Hard Brick (possible hardware failure) - Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III

I was wondering if I've encountered a common failure mode with my Verizon Galaxy S3 and if there are any possible solutions.
A week before it bricked, the phone was acting rather odd, rebooting itself spontaneously and at random; I didn't really think much of it until the following week. Applications on the phone had been running VERY slow and would often crash or hang; in addition, the phone was rebooting itself several times an hour at this point.
The last reboot hung for a while at the "Samsung Galaxy S3" screen before going to the home screen. At this point I realize there may be something serious going on, so I attempt to SSH into it and retrieve important information off it. Unfortunately, it proved to be too late; login attempts failed with "Argument list too long". A few minutes after my ill-fated attempt to save data, the phone crashed in the app launcher and initiated a reboot again; only this time, the Samsung logo never came up. Since then, I have been unable to power it on, enter recovery, or otherwise get any life out of it.
It's long out of warranty so I'm basically wondering what my options are to revive it and possibly get important info off it. Reinserting the battery does not work and neither does plugging it in. All options to enter recovery or any other sort of mode fails; it essentially acts like there's no battery inside and does nothing. Is this a common failure state for S3 units and is there a known solution? Has anyone ever used JTAG to retrieve information off the storage inside?

WildZontar said:
I was wondering if I've encountered a common failure mode with my Verizon Galaxy S3 and if there are any possible solutions.
A week before it bricked, the phone was acting rather odd, rebooting itself spontaneously and at random; I didn't really think much of it until the following week. Applications on the phone had been running VERY slow and would often crash or hang; in addition, the phone was rebooting itself several times an hour at this point.
The last reboot hung for a while at the "Samsung Galaxy S3" screen before going to the home screen. At this point I realize there may be something serious going on, so I attempt to SSH into it and retrieve important information off it. Unfortunately, it proved to be too late; login attempts failed with "Argument list too long". A few minutes after my ill-fated attempt to save data, the phone crashed in the app launcher and initiated a reboot again; only this time, the Samsung logo never came up. Since then, I have been unable to power it on, enter recovery, or otherwise get any life out of it.
It's long out of warranty so I'm basically wondering what my options are to revive it and possibly get important info off it. Reinserting the battery does not work and neither does plugging it in. All options to enter recovery or any other sort of mode fails; it essentially acts like there's no battery inside and does nothing. Is this a common failure state for S3 units and is there a known solution? Has anyone ever used JTAG to retrieve information off the storage inside?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plug it into your computer, or a wall outlet with the battery out. See if it mounts as a strange drive or the led light flashes for a second.

Oh wow. Yes it does have the red light when I plug it into the wall outlet without battery. Haven't tried the PC as I'm leaving for work and my USB wire is in the car but I'll assume that will work when I try it.

WildZontar said:
Oh wow. Yes it does have the red light when I plug it into the wall outlet without battery. Haven't tried the PC as I'm leaving for work and my USB wire is in the car but I'll assume that will work when I try it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At least it isn't completely fried, this method should work:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2581166
Make sure it has no other sign of life first.
If you were on 4.1 then make sure you don't use a 4.3 file and lock your phone. Might have to do some digging around to find them, but they are around here somewhere.

Related

Wont connect to PC and other odd issues

Ok, so I have been having a very annoying issue(s) recently with my SGH-I997R, ( Firmware version 2.3.3, Baseband version I997RUXKG3, Kernel Ver: 2.6.32.7-I997RUXKG3-CL366622)
This all started out of the blue about a month ago, I used to connect my phone to my PC all the time for transferring items via Mass Storage, and then on day when I went to connect it to my same PC, I got " USB Device Not Recognized". It will charge the phone but will not connect or show any option on the phone to connect. I have tried 2 Samsung cables and a generic Micro USB cable, No change. I tried connecting to my laptop, same issue. I re-downloaded the drivers from Samsung onto both my usual PC and Laptop, no change. Very very frustrating.
Other issues, I don't know if their related in any way but they all started at the same time.
a) if I place my phone in airplane mode i cannot get it out of that mode without rebooting my phone
b) if i shut my phone down (doesn't matter if battery shows 100% or 25%) I cannot get the phone to turn on without plugging in the USB cable.
c) When I leave my phone charging overnight and look at it in the morning, battery shows 100% but also shows "NO SERVICE" , I reboot the phone with the cable still connected, service restored.
IF anyone has had these issues Especially the connecting to PC issue, Please PLEASE help. I am going nuts. And of course this all happened 3 months after the warranty expired, so both Rogers and Samsung will not help without $$$$$.
have you tried to back up your data, take out any micro sd card and perform a factory reset under /settings/privacy/reset ?
or open it up and look inside for any problems like corrosion?
qkster said:
have you tried to back up your data, take out any micro sd card and perform a factory reset under /settings/privacy/reset ?
or open it up and look inside for any problems like corrosion?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done a factory reset numerous times from both the /settings/privacy/reset, and from booting it up holding the volume keys and doing a reset that way.
And I have had my phone since day one in a Ballistic Hard Core Series case, I take it out once a week to ensure its clean and free of dust/moisture (I work in construction so I try to keep it a clean as possible.) and my phone still looks like its brand new.
Thanks for the response though,
Update:
So just as an update for anyone out there who may be able to assist me with this very annoying issue, the Phone is still doing the same things, and since the last post i've also replaced the battery to see if for some strange reason it might help.
But to no avail.
As well I dont think i mentioned that this phone is rooted. I want to try unrooting it to see if that will correct the issue, but with not being able to connect the phone via usb to the computer, I have NO IDEA on how I can accomplish this. Any help???

PC not Recognizing S6

tl;dr - Computer does not even acknowledge the phone exists, factory reset doesn't work. The cyan colored recovery is recognized by the computer though.
So yesterday I went on a hike, and before you start assuming "Oh he dropped his phone in the water or dirt or something" no I didn't. The hike is more of a tourist attraction really, with a man made path that you really can't miss... more of a stroll in the forest than a hike. So as I reached the end of the trail, I put my phone into Ultra Power Saving Mode as I needed the battery. While I was texting, the phone started acting up. The charging sound kept on coming on kind of like when a charging connection is sh**. Then the screen went black. The weird thing was though, that the screen was "on". I could attempt to capture a screenshot,and it would say "Unable to capture screenshot" in a message box on the bottom, and the ringtones would still go off. The phone stayed like this for a while, when I got into my car I noticed it seemed like the phone was charging from the car port, but the charging light was still on when the charger was unplugged from the car (which shouldn't happen normally). After I stopped in town, the phone worked again, but I had to rechoose my keyboard, theme, and wallpaper. I thought all was fine. However when I got home I noticed I couldn't connect my phone to my laptop. It would say charging, but Windows doesn't acknowledge the phone and I can't choose MTP or PTP on my phone.. it just says charging. I am 99.9% sure it has to do with what happened on the hike because it was working fine before. I tried a factory reset/cache wipe and going back to stock ROM (from CleanROM). Still not recognized. I tried toggling USB debugging, pretty much everything the Internet has thrown at me... I'm past my 14-day return period so I hope this isn't a problem over the next two years?
Yes... different USB and computers don't work. Samsung drivers installed. Kies and SmartSwitch don't recognize the phone. Tried rebooting both phone and computer. Using original cable that came with phone. I've pretty much exhausted everything... If I didn't list it you can suggest to see if I didn't try that.
Cant access device from Windows
kaipolygon said:
tl;dr - Computer does not even acknowledge the phone exists, factory reset doesn't work. The cyan colored recovery is recognized by the computer though.
So yesterday I went on a hike, and before you start assuming "Oh he dropped his phone in the water or dirt or something" no I didn't. The hike is more of a tourist attraction really, with a man made path that you really can't miss... more of a stroll in the forest than a hike. So as I reached the end of the trail, I put my phone into Ultra Power Saving Mode as I needed the battery. While I was texting, the phone started acting up. The charging sound kept on coming on kind of like when a charging connection is sh**. Then the screen went black. The weird thing was though, that the screen was "on". I could attempt to capture a screenshot,and it would say "Unable to capture screenshot" in a message box on the bottom, and the ringtones would still go off. The phone stayed like this for a while, when I got into my car I noticed it seemed like the phone was charging from the car port, but the charging light was still on when the charger was unplugged from the car (which shouldn't happen normally). After I stopped in town, the phone worked again, but I had to rechoose my keyboard, theme, and wallpaper. I thought all was fine. However when I got home I noticed I couldn't connect my phone to my laptop. It would say charging, but Windows doesn't acknowledge the phone and I can't choose MTP or PTP on my phone.. it just says charging. I am 99.9% sure it has to do with what happened on the hike because it was working fine before. I tried a factory reset/cache wipe and going back to stock ROM (from CleanROM). Still not recognized. I tried toggling USB debugging, pretty much everything the Internet has thrown at me... I'm past my 14-day return period so I hope this isn't a problem over the next two years?
Yes... different USB and computers don't work. Samsung drivers installed. Kies and SmartSwitch don't recognize the phone. Tried rebooting both phone and computer. Using original cable that came with phone. I've pretty much exhausted everything... If I didn't list it you can suggest to see if I didn't try that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem but no previous reasoning behind it. I have installed the samsung galaxy S6 driver for windows and I get a beep on my PC when I connect it but no detection of device. I have enabled USB Debugging and clicked on connect device as Mass storage device.
AAAArrgghhhh.
WHY?

I think "ADB shell halt" bricked my tablet

I have a samsung galaxy tab 2 7inch that is rooted and running a cyanogenmod 11(i think) nightly. So here's the story:
I was looking on google for a way to shut down my tablet through adb and came across "adb shell halt". After typing this, the screen immediately turned off and would not turn back on. After google searching I only found one person with the same problem. Looking into the "halt" command a bit more, I've learned that apparently it forcefully shuts down the Zygote which causes the Android system to forcefully close everything without giving anything a chance to save. Apparently the only thing left active is the Linux kernel, or at least that's what I've read. It's said that a battery pull can fix this, however I've repeatedly removed the battery, waited 15 minutes (and once overnight) and put the battery back in, only to constantly have the same result; it simply won't turn on, or at least show any signs that it is on. I've seen people saying that "adb shell start" will restart it, but I can't reconnect it to adb, I've tried several times. The only other thing I have seen is to mod the board and solder a chip to test pads that will allow me to communicate with the Linux kernel, but I'm hoping that there is another thing I can try first. If anyone can help me, I would REALLY appreciate it.
the100guy said:
I have a samsung galaxy tab 2 7inch that is rooted and running a cyanogenmod 11(i think) nightly. So here's the story:
I was looking on google for a way to shut down my tablet through adb and came across "adb shell halt". After typing this, the screen immediately turned off and would not turn back on. After google searching I only found one person with the same problem. Looking into the "halt" command a bit more, I've learned that apparently it forcefully shuts down the Zygote which causes the Android system to forcefully close everything without giving anything a chance to save. Apparently the only thing left active is the Linux kernel, or at least that's what I've read. It's said that a battery pull can fix this, however I've repeatedly removed the battery, waited 15 minutes (and once overnight) and put the battery back in, only to constantly have the same result; it simply won't turn on, or at least show any signs that it is on. I've seen people saying that "adb shell start" will restart it, but I can't reconnect it to adb, I've tried several times. The only other thing I have seen is to mod the board and solder a chip to test pads that will allow me to communicate with the Linux kernel, but I'm hoping that there is another thing I can try first. If anyone can help me, I would REALLY appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you get into recovery or download mode? can you get your device to connected to pc via adb? if none of these, then that's the only way my friend.
Seems like i have same problem.I also had cyanogenmod11 runing for like 3-4 months before it simply...died 2 days ago.It does not respond to any charger/usb/ car charger/ battery pull. Even tried to power the motherboard on without any daughterboard connected.Still dead.
It's a P3110 (wifi).Any suggestions?Thanks alot, i can and i'm willing to try anything that does not include desoldering/soldering chips.Thanks alot

Note 4 Bootloop - Softbrick

First, I will say that I have done an extensive amount of searching and reading about boot loops and issues with the Note 4 before posting this. After days of dead ends, I have to ask for help...
About a week ago (end of January 2017), I installed the Verizon security patch update for Android 6.0.1 for my Note 4 (SM-N910V): MMB29M.N910VVRS2CQA1. Everything was normal until this past Friday night, when I used a flashlight app (had been installed since I had the phone and used often) and it spun into a bootloop. Battery was at 20% at the time, and since I've had the phone, the battery quickly discharges below ~15%.
Situational Details:
Anyways, the bootloop goes all the way to the home screen, and often the touchscreen is active for a few seconds (varies) before it freezes for 5 seconds and continues the bootloop. It's worth noting that during the bootloop, the screen gets incrediby hot at a specific point: horizontally across from the power button and vertically below the light sensor.
Also, I'm able to access the recovery menu, download menu, and boot menu. Also, when a power cable is connected to the phone (with battery inside), the phone screen shows the empty charging battery symbol and then immediately turns on, without me having to press the power button. After that, the only way to actually power off the phone is to remove the battery or let it bootloop until it dies.
So far, I've tried the following without success:
-Wiping partition cache
-Factory data reset
-Flashing stock ROM with Odin. Though Odin recognized the device in the USB port and it accepted the ROM which I loaded it with, there was no activity from Odin to the phone once I clicked "Start". I'm using the original USB cable that came with the phone (the one that I charge it with), and the USB port is working fine.
-Using Kies3/Kies2.6/Smartswitch to revert back to factory stock ROM. Though Kies3 is allegedly the correct software, they all display an error message that my device is not supported, when I attach a USB cable to my laptop from my phone (regardless of USB port).
-When using Kies3 to try Tools > Firmware upgrade and Initialisation, Kies accepts "SM-N910V" as the model number, but it displays an error message that my S/N is incorrect, though I am copying and verifiying the IMEI from under the battery compartment (I also registered my phone with Samsung using this IMEI, so I know it's valid).
-Wiping partition cache 5x + Factory data reset 5x before rebooting
When in the recovery mode, the current android version MMB29M.N910VVRS2CQA1 is listed, which I find incredibly bizarre, since I thought it would have flashed to the stock ROM after a factory data reset. *shrug*
It's crossed my mind that the exceedingly hot temps may be causing the boot loop, but genuinely do not know if that's true or why it would become so hot in the first place. Either way, I just want to toss the idea out that maybe I have a hardware issue that's causing such overheating.
Anyways, at this point, I'm totally confused about what to do, especially since it's not totally bricked. Any/all help is greatly appreciated.
Anybody have any thoughts at all? I'm more and more open to the theory that it's overheating and causing a boot loop. When it's been sitting for a long time at room temperature, the screen remains at full brightness on the Verizon splash screen, and does so until it gets stupidly hot near the microSD / SIM slots... then it boots up for ~5-15 seconds, freezes for 5 seconds, and boot loops again.
I may try to thoroughly wrap my phone in plastic wrap and apply an ice pack before attempting to use it again. I find it hard to believe that the culprit is batteries since the issue happens with both batteries that I have (purchased separately at different times).
Ok, I had my Note 4 totally cold yesterday and booted it up normally. I discovered a few things while playing with it:
When the first reboot happened,the usual hot spot was hardly to room temperature. I tried this exact same test again this morning, with the same results... the hot spot was not even to room temperature when it froze and rebooting.
It's worth noting that I figured out the screen does not freeze if the display is constantly moving, regardless of phone temperature. For example, I normally try to do something/anything prior to the phone freezing and rebooting, like establish a file transfer type usb connection to my laptop, instead of the default 'charge' type connection. Well, to go through the settings menu and pick out the connection type, the screen will always hang for a split second as it loads the next set of menus. Normally, it would freeze at this point and reset. But today, I decided to click on the Apps button and oscillate my finger on the screen to flip between pages of apps... and it worked for several minutes straight.
I know my problem seems incredibly strange, but do any of these symptoms have any plausible explanation? I'd hate to think there is literally nothing that I do and that my $$$ Note 4 phone is now a brick.
1weirdtrick said:
First, I will say that I have done an extensive amount of searching and reading about boot loops and issues with the Note 4 before posting this. After days of dead ends, I have to ask for help...
About a week ago (end of January 2017), I installed the Verizon security patch update for Android 6.0.1 for my Note 4 (SM-N910V): MMB29M.N910VVRS2CQA1. Everything was normal until this past Friday night, when I used a flashlight app (had been installed since I had the phone and used often) and it spun into a bootloop. Battery was at 20% at the time, and since I've had the phone, the battery quickly discharges below ~15%.
Situational Details:
Anyways, the bootloop goes all the way to the home screen, and often the touchscreen is active for a few seconds (varies) before it freezes for 5 seconds and continues the bootloop. It's worth noting that during the bootloop, the screen gets incrediby hot at a specific point: horizontally across from the power button and vertically below the light sensor.
Also, I'm able to access the recovery menu, download menu, and boot menu. Also, when a power cable is connected to the phone (with battery inside), the phone screen shows the empty charging battery symbol and then immediately turns on, without me having to press the power button. After that, the only way to actually power off the phone is to remove the battery or let it bootloop until it dies.
So far, I've tried the following without success:
-Wiping partition cache
-Factory data reset
-Flashing stock ROM with Odin. Though Odin recognized the device in the USB port and it accepted the ROM which I loaded it with, there was no activity from Odin to the phone once I clicked "Start". I'm using the original USB cable that came with the phone (the one that I charge it with), and the USB port is working fine.
-Using Kies3/Kies2.6/Smartswitch to revert back to factory stock ROM. Though Kies3 is allegedly the correct software, they all display an error message that my device is not supported, when I attach a USB cable to my laptop from my phone (regardless of USB port).
-When using Kies3 to try Tools > Firmware upgrade and Initialisation, Kies accepts "SM-N910V" as the model number, but it displays an error message that my S/N is incorrect, though I am copying and verifiying the IMEI from under the battery compartment (I also registered my phone with Samsung using this IMEI, so I know it's valid).
-Wiping partition cache 5x + Factory data reset 5x before rebooting
When in the recovery mode, the current android version MMB29M.N910VVRS2CQA1 is listed, which I find incredibly bizarre, since I thought it would have flashed to the stock ROM after a factory data reset. *shrug*
It's crossed my mind that the exceedingly hot temps may be causing the boot loop, but genuinely do not know if that's true or why it would become so hot in the first place. Either way, I just want to toss the idea out that maybe I have a hardware issue that's causing such overheating.
Anyways, at this point, I'm totally confused about what to do, especially since it's not totally bricked. Any/all help is greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have USB debugging turned on? Do you have all of the USB drivers for Samsung phones installed? Are you using the stock USB cable when you use Odin?
If you can't get Odin to flash your firmware(it has to be the same version you have or newer, it can't be older), then you may have a hardware issue that is a result of the excess heat you mentioned.
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Droidriven said:
Do you have USB debugging turned on? Do you have all of the USB drivers for Samsung phones installed? Are you using the stock USB cable when you use Odin?
If you can't get Odin to flash your firmware(it has to be the same version you have or newer, it can't be older), then you may have a hardware issue that is a result of the excess heat you mentioned.
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't have USB debugging turned on before. I turned it on (under developer options... which I barely have time to access before it restarts), but now both my laptop and desktop won't recognize the device via any USB port. I do have the USB drivers for Samsung phones installed and have re-installed them a few times, to be safe. Also, I am only using the stock USB cable when doing any of these things.
1weirdtrick said:
I didn't have USB debugging turned on before. I turned it on (under developer options... which I barely have time to access before it restarts), but now both my laptop and desktop won't recognize the device via any USB port. I do have the USB drivers for Samsung phones installed and have re-installed them a few times, to be safe. Also, I am only using the stock USB cable when doing any of these things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the device show in device manager? What is it labelled as in device manager?
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Droidriven said:
Does the device show in device manager? What is it labelled as in device manager?
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming you mean the device manager in Windows, it's only showing as "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)".
Two new interesting notes:
When I enter Maintenance Boot Mode (Down Volume + Power to boot) and select USB Debug Mode, it now just performs a normal reboot. I can't recall for certain if this was any different in the past.
When I have the ability to access Developer options, I can definitely see that USB debugging is checked. Also, when I select 'USB configuration', 'charging' is pre-selected by default. When "MTP" (media transfer protocol) is selected, the developer mode menu still displays the value as 'charging', even though subsequently accessing the 'USB configuration' sub-menu shows that MTP is selected. Weird.
1weirdtrick said:
Assuming you mean the device manager in Windows, it's only showing as "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)".
Two new interesting notes:
When I enter Maintenance Boot Mode (Down Volume + Power to boot) and select USB Debug Mode, it now just performs a normal reboot. I can't recall for certain if this was any different in the past.
When I have the ability to access Developer options, I can definitely see that USB debugging is checked. Also, when I select 'USB configuration', 'charging' is pre-selected by default. When "MTP" (media transfer protocol) is selected, the developer mode menu still displays the value as 'charging', even though subsequently accessing the 'USB configuration' sub-menu shows that MTP is selected. Weird.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried booting to safe mode, if it boots to safe mode then it's a user app or a user app update that is causing your bootloop. In safe mode you can uninstall whatever app or app update caused it.
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Droidriven said:
Have you tried booting to safe mode, if it boots to safe mode then it's a user app or a user app update that is causing your bootloop. In safe mode you can uninstall whatever app or app update caused it.
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I thought about that, too. I've tried safe mode even after factory resets + cache wipes and it still boot loops. ("Safe mode" does indeed display in the bottom left of the display/GUI) Good thoughts, though.
1weirdtrick said:
Yeah, I thought about that, too. I've tried safe mode even after factory resets + cache wipes and it still boot loops. ("Safe mode" does indeed display in the bottom left of the display/GUI) Good thoughts, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Starting to sound like a hardware issue.
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk

Samsung J7 Prime G610M - FAP Lock + weird usb problem - Urgent

So, something very weird started happening to my phone. Out of nowhere, about 7 hours ago, it would stop charging whenever it was on, charging only when it was off and connected to my laptop. However, I thought it was just something wrong in the dev options, and I went to change whatever was the USB option to "charge phone". With this, I did accidentally forgot to activate the OEM option, and had to reboot not long after. You can probably see where this is going now.
Now I have a phone that bootloops on the FAP Lock message, and whenever I go to download mode to fix it, my PC just doesn't recognize the Phone. I've tried different USB cables, all of them are only recognized when the phone is shut down. So it isn't a hardware problem, because the Phone actually charges when it's shut down, and it isn't a problem with my USB ports or cables, as anything else I use with it works fine. And the worst part is, I need this phone today for a serious bank matter, and I can't afford to lose any data on it either, there's some very personal important stuff from yesterday that wasn't backed up yet. And keep in mind that paying for it to be fixed is the last option for me, as I can't afford it (besides, I fear they might end up getting the phone in factory reset mode, and I can't lose that data as I said).
Any kind of suggestions on how to get either the PC to recognize the phone, or flashing in a different way that doesn't need the PC to recognize the device? Thanks in advance.
Edit: Whenever I try to connect the phone via USB, it doesn't even make the Windows "USB connected" sound, it's just like it isn't there at all. One time, I got it to show, but it was as a "unrecognized usb device", and I haven't been able to replicate it yet.

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