Database Info

Safe mode in Android - what to do if you see that label on your screen

Today I accidently entered Safe Mode on my ICS 4.04 Haipai i9200 phone and a user in our thread knew that most Android phones have this feature. Here is what I wrote and it applies to most Android phone systems. If you see the words, "Safe mode" in the lower left corner of their phone and or experiencing boot loop due to force closure. Here is what I wrote:
robarnold is right about Safe Mode and the article he posted (which is now linked in my quoted reply) provides more information about Safe Mode. Please see the attached picture to see what Safe Mode looks like on our phones. If your phone were to enter Safe Mode, those words would appear on all your screens. As per the article, most if not all your apps will be suspended or not work.
Basically there are two known ways to enter Safe Mode:
1. Android detects a problem with a newly installed app and force-closes it while entering into Safe Mode.
2. A combination of key presses at power application;
Newly installed app force-closes the system
The gist of the article provided by Rob says that if a newly installed app causes system conflicts, Android will force close that app to prevent it from possibly doing malicious harm. At the same time, Android will suspend the majority of all other apps and display "Safe mode" in the lower left corner of your phone as per the picture.
The reason for this is to provide the user an opportunity to clean the system of the app which is causing the force closure. Chances are it the most recent app installed but it could be a combination of apps that are coming into conflict with one another.
If you suspect a newly installed app of causing this problem and you see Safe Mode on screen, STOP, COLLECT YOUR WITS and BREATHE NORMALLY. You have several options.
SAFE MODE OPTIONS
1. Press the System or Menu Button in the lower left corner and navigate to Manage apps.
2. Find the most recent app you installed.
3. Force close it.
4. Disable it if possible.
5. Remove this app.
6. Reboot the boot to see if the Safe mode is gone.
If the Safe mode label is still present, the article suggests that it may be necessary to press several keys to achieve the removal of the Safe mode label and its effect of suspending the other apps. In essence, we now move to the second discussion of entry into Safe mode:
1. Safe mode can be entered by pressing buttons at start-up. Most likely, this is what I did today as I was getting ready to leave for an appointment. The Safe Mode label freaked me out and when I could use the Rebooter app or any other app, I became scared.
2. I don't know exactly which buttons I pressed but it mostly likely was the System and Home (center big button) and maybe even the Escape/Back button on the right. My phone slipped slightly as I turned it on and my left thumb was flying as I manuevered my left hand to balance the phone.
3. The right combination of buttons, which supposedly are the same to enter Safe Mode, are the same to exit Safe Mode.
4. If you are certain you entered Safe Mode by accident - meaning you know you did not recently or just now installed an app that force closed Android, then you just have to find the combo to exit it.
5. The article suggests that pressing the volume buttons might clear the Safe Mode on the first reboot after initial entry into Safe Mode.
6. If the Safe Mode label disappears after pressing the volume buttons, your phone is okay.
7. If the label is still present, try rebooting the phone again.
The article suggests as per my experience that if you cannot clear the Safe Mode, your last resort is to do a factory reset of the phone. Fortunately in my case, I had ClockworkMod Recovery available and restored my system via a backup recovery.
ronbo's Final Thoughts
Hope I never see Safe Mode again (and, I won't go looking for it) but I recommend you learn how to do a Factory Reset by pressing and holding the Volume Down Button with a simultaneous press of the Power Button. You want to see the Factory Test and Reset Menu when you are calm. TRUST ME ON THAT!
robarnold said:
Hi,
Yes safe mode exists and is a useful if not essential tool for those of who like to experiment with their Android devices.
I'd suggest that it will always be worthwhile to know how to access Safe Mode and recover from it if you are going to install unsigned apps.
The following link may more useful to those who would like to know more:
http://www.tested.com/news/feature/3071-how-to-use-androids-safe-mode-to-save-a-phone-from-boot-loops/.
Cheers
Rob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

help me with sony arc s cant get it off

Safe Mode = Wet Phone
Just a quick note for anyone who runs into the variation of this problem that I had today.
Using my Nexus S today in the rain. Phone got wet. Specifically, damp got into both the Power button and the Volume rocker.
The result was when the phone was restarted (after I removed the battery and dried it out) it came up in Safe Mode.
Which is how I wound up here.
(Minor site quibble: in the course of registering here and making this ONE post, I've been subjected to FOUR captchas. I like sharing information, but this is really WAY more nuisance than is worth it for me.)

whoa !!! I just did boot up my xolo a500 in sage mode . I was shocked . so I just pulled my battery and re insterted it . now its normal

Appalbarry said:
Just a quick note for anyone who runs into the variation of this problem that I had today.
Using my Nexus S today in the rain. Phone got wet. Specifically, damp got into both the Power button and the Volume rocker.
The result was when the phone was restarted (after I removed the battery and dried it out) it came up in Safe Mode.
Which is how I wound up here.
(Minor site quibble: in the course of registering here and making this ONE post, I've been subjected to FOUR captchas. I like sharing information, but this is really WAY more nuisance than is worth it for me.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have this same issue except my phone doesn't have a removable battery (evo 4g lte). My down volume button doesn't work and I can't seem to escape safe mode no matter what I do help?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

guih said:
I have this same issue except my phone doesn't have a removable battery (evo 4g lte). My down volume button doesn't work and I can't seem to escape safe mode no matter what I do help?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same issue..

skywayskase said:
Same issue..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the adb command
Adb reboot
sent from my super advanced mini fridge

A work-around for phones stuck in safe mode due to water damage etc but that seem to work fine otherwise is to convert the (trusted) apps you need from data apps to system apps (move the .apk from /data/app to /system/app after installing via the Play Store). You may need to use Mounts2Sd or something similar with an sd-ext partition if you don't have enough space in your internal /system partition for all the apps you need. (With Mounts2Sd, placing the apps in /data/app-system on the sd-ext partition will fool the phone into thinking the apps are in /system/app and you can then use them in safe mode). If anybody is aware of a simpler script that does the same thing, please lmk.
If this helps you, please hit the Thanks button.

i have this on my tab 3 i can't exit from it tried reboot and factory restart and shut down
what is the solution ?

Same issue here...
Appalbarry said:
Just a quick note for anyone who runs into the variation of this problem that I had today.
Using my Nexus S today in the rain. Phone got wet. Specifically, damp got into both the Power button and the Volume rocker.
The result was when the phone was restarted (after I removed the battery and dried it out) it came up in Safe Mode.
Which is how I wound up here.
(Minor site quibble: in the course of registering here and making this ONE post, I've been subjected to FOUR captchas. I like sharing information, but this is really WAY more nuisance than is worth it for me.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am facing the same problem. I had used my phone in rain. Now the volume down and power button are not working. And the most irritating part is that it rebooted into Safe mode which I dont like. Done factory resetting which took me from safe mode but the volume down and power buttons are still not working.
Anyone knowing how to get rid of these, please share it... Thanks in advance !!!

Lawrence kunhi said:
I am facing the same problem. I had used my phone in rain. Now the volume down and power button are not working. And the most irritating part is that it rebooted into Safe mode which I dont like. Done factory resetting which took me from safe mode but the volume down and power buttons are still not working.
Anyone knowing how to get rid of these, please share it... Thanks in advance !!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did u get rid of "safe mode"? I have vol down stuck and phone always goes into safe mode
I tried a factory reset from setting>backup and reset>factory data reset and phone shuts down...the i have to press power button and phone gets into safe mode again.

got the same problem with my lenovo a859. it got wet and now just boots into recovery where i can not choose any other options besides the first (reboot system now). Is there any way to start the phone/ do a factory reset?

I have a parental control program on my kids phone.
Safe mode of course enables to erase it.
Is it a way on a rooted android to disable it?

Turn off safe mode
Yes, safe mode does exist. It is the default mode in your android phone without extra apps installed. When in safe mode you cannot use your favourite apps. I understand it can get irritating some times.
You can try rebooting your phone. It worked for me.
---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------
If that does not work, here's a guide that helped me exit safe mode

Eagleman71 said:
I have a parental control program on my kids phone.
Safe mode of course enables to erase it.
Is it a way on a rooted android to disable it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you find a solution to your problem?
Is there anyway to completely disable safe mode, e.g. by adb?

[Q] Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Hacked, Touchscreen unresponsive

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

[Q] DESPERATE HERE: Phone won't boot after soft reset?

A couple of months back I decided to root my device. I did this using the unlocking the bootloader method. As a result, I lost my DRM keys, and I managed to restore DRM function by following the methods detailed here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/crossdevice-dev/sony/xperia-z1-z2-z3-series-devices-drm-t2930672
I had to download the stock Android 4.4.4 from online, which I flashed my phone with - no problems. Things ran smoothly from then for about a month, and then I realised that my cellular network started to malfunction, and I couldn't access apps like YouTube and Snapchat on the cellular network. This prompted me today to do a "soft reset" of my phone, by holding the power button and volume up button simultaneously for about 3 seconds - under the impression that it would restore my phone settings back to the factory default.
Much to my horror, the worst case scenario happened. When I performed the soft reset, my phone vibrated 3 times and switched off. When I tried to turn it back on, it would show the boot-up screen indicating "SONY", followed by the next screen indicating "powered by android", and then it would show the blue screen with the wavy lines. It stayed on this screen for about 20 minutes. I figured something was wrong, and I tried to soft reset it again, only to be stuck at the blue screen once again. I decided to let it stay that way for 2 more hours, in order to drain the battery. When the battery drained, I turned it back on, and it was still stuck at the blue wavy screen.
I don't know a whole lot about Android phones, and I have no idea why this is happening, but it is causing me an immense amount of frustration - I have invaluable data on that phone, and to lose it would just be devastating. I can't even begin to describe it. I'm using TWRP recovery, and I'm also using TitaniumBackup which is backed up onto my phone's internal storage, and I can't access any of the files on my phone from my computer, because it doesn't recognise my phone.
This has been a long one, thanks for bearing with me. I've got a few questions:
1. What's the problem that's preventing my phone from booting?
2. How do I fix it?
3. If it's unfixable, how can I retrieve my data from my phone?
Really, really hoping someone can help me out on this - I'm completely lost and am desperate here. Thank you in advance!

Can you boot into TWRP's recovery mode using the volume down key?
Just press volume down when you see the green light on your notification led upon powering on your phone

Well something keeps the phone to boot, try to clean cache in recovery, it might help.
But to restore data on internal storage, count it as unpossible.

S7 crashes on boot. No response to input. Drain to 0% to power on again.

It started a few days ago, I was testing a cardboard/gear vr unity game and the screen would turn black but the buttons were responsive and I could get it to hard reboot or make it come back again after plugging it back into the gear. I looked around but couldn't find anything that resembles my issue.
Now as soon as it boots it goes into a black screen after samsung and carrier logos show, i sometimes get a glimpse of the lock screen and respond to some input.
The phone is still on, I can feel the battery warm.
-No response to any input. Not even pwr+vol down.
-PC won't detect it when plugged.
-No lights on charging.
-I need to let it fully drain for it to shut down and try anything again.
-Did a factory reset from recovery mode, wipe cache. Still the same.
-No root.
-There was an update that may have installed overnight but can't confirm because can't access system info.
EDIT: New find! when booting to recovery, goes into "Installing Update" and then "No command".
Any thoughts??
Is there some pc software that i can use to try to reinstall firmware? Something like SEUS for sony phones back in the day?
Is odin safe or should i look into a samsung official tool? I've never used odin so i'm not sure of it's capabilities (this is my first sammy phone, I had it to get to test gear vr apps)
Sorry for the long post but wanted to get all the info out there.
Thanks!

Can you enter "Download Mode"? (By rebooting and pressing HOME + VOLUME DOWN)
If yes, I suggest that you try, as you suggested, reinstalling your firmware.
You will have to know your carrier, or specific phone model (G930X, where X represents carrier letter (Example: T for T-Mobile) )
Modified Odin (by PrinceComsy): https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=24591023225177749
Then I suggest downloading firmware from https://SamsungBay.com as all other sources restrict download speed (So it takes a minimum of 13 hours).
https://samsungbay.com/download-firmware/?device=&model=sm-G930&firmware=
Once you have Odin and Firmware, load the correct files.
(AP_G930X), (BL_G930X), (CP_G930X), and (CSC_G930X) into Odin.
Power off phone, and boot into download mode (Pressing HOME + VOLUME DOWN)
N.B/ You will lose all your phone data, sadly, but it seems you've already wiped it.

S7 Black Screen, but Live device. A way to force backup or fix?

we have two S7's, non-edge, and they have been almost bulletproof to now. I have a rooted S5 but have not modded either S7. My wife dropped hers, no breaks in the glass but it came up black after briefly displaying a partial image.
I can force reboot it, and it works. the backup 'key' lights up at times, the LED's work, and the phone receives calls [rings] but of course we can't see a thing.
Is there a fix? I've tried the reset via Vol - Power, that works to restart but no display. I've done Vol+ Power, can't see a thing. Tried Vol - Pwr Home, can't see anything so not sure what the result was. Plugged into PC but without being able to grant permission on the device, no dice.
How can I force a backup of everything? or... it may be backed up to her google account but how to reach, sans S7 display?:silly:

Hi, you can try to access the phone via samsung find my mobile website. You need internet connection at the s7 working and the logon data of your samsung account. In find my mobile there is a backup option.
Regards
Oliver

Fabulous! Going to try now

Oliver, unfortunately she never setup a samsung account period. hard lesson.
Surely the forensics community has a way to get to the stored data.... I guess/think the only things missing, that were not on SD card or SIM, would be a few pictures stored in default local memory, a few downloads, and things that will not be restorable easily like Calendar entries [and a whole lot of app cache stuff that is not high value]... am I wrong?
But then there is the security aspect; even if I cannot fetch usable data, I need to nuke it all... Is there no way to mount those volumes on a pc or other? A universal "nuke everything on the blind" approach?
thank you for your help

I have also black/blank screen but all audio works, hardware buttons work. I can tap the screen and it makes a sound. Voice assistant turns on for some reason and she verifies the touches I make to the screen. She also verifies I am pressing on screen buttons. I also know this because I can turn the phone off using the power button, then on screen buttons, even though it's blank. So the screen does work, just noting visually. I have tried the power + volume down to no avail. I believe the battery has totally died as was also recommended. If anyone has an idea of what to do next...please help.

, I believe, and I'm going to try today, that we can get in Via download mode. So we'll set up adb, set the "blind" s7 in download mode and see if I can browse the file system