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Help Anyone?! Frozen on Boot (Not truely bricked)

Disclaimers: I hate asking for help and never have here before, but I'm at wits end. Yes, I've read the FAQ's, the Wiki and Googled myself silly. I've been working on this for over a day now, so I'm not asking for help casually.
Problem: MyTouch 3G TMOUS Will not boot into Android. I can load recovery, fastboot, etc., but when I try to boot android it goes to the green MyTouch 3G screen and there it stays. I've left it for 40 minutes a couple of time, and there it remains.
Cause: I've flashed several ROMs onto this phone before. I flashed one last night and it never booted.
I didn't make a Nandroid backup (stopped doing that ages ago since I never had a problem).
Attached is an ADB bugreport, if it's any help.
THANK YOU in advance for any help you can give me!
Recovery: RA-sapphire-v1.5.2G
SPL: HBOOT-1.33.2005 (SAPP30000)
Radio: 2.22.19.261
I've tried:
1) Flashing different ROMs
2) Flashing different recoveries
3) Flashing different SPLs
4) Even flashed the radio once
Problem remains unchanged.

I assume you already may have tried this... but have you made sure the partition setup of your SD Card matches the configuration the ROMs are expecting?
If not then you can partition using Amon_RA's recovery Rom. Also, clear your Data partition as well before you install a ROM (Again, I assume you probably already did this).
Lastly, try to keep this sort of thread to the general section

Thanks for the idea, CatalystNZ! Yes, I have tried about four different ROMs, and several different partition configurations to include straight fat32 and even booting with no SD card. I've also swapped out the sd and the sim with my cliq... all to no avail unfortunately.

Are you doing a full wipe before flashing?

Can someone not just post a unconfigured nandroid backup for him? You should always do a nandroid backup, and backup your sd card contents onto your pc, better safe than sorry mom always said.

I have had this happen as well and was very worried. I didn't believe my MT3G was really bricked, but...
I ended up backing up all my fat32 stuff, totally reformatting the SD card with fat32, then repartitioning with Amon Ra 1.5.2 with the file system specs the ROM your trying to use requires. Hopefully that will work. If not I'd go all the way back to a stock ROM (the sappimg.nbh which will reflash your entire stock images.) From there you have to-reroot, etc. (I resorted to this once as well)
Good luck!

Yes, if someone wouldn't mind passing me a spare nandroid backup, I'd love to give that a whirl.
I have been wiping before all flashes - everything right down to battery settings and tilt or whatever. I've formatted and partitioned multiple times with the recovery, xp, and even gparted a couple of times - no dice.
Lesson learned - nandroid backups good. Quasibrickage - bad.
I'm going to look into the sappimg.nbh bit tomorrow morning at work. That sounds like it has potential too!
Thanks again all!
*** djlman, the sappimg.nbh did solve my problem, the phone is back from the dead and my marriage is saved (it's my wife's phone). THANK YOU!

[Q] Resetting device encryption

Hello, I am in a bit of a jam and am trying to find the best way out.
My device is encrypted using the native Android feature. I have Lean Kernel and CleanROM on the device. So it is rooted/unlocked. I was trying to clean the device further by uninstalling some useless apps with Titanium Backup. Turns out I messed up on something..
When the phone boots to the encrypted device screen, the keyboard doesn't show up! I am not able to get into the phone to do anything!
I have the latest CWM recovery installed. I tried a factory reset and such, but it says it fails to mount the internal SD card. /:
Anyone know how I can fix this and flash a new CleanROM? Data wiping is not a problem for me, but CWM refuses to mount the SD card to do it..
Any advice? I am relatively new to the Android scene, so try not to make things too complicated.

Odin?
EatonZ said:
Hello, I am in a bit of a jam and am trying to find the best way out.
My device is encrypted using the native Android feature. I have Lean Kernel and CleanROM on the device. So it is rooted/unlocked. I was trying to clean the device further by uninstalling some useless apps with Titanium Backup. Turns out I messed up on something..
When the phone boots to the encrypted device screen, the keyboard doesn't show up! I am not able to get into the phone to do anything!
I have the latest CWM recovery installed. I tried a factory reset and such, but it says it fails to mount the internal SD card. /:
Anyone know how I can fix this and flash a new CleanROM? Data wiping is not a problem for me, but CWM refuses to mount the SD card to do it..
Any advice? I am relatively new to the Android scene, so try not to make things too complicated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This probably wouldn't work, but have you tried reflashing with Odin?

budzylikessoup said:
This probably wouldn't work, but have you tried reflashing with Odin?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am looking at this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1984436
I am downloading the very first package. Since that seems to wipe everything, which is what I want at this point.
Will flashing that work?

I'm not sure if it will work, as I don't encrypt my device. What it will do is wipe your system, data, etc. partitions, but it won't touch your internal SD. This will probably be fine; it will install a keyboard and you should be able to enter your password, that is, if it can flash the ROM properly.

flanks vidsguir
budzylikessoup said:
I'm not sure if it will work, as I don't encrypt my device. What it will do is wipe your system, data, etc. partitions, but it won't touch your internal SD. This will probably be fine; it will install a keyboard and you should be able to enter your password, that is, if it can flash the ROM properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm still trying to understand how Android storage works, so I may sound like a noob here haha..
All I have is an internal SD card. I don't have an external one or anything. Are system, data located on another internal flash chip or something? If they are on the internal SD, I would imagine everything would be formatted and reset once this is flashed.

Sorry, I read the linked post wrong...So this will wipe everything, system, data, and internal SD.
As for the difference, the system and data are different partitions than the internal SD.. so normally when you factory reset in CWM, it just wipes the data, not your internal SD or system. What this means is that it won't touch some files, like ones you download from the internet, but it will get rid of all of your apps and appdata, as you know, and these are stored in the data partition.

I got it sorted. Thanks for the help.

Glad I could help!

EatonZ said:
I am looking at this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1984436
I am downloading the very first package. Since that seems to wipe everything, which is what I want at this point.
Will flashing that work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wanna say this thread was a lifesaver, and I'll just leave my experience here for fellow noobs, like myself, stumbling into this issue.
I CMod'd my S3 with Clockwork (following very detailed instructions) and tried out encryption (knowing ahead of time that a factory reset would be in order if I didn't like it). As you all know Clockwork has trouble mounting the encrypted /sdcard/ directory, and won't do the factory reset. I was afraid that since Clockwork couldn't deal with the encrypted data, so too might Odin, leading to the risk of bricking. This thread gave me enough courage to give it a go. Following the above linked instructions solved the problem. Odin had no problem wiping and writing over the encrypted data. after I was back to stock I ran through installing Clockwork and CMod again. And just like that, the problem's fixed.
Thanks a bunch everyone!
EDIT:
I just got a response on twitter from a friend who ran into the same issue with clockwork. According to him, apparently TWRP doesn't have this flaw. My phone's working now and I don't want to monkey around with it anymore, but maybe a more experienced user out there could comment on/confirm this, and maybe add the info to the tutorials (if it's correct).
Thanks again!

SpoonlessCorey said:
Just wanna say this post was a lifesaver, and I'll just leave my experience here for fellow noobs, like myself, stumbling into this issue.
I CMod'd my S3 with Clockwork (following very detailed instructions) and tried out encryption (knowing ahead of time that a factory reset would be in order if I didn't like it). As you all know Clockwork has trouble mounting the encrypted /sdcard/ directory, and won't do the factory reset. I was afraid that since Clockwork couldn't deal with the encrypted data, so too might Odin, leading to the risk of bricking. This thread gave me enough courage to give it a go. Following the above linked instructions solved the problem. Odin had no problem wiping and writing over the encrypted data. after I was back to stock I ran through installing Clockwork and CMod again. And just like that, the problem's fixed.
Thanks a bunch everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I was worried I might have created a $200 paper-weight!
I'm glad that my question ended up helping you as well!:good:

Need Help

I had just downloaded the latest firmware to upgrade to lolipop, I did a titanium backup, then a nandroid with TWRP.
Upon reboot I can only get to the default recover screen (The one with the android on the skateboard). I can boot into TWRP and have tried clearing cache and delvik cache, and now doing a factory reset but I'm still having the problem. sometimes when rebooting from TWRP the phone boots to the lock screen (or to setup screen after factory reset), then a few seconds later reboots back to the screen with the android on the skateboard.
I haven't even started installing the new firmware, all I did was backup with TWRP and it seems to have semi bricked the phone.
I also tried restoring the backup and I get an error "E:\ No Partition selected for restore."

Justintoxicated said:
I had just downloaded the latest firmware to upgrade to lolipop, I did a titanium backup, then a nandroid with TWRP.
Upon reboot I can only get to the default recover screen (The one with the android on the skateboard). I can boot into TWRP and have tried clearing cache and delvik cache, and now doing a factory reset but I'm still having the problem. sometimes when rebooting from TWRP the phone boots to the lock screen (or to setup screen after factory reset), then a few seconds later reboots back to the screen with the android on the skateboard.
I haven't even started installing the new firmware, all I did was backup with TWRP and it seems to have semi bricked the phone.
I also tried restoring the backup and I get an error "E:\ No Partition selected for restore."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You flashed twrp either by twrp manager or allowed flashify to download the image for you. Try flashing the firmware zip I posted in tigerstowns thread that has twrp in it. If that doesn't work you will need to ruu and then install twrp and restore. Do not use twrp manager.

dottat said:
You flashed twrp either by twrp manager or allowed flashify to download the image for you. Try flashing the firmware zip I posted in tigerstowns thread that has twrp in it. If that doesn't work you will need to ruu and then install twrp and restore. Do not use twrp manager.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I beleive I flashed twrp origionally from fastboot, that was months ago though when we got the 4.4.4 update.
Do you mean I need to flash that zip from fastboot?
I'm worried about trying to flash firmware with the phone in a strange state. I'm almost thinking that something went bad inside the phone, but not convinced yet. It has been doing strange things lately, constant searching for location, pausing itself durring playback of music, and some random restarts. I haven't been messing it it so it seems strange to all of a sudden have these issues after many months.

Justintoxicated said:
I beleive I flashed twrp origionally from fastboot, that was months ago though when we got the 4.4.4 update.
Do you mean I need to flash that zip from fastboot?
I'm worried about trying to flash firmware with the phone in a strange state. I'm almost thinking that something went bad inside the phone, but not convinced yet. It has been doing strange things lately, constant searching for location, pausing itself durring playback of music, and some random restarts. I haven't been messing it it so it seems strange to all of a sudden have these issues after many months.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah man. Just reflash the firmware zip that contains twrp and report back. The older twrp are not safe to use on the newer firmware. I have a pda thread stickied in the general section that explains. Phone is likely fine.

dottat said:
Nah man. Just reflash the firmware zip that contains twrp and report back. The older twrp are not safe to use on the newer firmware. I have a pda thread stickied in the general section that explains. Phone is likely fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, yea, I flashed the new firmware (with twrp) using fastboot , I'm still stuck on the same screen though. I did not install lolipop because I need to get the phone to USB mode to copy it over, which I cannot do because it will not start up.

Justintoxicated said:
Ok, yea, I flashed the new firmware (with twrp) using fastboot , I'm still stuck on the same screen though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok...so follow me...if you flashed what you thought was cache on the new firmware but using an older twrp you wiped system instead.
Do you have your stuff backed up?

dottat said:
Ok...so follow me...if you flashed what you thought was cache on the new firmware but using an older twrp you wiped system instead.
Do you have your stuff backed up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know, I made a nandroid to my external memory card and immediately after that I was no longer able to start up... I tried to restore the nandroid and I cannot. So I would say no I am probably not backed up. I do still have RDKN rom on the memory card for 4.4.3, should I try to re-install that?
TWRP is now version 2.8.5.0, so apparently it updated correctly (I think before it was 2.8.1)

Justintoxicated said:
I don't know, I made a nandroid to my external memory card and immediately after that I was no longer able to start up... I tried to restore the nandroid and I cannot. So I would say no I am probably not backed up. I do still have RDKN rom on the memory card for 4.4.3, should I try to re-install that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. Your best bet to get your stuff back would be to downgrade firmware back to 4.4.4 and reflash the latest twrp img only and then restore your nand.

dottat said:
No. Your best bet to get your stuff back would be to downgrade firmware back to 4.4.4 and reflash the latest twrp img only and then restore your nand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok my internet is not working on my laptop at work (only of the PC I'm on and no way to transfer files without my phone), so I guess I will try to do this when I get home. At this point I don't even care about my data, I wanted to save my text conversations but other than that everything I need should be saved in my titanium backup.

Justintoxicated said:
Ok my internet is not working on my laptop at work, so I guess I will try to do this when I get home. At this point I don't even care about my data, I wanted to save my text conversations but other than that everything I need should be saved in my titanium backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And that's what I figured. So flash 4.4.4. Flash latest twrp. Restore nand from ext sd. Boot up. Install this app.
https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=95916177934537937
Run it and link to your Google account and make it perform a backup.
It will do your apps/email accounts/texts/even home screen layout. And it will do it once a day for you automatically or on demand whenever.
Once you get a good backup on this app you can simply flash the new ruu and use this app to restore.

dottat said:
And that's what I figured. So flash 4.4.4. Flash latest twrp. Restore nand from ext sd. Boot up. Install this app.
https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=95916177934537937
Run it and link to your Google account and make it perform a backup.
It will do your apps/email accounts/texts/even home screen layout. And it will do it once a day for you automatically or on demand whenever.
Once you get a good backup on this app you can simply flash the new ruu and use this app to restore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update, restarted the computer and I was able to restore the old firmware. I re-installed the old rom afterwards (not my nandroid) and I am unable to get into the OS. Well technically I get prompted to select a language, after which the phone reboots back to the S-off androids with skateboards bootloader. Does this mean my phone is toast?

Hey guys, should I S-on the phone load the stock bootloader and try to return it? It is over a year old so I think I will need to use my insurance ($100). What is the best way to go about doing this?
Also when I get my replacement phone will there still be a way to S-off?
Thanks,
- Jusitn

The problem appears to be something wrong with my micro SD card! I removed the micro SD card and I can boot up fine. I guess I need to find another way to copy the rom to the micro SD install the rom then remove the micro SD card.
edit:
Oh this is worse than paying $100 for a new phone. It appears that creating a backup instead of creating a backup, actually corrupted my memory card. Now all the photos are backed up to the cloud but it will take me hours and hours to get all my apps back to the way they were. Some Security camera settings, Rifle target hand load development all gone. Audio book place holders, all notes taken etc. Nothing life or death but those security cameras will take me forever to figure out. I know I know, why not create a backup right? Well that's what I was trying to do!

So I was able to get back some data using some recovery software, unfortunately I was not able to retrieve the nandroid or the titanium backup files. Pictures were backed up to the could and music licenses and other hting I can add back on from the PC. Very time consuming though.
Anyways, what should I do now? Should I just reformat the SD card and continue to use it or should I assume that this happened because the card is bad and replace it with something else?

Justintoxicated said:
So I was able to get back some data using some recovery software, unfortunately I was not able to retrieve the nandroid or the titanium backup files. Pictures were backed up to the could and music licenses and other hting I can add back on from the PC. Very time consuming though.
Anyways, what should I do now? Should I just reformat the SD card and continue to use it or should I assume that this happened because the card is bad and replace it with something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know what file system you're using but assuming it's one that windows can read, connect it to a PC and run chkdsk on it. If you don't know how to do that from a command prompt, right click on the drive in windows explorer and choose properties. Then tools and then click on the check now button under Error-checking. A small window will open. A line that says automatically fix file system errors will be checked by default. In your case, I'd suggest also checking the line that says "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors". It'll take a while for it to complete with that line checked so be patient. If you're lucky, it might just fix your problem. No promises but it's worth a try.
When it's done you can look in your event viewer to see what it found, if anything. If it finds bad sectors, I wouldn't trust the card. It can be used but there's no guarantee that more problems won't pop up. Maybe, maybe not.
To get to your event viewer, in Win 7 (not sure about Windows 8) click start and in the search box type event.vwr. I'm not sure what category you have to look under in there but perhaps under Winlogon. That's where you'll find it if it requires a reboot to check the card but that's not likely so I'm not sure.

robocuff said:
I don't know what file system you're using but assuming it's one that windows can read, connect it to a PC and run chkdsk on it. If you don't know how to do that from a command prompt, right click on the drive in windows explorer and choose properties. Then tools and then click on the check now button under Error-checking. A small window will open. A line that says automatically fix file system errors will be checked by default. In your case, I'd suggest also checking the line that says "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors". It'll take a while for it to complete with that line checked so be patient. If you're lucky, it might just fix your problem. No promises but it's worth a try.
When it's done you can look in your event viewer to see what it found, if anything. If it finds bad sectors, I wouldn't trust the card. It can be used but there's no guarantee that more problems won't pop up. Maybe, maybe not.
To get to your event viewer, in Win 7 (not sure about Windows 8) click start and in the search box type event.vwr. I'm not sure what category you have to look under in there but perhaps under Winlogon. That's where you'll find it if it requires a reboot to check the card but that's not likely so I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exFat for the card, and yes I am on windows 7. I tried to run a check as it was detected as having problems when I plugged the card into my laptop. Then it said I needed to dismount the drive and I said ok. Then it would just hang up. I reformatted the card and then ran the checkdisk again and it tells me that there are no problems now. I guess the card is ok and the issue was caused by TWRP? Not very cool when creating a back delete all your titanium backups and your nandroid that you were trying to create. Unfortunately I have to start from scratch on everything now. I even tried restoring to an older nandroid from May that was saved on my computer but that failed as well. for different reasons.

Justintoxicated said:
exFat for the card, and yes I am on windows 7. I tried to run a check as it was detected as having problems when I plugged the card into my laptop. Then it said I needed to dismount the drive and I said ok. Then it would just hang up. I reformatted the card and then ran the checkdisk again and it tells me that there are no problems now. I guess the card is ok and the issue was caused by TWRP? Not very cool when creating a back delete all your titanium backups and your nandroid that you were trying to create. Unfortunately I have to start from scratch on everything now. I even tried restoring to an older nandroid from May that was saved on my computer but that failed as well. for different reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What reason did the restore fail for? And don't ever s-on unless you have let me have a crack at a phone. Not one thing you have said so far makes me think its phone. Unfortunately I have ended up with corrupt exfat discs before too. Sucks.

dottat said:
What reason did the restore fail for? And don't ever s-on unless you have let me have a crack at a phone. Not one thing you have said so far makes me think its phone. Unfortunately I have ended up with corrupt exfat discs before too. Sucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't remember, probably missing a file or something.

[Completed] Corrupted backup? Big problems

Hi guys, wasn't sure where to post this and I've been searching the web for hours without coming up with an answer with the best way to fix the problem I've got.
So yesterday my sister gave me her phone saying it was shat and slow and generally rubbish (S4 i9505 running 4.4.2). So I had a brief look at it and she had absolutely no room on the phone at all, it was completely clogged. So I deleted all the cache data (4 gigs!!), as soon as I did this the phone came back to life and started updating everything it could, then made a backup in CWM. Thought while I'm here I may as well put the official Lollipop firmware on it from Sammobile. All was good until I realised that she has never backed anything up to google or any other cloud storage (pretty dumb!) and all of her important stuff I couldn't get back.
So I then had to try and extract some data from the CWM backup... couldn't do it. I just couldn't find the files that she wanted restored. Mainly whatsapp messages and pictures and also Smemo. These are all she needs, there's really important memos apparently, why the hell she never backed them up or had another copy of them is beyond me if they were that important!
So I tried restoring just the data part of the 4.4 CWM restore to the 5.0 rom, looking back now I see this is where I went wrong and was asking for trouble.
So I then tried rolling back to the full CWM backup, all went well so I assumed and it said it was successful. This was until the phone booted. Constant spamming of gapps has stopped working, and no matter what I did I couldn't get it to stop, the phone was unusable with it constantly pinging up, every app was failing, and then it would turn itself off and reboot.
So I Factory reset again and wiped everything, installed the backup again, same thing happened again. Even tried flashing the latest version of gapps, but nothing had any effect.
So now I'm thinking oh feck... I didn't make a backup of the Lollipop install as I thought the rollback would have just cured it, and she had already started messing about with it, making it look pretty and getting people to send her some of the important files she had.
So I thought balls, tough luck and you'll have to start again, your fault for never backing anything up. So I reflashed Lollipop, and for some reason it wouldn't boot. Would just hang at the Samsung logo, this was 4am, I was panicking as I'd effectively bricked her phone. So after lots of boot loops and countless flashes I was looking on ebay for a new phone for her, then suddenly it finally boots on one of the flashes.
Anyway after a lot of faffing about, flashing 4.4 which worked, so flashed 5.0 again, and luckily it booted, I don't know what happened, maybe I missed something as I was so tired, so I signed her into google and let all the apps download while I slept.
Now the question is, I seem to have found a site that explains how to extract individual files vaguely, I just need to get the smemos and whatsapp files and I'm not entirely sure where to look and extract these files. Also, will they corrupt if I try to install them on the 5.0 firmware?
Any help would be much appreciated as I'm really in the stinky brown stuff.

Morning bump if anyone can shed some light on this :crying:

Hi
Thanks for writing to us at XDA Assist. Have you tried using this tool?
[Tool] Cwm nandbackup file Extractor ( .img/ .tar files )
It should extract exactly what you need. If you're only reinstalling those specific apps with their data you should have no issues, just don't restore any system data, that's what caused your problems after restoring the KitKat backup on top of the Lollipop ROM.

No response in two days, thread closed, thanks.

Stuck in a bootloop + CWM question

Edit: Solved, see bottom
ROM (D6633_Customized HK_1290-5630_23.4.A.0.546_R6C_HK_SuperSU2.46_XZDR2.8.21-signedv2)
Bit of a dumb move on my part. It all started when my snapchat stopped working, I updated, and then Titanium Backup wouldn't restore the data properly (giving me "parse error"). I was trying to fix that and read online that sometimes this is caused by improper permissions, so I booted into recovery mode, couldn't find the option, but somehow decided "hey, maybe my root permission (?) is wrong slash it's 6am and I just watched a wild 2016 election end" and I hit the button. Now my phone is stuck in a bootloop.
So my question:
1) What exactly does re-root phone do (in CWM), and why would that have messed me up? Is it because I have a pre-rooted rom?
2) I wiped cache and delvik and it doesn't help
3) How do I fix this? I was thinking of loading a SuperSU zip on the SD card from my computer and flashing that, assuming somehow a corrupted root is at fault. I can't seem to get the thing in ADB mode as a side note.
3b) If that seems like a good idea, does it matter what one I use?
4) If I reflash the ROM, it should keep my apps and stuff, ya? I don't actually care if my phone is crippled, I just need it to work long enough to properly back up some media, and mainly get my whatsapp over to my new SIM card. If I can't get in it's forever stuck on my old number which I don't have the SIM for anymore.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
Edit: I don't know how to delete this. Anyways, with other resources I found out that because I used a pre-rooted ROM, there were issues with using CWM to try to do the rooting with its built in functions, softbricking the phone. Reflashing the original pre-rooted ROM worked fine.