Sent from my U20i using xda app-developers app

Muckyfox said:
My power button done the same thing, I googled around and found a solution that worked for me.
It's somewhere here on xda but I don't got the link, basically everytime I booted into the bootloader I couldn't move the cursor with the volume button because the phone thought I was holding the power button, so I carefully tapped the casing around the power button and rebooted the bootloader and eventually I had control, it took 5-6 attempts to get it going but it did fix the power button for me.
Also it started screwing about recently so I just blew into the casing through the power button and it's behaved ever since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey MuckyFox thanks for your reply!
Unfortunately, that would've worked back when the power button was flimsy and still working once in a while... I did try the tapping thing but really nothing works... the button seems entirely dead and shorted. I guess at this point I might've to bring it in for repair... if the power button isn't broken then I'll be able to easily fix everything in recovery or fastboot. Sucks because I feel like I'm so close to getting it to work without spending money XD I just can't find the files for odin even though they really do seem to exist.

Allright so I found some odin files which were said to work with the i9020a
I flashed them... at some point it said "RESET!" and then odin no longer saw the device. The device is now not booting at all. FML

So this thread is going to end up like every other similar thread: I went and bought a Galaxy Nexus ;P
For posterity, these are the files you shouldn't flash on i9020A:
BOOTLOADER : Bootloader_I9020XXJK1.tar
PDA : PDA_SOJU_GRH78_85442_SIGNED.tar
PHONE:
CSC : CSC_I9020_EUR.tar

My power button started failing over the last couple of days. First when I would set the phone to standby it would ask me if I wanted to switch off the device, then later on it wouldnt respond at all.
Really weird solution - boot into recovery, factory restore, clear dalvik cache, voila, works good as new! (aside from losing all my settings)
Note, I barely managed to get into recovery. The power button fully stopped working halfway through and I had to take the battery out and try it a couple of times.
Oddly, even during this uber-broken phase, the power button would always switch on the device when fully switched off (not just standby) indicating to me that it wasnt just a physical broken connection.

I've mentioned this before, but a full casing for the phone with all the buttons is around $10 on eBay
Sent from my Nexus S using xda app-developers app

XC3N said:
So this thread is going to end up like every other similar thread: I went and bought a Galaxy Nexus ;P
For posterity, these are the files you shouldn't flash on i9020A:
BOOTLOADER : Bootloader_I9020XXJK1.tar
PDA : PDA_SOJU_GRH78_85442_SIGNED.tar
PHONE:
CSC : CSC_I9020_EUR.tar
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need stuff for SOJUA, and just the fact CSC has EUR meaning Europe in it would scare the crap out of me. Possible you just flashed stuff meant for i9020T and not i9020A.

In case anybody comes back here, I'm just gonna drop this in.

[Q] Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Hacked, Touchscreen unresponsive

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Hacked, Touchscreen unresponsive
Hi! I need help with my tablet.
Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Tablet, model GT-P5113 TS. This model doesn't have a way to yank out the battery.
What's wrong: Touchscreen is not responding.
Current state: Attempting to drain the battery. Doesn't appear to be turned on. Factory reset apparently performed.
What happened: Sorry, this is long. It is as best as I can remember it. It may be somewhat inaccurate.
Yesterday evening, I was on my Windows laptop and logged into my Google account. I *thought* I used the Google Play Store to install Chrome to the tablet. (I had looked at the html5test website and it said Chrome had a higher HTML5 rating than the Dolphin/Jetpack browser I've been using on my tablet.)
But something went terribly wrong.
After sending Chrome to it, I unlocked the tablet and used both Chrome and Dolphin to go to html5test website. They both scored the same or nearly the same. I don't know if any of that is relevant, but I'm including it just in case.
At some point after that, I woke the tablet with the power key and used my unlock pattern on the dots lock screen.
That's when I saw what I believe was mal-ware in action. The settings menus were scrolling and sub-menus being selected, all by themselves. I couldn't say exactly what was changed because whatever program or script that was running the process was going extremely fast.
When I realized it might be trying to send out data over my Wifi network, I turned off the Wifi router in my home.
I repeatedly held down the power key to turn the system off, but doing so only rebooted back to the useless lock screen which was not responding to anything. The normal method of holding the power button for a few seconds to bring up the menu and then tapping the "Power Off" option on that menu refused to power off the system. Nothing on that menu responded to touch.
Entering my pattern on the lock screen did absolutely nothing. I didn't even see any lines traced when I ran my finger over the screen.
At some point, I pulled out the external SD card. I have no idea if whatever hacked the tablet also put a copy of itself on the SD card.
I called a friend who looked up how to restore the tablet to factory settings. I didn't understand the directions exactly, so I ended up on a screen with a Warning!! about installing a Custom OS. (Holding down the Power + Volume Up seems to get me there)
I left it on this screen, and I turned my router back on and using my laptop, contacted Live Chat at Samsung but they didn't understand my problem. They told me to reboot the device and swipe my pattern several times and then after several failed attempts I would have the chance to use my Google credentials to get into it. But the device apparently never registered that my swipe attempts were failing.
So my device was booted up with me locked out, with the WiFi router on for a little while again. I turned off the router as soon as I realized that. That disconnected the chat session, but since Samsung chat wasn't helping me anyway, I didn't bother trying to go back.
I got the device back to the "Warning!!" screen. Then turned the router back on and searched for how to do a factory reset of the device. I found a video on YouTube and followed it.
I pressed the Volume Down and Power buttons simultaneously, followed by letting go of the power button. That brought up a menu which contained several options, including an option to do a factory reset. I used the volume buttons to highlight that and pressed Power key. A second screen came up and I used the volume buttons and power button to select "Yes" to confirm the reset.
It appeared to have done a factory reset, rebooting eventually.
However, after that, when I tried to tap on the touch screen to move forward through the selections, the touch screen was still unresponsive!
So I brought back the "Warning!!" screen and ran the battery down until the screen was blank and it wouldn't start when I held the power key.
Then I charged it for about 20 minutes and rebooted it. I think when it came back it was on the Recovery menu. I think I did a second factory reset, but not 100% sure. It eventually rebooted after a lot longer than usual.
When it came up, it was saying battery was low. I tried to tap the OK button, but nothing happened. Behind the battery window was the first setting screen to set up the device for the first time after a factory reset. (I think selecting USA?)
I brought back the "Warning!!" screen and left it on overnight so that the battery would run down.
That was about 8 hours ago. When I woke up, I used clear tape to keep the power button pressed down, to ensure that the battery will continue to run down.
____________________________________________
What do I do next? How do I get the touch screen to start working again? It is not a hardware problem, unless mal-ware can break the hardware. The touchscreen had been working fine until this happened.
Should I take the tablet back to Best Buy where I bought it at least a year (maybe 2 years) ago? I don't know if it's still under warranty.
I have over 20 year of experience as a software developer, but not for Android. I am not very experienced with doing anything to hardware.
Should I try to fix it myself?
I have never rooted any Android device and I'm not sure what that means, either.
I've never re-installed the ______ ? (rom? image? Odin?)
I read on this and/or other forums that there's a way to replace something, but the instructions were beyond my level of understanding. I would need the procedures to be broken down into steps which don't assume too much about what I know.
I understand how to download a file to Windows, given a URL for it. I understand what a zip file is and how to extract it. I understand how to press hardware buttons and plug in cables, and do these steps in the order I'm told.
I don't understand what I'd use to get the downloaded whatever-they-are onto the tablet to replace whatever-the-other-thing-is so that the touchscreen works again.
As far as I know, Odin is a Norse god.
The only firmware updates I've ever done are the ones that the device does on it's own through Samsung's updates.
I'd deeply appreciate getting this device back since I have extremely limited funds and probably won't be able to buy a replacement.
Thank you,
Linda

LMurphy said:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Hacked, Touchscreen unresponsive
Hi! I need help with my tablet.
Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Tablet, model GT-P5113 TS. This model doesn't have a way to yank out the battery.
What's wrong: Touchscreen is not responding.
Current state: Attempting to drain the battery. Doesn't appear to be turned on. Factory reset apparently performed.
What happened: Sorry, this is long. It is as best as I can remember it. It may be somewhat inaccurate.
Yesterday evening, I was on my Windows laptop and logged into my Google account. I *thought* I used the Google Play Store to install Chrome to the tablet. (I had looked at the html5test website and it said Chrome had a higher HTML5 rating than the Dolphin/Jetpack browser I've been using on my tablet.)
But something went terribly wrong.
After sending Chrome to it, I unlocked the tablet and used both Chrome and Dolphin to go to html5test website. They both scored the same or nearly the same. I don't know if any of that is relevant, but I'm including it just in case.
At some point after that, I woke the tablet with the power key and used my unlock pattern on the dots lock screen.
That's when I saw what I believe was mal-ware in action. The settings menus were scrolling and sub-menus being selected, all by themselves. I couldn't say exactly what was changed because whatever program or script that was running the process was going extremely fast.
When I realized it might be trying to send out data over my Wifi network, I turned off the Wifi router in my home.
I repeatedly held down the power key to turn the system off, but doing so only rebooted back to the useless lock screen which was not responding to anything. The normal method of holding the power button for a few seconds to bring up the menu and then tapping the "Power Off" option on that menu refused to power off the system. Nothing on that menu responded to touch.
Entering my pattern on the lock screen did absolutely nothing. I didn't even see any lines traced when I ran my finger over the screen.
At some point, I pulled out the external SD card. I have no idea if whatever hacked the tablet also put a copy of itself on the SD card.
I called a friend who looked up how to restore the tablet to factory settings. I didn't understand the directions exactly, so I ended up on a screen with a Warning!! about installing a Custom OS. (Holding down the Power + Volume Up seems to get me there)
I left it on this screen, and I turned my router back on and using my laptop, contacted Live Chat at Samsung but they didn't understand my problem. They told me to reboot the device and swipe my pattern several times and then after several failed attempts I would have the chance to use my Google credentials to get into it. But the device apparently never registered that my swipe attempts were failing.
So my device was booted up with me locked out, with the WiFi router on for a little while again. I turned off the router as soon as I realized that. That disconnected the chat session, but since Samsung chat wasn't helping me anyway, I didn't bother trying to go back.
I got the device back to the "Warning!!" screen. Then turned the router back on and searched for how to do a factory reset of the device. I found a video on YouTube and followed it.
I pressed the Volume Down and Power buttons simultaneously, followed by letting go of the power button. That brought up a menu which contained several options, including an option to do a factory reset. I used the volume buttons to highlight that and pressed Power key. A second screen came up and I used the volume buttons and power button to select "Yes" to confirm the reset.
It appeared to have done a factory reset, rebooting eventually.
However, after that, when I tried to tap on the touch screen to move forward through the selections, the touch screen was still unresponsive!
So I brought back the "Warning!!" screen and ran the battery down until the screen was blank and it wouldn't start when I held the power key.
Then I charged it for about 20 minutes and rebooted it. I think when it came back it was on the Recovery menu. I think I did a second factory reset, but not 100% sure. It eventually rebooted after a lot longer than usual.
When it came up, it was saying battery was low. I tried to tap the OK button, but nothing happened. Behind the battery window was the first setting screen to set up the device for the first time after a factory reset. (I think selecting USA?)
I brought back the "Warning!!" screen and left it on overnight so that the battery would run down.
That was about 8 hours ago. When I woke up, I used clear tape to keep the power button pressed down, to ensure that the battery will continue to run down.
____________________________________________
What do I do next? How do I get the touch screen to start working again? It is not a hardware problem, unless mal-ware can break the hardware. The touchscreen had been working fine until this happened.
Should I take the tablet back to Best Buy where I bought it at least a year (maybe 2 years) ago? I don't know if it's still under warranty.
I have over 20 year of experience as a software developer, but not for Android. I am not very experienced with doing anything to hardware.
Should I try to fix it myself?
I have never rooted any Android device and I'm not sure what that means, either.
I've never re-installed the ______ ? (rom? image? Odin?)
I read on this and/or other forums that there's a way to replace something, but the instructions were beyond my level of understanding. I would need the procedures to be broken down into steps which don't assume too much about what I know.
I understand how to download a file to Windows, given a URL for it. I understand what a zip file is and how to extract it. I understand how to press hardware buttons and plug in cables, and do these steps in the order I'm told.
I don't understand what I'd use to get the downloaded whatever-they-are onto the tablet to replace whatever-the-other-thing-is so that the touchscreen works again.
As far as I know, Odin is a Norse god.
The only firmware updates I've ever done are the ones that the device does on it's own through Samsung's updates.
I'd deeply appreciate getting this device back since I have extremely limited funds and probably won't be able to buy a replacement.
Thank you,
Linda
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely sounds like malware. You have two choices that I see, either root and custom rom or flash back to stock. Since you are stock you'd just be overwriting your existing install. Read this thread and decide your course of action http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2203309

[Completed] Htc One M8 hardware buttons working weirdly

Hello everyone! So I've had my phone (HTC One M8) rooted and custom recovery and rom installed for a little while now. The latest rom I've installed was Android Revolution HD 22.1. I also have twrp 2.8.1.0 installed. The other day my phone got wet and started to constantly reboot itself, wouldn't shut off and stay off, would never actually start. I put it in a cup of rice for 2 days, then proceeded to plug it in to charge it. Once charged enough I tried to turn it on. It only made it the HTC One logo screen and would vibrate every 10 seconds or so. I tried rebooting several times and no matter what I did with different button combinations I could not get it to load into bootloader. Eventually with restarting different ways and "mechanically stressing" the phone (short temper lol) I managed to get it to loading into the rom itself. From there I opened hasoons all in one toolkit to reboot directly into recovery and recovered to the stock rom. So the phone will now reboot with no problem into this rom. I haven't tried reflashing the ARHD 22.1 rom again because im afraid it'll break again. However, while in the stock rom everything work fines except for the volume up button which does nothing, except for while the screen is off, if I turn my phone to landscape the camera app will open without me even pressing the volume up button. If I reboot into bootloader via the quickboot app or hasoons toolkit, my volume down button with make the cursor go up, the volume up button does nothing, and the power button does nothing. The only thing I can do in bootloader is to hold power+volume up to get the phone to reboot. I also cannot get bootloader to load by holding volume down+power. So, After all that explaining, my main question would be, do you think that the buttons are shorting in a weird way because of water damage, or do you think my software got corrupted because of all the rebooting it did? Any help is appreciated, thanks!
-Tim

Hi,
You could try a clean flash of the rom.... If you're sure the wonky buttons won't interfere with the flash, because if they do... You'll be left with no OS on the device.
Water can affect many things, especially with power on while it was wet. This will be hard to solve, and could get costly. Usually with water damage, you fix or replace one thing, only to find now that something else doesn't work. Can turn into a real money pit.
You're issue isn't so bad, but my usual advice for worse cases are save your money for a new device, because you may never get your device fully working and spend a lot of money trying to fix it.
Ah, I just saw you already asked for help in your device section. Good. ?
Then this thread can be closed, as we're here to help navigate the site, not support.
Thank you.

Samsung J7 Prime (2017) SM-G610Y Boot Looping Problem

Good day, this would be a pretty lengthy post. I'd like to describe my experience clearly since I don't know what I possibly skipped over as I am very positive that my efforts have been correct basing on prior XDA forums. I even made this account solely for posting this to ask for help formally along with archiving this problem I'm having for those having a similar experience.
I've been working on my mom's phone this whole day and there are fruits of my current hard work. I am immensely stressed and despairing with my situation.
The Problems
Infinite boot looping
Can't access the recovery menu (power, volume+, even with home button)
Can access the ODIN / Download menu
Can't turn off either (holding down power button has no effect)
What I've done so far
I read XDA forums about similar experiences. Can't really access the recovery menu so I've factory reset.
We live in the Philippines and this phone is open line, so I went with those requirements while searching stock ROMs.
I downloaded the stock ROMs of the phone model via galaxyfirmware.com which was positively shared in the forums.
Did trial and error with it and eventually got the right one. I have formed a level of understanding with the filenames and eventually knew which is compatible.
Used Odin3 to Flash the BL, AP, CP, CSC, and even go Nand Erase and got the PIT file inside the CSC (Opened it using winrar)
The flashing is actually successful and quite fast to be honest.
The phone reboots itself and shows that it is still sadly boot looping.
Also, despite the several files used for the Flash, still can't access the Recovery Menu.
With that said, I have also tried using Frija which automatically downloaded the stock ROMs based on the model name and CSC type. Placed it in ODIN again and no changes, still boot looping.
I also can't put the TWRP I got here because of the FRP Lock, which can be undone via the settings of the phone. But since it's boot looping, I can't really do much about installing a custom ROM.
Currently, my dad is letting the phone drain its battery, since we can't really turn it off. The phone model doesn't have easily detachable battery as well, unlike the old days.
For some additional notes of what happened prior to this incident
My mom was just playing with her phone as her usual days went on. That day, she installed a new hotel-themed game she saw on Google Play. As I assume that it's from the app itself and not on some shady apk website, I saw no problem with it and didn't think it was the cause of all this. I went with the theory anyway and with the flashing, using CSC instead of HOME_CSC (which apparently saves the existing data on the phone from wiping), and even used the Nand Erase in the end. It's still stuck at boot looping.
I would appreciate anyone's reply to this discussion. I am truly desperate to fix this for my mom. If worse comes to it, I'll save money to buy her a brand-new phone.

You don't have a working android, so you won't remove the RFP. TWRP will not help you with this.
The symptoms you describe indicate a defective power button.
You manage to enter download mode because the power button is constantly on.
Because of the constantly on power button, you have no way to turn off the phone. Bootloop can also be the result of a constantly on power button.
To sum up, you should fix the power button.
1. The easiest way is to blow with compressed air and press the edge of the button with your fingernail, rapidly releasing the pressure. Perhaps the fuzz has blocked the button. Unfortunately, this rarely works.
2. Take the phone to a local service center.

Hi ze7zez! Me and my dad greatly appreciates your insight and we were definitely enlightened on this angle.
We didn't really think that the power button was stucked pressed on because you can clicking sounds when you press on it. The phone never had problems with the buttons along the 6 years it accompanied us, perhaps its age does start to show.
We're going to look into it tomorrow. Thank you very much! You gave us the idea that it may be shorted inside or some sort. Thank you again!

A bit of update.
I pried open only the back case of the phone so I can see and clean up the power button. I used tools specifically for it and made no damage on the phone during the process.
We couldn't really see anything busted from there. The buttons on the circuit still do the neat clicking sounds on it. Battery still looks the same.
Testing out the theory that the power button was stuck on:
We tried to only press and hold the volume down and power button. It didn't go to the download menu. We needed to press down all three together to access it. It is confusing since we believe it would be a power button issue too, as the phone instantly turns on by itself when plugged to a power source (it's completely drained by now and we still can't turn it off manually)
Perhaps it's an internal circuit problem with the power button? It's confusing with the fact we still have to press on it to access the ODIN menu if it was like "on" the entire time it's looping.
Thank you in advance for further insights.

Try restarting by pressing home, power and volume up all at once.

Hi Pranav2406,
I have tried that as well in order to access the Recovery menu to factory reset, but no luck.
We have given up on repairing the phone and went out yesterday to buy a new one in a rush.
We will still send this broken phone to a repairman.
If he fixes it, I'd ask what he did on it so I can post an update on this problem as well.
It's better to let the expert troubleshoot it.
I do suspect the problem in the phone's hardware. I'm pretty confident with all the stock ROM flashing I've done so it's not a software problem.
Thank again for everyone's insights.
Perhaps this case is too much for an amateur to fix.