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[Q] Galaxy Ace (S5830i) headache with stock email deletion

HI guys, I'm hoping you can help me with a problem that's led me to start threatening my galaxy ace (S5830i) with a hammer.
Actually it's not the phone's fault it's purely my own stupidity, but none-the-less I'm here for help because I've spent all day and night trawling the net, trying to figure out how to proceed to resolve my issue on my own but I simply cannot make sense of the conflicting information I'm finding.
I promise you thing thing if nothing else, I have tried my very best to read around a hundred other forums, pages, and how 'to's but I'm finding that I have no resolution that I can work with because either:
- The tutorials turned out to be for the S5830 - not the i model - when I got to the forum
- The youtube videos all seem to be spoken in accents I cannot understand or not explained clearly, or are too technical
- Links I go to to get apk files etc are broken, wrong or leading me up another path I cannot follow
- Software does NOT look on my screen as it does on tutorials or websites (SDK for example)
- The people explaining the resolution type with such poor English I cannot understand what they're actually saying
- The solutions that work for others are too technical or advanced for me to understand and I'm finding it difficult to learn as I go (apart frm the root instructions which I found quite easy)
Anyway, I'll start at the beginning:
I have a samsung galaxy ace (S5830i) running:
- Gingerbread 2.3.6
- Baseband version S5830iXXLK1
- Kernel version 2.6.35.7
- Build number GINGERBREAD.XXLK3
I've already rooted it so I have superuser access, and I managed that perfectly well on my own
I installed titanium backup and somehow I managed to uninstall the stock email that comes with the phone. I think this is my problem because I now cannot download anything from google play, nor can I add a new gmail account to do so, so I'm stuck in no mans land not able to use googleplay (because my gmail account is now missing from my phone) nor can I seem to figure out how to get th apk file directly into the phone so that I can start fresh.
I'm also absolutely stuck on how to flash the phone and start again because nothing I seem to read is explaining it in simple clear terms that a layman can understand. When I do find a simple explanation, I find it's only for the non 'i' version of the phone, or if I find a simple instruction it's zip files for the rom do not contain all the files I need to use with odin v1.5
Also, there are conflicting explanations on flashing the rom on different forums/sites so I dare not use one over the other because another one contradicts it. I do not want to ruin my phone as right now it still basically works for now as a phone.
In my phone menu, the gmail icon is still there, just not the icon/app that said "email". The icon is now missing from my menus and with it there is now no way to use the play services without a gmail account on the phone.
When I click the gmail icon, it stats to open and then just shuts off quickly, not opening gmail, so I'm pretty sure all this is due to me deleting the email app using titanium backup.
Make sense?
What I'd really be grateful for is if on of you guys could help me out and explain in very simple terms what I need to do to either install the apk directly (preferred) so that I can add a gmail account to the phone and get access to google play again, or failing that a simple how to flash the rom with stock gingerbread, together with links to software that's known to be bonafide.
I am literally being driven mad going around in circles on forums and sites to keep going back to square one.
Any help will be very gratefully received. Or I'm afraid this may mean I'm going to smash my new phone int a wall and never use a smartphone again, because obviously I'm too stupid to play around with them on my own.
I really appreciate your help if someone would be able to invest a little time here.
Thanks very much for your time, guys
Jobeeey

additional info
Right, these are the instructions I found on this forum, but I'm unclear if I'm approaching this right..
Flashing s5830i with Odin v1.85
1.Turn off the phone and put it in Download mode by pressing Power+Volume Up+volume down.
2.Open Odin v1.85.Run as Administrator!.
3.Put the files in Odin and don't touch the settings
4.If it's a one-file firmware put it in PDA section.
If it's multiple put the files in the correct section.
5.Click start and don't touch the phone!Don't turn off computer and don't unplug the phone!It will reboot automatically and the first boot will take some time,so don't panic!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've found a rom (which is a single file) and if I'm reading this right I place that in the PDA section of Odin after installing the usb drivers onto my pc (done that and windows recognizes my phone in the sense that it isn't now hassling me for drivers every two seconds).
Ok.. so I seem to have got the correct rom for my specific ace model.. and the instructions seem to be that I now:
1) Connect usb cable
2) Boot my phone into download mode (I can do that I think).. but at what point do I press vol down to download a new os.. before or after pressing start in Odin?
3) Open Odin and add file as in my attached screenshot (I can do that)
4) Click 'start' in Odin
5) Wait for my phone to reboot
And that should be job done, the phone should be flashed with the stock rom again and that should get me back on track, right? Or am I about to screw up my phone and ruin it even further?
Thanks for reading. I hope someone can advise if I'm doing this right as I've seen other forums say that I should tick the 'Re-partition' box, and other that say I shouldn't, and this one says nothing about it at all.
This is one of the tings that's confusing me, and once I'm now flashing a phone for the first time it's flippin scary to do it on my lonesome!

This is what I mean..
I've just tested going into download mode with odin ready, and the phone gets there (vol up+down + power on).. but each time it gets into download mode it seems to disconnect from odin and no com port is open. I get the windows device disconnected/connected beeping and the connection seems to sever.
What the Fffff...
This is exactly what I'm talking about.. nothing seems to be working like it's meant to be and I'm getting nowhere with any instructions I can find after god knows how many hours researching this.
:crying:

update (lol)
Mornin all,
So, just in case anyone finds this useful..
The flashing problem is kind of irrelevant now because:
A) Odin (tried several versions) simply will not stay connected to my phone when it boots into download mode, and having checked many tutorials for this it sees that this is a problem some of us cannot get past.
Anyway, one of the methods to resolve this was to wipe the cache and clear all data etc, which I did, and now my phone is stuck on the "pres the android" screen, and my phone will no longer get past that. Tried pressing clockwise in all four corners but still nothing.
No probs.. so we move on to a new step of trying to split the roms via cygwin, but guess what? Every single time I try to download the cygwin files, that freezes at about 98% and will not download, no matter which mirror I select.
So, this is what I call a curse that isn't going to be lifted by me no matter hat. It's not not meant to be.
Therefore, what I'm going to do is take it to a local shop that unlocks mobiles and give it to them to flash back to stock rom for me.
If that doesn't work, do you know what I'm gonna do?
Nothing. Because there's nothing you can do when the processes do not follow the same progress as they do in the tutorials.
I hope other novice S5830i users save themselves all his time and trouble and don't bother following the same process and become locked out of their phone at the touch android screen.

Update
Yipee,
Right, I stumbled across a solution that worked for me.
What I did was get my 2gb msd card that came with the phone and slapped MindCR v1.0.12 on the card and whacked that in my phone (this bypassed not being able to get a new rom on the sd card as it wasn't unmounted before the crash, so my pc wouldn't recognise the date to put it on via the pc).
Then I updated the rom from that 2gb card (vol up + menu + power to get into recovery mode) and it took it a few minutes to update the firmware and give me back the full use of my phone, and with a shiny new os on it. Whoop!
I didn't bother with CWM as I'd forgotten to add it before flashing, but it worked none-the-less and I'm now back in business (wiped it manually).
As it turned out this version of MindCR works really well so far as I can tell. I realise there are updated roms now but I've come to the conclusion after the scare I had that if you're not entirely sure what you're doing, it's best to leave it alone if it ain't broke.
SO.. now I have a phone with what seems to be a better os than the stock and less bloatware on it, no phone problems I can see after thorough testing... and from what I can tell it turned out to be better than it was before the disaster.
And I learned a bit in the process. Like for example, don't feck around removing apps from smartphones with titanium unless you've backed them up and you're prepared to stress out for over 20hrs wondering what to do about it.
And, also, don't expect much help from a forum because you may not always get it. << That' not a dig at xda by the way. It's just a BIG forum so your threads may not be seen by the right person before they get buried in past pages.
Hope my little journey helps another unsuspecting S5830i user who comes across the thread.

[Q] Huawei Y201 NFC U8666n-1 trouble

OK so I recently switched this neat, cheap and decent entry phone, and of course wanted to root and unlock the bootloader.
Using the technique outlined in http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2066887 "[ROOT][CWM] Huawei Ascend Y201 Pro U8666" I managed to happily root the device. Meaning I could install droidwall and adfree, and uninstall one or two of the annoying Huawei apps. (Surprisingly there are less Vendor apps on this than the previous Ideos U8150 I had.)
So happy that that worked, I thought I would go to the next stage and unlock the boot loader, in preparation for maybe installing clockworkmod recovery. And eventually a ROM if I could find one that looked "safe" and sound.
Cranking up the "UnlockBootloader.exe" as before and clicking the unlock BOOTLOADER initiated something on my phone... However when I switched off my phone preparatory to rebooting, I found what I guess to be a bricked/borked device.
There's no vibrate, no flash on screen, no logo, no pink screen that other people talk about in the few reports I have found around the web. Just that the lower backlit soft buttons flash ten times and then nothing else happens. I can't even find information about what this obviously low level failure message means...
As you can guess, I have tried all sorts of things to get it going: battery removal; powering from USB while botting; any and all of the key press holds for boot; all to the same effect. Have tried several times to find anything similar on the net and can't seem to find anything similar. Especially the ten flash indicator
So my question is "Is this an absolute sign that the device is bricked?" I guess I could try to play the innocent and send it back under warranty, but I guess someone will realise it was my fault. Unless a memory failure happened at the exact time I was flashing/unlocking...
And a warning that same device owners should be careful when following the guide. I'm pretty sure I had everything as outlined. I'm running XP, didn't have it mounted, had fastboot off, etc... Although now its hard to check on the device to see if that was the case

and also
I should also perhaps add that before using UnblockBootLoader with root success, I tried the ICS "adb restore" directory traversal vulnerability, which is part of Root_with_restore, and was unsuccessful.
And that there's no life reported at a low, USB device level to my linux kernel, when plugged in now. So I can't even try a firmware patch using adb etc.

Of course I can't post a relevant cautionary note into the above mentioned thread, as I have yet to reach the 10 post milestone mark, enabling me to post in that section...

Hi,
Sorry for opening an old thread, have the same issue and just wanted to know if you manged to resolve this or it you just took it back to the shop?
Regard

No solution
No - I never managed to work out or find a solution. I just got a new one, and only went as far as the root'ing stage.
I have never seen an applicable ROM for this device anyway, so I guess it wasn't too much of an issue. And root'ing to get those crucial management apps installed, and also being able to remove some Huawei "cruft" is the real thing you need.

[Q] S4 Help needed (Warning: Long story)

Hey guys, let me just start off by saying I have spent almost 8 hours straight today trying to figure this out and dig myself out of a hole I've created for myself, that being said, I'm going to try and be as detailed as possible so you guys know EXACTLY where I am and what I've tried. This post looks long but that's because it is. It's pretty much my entire day's worth of trouble typed out. So just bare with me and see if you guys can help me out here!
I have a T-Mobile Galaxy S4 model: SGH-M919 it has Android 4.4.2. Now on to the problem: I've had this phone for almost a year now and a few months ago I rooted it. Did a simple Youtube tutorial and used Odin to do the work and everything worked out fine. A couple months down the road (yesterday), after using the phone like a teenager, downloading apps and cluttering it up it started to slow down and not run some apps. After thinking about it I decided to factory reset it. All of my contacts, photos, and videos were backed up on Google so I thought "why not?" Well, this is where $#!% hit the fan.. being rooted then factory reset, right before the phone came online it had me answer two questions about the root. Something to the effect of "Do you want to keep root? (This option is not reversible)" I thought since I wasn't using the features I originally rooted the phone for I figured nah just get rid of the root. So the phone did its T-Mobile boot up and started the Initial setup.
Everything up to to this point was fine until I wanted to log in to my Google account during the setup. Please understand that where I am I have full 4G LTE coverage and have access to a pretty fast and sturdy wifi connection. Well, when it came to the google sign in I entered my email and password and it came up with a message reading "Can't Sign in - Can't establish a reliable connection to the server" (believe me i wish that was the only issue) so after reading that, I thought I'd try with my wifi.. nope. Same thing. Since neither my 4g or wifi worked I thought it was Google's servers so I tried again this morning, same thing. (keep in mind at this point i think my phone isn't rooted anymore.) I call the t mobile store and they give me a technical support number, so I call it and I tell them i cant sign into Google. The gentleman told me he cant do anything because he can tell my phones been rooted. Only thing he suggests is to contact Google, well, the customer care number just tells you go to google.com/support and there's nothing there about my problem.
This is where I dig my hole even deeper. I tried another factory reset and up in the top left corner i still see that root text. Even the rooted android symbol pops up before the Samsung logo or t mobile. Since I saw that I thought "ohh it just didn't get unrooted all the way." I look up ways to completely remove a root and a lot of them require plugin your phone into the computer and using Odin to flash a stock firmware on to the device. I went to plug my phone into the usb port but my computer didn't recognize the usb device, having experienced this a long time ago I searched around for the latest Samsung usb drivers and I installed those. Device still isn't recognized. Let me just note before people tell me to use MTP mode or Developer tools> usb debugging or connection mode.. The only thing that happens when plugging my phone via usb is the phone starts charging and my computer makes the trumpet noise like something is plugged in. Other than that, there is NO notification of it being plugged in. The reason i stress this is because I called Samsung technical support at this point and the guy (not gentleman) treated me like a 5 year old and ran me through all of these options after i told him I already did everything he was suggesting, including downloading Samsung Kies 3 and having it install the drivers. It does not pick up the device either.. at this point I looked up ways to remove the root without the computer. I found out you can just go into the root app "SU" or something and theres a remove root option. I jumped on that opportunity and had it removed. I restarted the phone and all the problems still persist, it even still has the root text on the top left when you factory reset it again. However now, even if you factory reset and select the option "keep root," thinking it would bring back the"SU" app it does NOT.
So lets recap. I have a phone that thinks its rooted and even appears rooted to t mobile but doesn't have any of the root apps or privileges or capabilities to fix my Google log in issue (like the host file in filemanager). And I can't re-root to get that app back because none of my 3 usb ports, 3 different usb cables (one being the cord that came with the phone), or any of the ports/cables on someone else's computer will recognize the darn thing to work on that way! I have all these issues that are supposed to fix each other but I can't do any fixing because they cancel each other out too... I'm at a dead end.
In case this isn't the right forum/website/thread/post area etc.. I have this whole message saved in Microsoft Word document so I can repost it anywhere you guys might suggest better results. Any help/advice will be much appreciated.

[HELP] Cannot factory reset a Kyocera Hydro Wave (C6740N) on Metro PCS

Greetings to all the developers and registered users on this site... Yes, this is my first post, but I read here pretty often and I used the search function, trust me! Seriously, I've tried all I could and I am at my wits end, but this is technology, we can't let it own us, we gotta continue owning it and that's what online communities like xda help us do, so thanks for all your past, present, and future contributions here. So I got this Metro PCS Kyocera Hydro Wave (C6740N) that I can't factory reset for a number of reasons, but mainly because I believe that there is either no boot-loader or no recovery partition as a result of Metro PCS flashing the ROM...
Anyway, lets get to the juice:
- Device powers on/off, but no combo of Vol -/+ and Power buttons bring up a recovery menu or anything (holding any combo down just boot-loops)
- Device has no SIM and no micro SD card, and the battery is not removable
- Device is locked... Like, pattern-locked/google account info/too many attempts/yada yada yada
- Device has no data and no WiFi connection active, so I could not use the google account to get past the lockscreen
- Device does not have USB debugging enabled/Google drivers for ADB do not work (Windows 7 auto-detects when I plug in the phone and installs a generic Microsoft driver which cannot be removed even after uninstalling the device, and also I pointed the Device Manager to the correct Google drivers I installed with the Android SDK Tools, as well as the Samsung Naked Universal Drivers I found on this forum, and Kyocera ADB drivers I found through Google which all failed, Windows returned a message stating that the most up-to-date or best driver for this device is already installed)
What I've tried (everything possible really):
- Hard reset/Recovery from phone: FAILED
- Connect to Linux and install ADB, then tried running the adb shell, adb devices, fastboot devices, etc but phone not detected: FAILED
- Connect to Windows 7 and install ADB (Android SDK Tools), I literally checked every single box and installed Platform-tools, google drivers, everything, got to the command prompt as admin, cd to the ADB directory, ran same commands as in linux, also tried commands on several forums and posts like adb shell rm /data/system/gesture.key to remove the lock but everything: FAILED
- Connect to Windows 7 and attempt to install proper drivers using RootGenius, MoboRobo, PDAnet, and several other suggestions which all were oblivious/unable to detect the device despite Windows recognizing it, so they all: FAILED
- Connect to Windows 7 and attempt running ADB through a Cygwin terminal, but the command "sudo" was not recognized/not valid, so: FAILED
- Connect to Windows 7 and use XRYViewer to extract data from the phone, possibly to see the system files and get an actual understanding of what everybody is saying you need to mount from the recovery partition, but no clue how to use this, since I can't find an XRY file in the internal storage, so: FAILED
- Connect to Windows 7 and access data/recover data from device using "Wondershare Dr.Fone for Android" and "iLike Android Data Recovery Pro" but both programs instructed me to enable USB Debugging, which is not possible, so the both also: FAILED
Despite this being my first post, I have scoured the forums here in addition to every other forum and webpage regarding this issue as well... There just isn't much about this phone except negative reviews, and I have come to the conclusion that on this particular model phone, I am out of options... I have a paperweight... I'm not very familiar with Android... So please correct me if I'm wrong...

Any input?
I'm curious if there are any options at this point, I have been trying to get through to this phone on several computers for the past couple days and it is frustrating me... Any input from the community would be much appreciated...

Mojo2XL, I guess you did not find an answer?
Mojo2XL said:
I'm curious if there are any options at this point, I have been trying to get through to this phone on several computers for the past couple days and it is frustrating me... Any input from the community would be much appreciated...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the exact same problem and it appears I am several months after your post. I just want to use this device as an e-reader but like you, I cannot get anything to recognize it!~

eenuckols said:
I have the exact same problem and it appears I am several months after your post. I just want to use this device as an e-reader but like you, I cannot get anything to recognize it!~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may be this:
*2767*3855# - Think before you give this code. This code is used for factory format. It'll remove all files and settings including the internal memory storage. It'll also reinstall the phone firmware.
I found code in internet, but may be it works? can't check, my "wave" comes to me from USA by post for a few weeks..

barabeka said:
may be this:
*2767*3855# - Think before you give this code. This code is used for factory format. It'll remove all files and settings including the internal memory storage. It'll also reinstall the phone firmware.
I found code in internet, but may be it works? can't check, my "wave" comes to me from USA by post for a few weeks..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doesnt work.. you can only get to emergency dialer which can only b used to make emergency calls

elliwigy said:
doesnt work.. you can only get to emergency dialer which can only b used to make emergency calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okay. i will try something, when my phone will come. is your Wave locked?

barabeka said:
okay. i will try something, when my phone will come. is your Wave locked?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i bought another phone and they threw it in free but it has a pin code lock so i cant even get to google screen to bypass frp as im stuck at pin lockscreen and these darnphones have no recovery..
i doubt ull figure out a way as im real savvy with this stuff lol theres no recovery to boot into in order to reset and no way to update tje phone wothout knowing the pin code

any luck? i cant believe this thing is this locked down. makes apple look like chils play

warriorpluto said:
any luck? i cant believe this thing is this locked down. makes apple look like chils play
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i believe it can be done with a pc

Did you happen to get the files the other member posted that was only available for eight days?

Mojo2XL - Sort of.
I saw a youtub video (sorry no link) that says there was a OTA update that changed the phone's firmware that solved all the problems mentioned here. Thing is I have no carrier and cannot find this new firmware, but, I am still hunting....
​
eenuckols said:
I have the exact same problem and it appears I am several months after your post. I just want to use this device as an e-reader but like you, I cannot get anything to recognize it!~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I'm having the same problem, I have been trying to get this thing to hard reset for a week now. There has to be a way to reset this Hydro Wave.. Has anyone dealt with this thing?

Hey hold the buttons as follows volume- & power at the exact same time while your phone is off be warned if you phone was preowned you need the goole account originally activeated with that phone if you do not have that then your in the same vote as me i cant remember any of my gmail account info to my wave from when i had it active I have litterally tried every thing to recover the info and i still can't recover it

WhiteWolf77 said:
Hey hold the buttons as follows volume- & power at the exact same time while your phone is off be warned if you phone was preowned you need the goole account originally activeated with that phone if you do not have that then your in the same vote as me i cant remember any of my gmail account info to my wave from when i had it active I have litterally tried every thing to recover the info and i still can't recover it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That doesn't work on this phone the hydro wave from AT&T has factory reset protection so it cannot be reset using the volume down and power button reset

Any update?

dannybz said:
Any update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let me work on this, been trying to master as many FRP bypasses as i can. I don't have the device but a client is in the same boat

I accidentally stumbled upon a something weird. I've managed to make the camera crash to the home screen somehow. I believe this was a result of holding both volume buttons and opening numerous menus while using the camera. My guess is that it overloads it after a certain amount of times and causes it to crash. I've gotten the android UI to crash like this before. I will try to recreate the scenario and update you guys on this. it's on a Kyocera Hydro Wave. Running android 5.0 I believe. Try going wild until the phone starts to lag. eventually stuff will crash and the lock screen may go with it. use this to your advantage and enable USB debugging as quickly as possible because it will reset itself after about 30 seconds. Someone else on YouTube has recently told me that it worked for them. I would look into doing that.

PhoneScrambler said:
I accidentally stumbled upon a something weird. I've managed to make the camera crash to the home screen somehow. I believe this was a result of holding both volume buttons and opening numerous menus while using the camera. My guess is that it overloads it after a certain amount of times and causes it to crash. I've gotten the android UI to crash like this before. I will try to recreate the scenario and update you guys on this. it's on a Kyocera Hydro Wave. Running android 5.0 I believe. Try going wild until the phone starts to lag. eventually stuff will crash and the lock screen may go with it. use this to your advantage and enable USB debugging as quickly as possible because it will reset itself after about 30 seconds. Someone else on YouTube has recently told me that it worked for them. I would look into doing that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there anything a little more realistic possible? Lol, I can see an update available, can't connect to WiFi to update haha. The stuff they lock these phones with anymore i swear

I'm new to this forum, but NOT new to this site . I have visited here on numerous occasions seeking the help that needed . With that being said, I would like to offer a Bonafide, Tried and True way to factory reset the Kyocera Hydrowave . I KNOW that this work's for I have done in on numerous occasions for a friend of mine that works for Metro PCS ....
Step One: Completely power off the phone .
Step Two: Hold the Power AND Volume DOWN Buttons SIMULTANEOUSLY .
Step Three: DO NOT release any buttons, even when you get to the Boot Menu . (Very Important, If you don't do it right, you have to start all over lol ) .
Step Four: Once inside the Boot Menu, ONLY release the Power Button; or the Boot Menu will close and you have to start all over again .
Step Five: Use the Volume Down Button to Highlight the Wipe/Factory Reset Option .
Step Six: Use the Power Button to Select the option .
Step Seven: Watch the bottom of the screen for the progress, and then use the Volume Up Button to restart .
And there you have it . I hope that this helps out SOMEONE out there, because I feel good giving back for the help that I have received on here .
PS.( If you would like for me to post a Video Tutorial on this, can someone please tell me how to post the Video; I guess by me being a Newbie on here, I'm not allowed to do as of yet ) . If Anyone needs to contact me, as I'm not on here very often, my email is [email protected] .

LilAnt530 said:
Is there anything a little more realistic possible? Lol, I can see an update available, can't connect to WiFi to update haha. The stuff they lock these phones with anymore i swear
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As unrealistic as it may sound it actually works Trust me on this. its similar to the LG attack which... is nothing but entering a long password.
betanews.com/2015/09/16/bypass-the-android-lollipop-lockscreen-by-entering-a-really-long-password
Just give it a go. it already worked for one dude on youtube. it takes a while but it honestly works. If you can get it, update the phone as soon as possible turn the screen timeout off and let it update. when the phone resets the update will install and you will be able to factory reset.
I mean it couldn't hurt. if you're locked out with no factory reset and ADB tools won't work what else can you do?

Softbricked, basic usage no rooting.

Gday everyone.
I just got this phone and since it was first powered on I've had issues. I will likely be going back to the carrier tomorrow and asking for a replacement, but wanted to put my experience down here. Ive looked at a lot of other threads, but all of them involve unlocking of bootloader, flashing etc - I havent done ANY of this (yet). Its fresh out of the box.
Location: Australia
Carrier: Optus
Model: MHA-L09 (cant access extended model number)
So first up, had issues connecting to the carriers in-store wifi, which uses a captive portal.
When I finally got it going I was presented with a Chinese site - id accept this usually considering it is Huawei.
This phone is a replacement for my dead Note4 and as such I wanted to restore apps, as I had no internet, I skipped the process.
Got back to my office and connected to my wifi fine, so decided to factory reset to get a fresh start.
Noticed that after reset the initial process was in a different order. Restored from Google and all apps downloaded, happy days for a couple of hours, just waiting for my service to port over.
2 hours later, I decide to restart the phone, it gets hung up on the Optus logo which is displayed before the reboot starts.
Hard reboot.
System loads, I figure I may as well see about a firmware update. Get 'Package installer isn't responding' errors. Try again, works, no updates available.
Go to google photos, get 'Package installer isn't responding' error.
At this point I think, f**k - what is going on here.
So I reboot into recovery to wipe the cache. This processes fine, but then the option to reboot the phone doesn't work.
Hard reboot.
Boots into recovery without me touching it.
Hard reboot. - happens again.
So then I think, fine ok, I've upset the balance, lets do a factory reset.
Factory reset hangs on 99% for over 30 minutes.
Against better judgement - hard reboot.
Now I have the EMUI logo with a nice round 0% under it... and that's where its staying.
Thoughts?
I have to fly interstate on the weekend and cant really afford unreliable comms. Should I ditch the Huawei?
Thanks all.

So - it seems that nowhere did i find a mention of the fact that if i plug it into my PC and goto the recovery mode, it loads eRecovery. Whilst this didnt actually work (I believe it only works for CN firmware) It did give me a shutdown option. I shut it down and started it again and im back into a fresh install.
Lets see how I go now...

Never restore backups from other phone.

Wow, helpful.
I didn't restore the backup from another phone, just apps, ie google downloaded the apps I selected.
The device is still performing poorly, even a standard reboot does not succeed, instead it hangs on the carrier logo before actually rebooting.
Ill take it back to the store tomorrow and ask for another one, im hoping Ive just gotten a dud.