Black screen/blue light S6, can get into download mode, reflash stock RO, still nada - Galaxy S6 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello all,
Hoping you might be able to help me troubleshoot a family member's dead S6. He took it in to Sprint a couple of days ago with some issues, and got it back from them the next day claiming they detected water damage. No warranty on the phone, and to make things worse it's a rental. The phone turned on before being brought in and was just sluggish and chugged out sometimes, and now will only go through the Samsung logo and hang immediately after on every boot attempt. From what I've been told, the phone's never been dropped in any liquid, so I'm not sure where the water damage claim may have come from.
Either way, I've been trying to see if I can do something about it. Here's what I've tried so far (in order), to no avail:
Hard reset: Since phone hangs after the initial splash screen, I have to enter download mode, restart, and then hold the proper keys then. I am able to wipe all data/factory reset, but nothing changes.
Let battery drain down completely, charge, start phone. It actually managed to boot part-way, and hung up on "Updating Applications" screen. Subsequent restart attempts led back to black screen.
Reflash: Phone boots successfully into download mode, and I am able to flash firmware for G920P. May be important to note that the two times I tried 5.0.2 with PDA G920PVPU1AOCF, I got a FAIL in ODIN at NAND Write, but was able to successfuly flash 5.1.1 with PDA G920PVPU3BOL1.
Still not sure if I am able to distinguish a hardware issue. I would highly appreciate it if someone here can help or suggest further troubleshooting steps!

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Related

Galaxy S6 Massive issues

Hi XDA, looking to you for answers...
The Device: I bought my Verizon Galaxy S6 straight out due to that phone trade in for $100 gift cards that happened way back in April. So I have no insurance on the device. No worries, as its in a otter box commuter case with tempered glass and I baby my devices.
The problem part 1:
-Last week just before I walked out the door for my anniversary dinner. I restarted my device and it didn't come back on.
- I plugged it in and got no light. Pressed volume +/-/home/power - and got the boot screen
- Accidentally factory reset the device when I let go off the combinations of buttons (why factory reset is the second option I have on idea)
- After the initial factory reset, I noticed it didn't go through. Rebooted and saw DM-Veritiy verification error
- Tried multiple times to get a clean factory reset until finally I got into the phone setup wizard
- Phone setup wizard froze on me about 3 times before I was able to get it to work
- Finally with finesse and some luck, I was able to get the phone partially restored but I knew something was fishy
- Brought the phone to Verizon which said I have no insurance, the only thing I may have is a manufacturer warranty with Samsung.
- The rep tried to factory reset the phone, however the DM-Veritify verification error came up again and could no longer continue.
- After some time there, I felt like I was wasting my time, Figured I would this myself.
- Went home and flashed the STOCK OS on my galaxy s6 with ODIN.
- After ODIN, and many OTA updates, I was on 5.11 and restoring my phone
After all this, the phone worked PERFECTLY FOR A WEEK
The problem part 2:
- Was in a parking lot to get some groceries, sent a text and put the phone in my pocket. When I looked at it again, the phone was off
- Tried to turn it on... nothing... I held the +/-/home/power buttons again and rebooted normally
- Phone started up just fine but froze after a minute.
- If I get the phone on, it will either freeze/hard-lock or when the screen turns off, then its just turns off, or restarts itself to failure
- I've tried to reboot into recovery volume +/home/power to wipe the cache, however I get an android in distress
- After a few attempts to get into recovery to wipe the cache, I managed to get past the distress icon and press get the menu selection down once before the device froze
- After more attempting to to wipe the cache. I don't even get the android in distress icon anymore, just the blue android screen hangs
- If I use all the buttons to reboot normally - the phone will freeze or once the screen turns off, its off.
thats it
I feel like I just ate $700
XDA please help
Phone freezes in "recovery mode" 3 seconds in. Managed to get one wipe cache in.
Getting a "system rev. check fail device: 3 binary 1 error" error when trying to flash ODIN.
Guess you can't flash stock OS from 5.1.1
got a factory reset to go through just fine. Restored phone for 30 minutes and proceeded to use it.
Seemed fine and then froze while texting.
Seems to be randomly freezing and then a sudden restart.
Contacted verizon for the number to call for warranty send off.
*looks around* I see MULTIPLE issues regarding the S6 randomly restarting.
I should have got the Note 4
Hi,
Sorry, but if it keeps happening persistently even after factory resets and successful stock installs, I'd call it a hardware problem. The best thing you can do is contact Verizon or Samsung and try getting a replacement.
All the best,
~Lord
Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

[Completed] My s4 is soft bricked and I'm trying to do an Emergency Firmware Recovery, have ?s.

So here's the gist. My s4 has been rooted for a while and very recently while removing some apps and bloatware I decided to remove the "Help" app since it seemed useless. I think I messed my phone up by doing that because by then my s4 would randomly give me the black screen of death or get stuck in a boot loop. To fix these problems I would take out the battery and hold the power button for a minute, or clear cache from the boot loader menu or reboot in safe mode which would inexplicably fix my phone normally for some reason. But all these options only temporarily fixed my phone and it would just continue with the same problems (Boot loop, black screen of death, etc).
I eventually resorted to factory resetting my phone, all though not the conventional way At first I tried decrypting my s4 but my stupid usb cord stopped being recognized by my pc and that screwed up the decryption so my phone factory resetted itself on it's own pretty much. Now I'm having trouble getting to the boot loading screen but I can get to the download/odin screen.
I looked up online and different guides told me the last resort is to do something called an emergency firmware recovery. I looked up on youtube what to do, tried using Kies but Kies said it doesn't support the s4. I then tried using Smart Switch but when I get to the screen where it tells me to enter my serial number, I enter it and it tells me that I'm entering the wrong serial number, even though I triple checked what it is! I google searched if other people were having this problem with smart switch and other people are having similar problems as I am. I'm running out of ideas on how to save my phone. I don't think it's a hardware problem because I haven't dropped my phone very recently. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do next?
XDA Visitor said:
So here's the gist. My s4 has been rooted for a while and very recently while removing some apps and bloatware I decided to remove the "Help" app since it seemed useless. I think I messed my phone up by doing that because by then my s4 would randomly give me the black screen of death or get stuck in a boot loop. To fix these problems I would take out the battery and hold the power button for a minute, or clear cache from the boot loader menu or reboot in safe mode which would inexplicably fix my phone normally for some reason. But all these options only temporarily fixed my phone and it would just continue with the same problems (Boot loop, black screen of death, etc).
I eventually resorted to factory resetting my phone, all though not the conventional way At first I tried decrypting my s4 but my stupid usb cord stopped being recognized by my pc and that screwed up the decryption so my phone factory resetted itself on it's own pretty much. Now I'm having trouble getting to the boot loading screen but I can get to the download/odin screen.
I looked up online and different guides told me the last resort is to do something called an emergency firmware recovery. I looked up on youtube what to do, tried using Kies but Kies said it doesn't support the s4. I then tried using Smart Switch but when I get to the screen where it tells me to enter my serial number, I enter it and it tells me that I'm entering the wrong serial number, even though I triple checked what it is! I google searched if other people were having this problem with smart switch and other people are having similar problems as I am. I'm running out of ideas on how to save my phone. I don't think it's a hardware problem because I haven't dropped my phone very recently. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do next?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Kindly register yourself at XDA post which you can query in http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4/help
Experts there may be able to help you

Help with stock Google Pixel stuck in a boot loop

First off, my google pixel is 100% stock. Last night when I went to bed, I had no issues with my phone. I woke up in the middle of the night because the screen was on and very bright. It was the white google boot screen, but with a bunch of corrupted text sporadically over it, and it was stuck there. I held down the power button to reboot, but when it did it would get to my unlock screen, but be frozen there. After about 5 seconds on that screen, it would reboot itself, and just continue that over and over. I tried holding down the volume down button to get into the bootloader, but when I go into recover mode, it just gives me the logo of the green android guy with a red triangle exclamation point on it and it says "no command" below it. So I reboot, and the only way to stop the boot cycle is to to back into the boot loader and select shutdown, so that way it will stay off.
Any words of wisdom? I was really not looking to get a new phone at this point...
I'll add that I used the instructions here to try to apply a rescue OTA using ADB according to these instructions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz6x7k-VkpUJMlZ1aEliVnhMOHM/view. It completed successfully, but didn't make any improvement on the situation.
Update #2: I ended up trying to do a factory reset from recovery mode and that also doesn't seem to have helped.
Did you try installing a more recent OTA than what you originally had?
I already had the most recent OTA so I can't get a more recent one.
Try again in a few days when the February update is released. If it still doesn't work, it's possible a memory chip got fried.
If you're in the US, look up your nearest uBreakiFix location. They handle all Pixel warranties in the US. There are a number of reports in various threads of people getting their phone repaired for free, even outside of warranty.
I am in the US, but the nearest location for me is about 1.5 hours away. I guess I could give them a call to find out if it's worth the drive.
Why do you think a new OTA update would help where an old one wouldn't?
Is there any way I can flash the full image without having previously unlocked the bootloader?
Well i am experiencing the same problem on temporary basis since 2-3 days and the problem seems to be with the power button. I get it fix when i take it out of the body cover and try to clear the dust around power button and seems to fix it but it still happens in the morning or at night at home.

Galaxy S7 Frozen, stuck in Recovery Mode. Strange Android warning screens?

Hey everyone, I'll start by saying I'm new to these forums, so go easy...
I've had an S7 (Verizon SM-G930V) for probably 3 years, recently it randomly glitched/locked up (screen had strange color bars through what I was looking at) phone restarted and then was stuck in a boot loop. It's never been wet or dropped hard and is in really good shape. I shut it off and attempted to re-start with the same results... Got a new S20+ so I at least have a device, but I'm determined to get the lost month on the old S7 back since I had a backup from early Feb.
I tried a new battery since that was mentioned, didn't change anything, however in messing with trying to get the phone to boot have discovered a few strange message screens and behavior...
1. Phone will eventually stop responding to key presses, have to pull battery connector, wait, then it will re-boot, but every time the blue 'Recovery Mode...' is displayed. If I touch nothing, it will boot and start 'installing updates' but eventually lock and restart. At one point it made it as far as the Verizon screen, then died.
2. I can get the phone to to into the recovery menu and it will respond to commands. I've tried restart normally, boot to safe mode, and shut down phone normally, all of which result in the same restart and recovery mode message and then the lock during the update.
3. I have successfully made it to the download mode screen a few times, but don't have the knowledge of what needs to be done there and which files I would need to upload to it to make that work. (phone was totally stock rom) It had recently updated to the latest version available from Verizon which I think was 8.0?
4. Now I have found a new error screen which I have not seen before... The little Android guy has X's in his eyes and a large yellow sign with ! in it says 'No Command' and then the phone restarts? It also during that finally responded to being plugged in via USB charging, however normally it shows no signs of charging other than being warm and actually charging the battery (verified with a meter)
5. When the phone is on, it gets warm quite quickly (it's still split open and the tin covers are warm, but not hot)
Hopefully someone can help out. I wouldn't say there's anything too critical on there, but there are some pics I'd really like to have back :crying:
Thanks everyone!
bigblkyj said:
Hey everyone, I'll start by saying I'm new to these forums, so go easy...
I've had an S7 (Verizon SM-G930V) for probably 3 years, recently it randomly glitched/locked up (screen had strange color bars through what I was looking at) phone restarted and then was stuck in a boot loop. It's never been wet or dropped hard and is in really good shape. I shut it off and attempted to re-start with the same results... Got a new S20+ so I at least have a device, but I'm determined to get the lost month on the old S7 back since I had a backup from early Feb.
I tried a new battery since that was mentioned, didn't change anything, however in messing with trying to get the phone to boot have discovered a few strange message screens and behavior...
1. Phone will eventually stop responding to key presses, have to pull battery connector, wait, then it will re-boot, but every time the blue 'Recovery Mode...' is displayed. If I touch nothing, it will boot and start 'installing updates' but eventually lock and restart. At one point it made it as far as the Verizon screen, then died.
2. I can get the phone to to into the recovery menu and it will respond to commands. I've tried restart normally, boot to safe mode, and shut down phone normally, all of which result in the same restart and recovery mode message and then the lock during the update.
3. I have successfully made it to the download mode screen a few times, but don't have the knowledge of what needs to be done there and which files I would need to upload to it to make that work. (phone was totally stock rom) It had recently updated to the latest version available from Verizon which I think was 8.0?
4. Now I have found a new error screen which I have not seen before... The little Android guy has X's in his eyes and a large yellow sign with ! in it says 'No Command' and then the phone restarts? It also during that finally responded to being plugged in via USB charging, however normally it shows no signs of charging other than being warm and actually charging the battery (verified with a meter)
5. When the phone is on, it gets warm quite quickly (it's still split open and the tin covers are warm, but not hot)
Hopefully someone can help out. I wouldn't say there's anything too critical on there, but there are some pics I'd really like to have back :crying:
Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If what you've described is correct, all of the solutions involve flashing the stock firmware which will of course wipe the device.
Were your photos not stored in a folder on the SD card?
There is a chance you can recover the device using Samsung Kies with the emergency recover option but if you've encountered the "no command" screen it's not looking good.
Unfortunately I did have an SD card installed, but I normally kept my camera pics on the phone's memory, since I have had an SD card fail as well and lost everything on there.
So this took an unexpected turn yesterday pretty much right after posting this... I've been messing with the phone, unplugging the battery each time, and have managed to get into different menus which kept making me think that something still had to be working if I could do that. Well, after leaving the No Command message on the screen it magically booted into the Recovery menu with (finally) the option to wipe the cache partition, which I did and rebooted normally. Believe it or not, it booted normally and into the OS like nothing ever happened?!
I instantly plugged it into my PC and ran Smart Switch which started taking a backup! About 25% though the device restarted again and was really warm to the touch on the RF covers inside. Bummer...
So I figured heat was now the issue for some reason... I waited for it to cool and then reinstalled the SD card and figured, if I could get it to boot long enough, the SD card is a quicker transfer and I'd just use ES File Explorer to try and do a photo dump to the SD card and see how far it would get. It actually made it all the way through and gave me enough time to grab some other stuff before getting hot and restarting again.
I believe the overheating is being caused by my opening of the device though... Currently I have the antennas removed and the speaker so that I'm able to quickly access the battery connector (which BTW seems to be the trick here to this working) But inadvertently, without the larger wireless charging coil in place, it relieved the pressure on the motherboard and broke the thermal paste connection between the chipset and the copper heatsink (I didn't tear it down further to check, but I can hear the 'sticking and peeling' when you press down on it).
I think what I'm going to do is apply pressure with a chip clip or something similar (non conductive) and see if I can grab a backup again before it restarts. After the cache wipe the phone seems to understand that it's plugged in and charging now which is a new thing as well...
Sorry for the long winded posts, but if this at all helps even one person with the same situation as I have, maybe that'll be worth getting lost in here

Question Z flip 3 bootloop

The problem I have is with the galaxy z flip 3, it worked just fine inthe morning but after it ran outta juice and I charged it to a certain percentage, it stopped working properly, and got into an infinite boot loop, I tried forcing it to restart by long pressing volume down+power , but it didn't work, then I tried opening the recovery by long pressing on volume up+power and yet it also didn't work (I think that maybe it's because it was trying to boot at the time), so have you guys any solutions , please do help me cuz this phone really is important and with all honestly, isn't even mine XD, I'll be waiting for an answer
Your failsafe options are contact Samsung or do a factory reset (and then potentially contact Samsung).
If you can't boot it to anything, the only real option you have is to flash firmware, which likely won't help without wiping.
Unfortunately, not booting doesn't have a whole lot of options that don't wipe data without being rooted. Even then, you'd need recovery.
I see, then I may consider giving it to samsung, as long as they won't reset it, cuz the only reason why the phone is so important is because of the data, altough, isn't there any other way to acess recovery? Cuz I had this problem with the s10 before and I fixed it somehow (a certain Bixby key combination), but this time it seems there isn't any hidden combination.
Samsung is going to reset it. It's a required first step for them to do any work on it, even if the work has nothing to do with the software. What may help find a way to recover the data is starting with how it got to this point. Did you install anything new, change any important settings, or anything else that could have been a part of the issue? If not and it is an unexplained hardware failure, the data is likely gone already.
If it's something you might have installed or changed, it's possible that putting the phone in safe mode and undoing it may solve the issue and let you boot normally.
Booting into Safe Mode:
Make sure the device is powered off (charging is ok, as long as it is not currently trying to boot)
Hold the side key to power on and continue holding until "SAMSUNG" appears and the device vibrates
Immediately release the side key and begin holding volume down until boot completes
If the device has booted into safe mode, you will see a translucent "Safe Mode" in the bottom left
twistedumbrella said:
Samsung is going to reset it. It's a required first step for them to do any work on it, even if the work has nothing to do with the software. What may help find a way to recover the data is starting with how it got to this point. Did you install anything new, change any important settings, or anything else that could have been a part of the issue? If not and it is an unexplained hardware failure, the data is likely gone already.
If it's something you might have installed or changed, it's possible that putting the phone in safe mode and undoing it may solve the issue and let you boot normally.
Booting into Safe Mode:
Make sure the device is powered off (charging is ok, as long as it is not currently trying to boot)
Hold the side key to power on and continue holding until "SAMSUNG" appears and the device vibrates
Immediately release the side key and begin holding volume down until boot completes
If the device has booted into safe mode, you will see a translucent "Safe Mode" in the bottom left
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I just asked the original owner (my mother), and apparently she doesn't remember downloading anything new into it, and it just went crazy by itself, also something else I wanna note, I tried charging it and it booted into recovery all by itself, I taught it was weird but Still went and wiped the cache and then when I tried restarting it it suddenly ran out of juice once again, also, it's second display shows some weird curruption/bug or glitch-like lines. So based off of this, can you really find the origin of this problem and if there is really any hope of saving it's data XD. Thank you btw, and once again, I'll be waiting for an answer
There are hundreds of reasons it could do that, including a faulty board. Thanks to the removal of physical sdcard support, you'd need to get it to boot into something with at least adb support to pull anything off it. Stock recovery doesn't provide any ways to perform a decent backup, but it sounds like the only option that wouldn't wipe the device didn't work.
I see, alright, thanks a lot, I'll consider resetting it
It may be worth trying to flash firmware first. Go into it knowing it may reset the device or leave you needing to reset it, but it doesn't hurt to try if you run out of safer options.
Same here, same symptoms, happened in front of my wife's and eyes face. We are fairly techy and understand our way around our devices. We also noticed the device crashed then would make it all the way to the home screen launcher and before catching signal the crash would cause a restart at that point I went in and did a cash swipe rebooted right back into recovery by itself then I unplugged the cable and it was acting as if it has a dead battery but when the cable was last plugged in during a couple of crash and then restarts all the way to the home screen I know the battery was at 70 something percent. My next step is going to probably be flashed the current firmware that just released on top of it as a dirty flash and see if I can get it to boot. If not then I'm going to do a hard reset and see if that works. When plugged in it automatically starts exhibiting symptoms as if the buttons are stuck. The devices in the OtterBox and it's fairly brand new I would say mint. Not dirty or any smudges either. all I'm saying is I'm one of those type of technicians that say yeah right when people say it just happened I don't know where but this actually happened I don't know when I was able to witness it. I'll come back and let you guys know what works and what doesn't. (By the way excuse my grammar I was voice typing while driving )
ariveraiv said:
Same here, same symptoms, happened in front of my wife's and eyes face. We are fairly techy and understand our way around our devices. We also noticed the device crashed then would make it all the way to the home screen launcher and before catching signal the crash would cause a restart at that point I went in and did a cash swipe rebooted right back into recovery by itself then I unplugged the cable and it was acting as if it has a dead battery but when the cable was last plugged in during a couple of crash and then restarts all the way to the home screen I know the battery was at 70 something percent. My next step is going to probably be flashed the current firmware that just released on top of it as a dirty flash and see if I can get it to boot. If not then I'm going to do a hard reset and see if that works. When plugged in it automatically starts exhibiting symptoms as if the buttons are stuck. The devices in the OtterBox and it's fairly brand new I would say mint. Not dirty or any smudges either. all I'm saying is I'm one of those type of technicians that say yeah right when people say it just happened I don't know where but this actually happened I don't know when I was able to witness it. I'll come back and let you guys know what works and what doesn't. (By the way excuse my grammar I was voice typing while driving )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello everyone just a quick update. Once I got home I plugged the device into a Samsung fast charger and Samsung OEM USB type-c cable and realize the device booted all the way to the home screen but register the same battery level as I mentioned above. Device was working as if nothing happened to it. So I updated all the apps on the Galaxy store then updated all the apps left over from the Google Play store, I then proceeded to check for a firmware update because I know the April update just released and installed the update with no issues. Updated the apps that needed to be updated again somehow there's always something and unplug the device from the power cable. Everything was working if no issues about half hour later the device cuts off and does not want to power on. FYI I already had my wife contact T-Mobile and get a warranty replacement we only paid $5.00 so my thoughts and conclusion on what's going on something happened to the battery or it's defective. Btw we only use Samsung OEM cables and equipment at home and in the car while connected through Android auto. it's only working while being plugged in it's not charging all the way even though it's registering it's charge level while the device is on.

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