My phone will not recognize Verizon as its carrier or connect to a cellular network in any way. Settings > About Phone > Status > IMEI reads "0." I have, in some capacity, "lost" my IMEI.
I understand their are a lot of threads on this topic, however, I (unfortunately and ignorantly) have done a number of things after the actual losing of my IMEI and I am not sure the current state of my device or if a backup of my IMEI exists anywhere.
First my story. I successfully managed to get one of the early nightly builds of CM10.2 running on my phone and all was well. After updating to a more recent nightly via the CM updater, I noticed I had lost cell service in all capacity. Confused, I decided to not take any chances and revert to a CWM full backup I had made while still running CM10.1 stable. Still nothing. At this point, I thought that something was wrong with my firmware, and so I flashed a zip containing the latest Verizon firmware successfully (same that was installed previously). Nothing.
Not really understanding that one could lose their IMEI or the potentially signs of such loss, I decided to go all the way to stock via odin. The image did unlock the boot loader and grant SU, but did not wipe user data. Thinking it would help, I wiped data/factory reset within the stock recovery and then reflashed the image. Of course, still nothing. This is my current situation.
So my question is this: do I have any hope of recovering or "injecting" my IMEI? From my understanding, the Samsung mechanism designed to backup the IMEI in these such instances is broken. In fact, it probably "restored" it to a bogus null value. I think this means that I now have no IMEI information on my device. If so, does this mean I can manually inject it somehow? I have tried methods that purport to build the files on a pc and then move them to the device but I cannot access any of the Qualcom menu's that necessarily put the phone in a certain USB mode via the phone dialer. I get "no mobile network available."
Also: I still have my CM10.1 full CWM backup from before I lost my IMEI. If this backup contains the information needed to restore my IMEI, is their any way I can retrieve it? I think this is my best shot, but I'm not sure.
I would like to know if my new phone is a paperweight, since I am still within the 14 day return period. If I have indeed bricked my phone, there is a slim change that I can reset everything back to stock and play dumb with Verizon to get an exchange.
I apologize for the ambiguous vocabulary and/or description. I have a good working knowledge of most of the stuff on xda, but a lot of the language used in forums regarding IMEI restoration is foreign to me.
Thanks in advance for any help!
You have to Odin a stock ics image, or restore a backup if you have it, and dial *2767*3855#.
This should fix your imei and eri status by reprovisioning your phone.
Also as soon as you reroot and get up and running again, make an imei backup so you won't have to go back to stock if you have this issue again.
You could manually inject it, but a moderator has to grant you permission to use the thread. However, manually injecting it with qpst will leave your phone in roaming (not actually roaming, but the status icon won't go away) because it won't fix your eri number.
Use this option first, if it doesn't work you can try injecting it.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
I used qpst to restore my imei and then used this method to get back without using odin, if you haven't already done so. I also think you can get your imei and eri back without using qpst with this method. I had already restored my imei and eri wasn't saying 5 like it should.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=44871571&postcount=3
Edit : I forgot, once you have your imei and eri restored and backed up. Don't forget to flash your modem back up to the version you want.
Related
Alright, so I just got my Galaxy S3 about 2 weeks ago. As I can't stand the look of Touchwiz, I rooted my phone, unlocked the bootloader, and put AOKP build 3 on there right away.
Everything was working great, except for my lack of Picasa sync, so I flashed BlackBean 5, then JellyWiz, and eventually went back to AOKP build 4. Wanting to get my Picasa sync, I tried flashing a few custom GApps builds, and then reflashed AOKP b4 fresh with the custom GApps.
After booting my phone back up, the "Activating" screen came for about 5 minutes, before it said that it failed. Checked my phones settings, and my IMEI was at 0. I flashed my phone back to stock, then used QPST to restore my IMEI.
IMEI is now displaying properly, but I am still totally unable to get any sort of connection to the Verizon network; voice or data. Do I have a brick? Furthermore, if I do, will relocking the bootloader, running TriangleAway to reset my flash count, and unrooting/factory reset on the stock rom be sufficient to return the phone to Verizon, or will they be able to tell that I messed with it and void my warranty?
reprovision your device with the dialer code *2767*3855#
next time follow the guides stickied before flashing...if you would of did the nv backup via terminal emulator then you would of never lost imei in the first place.
can terdayou
droidstyle said:
reprovision your device with the dialer code *2767*3855#
next time follow the guides stickied before flashing...if you would of did the nv backup via terminal emulator then you would of never lost imei in the first place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this; I can't really tell if it works yet because I put my Fassy back in service on this line temporarily, but I will be able to find out tonight when I have a chance to call Verizon. It has improved my situation, though -- I am now seeing signal whereas before the reprovision I had the Ghostbusters/No Smoking No Sign in place of a signal bar.
I unfortunately didn't see any of the stickies as I found all of the instructions I needed my googling and grabbing things from one place or the other. I did find that thread when looking for a solution to this, though, and I have to say that the people on the Development board for this phone are amazing; they have really done an amazing job getting everything that one would need right on the front page.
Also; *would've
Any flashing you did while your bootloader was unlocked wont be counted in the flash counter.
Hi,
I'm new to this forum.
I got a new Samsung Galaxy Nexus (unlocked GSM-i9250) mobile thruoug Google Store and got it to India.
I did an OTA upgrade from ICE Stock 4.0.4 to stock JB 4.1.1. My next upgrade to 4.1.2 failed, though detected by system failed.
So I used the phone for about 2 days and one day after charging, there was no radio service. WIFI works. Tried another SIM
and operator but in vain.
As all my efforts of factory reset, reboot etc failed, I thought of reflashing the latest images.
So I downloaded the latest images from Google site, unlocked the bootloader, followed different threads
and tried updating to 4.1.2. System now boots to 4.1.2 and WIFI works, but no GSM service still.
In the phone settings
Basebad version : unknown
Network : Unknown
IEMI : unknown
Service state : Out of service/Radio off (keeps toggling every 4-5 sec)
So I tried going back to 4.0.4 and system boots back to 4.0.4, but no GSM service
No idea what is happening. Two of us bought at the same time and got the same to India. For my friend, the OTA updates
to 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 went through fine.
I saw similar issues reported but not able to figure out how finally they solved it.
Any suggestions/help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Sanu
sanu.mathews said:
Hi,
I'm new to this forum.
I got a new Samsung Galaxy Nexus (unlocked GSM-i9250) mobile thruoug Google Store and got it to India.
I did an OTA upgrade from ICE Stock 4.0.4 to stock JB 4.1.1. My next upgrade to 4.1.2 failed, though detected by system failed.
So I used the phone for about 2 days and one day after charging, there was no radio service. WIFI works. Tried another SIM
and operator but in vain.
As all my efforts of factory reset, reboot etc failed, I thought of reflashing the latest images.
So I downloaded the latest images from Google site, unlocked the bootloader, followed different threads
and tried updating to 4.1.2. System now boots to 4.1.2 and WIFI works, but no GSM service still.
In the phone settings
Basebad version : unknown
Network : Unknown
IEMI : unknown
Service state : Out of service/Radio off (keeps toggling every 4-5 sec)
So I tried going back to 4.0.4 and system boots back to 4.0.4, but no GSM service
No idea what is happening. Two of us bought at the same time and got the same to India. For my friend, the OTA updates
to 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 went through fine.
I saw similar issues reported but not able to figure out how finally they solved it.
Any suggestions/help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Sanu
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar experience with my previous Nexus S device. The phone would start up perfectly fine but it wouldn't catch reception. I think I flashed the wrong radio.img file (there are a lot of Nexus S variants).
I would try the following steps:
- Flash CWM recovery
- Flash a custom ROM (you can use "Mounts and Storage" in CWM recovery to gain temporary access to your internal storage - you will need to do this to copy your ROM file there)
- If you like it, just stick to the custom ROM.
If you insist on going back to the stock ROM, there are threads here that guide you to go back to stock completely. Even if you go back to a previous ICS ROM (specific to your phone), you should start receiving OTA updates normally.
Best of luck!
Thanks for the reply.
I'm almost sure the radio image is fine. I downloaded the images from
Google Nexus developers site for "takju" for Galaxy Nexus "maguro" matching with my phone.
I flashed matching ROM and radio images from Google site. Tried both ICS 4.0.4 & JB 4.1.2
I'll try custom ROMs if nothing works out. I'm going to try this first time, so need to chk the threads first. This is my first Andriod phone and already ran into trouble after just 2 days of use, that too without any manual flashing. Only OTA happened before the issue.
Could the h/w have gone bad ?
In fastboot mode, the radio version is displayed correctly, but not after phone is up and running.
If the h/w has become faulty, I still expect the "Baseband version" in "About Phone" to be correct.
Is this assumption correct ? If it is s/w issue, I'm relived and I can try some custom image. So I'm hoping its only a s/w glitch.
Thanks a lot
you flashed the wrong rom on your phone and corrupted its efs partition. If you have a backup (why should you if you didn't even know that it was that to fail your phone's radio..) you could proceed and restore it. If you don't it's a big mess and you might have to go to a repair service.
Anyway you could still try and flash the original ROM for your phone and see if it fixes the problem. If not there are tools on the web (search the forums) that could try and restore your partition even if you don't have a backup.
If you succeed in restoring your phone don't EVER forget to backup you /efs partition
Thanks.
I tried flashing as the phone radio just stopped working after I charged the phone one day morning.
Let me follow your suggestions. I didn't know about efs partition. may be its messed up
What is puzzling me is, how can the factory images from google be wrong.
clait said:
you flashed the wrong rom on your phone and corrupted its efs partition. If you have a backup (why should you if you didn't even know that it was that to fail your phone's radio..) you could proceed and restore it. If you don't it's a big mess and you might have to go to a repair service.
Anyway you could still try and flash the original ROM for your phone and see if it fixes the problem. If not there are tools on the web (search the forums) that could try and restore your partition even if you don't have a backup.
If you succeed in restoring your phone don't EVER forget to backup you /efs partition
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sanu.mathews said:
Thanks.
I tried flashing as the phone radio just stopped working after I charged the phone one day morning.
Let me follow your suggestions. I didn't know about efs partition. may be its messed up
What is puzzling me is, how can the factory images from google be wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not the factory images to be wrong but the fact that if the /efs partition is really corrupted the stock images don't contain the info necessary to flash that partition as well.
In fact it may become corrupted after a wrong flashing but a new, correct, flash won't restore it. The only way back is the /efs backup.
What if you type *#06#? Does it show you an IMEI number or what?
*#06# shows "OK"
clait said:
It's not the factory images to be wrong but the fact that if the /efs partition is really corrupted the stock images don't contain the info necessary to flash that partition as well.
In fact it may become corrupted after a wrong flashing but a new, correct, flash won't restore it. The only way back is the /efs backup.
What if you type *#06#? Does it show you an IMEI number or what?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sanu.mathews said:
*#06# shows "OK"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Between the blue line and the OK it should show the sixteen digit long IMEI number. the fact that it isn't shown simplifies the diagnosis. I'm 100% sure you've got your /efs partition corrupted.
Please do a forum search on how to restore it.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Thanks a lot.
This eliminates so much un-wanted time waste/means no need to try various steps.
Can I get efs dump from another Galaxy nexus and flash it on mine after rooting ?
I'm under the impression that IEMI number etc should be in OTP and that can't get corrupted but efs may have some meta data regarding the same
clait said:
Between the blue line and the OK it should show the sixteen digit long IMEI number. the fact that it isn't shown simplifies the diagnosis. I'm 100% sure you've got your /efs partition corrupted.
Please do a forum search on how to restore it.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sanu.mathews said:
Can I get efs dump from another Galaxy nexus and flash it on mine after rooting ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No can do, the IMEI is a per device unique number.
Check this thread and do some forum search: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1689525
You're not the only one that lost the IMEI so chances are likely to you to resolve your issue!
If I copy the IMEI number from the box or my working phone, will it work ?
What I want to know is, is it only coming from EFS or if IMEI is changed will be there be some signature that will fail etc
I have used fastboot but not sure about rooting, so need to read that before trying Rooting
In India, Samsung won't repair my phone as I got it from US.
Another worry is, let IMEI number be wrong and let there be no network, but atleast "Baseband version : Unknown" shdn't come in the phone, correct ? Coud there be any issue with radio image partition itself ?
clait said:
No can do, the IMEI is a per device unique number.
Check this thread and do some forum search: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1689525
You're not the only one that lost the IMEI so chances are likely to you to resolve your issue!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sanu.mathews said:
If I copy the IMEI number from the box or my working phone, will it work ?
What I want to know is, is it only coming from EFS or if IMEI is changed will be there be some signature that will fail etc
I have used fastboot but not sure about rooting, so need to read that before trying Rooting
In India, Samsung won't repair my phone as I got it from US.
Another worry is, let IMEI number be wrong and let there be no network, but atleast "Baseband version : Unknown" shdn't come in the phone, correct ? Coud there be any issue with radio image partition itself ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mate - I too am from India, and I too got the exact same problem, and I too tried all you did - all this about a month back. I have reconciled myself to the fact that its a hardware issue. Since samsung centers in India won't do any repairs, I'm afraid we're both stuck with really expensive music players.
My sympathies.
Fixed by sending in for warranty
Just an update...I was having all of these symptoms...unknown IMEI, Baseband, etc...basically gave me an expensive media player for a few months while waiting for a fix on XDA. After no update I decided to call up Samsung and after talking to 3 different technicians, I was able to send it in. Just a note for anyone about to do the same, they will try very hard to blame it on the carrier/SIM card, so save yourself some trouble and just say you already went to the physical store of your carrier (calling isn't enough)and they couldn't get it working. Once you get past that, they will email you a printable 2-day UPS shipping label so you can ship it to them for free. It took 2 weeks from the time I called to having a working phone back in my hands.
This was their fix:
Problem found:
NO PCS SERVICE
Solution:
REPLACED PBA
After a quick search I found that the PBA is the motherboard, so it's definitely a hardware issue. Hope you guys are still under warranty because I've heard this is ~$200 to fix otherwise.
Good luck.
Just in case this post gets moved, I want to identify my device as the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3 (i535).
To give a little background on my issue, I have an issue with the device. When I first got it back in July, first thing I did was root the device. Naturally, since it was a new device, I was working with experimental methods... a couple weeks ago I thought to download CyanogenMod 10.1 (nightly build) to flash it with 4.2 and rid myself of the persistent OTA update that as we all know could not effectively install because of the measures I took to root. So, I boot into recovery and flash my custom rom. BAM! As it turns out, I did not have an unlocked bootloader and my phone was now teetering on the verge of being a $600 paperweight. I got that dumb yellow triangle saying unofficial firmware detected or some nonsense like that... Anyway, I look around the internet and decided that I was going to revert back to a stock rom using Odin, and then proceed to unlock my bootloader and root the device (I followed method 3 here) I used some touch recovery console that I have never heard of before (backups incompatible with ClockworkMod recovery) and something must have failed because my back up would not flash. I took the hit on losing most everything and reflashed successfully the custom rom mentioned earlier.
After about a week, I noticed the device began to drop data. 4G would just stop at random parts of the day, and I would have to disable and enable the data to get it to reconnect. At this point I was still able to make and receive phone calls and texts. After about 3 days of this, I concluded it was more than likely a bug in the custom rom, and that I could not live with it... so I redid the a fore mentioned tutorial and left the phone as a stock/unlocked/rooted device. The data issue continued, but with a twist. I was now unable to make or receive phone calls or texts. No matter what I did, I could not do anything and the 4G would only stay connected for a matter 5 minutes or so. When I logged into my vzw account, it identified my device as an unknown non-verizon device. Customer service walked me through various soft/hard reset techniques and nothing worked. They also suggested I try a new SIM card, which failed to work.
So, I turn to the bright minds of the android community. I have already decided not to invoke the Verizon warranty offered, where the result is they take my malfunctioning phone in flawless cosmetic condition and replace it with a "like-new" phone in working condition, because I think it's garbage that a warranty would give out used crap (should fix or replace). I have not contacted Samsung customer support yet because I wanted to see what my options were. I've already attempted flashing different radios and nothing seem to make any difference. If I have to, I will revert it back to stock again and invoke Samsung's warranty program, but I would much rather keep the phone. As it sits, I am stuck with my Motorola Droid Razr Maxx, and that just doesn't cut it.
So I ask, is there anything that can be done? Anyone know of a fix for my situation? I saw something about this in my quest for an answer and I don't know if my situation is a fit for this fix. If anyone has any knowledge of my issue and a work around for it, it would be greatly appreciated. I am at my whits end.
It sounds like you've done your homework on your problem.. The only thing in your post I didn't see was your sim card.. Maybe pulling it wait 2min restart. Shut down and insert,, or maybe a reprovision of the sim may be in order..
Ahaaaa....!!!
If your IMEI is intact, I would say to flash to ICS and reprovision the phone as suggested above. If it is not, you need to restore it with that backup that you made some time ago.
If it were me, I would reprovision, that is easy to do and I honestly think that it will work for you. If that works for you, reroot and restore your backup for TW ROM and you will be fine.
HHF2 said:
If your IMEI is intact, I would say to flash to ICS and reprovision the phone as suggested above. If it is not, you need to restore it with that backup that you made some time ago.
If it were me, I would reprovision, that is easy to do and I honestly think that it will work for you. If that works for you, reroot and restore your backup for TW ROM and you will be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that's just it... I don't know anything about the IMEI and how to determine if that is the issue. If by reprovision you mean reflash back to stock, that is it's current state, and that did not resolve the issue.
As for the other comment in regards to the SIM card... I have already attempted that method, and it did not work. Also, a new SIM card was also tried, and had no success.
mkruluts said:
Well that's just it... I don't know anything about the IMEI and how to determine if that is the issue. If by reprovision you mean reflash back to stock, that is it's current state, and that did not resolve the issue.
As for the other comment in regards to the SIM card... I have already attempted that method, and it did not work. Also, a new SIM card was also tried, and had no success.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google reprovision, it is a number combination that you enter on the keypad that resets your phone. I had a similar problem that you are having and that fixed our for me. You also need to know that when you do this, it will erase all of your information on the phone. It will be just like it was when you unpacked it and powered it on the first time.
You will have to be on ICS because they removed the option to do this with JB. Just search for the code to enter and you will be fine.
HHF2 said:
Google reprovision, it is a number combination that you enter on the keypad that resets your phone. I had a similar problem that you are having and that fixed our for me. You also need to know that when you do this, it will erase all of your information on the phone. It will be just like it was when you unpacked it and powered it on the first time.
You will have to be on ICS because they removed the option to do this with JB. Just search for the code to enter and you will be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. So I tried the reprovsioning mentioned above. When my phone rebooted I was on data and able to make phone calls. Score! However, I checked the IMEI and it said 0. So, thinking that it was just a matter of time before my device began to stop working again... I did the IMEI fix. Now my phone is placing calls and holding data without issue. The OTA updates are flooding in and installing without issues.
I would like to point out, while I feel better having done the combination of both reprovisioning and IMEI fix, ultimately the initial reprovisioning did appear to resolve the issue.
Thanks to everyone for the assistance provided.
First I'd like to say hello to all. I've been looking for the most comprehensive android discussion forum, and I think I hit the jackpot here. Anyway to the point. As it is known by the pros here, The S3 comes from your telecom company loaded with your personal connection info. From what I've read recently, the carriers either don't know how, or simply wont backup the nv and efs data to the onboard chips to preserve it in case of software failure, or mod failure. I did find an article with google explaining that a couple of devs discovered the fix for this inside the bootloader that we can use to force that backup to happen like it should, and it works. I've flashed several times since that backup and not lost the data from the phone. When I install cyanogen mod 11, it does not read those 2 particular memory blocks on booting, thus cyanogenmod does not recover the imei data from the onboard backup, even after a factory reset. I really would like to see if there is a workaround for that because unfortunately for me, any other method for backup is illegal where I live. If I flash back to stock rom, It reads the data back out of the chip, and restores my connection data for the carrier to the efs partition as well as the other 3 displayed in EFS Backup Pro. But I really like cyanogenmod, and since one of it's developers worked at Samsung, I'm really hoping my question finds an answer here.
So my question is is anyone familiar enough with the Cricket version of the S3 and cyanogenmod to tell me of a workaround for that problem if it exists. Thanks in advance for the community's responses.
Did You used the "cricket" Version of cyanogenmod?
Sent from my loved HTC One S using buggy Tapatalk 0.o
LS.xD said:
Did You used the "cricket" Version of cyanogenmod?
Sent from my loved HTC One S using buggy Tapatalk 0.o
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the cyanogenmod installer to install. From what I've read, the universal installer detects my phone and installs the correct version. Also I think that all s3 builds are now unified, so that's not an issue. Tried 10.2 after that, and caused my self more problems than I needed to fix, so I flashed back to stock. But I am going to attempt the mod again after backing up efs and nv if I have to. I can only run 4.3 or 4.4 android, which means I can only run 10.2 or 11 on my phone, or it will nuke the bootloader and hard brick my phone.
Corny007 said:
I used the cyanogenmod installer to install. From what I've read, the universal installer detects my phone and installs the correct version. Also I think that all s3 builds are now unified, so that's not an issue. Tried 10.2 after that, and caused my self more problems than I needed to fix, so I flashed back to stock. But I am going to attempt the mod again after backing up efs and nv if I have to. I can only run 4.3 or 4.4 android, which means I can only run 10.2 or 11 on my phone, or it will nuke the bootloader and hard brick my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=d2cri
Sent from my loved HTC One S using buggy Tapatalk 0.o
---------- Post added at 05:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 AM ----------
This is the cricket Version
Sent from my loved HTC One S using buggy Tapatalk 0.o
Versions are correct. Its not a version problem, it's an implementation problem where cm10.2 or 11 does not read the memory blocks that store the eps and nv data. Stock rom from cricket will read them and restore nv data from the chips. (I am not referring to the efs folder that can be seen as root. Im referring to the data stored in the 2 chips that Samsung and Cricket don't tell you about. Normally a corrupted efs folder is backed up from there because no one backs it up first. Google "Samsung derp" and you will find the article I found that explains this. People lose their efs because they don't know this about the knox system, and that it's not backed up properly. When you do not do " su nvbackup" then you lose your number. You do he nv backup procedure correctly and it backs up your current efs, then it's automatically restored whenever you flash a rom that reads those blocks. Cyanogenmod does NOT read those blocks to rebuild the efs/nv data. If it did, then when I do the factory reset after flashing, my phone would work right after the reset, but it does not. Neither version 10.2 nor 11.x reads those blocks.on reboot.
Corny007 said:
Versions are correct. Its not a version problem, it's an implementation problem where cm10.2 or 11 does not read the memory blocks that store the eps and nv data. Stock rom from cricket will read them and restore nv data from the chips. (I am not referring to the efs folder that can be seen as root. Im referring to the data stored in the 2 chips that Samsung and Cricket don't tell you about. Normally a corrupted efs folder is backed up from there because no one backs it up first. Google "Samsung derp" and you will find the article I found that explains this. People lose their efs because they don't know this about the knox system, and that it's not backed up properly. When you do not do " su nvbackup" then you lose your number. You do he nv backup procedure correctly and it backs up your current efs, then it's automatically restored whenever you flash a rom that reads those blocks. Cyanogenmod does NOT read those blocks to rebuild the efs/nv data. If it did, then when I do the factory reset after flashing, my phone would work right after the reset, but it does not. Neither version 10.2 nor 11.x reads those blocks.on reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looked at this already? --> Backup + Restore EFS SIII
I'm not sure how, but I'm up and dialing.
LS.xD said:
Looked at this already? --> Backup + Restore EFS SIII
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I didn't get back here. I have an update. Corny007 1, Samsung Galaxy S3 0. I won :highfive: The first time I installed cyanogen I did it with the installer, and like I said, the blocks weren't read. Not sure how or why yet as I'm just starting out, but I did about 2 or 3 days research, kept hitting dead ends, so I decided just to go back and use the installer again. For some reason, and I still have no idea why, as I mentioned my IMEI data would not restore. This time, it did, no backing up required. I do have them just in case, except I never went through the trouble to get them onto my Ext/SD, and I couldn't figure out how to work around version mismatches after Philz was overwritten. I could have installed the SDK, and took a couple more days probably to get it that way, but for some reason, that I still don't know, maybe it was a bugfix between last time and this, not sure. Bottom line is I am modded, and calling. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll hit the thanks button too. By the way, I never answered your question. I did look where you recommended. It just seemed like I was the one exeption to everything I found. EFS Pro for example couldn't make the .tar file, just little headaches like that. Thanks again.
Hi, I have a problem in which I keep losing my imei number everytime I switch from my stock rom, when I flash back my stock rom (p905), imei reappears and is back to normal. I really want to switch rom as I'm really tired of kitkat, all the other threads didn't work, that's why I'm asking now, any suggestions? Thanks in advance
Losing IMEI is probably due to a bad flash. Try to adhere to the steps mentioned by the dev of your custom ROM. Take a backup of your EFS folder before flashing, if you lose your imei after flashing then restore this folder it will bring back your imei number. Also you can write your imei number back in your phone using adb.