[Q] Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Hacked, Touchscreen unresponsive - Galaxy Tab 2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

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

Related

Suddenly I'm going extremely slowly... Help!

Ok, so far I've dumped the ROM and uploaded the kaiser-HardSPL and all was going lovely. However, after most of a day of pretty much inactivity I find the device suddenly goes very slowly. By which, I mean it can take several seconds to draw the screen.
Thinking this might be a rogue application using up all the processor cycles, I poked it up the bottom with the stick. (While doing this the first time, I held in power and camera just to see the boot loader text, but then I did it again with no buttons held.) It's a Vodafone device but it sat on the Vodafone splash screen for about 2-3 minutes then spent longer than that on the Windows Mobile screen before eventually dropping me into normality.
Except it's incredibly slow normality - I clicked on "start" and after a minute, it's not done anything yet.
Next step is a hard reset unless anyone has any better suggestion?
Help!
I assume you've pulled the battery?
Never assume anything... The full answer is, "No, but I have now"... I'm not sure that's going to do anything more than a soft (poke up the bottom) reset though. I'm now just waiting for the splash screen to subside while I'm typing this.
Having left it half an hour, while it went into standby and after noticing that the clock had stopped updating, I'm of the opinion that the already slow device has got slower...
Ok between 1 and 2 minutes to move from the splash screen to the "Windows Mobile" screen.
Now there's a turn up... After a further minute or so, I get a message, which has now cleared and gone back to the "Windows Mobile" screen before I had chance to copy it here. Basically it said that it had failed to boot either because I'd turned it off improperly or I'd installed something that it was opposed to. I should press send (I guess the green button) to reset to manufacturer's defaults.
Since that's my next stage anyway, I'll re-poke it with the pointy stick and press 'send' when it pops the message up. I'll put my trusty old Nokia N73 into flight mode and take a picture of the message so I can transcribe it here for everyone's amusement.
More news as it breaks.
I've now hit the 'send' button so it's doing a hard-reset. Meanwhile, here's the text it showed me:
Code:
The device is unable to boot be-
cause either you have turned off
the device incorrectly or tried to
install an application from untrusted
source. Press SEND to reset your
device or press any other button
to cancel. This operation will delete
all your personal data and restore
the device to its factory default
settings.
Nice. Ok, I'm at the 'tap the screen to set up your device' screen now.
Wonder what triggered all that nonsense then...
If you're like the rest of us and tooling around the all the fun programs in this forum, there's no telling.
I tell folks on computers, "Every piece of software you put on a machine is a liability to the operation of that machine." We can say that applies to this nifty little devices too.
I've had my phone experience the same symptoms you have posted here. Luckly for me a battery pull fixed mine. Sounds like the luck didn't spread much. Sorry.
Keep at it though. And don't fret the crashes. They do happen from time to time when you play hard.
So, a hard reset and a restore of a backup (Yes, I made a backup a few days ago even though I've been in the trade 20 years!) later, I'm back to normality. All I've done that's weird is install pof's loader and I can't see that's anything to do with it. What I was doing at the time of the slowdown was trying to connect to the wifi network at work. I thought the networking had just got itself tied in knots somehow but as the machine was even mega slow to boot, I can't really see that. At least I can still get back to square one at the moment.
I just need to create a .nbh out of the rom parts I dumped yesterday so that I can recover from anything more major...
Meanwhile, if you do a 'boot loader reset', would you expect it to say 'serial' if the USB isn't plugged in?
I'm starting to wonder if there is a major bug in the WiFi of the Tilt. There are some other threads on AT&T's site about this, and my work with WiFi on this unit has been dicey. Hmmmmm...

New tablet - odd behavior. Am I paranoid or justified and what should I do?

Today I received a "new" Asus Zenpad 10 3s. Ordered from Amazon. I live in the US. When I turned it on, after a short delay, it went straight to a home screen. I could not navigate because the language was Indonesian and Talkback was on. It was loud and I was in my office. Volume had no effect. So I held down the power button to shut the thing off.
When I restarted, the normal 'start up' prompt came on like I would have expected (except that language was Indonesian and Talkbalk was on) . This made it difficult to navigate but eventually I was able to change the language and proceed.
Normally I wouldn't think twice of this except for the initial home screen situation. Although I wasn't able to navigate anywhere, I noticed that there were several apps installed (including Gmail) and that I hadn't yet set it up. I initially thought I had received a used tablet and that someone forgot to reset it. But when I hard rebooted, the fact that it came to the normal start up prompt concerned me. I didn't see the initial screen long but it appeared like a different home screen than the normal asus home screen.
So my question is: is there some way someone may have created some sort of back door dual boot or some other security hole? Is there a way to ensure my tablet is completely clean?
Note I tried to 'hard reset' it but it gave me an Android icon error message when I selected Recovery.
I am not planning on rooting etc. I just want a clean safe tablet to replace my Nexus 9.
Thanks.
xdatoast said:
Today I received a "new" Asus Zenpad 10 3s. Ordered from Amazon. I live in the US. When I turned it on, after a short delay, it went straight to a home screen. I could not navigate because the language was Indonesian and Talkback was on. It was loud and I was in my office. Volume had no effect. So I held down the power button to shut the thing off.
When I restarted, the normal 'start up' prompt came on like I would have expected (except that language was Indonesian and Talkbalk was on) . This made it difficult to navigate but eventually I was able to change the language and proceed.
Normally I wouldn't think twice of this except for the initial home screen situation. Although I wasn't able to navigate anywhere, I noticed that there were several apps installed (including Gmail) and that I hadn't yet set it up. I initially thought I had received a used tablet and that someone forgot to reset it. But when I hard rebooted, the fact that it came to the normal start up prompt concerned me. I didn't see the initial screen long but it appeared like a different home screen than the normal asus home screen.
So my question is: is there some way someone may have created some sort of back door dual boot or some other security hole? Is there a way to ensure my tablet is completely clean?
Note I tried to 'hard reset' it but it gave me an Android icon error message when I selected Recovery.
I am not planning on rooting etc. I just want a clean safe tablet to replace my Nexus 9.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's always the chance it could have been compromised. It's hard to know exactly what the screens are you mention without seeing them but my guess is that it is probably a grey import or indeed a returned item that has been resold to you or maybe it just wasn't set up properly by the factory. Could the "other" screen just have been it setting a high visibility option or something for people with a disability if it was also running talkback
What was the actual company that supplied it via Amazon?
You can scan it with a good anti virus app and also install a good no root firewall to see if it's trying to connect to suspect servers (though even this is not 100%)

Please help me with my phone.

Hey everyone who reads this.
I'd like to start my topic with apologising if I post this in the wrong section.
So, I have a LG Spirit H440N LTE for about 3 years now, maybe a little less. I've always taken good care of it, both physically and in updates / security wise aswell.
My phone has been working flawlessly until the last 2 days. 2 days ago i was charging my phone, and when it vibrated (meaning its 100%) I pulled the cable off, and pressed the power button (power button locks - unlocks the screen) the screen didn't turn on. I was like "wow that's strange" but didn't care much, i just kept pressing the button every 5-6 seconds, nothing.
At that point I pulled the battery out, let it sit for a short time and then put it back, start the phone, I felt the vibration (meaning it's starting up) but no screen, so my first idea was that I need to get a new firmware and completely reinstall my phone, as it seems like it got bricked.. for no reason, by itself ? Strange thing but I accepted it and literally been googling for 9 hours now and I find more and more issues.
After I got LG FlashTool, drivers, and even 3 different firmwares, I wanted to start the phone in download mode to start upgrading, but even though I held down "volume up for 5 seconds and then put the usb cable in" nothing happened, no screen, my PC didn't recognise the phone either.
So I got a little bit mad and pulled the cable out from the phone, I wanted to remove the battery, but out of nowhere the phone suddenly started loading in, screen working completely fine, i could do whatever i want, so my first thing was to do a hard reset. After the hard reset I set up my usual stuff (important apps etc) and I locked the screen so my battery won't go down. Little did I know, I ****ed up again, because ever since that happened, I can't get my screen to work again. I tried everything I could but my PC still doesn't recognise the phone (even after a LOT of drivers being installed), charging the phone doesn't do anything. Regardless if I remove - put back the battery no screen, no screen in download - hard reset mode either, it's just completely black.
I'd like to have some sort of help, because I am just completely out of ideas, I really feel like a firmware change could fix the phone, but if the computer doesn't recognise it, I have no idea what to do.
rawon3 said:
Hey everyone who reads this.
I'd like to start my topic with apologising if I post this in the wrong section.
So, I have a LG Spirit H440N LTE for about 3 years now, maybe a little less. I've always taken good care of it, both physically and in updates / security wise aswell.
My phone has been working flawlessly until the last 2 days. 2 days ago i was charging my phone, and when it vibrated (meaning its 100%) I pulled the cable off, and pressed the power button (power button locks - unlocks the screen) the screen didn't turn on. I was like "wow that's strange" but didn't care much, i just kept pressing the button every 5-6 seconds, nothing.
At that point I pulled the battery out, let it sit for a short time and then put it back, start the phone, I felt the vibration (meaning it's starting up) but no screen, so my first idea was that I need to get a new firmware and completely reinstall my phone, as it seems like it got bricked.. for no reason, by itself ? Strange thing but I accepted it and literally been googling for 9 hours now and I find more and more issues.
After I got LG FlashTool, drivers, and even 3 different firmwares, I wanted to start the phone in download mode to start upgrading, but even though I held down "volume up for 5 seconds and then put the usb cable in" nothing happened, no screen, my PC didn't recognise the phone either.
So I got a little bit mad and pulled the cable out from the phone, I wanted to remove the battery, but out of nowhere the phone suddenly started loading in, screen working completely fine, i could do whatever i want, so my first thing was to do a hard reset. After the hard reset I set up my usual stuff (important apps etc) and I locked the screen so my battery won't go down. Little did I know, I ****ed up again, because ever since that happened, I can't get my screen to work again. I tried everything I could but my PC still doesn't recognise the phone (even after a LOT of drivers being installed), charging the phone doesn't do anything. Regardless if I remove - put back the battery no screen, no screen in download - hard reset mode either, it's just completely black.
I'd like to have some sort of help, because I am just completely out of ideas, I really feel like a firmware change could fix the phone, but if the computer doesn't recognise it, I have no idea what to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might be having hardware issues, such as a faulty power button. If you are the type of user that frequently presses the power button to lock/unlock the screen, this leads to excessive wear on the button components, this is why some users prefer to use the "tap to sleep" and "tap to wake" feature, to avoid wearing the power button out. On my LG, this feature is called "KnockOn", it's located in Accessibility settings.
Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk

u12+ black screen after PIN unlock / Device unusable

Hi everyone, I'm throwing this out there because I've run out of ideas about what has just happened to my U12+ (64gb) today.
I woke up and used my phone as normal, caught up on Twitter and the news, the usual apps etc. nothing untoward. The same routine I've had with my phone for the past 18 months of owning it with zero issues. My handset is stock OS (Android 9) and so not rooted or anything like that. Virtually all the apps I use are standard issue from the Play Store, nothing really "out there" and I have BitDefender installed to look after security. Same setup I've had for over a year. The battery was around 35% so I plugged it into my wall charger while I went off to grab some breakfast. When I returned a couple of hours later the light on the handset was green, I unplugged the charger and attempted to unlock it with my fingerprint.
The phone asked for my PIN, no big deal so I entered it. Black screen. Tapped the power button again, it requested my PIN again, I entered and... black screen. Okay, I was a little bit concerned now. I held down the power button so the haptic buzz occurred, held for 10/20/30 seconds, a minute... nothing, no restart. Tap the power button and it asks me for my PIN again and shows yet another black screen. I held down Power + Volume Down but again, nothing and no restart.
I asked someone to call me, the screen came to life and I could take the call but each time I tried to pull down the system tray in order to try and reach Settings to restart it asked me for my PIN, I entered it = black screen. The call was unaffected.
I removed my SIM + microSD card tray = same deal as above.
The phone is clearly responsive in some way and the screen does display to ask for my PIN but I can't get into it in order to reboot it. Extremely worrying.
Does anyone have any advice? At the moment I am faced with the prospect of simply allowing the battery to run out so the phone shuts down naturally but that is going to take the best part of 2 days.
I'm really disappointed because I was planning another 1-2 years use for this handset as I just bought a 1TB microSD card which has been fine in the phone for weeks so I don't think that's the cause. It is also genuine SanDisk.
Any suggestions or advice? Thanks in advance.
Hello, I hope you have made a backup with google backup recently... This does not happen often on android, but sometimes the system could have a problem. You can try this go the bootloader with the power and volume buttons , after recovery.. after apply a wipe data/ factory reset.. is will make a factory reset of your phone except the sd card. You should by fine after that and profit again.
Thanks, I appreciate your reply.
At the moment I am running the battery down until the handset switches off naturally. When it comes back on I will try to launch the phone normally, if that doesn't work I'll run the battery down again and attempt to reach the bootloader.
My photos are backed up to the cloud, I may lose some text messages but I managed to transfer the majority of my 2FA over to another Android device bar one.
At the end of the day if it's a choice between wiping it or a bricked/unusable handset then I don't really have one. What a pain.
Magimix^ said:
Thanks, I appreciate your reply.
At the moment I am running the battery down until the handset switches off naturally. When it comes back on I will try to launch the phone normally, if that doesn't work I'll run the battery down again and attempt to reach the bootloader.
My photos are backed up to the cloud, I may lose some text messages but I managed to transfer the majority of my 2FA over to another Android device bar one.
At the end of the day if it's a choice between wiping it or a bricked/unusable handset then I don't really have one. What a pain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At the moment I am running the battery down until the handset switches off naturally <----- why that??? Even on a bootloop or a black screen you can reset it hold the buttons power and the volume, you can go on the bootloader.
Max128 said:
At the moment I am running the battery down until the handset switches off naturally <----- why that??? Even on a bootloop or a black screen you can reset it hold the buttons power and the volume, you can go on the bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The first thing I tried to do was hold down the power button or the power button in tandem with the volume buttons but the handset won't restart. I tried loads of times holding it for different amounts of time and... nothing.
Trust me, I tried.
The only way I can get the device to switch off is by draining the battery. I'm almost at 20% so it shouldn't be too much longer.
Well I already got a black screen after flashing a module magisk.. I have holding the power button and the phone have restart no problem, same thing on bootloop. You need to be sure to hold the button correctly.
Max128 said:
You need to be sure to hold the button correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm certain I was holding the buttons correctly. I tried about 20 times using different combinations just to be sure but the device would not restart. The haptic shock buttons are one of my least favourite features of the u12+, it's got to be said.
Anyway, the phone ran out of battery about 15 minutes ago. I left it alone for few minutes and switched it back on. It allowed me back in and the device appears to be fully functional again. I can unlock by thumb print, face or PIN without issue.
Basically, it's fixed. My only concern is I have no idea what caused it or if it will happen again.
Thanks for offering help though, I appreciate it. I'm not sure if this thread can be closed/locked now? I'll look into that.
Cheers.
Yes.. i love the buttons too i never got a problem with this. Great if is fixed! Maybe make a factory reset the next time.
I am wondering if the new flagship have haptic buttons too.. htc will announce it Tuesday.

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.

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