Database Info

[GUIDE] How to fix "Failed image LNX 0x0002 / RSD mode 2

I'm sure theres a few of you out there who've bricked their Xoom in the same way I did:
Locking the boot loader after having custom rom and kernal running on it or something similar and come across an error upon boot that says
Failed image LNX 0x0002
RSD mode 2 initiated
or something to that respect
Then tried to do fastboot oem unlock, only to have the Xoom not be recognised.
The solution for me was to make a Motorola Factory cable as per guide here
For some reason, the Xoom would be instantly recognised by my computer and all fastboot commands would work, as well as RSD Lite (Did not do me any good as there is no Xoom Wifi SBF released)
That should fix the booting problem
If it still does not, follow one of the other guides on how to flash using fastboot, another rom now that you have fastboot working again!
Cheers!

mowassasin said:
I'm sure theres a few of you out there who've bricked their Xoom in the same way I did:
Locking the boot loader after having custom rom and kernal running on it or something similar and come across an error upon boot that says
Failed image LNX 0x0002
RSD mode 2 initiated
or something to that respect
Then tried to do fastboot oem unlock, only to have the Xoom not be recognised.
The solution for me was to make a Motorola Factory cable as per guide here
For some reason, the Xoom would be instantly recognised by my computer and all fastboot commands would work, as well as RSD Lite (Did not do me any good as there is no Xoom Wifi SBF released)
That should fix the booting problem
If it still does not, follow one of the other guides on how to flash using fastboot, another rom now that you have fastboot working again!
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I went and bought the factory cable from the Black Hat guys, and luckily haven't had the need to use it. Any advice you'd like to give in case I need to at some point?

I guess the only advice I can give is: don't re-lock the boot loader when you have a custom rom loaded

You don't need the cable. I have recovered 4 times myself and walked many others through on irc. We all use the stock cable that came with the device.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

bwcorvus said:
You don't need the cable. I have recovered 4 times myself and walked many others through on irc. We all use the stock cable that came with the device.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wouldn't recognise any fastboot commands nor the RSD Lite program for me.
But if it does, then thats good.
Merely a heads up for those who were in the same situation I was

bwcorvus said:
You don't need the cable. I have recovered 4 times myself and walked many others through on irc. We all use the stock cable that came with the device.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you won't care to share how you did it? You have no idea how frustrating it is to see someone say they know how to fix something and leave it it at that.

yaturner said:
you won't care to share how you did it? You have no idea how frustrating it is to see someone say they know how to fix something and leave it it at that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Over the course of a few hours I was able to fix this, so I am going to write this little walkthrough for you using a rom from bwcorvus's page (CLICK HERE) and then used the guide from dirtymindedx -(CLICK HERE)
The reason it took me this long (as well as doing other things) was because I used the wrong set up to unroot my tablet. I was using the Unofficial images that are on bwcorvus's link. Because I didn't read thoroughly enough in his breakdown, I made myself look like a fool...
What you want is NOT
UNOFFICIAL STOCK IMAGES
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
because you will not be able to lock the bootloader (IF you want it to be that way, which I did, and so it gave me a 0x000004 Error, and yes i see that you are having a 0x000002 but somewhere i read this could help that.) I just wanted to get rid of Clockwork Recovery Manager cause it was not working on my 3.2 rooted tablet, and thought that because i messed up teh whole image with playing around and upgrading and seeing how i could break the image without overclocking, i thought i should actually try and make it back to stock too. With this... I needed to do these steps...
1. Upgrade the Motorola drivers while the XOOM was plugged in, so then I would be able to use the Fastboot Correctly.
2. Download the correct roms for my tablet, (Wi-Fi is mine, just grab the one that fits your version and just follow along.)
3. Upgrade my ADB from google because for soem odd reason my fastboot did not like the xoom till i did that...
4. Used the STOCK CABLE. I can Confirm that the STOCK CABLE that allows you to recharge the phones, WILL WORK for this...
5. Once the ADB was set up, I restarted it, aka Hit the red X and then loaded it back up and then closed it again, just to make sure the services were updated somewhat...
6. Opened Command prompt and navigated to the folder that help the zipfile for the fastboot flashing guide (aka dirtymindedx's guide at the top), be using CD (Drive Letter):/location/of/the/folder/that/is/unzipped
7. I then checked over the information in the folder by using dir /a and then proceeded to read through the guide
7-1. A note here... I did the fastboot erase userdata instead, because I wanted to see if it would brick it again... (sorry, I was in a fowl mood with the world last night so I was waiting for it to get bricked so i had a reason to use it as an ice scraper on my car... (not like i would really do it... just wanted a reason for justification haha)
8. ???
9. Profit
This is only to get rid of a "already slightly bricked" device... which I had done after relocking the Rom that was not official to Motorola and now, after a few updates, i now have Android 4.0.3 for the Xoom that was OTA'ed, looking to see how easy it will be to root to reload my rpg game saves that i got caught up in (hence my disappearance from the forums haha...) but I hopefully helped you out in a direction to heads towards... and as long as you don't lock the boot-loader (which someone posted about it before i did...) you should be fine with any changes to the rom after the updates... Also, you can skip steps on this too... you can just flash the image and not the recovery menu and so forth, allowing you to keep other settings that are not part associated to the rom image.
Also sorry for the insanity in my words... I have been up for a good 36 hours with a half hour nap somewhere in there...

M2 with Fastboot BL

Hey guys,
i just started with falshing and those things. So i'm not so familiar with building and unlocking.
I bought a M2 with QUWERTY. I had and still has bootloop problems according to: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1457373
While analysing my bootproblem, i just realized, that i have a Fastboot Bootloader installed on this phone, what seems a little special.
Next step may be, to use the fastboot get this phone work, step after, use fastboot for improve this forum . But as i said, i'm new in this deep hardware near software-things, so need all your help for that .
greetz

how strange this in your bootloader, is similar as in the Atrix? So you installed it? I would like to know more about this topic

Looks like you have a dev phone. There are a couple of forum users with dev phones

Does rsdlite recognize it? I think you should try to have a look in Motorola Defy Android Development: there is a thread named ''experimental: trying to unlock the bootloader " (look at pages 60-75) .
I think someone wrote about some particular roms to be flashed in case of unlocked phones....

Does anyone know a way to extract this bootloader??
If so, I believe that lowering the fastboot and giving the command would be possible to unlock the MS2
Fastboot => http://www.mediafire.com/?2zdhukq3ha1qlrd
1) "fastboot oem unlock" to see the Station ID
2) "fastboot oem unlock ID" to unlock the bootloader

Hi everyone,
I'm following a thread about bootloader unlocking on the Defy section and scholbert suggested to make this little experiment:
Code:
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk1 of=/sdcard/mmcblk1.raw bs=512 count=2048
then zip the raw file and upload it to the thread so that he can compare different dumps of that particular section of the rom, to discover a pattern which might lead to further understanding of how the lock works.
Source:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21885753&postcount=735
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

djlooka said:
Hi everyone,
I'm following a thread about bootloader unlocking on the Defy section and scholbert suggested to make this little experiment:
Code:
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk1 of=/sdcard/mmcblk1.raw bs=512 count=2048
then zip the raw file and upload it to the thread so that he can compare different dumps of that particular section of the rom, to discover a pattern which might lead to further understanding of how the lock works.
Source:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think you can send PM to MKSilver.

Lutis said:
i think you can send PM to MKSilver.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already did
Anyway I think the more dumps are posted, the better it is!

Hey there,
well I just started to read the experimental thread of the defy section.
Problem may of course be, that my phone here is in bootloop and at the moment I'm back at my old Nokia 6230i
If new Information comes arround I will report it here.

MKSilver said:
Hey there,
well I just started to read the experimental thread of the defy section.
Problem may of course be, that my phone here is in bootloop and at the moment I'm back at my old Nokia 6230i
If new Information comes arround I will report it here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you tried simply wipe via moto recovery?
Or flash different sbf.

Have you tried the "fastboot oem unlock" command?

First things first:
at any RSD lite Version my phone is recognized as: "NS Flash OMAP 3630"
I saw, that the behavior of the phone while flashing is different in how i access the bootloader.
I can go into BL through:
A) "X"+"arrow up"
or also
B) "vol+" + "vol-"
while using A) I got a normal bootloader modus.
while using B) I got fastboot modus bootloader.
may someone test this with his phone and post it here?
another special thing: I can only access recovery while pluging the phone into a wallloader and pressing x, with or without the battery.
without the loader pluged in, recovery is not coming.
While access with fastboot and using it:
Code:
C:\where\my\sdk\is> fastboot devices
################ fastboot
-> the # means each a hex sign.
Code:
C:\where\my\sdk\is> fastboot oem unlock
...
FAILED <remote failure>
finished total time: 0.03s
next point while flashing my phone with a SBF_Flash under linux, there was an error with a SBF File, which doesn't throw errors under Windows and RSD.
About the defy forum: still reading, cause i don't want to brick the phone more than it already is, while haven't read all the knowledge.
greetz

MKSilver said:
First things first:
at any RSD lite Version my phone is recognized as: "NS Flash OMAP 3630"
I saw, that the behavior of the phone while flashing is different in how i access the bootloader.
I can go into BL through:
A) "X"+"arrow up"
or also
B) "vol+" + "vol-"
while using A) I got a normal bootloader modus.
while using B) I got fastboot modus bootloader.
may someone test this with his phone and post it here?
another special thing: I can only access recovery while pluging the phone into a wallloader and pressing x, with or without the battery.
without the loader pluged in, recovery is not coming.
While access with fastboot and using it:
Code:
C:\where\my\sdk\is> fastboot devices
################ fastboot
-> the # means each a hex sign.
Code:
C:\where\my\sdk\is> fastboot oem unlock
...
FAILED <remote failure>
finished total time: 0.03s
next point while flashing my phone with a SBF_Flash under linux, there was an error with a SBF File, which doesn't throw errors under Windows and RSD.
About the defy forum: still reading, cause i don't want to brick the phone more than it already is, while haven't read all the knowledge.
greetz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I have bootloader 70.12. To get into BL I have 2 options:
1) arrow up
2) Camera + Volume down
Both ways leads to standard BL. Fastboot devices doesn't list my phone, just as before. I never tried to update my BL but I don't think it will do any difference.

I've tried it with bootloader 70.13.
Only option A works to get into Bootloader mode (not Fastboot).

Next "funny" fact.
While Flashing SBF with "normal" bootlaoder modus, everythings works with RSD lite.
While Flashing SBF with "fastboot" bootloader modus, I get an error after creating image files:
"Failed flashing process. Failed flashing process. Phone [0000]: Error getting subscriber unit information. Device API Error: 0xE0000042 Command: RQHW (0x0805041); phone connected"
Then is Result:"FAIL" and the phone stays in bootloader modus (fastboot).
May be I have wrong RSD lite calibration. Will investigate this, how it behaves in linux.

Ok, so googling "unsigned motorola milestone 2 SBF" turned up this as the first
Perhaps if that link is dead you could ask endless7 if he would be so kind as to re-upload it, or perhaps it is available elsewhere.
I say this because I remember reading somewhere that once it's unlocked you can only use unsigned SBF's.. pretty sure it was the bootloader unlock progress thread in the defy forums.. but I'm sure it's been said in our forums too

Just wrote a pm to Endless7. If thats true, it could help me get this device work (even in chinese) and than i can take a look forward, while using adb for example.

Hopefully!
Does anyone else know fo any other unsigned sbf's kickin around the web possibly better than a chinese one?

DreadPirateDan said:
Hopefully!
Does anyone else know fo any other unsigned sbf's kickin around the web possibly better than a chinese one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dan,
I'm not sure, but I don't think he is limited to flashing only unsigned stuff. The difference from developer phone to production phone, besides fastboot, is that the first one doesn't check signatures during boot chain. Theoretically speaking he is able to flash and boot any Milestone2 ROM he likes. I also suspect that he is able to downgrade from gingerbread to froyo, unlike us. There should be something else preventing him to boot the phone. That's just my opinion and it maybe wrong

Hey guys,
well enough is enough, bought today a second phone for the time the m2 is still dead.
I'm about to finish the defy thread today. Already learned a lot.
Well it is correct that i can flash signed SBFs. While booting into "normal" BL Mode.
But i can also boot into Fastboot and the RSD Lite Name starting with NS seems to show me something special.
So i risk something today and flash a froyo: It worked but still bootloops. The flash was successful and the M Logo turned gray.
At GB it is Red at my M2.
But now it would be great for an unsigned SBF, some more Ideas how to get it boot, or how to manipulate it over fastboot to get it work. Cause without get it into Android we can't go on analyse the bootloader.
PLZ help me. Will also ask a guy from the defy thread, who seems to know a lot about the milestone 1 and bootloaders/OMAP cpus. May he has a great idea what he wrote there was very clever and full of knowledge.
Greetz

Razr HD - Hard Bricked?

I have a Motorola Droid RAZR HD XT926 (CDMA for Verizon Wireless). I was running root stock ROM on it, and have run into the following problems:
Phone boot is stuck at Motorola logo.
Attempting to go into recovery (ClockworkMod) gives errors that it can't mount any directory (cache, system, etc).
Attempting to RSDLite back to stock fails (on step 1 out of 6 - boot.img - phone returned FAIL).
Attempts to use Droid RAZR HD Toolkit v1.21 and flashing system.img fails (unable to format remote storage).
Anything else worth trying? Or is this hard-bricked, and going on eBay for parts?
Thank you.

How long should it take for RSD to load the 27 files?
I was trying to FXZ back to stock JB but the boot.img file 10MB too about an hour, so I looked at the next file and it was system.... something and it was over 300 MB anyway quick math it would be days to complete so I stopped it and UT oh got the phone back to booting but then it bricked but that's another story.... How long should it take RSD to load the FXZ files?
Thanks,

daredream777 said:
I was trying to FXZ back to stock JB but the boot.img file 10MB too about an hour, so I looked at the next file and it was system.... something and it was over 300 MB anyway quick math it would be days to complete so I stopped it and UT oh got the phone back to booting but then it bricked but that's another story.... How long should it take RSD to load the FXZ files?
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont think i have had it take much more than 5 minutes, defiantly no more than 10, but i have heard reports of as long as 15.

daredream777 said:
I was trying to FXZ back to stock JB but the boot.img file 10MB too about an hour, so I looked at the next file and it was system.... something and it was over 300 MB anyway quick math it would be days to complete so I stopped it and UT oh got the phone back to booting but then it bricked but that's another story.... How long should it take RSD to load the FXZ files?
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you try flashing it through fastboot? something like
Code:
fastboot flash boot boot.img
but probably you will need to use mfastboot due to the img size
Code:
mfastboot flash boot boot.img

pbosio said:
Have you try flashing it through fastboot? something like
Code:
fastboot flash boot boot.img
but probably you will need to use mfastboot due to the img size
Code:
mfastboot flash boot boot.img
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fastboot will flash it all day long. you generally only need mfastboot for re-writing partitions. but it will flash the img also, as you suggest.

fastboot
bweN diorD said:
fastboot will flash it all day long. you generally only need mfastboot for re-writing partitions. but it will flash the img also, as you suggest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you are saying fastboot will take a loooong time to load? I need to get back to factory fresh.... What is the best way to do that without taking 3 days?
I have a Razr Maxx HD on JB and have run djbliss recovery but the phone is still rooted afterward. The phone wants to upgrade to KItKat but I have not allowed that since I have heard about some problems for the XT926.... What do you say? If I could just let it upgrade that may be the easiest path but I just want the thing working again.
On those code lines do I just type that in to a command prompt? Somewhat of a noob so can you give me specifics?
Thanks.
ps. Amazingly my phone was bricked. Black, nothing not fastboot no usb port showing up.... I plugged in to wall charger and after about 24 hours I noticed the green light was on ... I pressed the power button, the battery icon showed 3%. A couple minutes later (after I had pressed the power button) it was 12%. Can you explain that? I guess just enough juice trickles in to eventually get a little charge in .... slow enough to maybe make some people go and get a new phone!
---------- Post added at 12:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:39 AM ----------
Ok so I looked at djrbliss batch file and see he is using "fastboot" so yes I have tried that. and it runs through it but the phone is still rooted. Did something go wrong?
Also, VRZ_XT926_9.8.1Q-94-1_CFC.xml appears to be a newer file then he uses but one difference I noticed. "system.img" .... in this file it is "system.img.ext4" Can you explain that?
Thanks.

daredream777 said:
So you are saying fastboot will take a loooong time to load? I need to get back to factory fresh.... What is the best way to do that without taking 3 days?
I have a Razr Maxx HD on JB and have run djbliss recovery but the phone is still rooted afterward. The phone wants to upgrade to KItKat but I have not allowed that since I have heard about some problems for the XT926.... What do you say? If I could just let it upgrade that may be the easiest path but I just want the thing working again.
On those code lines do I just type that in to a command prompt? Somewhat of a noob so can you give me specifics?
Thanks.
ps. Amazingly my phone was bricked. Black, nothing not fastboot no usb port showing up.... I plugged in to wall charger and after about 24 hours I noticed the green light was on ... I pressed the power button, the battery icon showed 3%. A couple minutes later (after I had pressed the power button) it was 12%. Can you explain that? I guess just enough juice trickles in to eventually get a little charge in .... slow enough to maybe make some people go and get a new phone!
---------- Post added at 12:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:39 AM ----------
Ok so I looked at djrbliss batch file and see he is using "fastboot" so yes I have tried that. and it runs through it but the phone is still rooted. Did something go wrong?
Also, VRZ_XT926_9.8.1Q-94-1_CFC.xml appears to be a newer file then he uses but one difference I noticed. "system.img" .... in this file it is "system.img.ext4" Can you explain that?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i did not intend to imply the process took a day to flash, "all day long" is merely 'slang' implying it could do it at any time.
the flash could take any where from a few minutes to as long as 15, however 5min or so is most common.
razr utility from the dev forum will restore your phone to factory. make sure you get the correct version, or a newer one is fine too.
not sure what you mean by "have run djbliss recovery", i wasnt aware he made recoveries. can you provide a link so i can see what your talking about.
if you upgrade to the FIRST kk build, you can unlock the bootloader, then if you dont like kk, you can flash back to jb.
yes you can just enter those into a command prompt, but your phone has to be in fastboot, and you have to have adb and fastboot installed on your pc or it wont work.
i can only assume your battery charging issues are a result of running it completely dead. thats not a good idea, and wont always charge back up no matter how long its plugged in. i would consider yourself lucky on that and try not to do it again.
i cant comment on this "Ok so I looked at djrbliss batch file...." until i see what you are talking about.
i dont know the reason for the "ext" extension. either the partition format changed, or some other reason i cant explain.
as long as you flash all the files in any build, there should be no issues.

Back to fresh & JB vs KK
bweN diorD said:
i did not intend to imply the process took a day to flash, "all day long" is merely 'slang' implying it could do it at any time.
the flash could take any where from a few minutes to as long as 15, however 5min or so is most common.
razr utility from the dev forum will restore your phone to factory. make sure you get the correct version, or a newer one is fine too.
not sure what you mean by "have run djbliss recovery", i wasnt aware he made recoveries. can you provide a link so i can see what your talking about.
if you upgrade to the FIRST kk build, you can unlock the bootloader, then if you dont like kk, you can flash back to jb.
yes you can just enter those into a command prompt, but your phone has to be in fastboot, and you have to have adb and fastboot installed on your pc or it wont work.
i can only assume your battery charging issues are a result of running it completely dead. thats not a good idea, and wont always charge back up no matter how long its plugged in. i would consider yourself lucky on that and try not to do it again.
i cant comment on this "Ok so I looked at djrbliss batch file...." until i see what you are talking about.
i dont know the reason for the "ext" extension. either the partition format changed, or some other reason i cant explain.
as long as you flash all the files in any build, there should be no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your info! I didn't realize the battery was drained! You are right I was very lucky. I ordered a usb programming adapter from Black Hat.
Yes all of those (adb & fastboot) seem to be present from the Droid Razr Utility 1.21. Which is where djrbliss batch file came from (windowsutility.bat) .... Here is the link from where I got it. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2307439
Also, here is the link to the (looks like) newer JB XML http://sbf.droid-developers.org/phone.php?device=5 vs the one that was in the Utility 1.21. This has the "system.img.ext4"
Additionally I have a mac but I don't seem to get good results when I try to use the mac.... failure messages. Does that have anything to do with the usb setting in the phone of MTP or Camera? (debugging is on)
All of this is because my phone doesn't receive text messages on pageplus since trying to unflash and upgrading to 4G. Everything else worked fine calls, data and can send text and I just wanted to try and get back to a totally fresh install to see if that made a difference.
Could the long write time in RSD Lite be due to using a virtual Windows 7 on fusion?
So what is your opinion on Kit Kat? Is it worth the upgrade? Is there anything really gained? I am content with JB but if there are some cool user features or something .... my battery lasts 2 days under JB so that really isn't an issue but hey if KK makes it go even longer that would be a +.
Thanks again.

daredream777 said:
Thanks for your info! I didn't realize the battery was drained! You are right I was very lucky. I ordered a usb programming adapter from Black Hat.
Yes all of those (adb & fastboot) seem to be present from the Droid Razr Utility 1.21. Which is where djrbliss batch file came from (windowsutility.bat) .... Here is the link from where I got it. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2307439
Also, here is the link to the (looks like) newer JB XML http://sbf.droid-developers.org/phone.php?device=5 vs the one that was in the Utility 1.21. This has the "system.img.ext4"
Additionally I have a mac but I don't seem to get good results when I try to use the mac.... failure messages. Does that have anything to do with the usb setting in the phone of MTP or Camera? (debugging is on)
All of this is because my phone doesn't receive text messages on pageplus since trying to unflash and upgrading to 4G. Everything else worked fine calls, data and can send text and I just wanted to try and get back to a totally fresh install to see if that made a difference.
Could the long write time in RSD Lite be due to using a virtual Windows 7 on fusion?
So what is your opinion on Kit Kat? Is it worth the upgrade? Is there anything really gained? I am content with JB but if there are some cool user features or something .... my battery lasts 2 days under JB so that really isn't an issue but hey if KK makes it go even longer that would be a +.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats Matt's utility, not Dan's, the same one i maintain here since Matt stopped.
unfortunately, i havent been updating the mac and osx files, so i doubt you can use it directly on a mac. maybe with a virtual setup, but im no expert on that.
if you are happy with your setup, i would just try to re-flash that if need be. mainly the system, if nothing else, then factory reset, or -w command in fastboot.
everyone's option off kk will be different, i dont think its worth leaving something that you like for though.
if you can use a windows machine for 15min or so, you can use this guide to flash kk, root, unlock the bootloader, then flash back to jb if you dont like it. if you update past the first kk to the current one before unlocking, you will not be able to go back to jb, ever. just a fyi.

RSD vs Fastboot
bweN diorD said:
thats Matt's utility, not Dan's, the same one i maintain here since Matt stopped.
unfortunately, i havent been updating the mac and osx files, so i doubt you can use it directly on a mac. maybe with a virtual setup, but im no expert on that.
if you are happy with your setup, i would just try to re-flash that if need be. mainly the system, if nothing else, then factory reset, or -w command in fastboot.
everyone's option off kk will be different, i dont think its worth leaving something that you like for though.
if you can use a windows machine for 15min or so, you can use this guide to flash kk, root, unlock the bootloader, then flash back to jb if you dont like it. if you update past the first kk to the current one before unlocking, you will not be able to go back to jb, ever. just a fyi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info.
So what is the difference between doing a flash with RSD and using the Utility(or fastboot)? Is one more complete? When I used the utility I was still rooted, so in my mind that is not factory fresh and I had killed the sound on boot up and that is still silent.
What does the -w do?
Is RSD flasher just a fancy automated way of doing an RSD flash?
Did you figure out what the ".ext4" was on the end of the system.img.ext4? VRZ_XT926_9.8.1Q-94-1_CFC.xml
I'm starting to get my head around some of this but wow there is a lot to it!
Thanks for your help.

daredream777 said:
Thanks for the info.
So what is the difference between doing a flash with RSD and using the Utility(or fastboot)? Is one more complete? When I used the utility I was still rooted, so in my mind that is not factory fresh and I had killed the sound on boot up and that is still silent.
What does the -w do?
Is RSD flasher just a fancy automated way of doing an RSD flash?
Did you figure out what the ".ext4" was on the end of the system.img.ext4? VRZ_XT926_9.8.1Q-94-1_CFC.xml
I'm starting to get my head around some of this but wow there is a lot to it!
Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fastboot can do a bit more than rsd and you can flash one file or many rather easily.
most of the utilites only contain key files needed to upgrade or re-flash, regardless if they were changed. i only made 2 builds with a complete flash, v-1.4 and v-1.41.
about root, im pretty sure i have never had that happen, and i have flashed quite a bit. maybe i just never noticed. i believe the system would need to be formatted to completely clean it, but i dont know if its done by default or not. did the system flash properly in the utility? all pass no fail?
if you used the wrong version, some things would fail if your bootloader is locked.
-w is basically a factory reset.
i didnt look into the ext extension.

Utility run failure
bweN diorD said:
fastboot can do a bit more than rsd and you can flash one file or many rather easily.
most of the utilites only contain key files needed to upgrade or re-flash, regardless if they were changed. i only made 2 builds with a complete flash, v-1.4 and v-1.41.
about root, im pretty sure i have never had that happen, and i have flashed quite a bit. maybe i just never noticed. i believe the system would need to be formatted to completely clean it, but i dont know if its done by default or not. did the system flash properly in the utility? all pass no fail?
if you used the wrong version, some things would fail if your bootloader is locked.
-w is basically a factory reset.
i didnt look into the ext extension.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just reran the utility and it did not run clean
Here is the results of the utility run
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
I inserted the image but it is not showing up. Basically it said it:
load_file: could not allocate 870148648 bytes
error: cannot load 'system.img'
sending 'boot' (10240 KB) ....
OKAY [ 0.781s]
writing 'boot' ...
Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
everything after this point ran fine.
Another note this article http://www.andromods.com/tips-trick...-unroot-unbrick-droid-razr-maxx-hd-xt926.html says to remove the 'getvar' from the xml file and it will be factory fresh. What does that do? Any opinion?
Thanks.
ps running RSD and it appears to hang at system .... has run for 20 minutes so far. This is where I pulled the plug when 'boot' took an hour on my virtual windows 7. This time boot took less than a second on a real windows 7 machine. I just saw it flash up and it was done.

daredream777 said:
Just reran the utility and it did not run clean
Here is the results of the utility run
I inserted the image but it is not showing up. Basically it said it:
load_file: could not allocate 870148648 bytes
error: cannot load 'system.img'
sending 'boot' (10240 KB) ....
OKAY [ 0.781s]
writing 'boot' ...
Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote failure)
everything after this point ran fine.
Another note this article http://www.andromods.com/tips-trick...-unroot-unbrick-droid-razr-maxx-hd-xt926.html says to remove the 'getvar' from the xml file and it will be factory fresh. What does that do? Any opinion?
Thanks.
ps running RSD and it appears to hang at system .... has run for 20 minutes so far. This is where I pulled the plug when 'boot' took an hour on my virtual windows 7. This time boot took less than a second on a real windows 7 machine. I just saw it flash up and it was done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its acting like you are using too old version of the script or something else unexpected is happening. not everything is failing, thats good. usually means its fixable.
if you are trying to flash jb, use this. it should either fix the problem, or the output failures will let me know what to try next.
if you were trying to flash kk then use this.
dont try the kk version if you havent tried to flash kk yet! it should work, i just dont want to further complicate this if it doesnt.
the getvar line is removed from the utilities and you should edit it out of the xml file if flashing with rsd.
the problem with rsd right now is it cant re-partition the phone unless you are upgrading. im trying to re-partition it for you as is, which mfastboot can do. mfastboot is what the utilities above use, and the partition files, which are not included in the general versions of the script.
post your results and well go from there.

SOLVED! I ran House of Moto utils
bweN diorD said:
its acting like you are using too old version of the script or something else unexpected is happening. not everything is failing, thats good. usually means its fixable.
if you are trying to flash jb, use this. it should either fix the problem, or the output failures will let me know what to try next.
if you were trying to flash kk then use this.
dont try the kk version if you havent tried to flash kk yet! it should work, i just dont want to further complicate this if it doesnt.
the getvar line is removed from the utilities and you should edit it out of the xml file if flashing with rsd.
the problem with rsd right now is it cant re-partition the phone unless you are upgrading. im trying to re-partition it for you as is, which mfastboot can do. mfastboot is what the utilities above use, and the partition files, which are not included in the general versions of the script.
post your results and well go from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it! Finally! Ran House of Moto script gen on it and it loaded back to factory fresh without a hitch. Thanks. So much info out there it takes a while to find the right path.

Bootloader gone?

I downloaded the "Retail Canada (1GB)" firmware as listed in this post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/2015-moto-g/general/index-moto-g-factory-firmware-images-t3169639
I went to install it via the guide linked at the beginning of the first post. The command mfastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img didn't complete because no such file (motoboot.img) existed in that archive. The guide said nothing of this, so I continued with the other steps until the end (every other one said 'okay'), finally issuing the reboot command.
Now the phone won't boot up because, I assume, I no longer have a bootloader. I just get a black screen. If I plug in the USB cable to my computer, I can hear the sound of a device being connected, but it just shows as a Qualcomm device in Device Manager. Pressing and holding the power and volume-down keys seems to reboot the device (I hear Windows chime that a USB device was disconnected, then reconnected) but nothing ever comes on the screen. ADB/Fastboot commands just say "waiting for device".
Is the phone done? If so, then that's pretty lousy that the archive for the stock ROM doesn't contain the bootloader file that I apparently need.
Yes, my bootloader was unlocked because I had installed TWRP to try out the CM ROM before deciding to return to the stock ROM.

You didn't flash the bootloader, but didn't erased either. That guide is for older phones and some files are missing or with a different name. I did that flashing and it went well even without flashing motoboot.
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 11:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------
Adb will always says waiting for device bc Adb loads only with system. Try typing "mfastboot devices" to see if you can still access fastboot
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

@Sevael - Thanks for pointing this out. The motoboot.img is now known as bootloader.img in Osprey firmware images. The motoboot partition is also different, now known as 'bootloader.'
The new command to flash Bootloader file is therefore:
mfastboot flash bootloader bootloader.img​

lost101 said:
@Sevael - Thanks for pointing this out. The motoboot.img is now known as bootloader.img in Osprey firmware images. The motoboot partition is also different, now known as 'bootloader.'
The new command to flash Bootloader file is therefore:
mfastboot flash bootloader bootloader.img​
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will be great to add (if isn't there already) this on the OP of osprey FW post. Thanks!
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

nelsonw said:
Will be great to add (if isn't there already) this on the OP of osprey FW post. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Working on it now.

nelsonw said:
Adb will always says waiting for device bc Adb loads only with system. Try typing "mfastboot devices" to see if you can still access fastboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried ADB, fastboot and mfastboot, they all return empty lists. I even tried the qboot solution for older Moto Gs. It doesn't respond to anything. I was on the internet for four hours looking up solutions and trying everything and nothing worked. Best I can tell, the bootloader is corrupted or missing. Since I can't get into the bootloader, I can't reflash anything to fix it.
According to the later pages of this thread, there are software tools out there which would fix this exact problem, but no one on XDA has been able to get their hands on them for the 3rd gen Moto G. Seems that only Motorola and perhaps some authorized repair places have access to the tools.
It wouldn't be such a big deal if this wasn't my only phone. I've previously had Samsungs and LGs and modded the hell out of them and it was always easy to recover from any type of issue via Odin or LG FlashTool. This is my first Motorola and I'm quickly learning that it's a much more fragile beast. I'm thinking that this might be my last Motorola for that very reason. I like to mod but I don't like this kind of fragility. I technically made no mistakes (just followed the guide I was directed to) and now my phone is hardbricked.
I have to go out and buy another phone this morning. The Moto G is an amazing phone for the price, but I'm not sure I want to risk it again.

@Sevael - Are you using Fastboot in Windows or Linux?
Edit: From what you have described, the bootloader hasn't even been touched.

Sevael said:
I tried ADB, fastboot and mfastboot, they all return empty lists. I even tried the qboot solution for older Moto Gs. It doesn't respond to anything. I was on the internet for four hours looking up solutions and trying everything and nothing worked. Best I can tell, the bootloader is corrupted or missing. Since I can't get into the bootloader, I can't reflash anything to fix it.
According to the later pages of this thread, there are software tools out there which would fix this exact problem, but no one on XDA has been able to get their hands on them for the 3rd gen Moto G. Seems that only Motorola and perhaps some authorized repair places have access to the tools.
It wouldn't be such a big deal if this wasn't my only phone. I've previously had Samsungs and LGs and modded the hell out of them and it was always easy to recover from any type of issue via Odin or LG FlashTool. This is my first Motorola and I'm quickly learning that it's a much more fragile beast. I'm thinking that this might be my last Motorola for that very reason. I like to mod but I don't like this kind of fragility. I technically made no mistakes (just followed the guide I was directed to) and now my phone is hardbricked.
I have to go out and buy another phone this morning. The Moto G is an amazing phone for the price, but I'm not sure I want to risk it again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll look into that thread and see how i can help you. But some command must be wrong to achieve that king of brick. For sure isn't Motorola issue... Give me some time and look into that.
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

lost101 said:
@Sevael - Are you using Fastboot in Windows or Linux?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows.
I followed all instructions. The files were all in the same folder, I copy/pasted the commands to ensure no typos, I carefully went through line by line. But something is different about the 3rd gen that the tutorial from the first gen just doesn't seem to work.
I know that I had things setup right because I was able to get TWRP flashed no problem. Installed CM, gave it a whirl, decided to go back to stock. Went back into the bootloader (didn't re-lock it at any point, that might have been my mistake), then tried to follow the linked guide to restoring the stock firmware. I even downloaded the firmware archive twice to ensure that it was correct. I extracted it all into the folder with the ADB and mfastboot files.
lost101 said:
Edit: From what you have described, the bootloader hasn't even been touched.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I thought, but the phone does not boot into the bootloader under any circumstances. I tried things like holding the power and volume down buttons for two minutes (tried both when plugged into PC and unplugged). I tried just the power button for two minutes. I tried every software solution I could find online (four hours of searching and trying). Nothing worked.
Fortunately, the store rep bought my story when I told him that the phone was like that right out of the box and he gave me a full refund. So I grabbed a different phone.
Thanks for trying to help out guys, I really appreciate it. XDA is always an awesome place. I'm not done with Motorola, but I've picked up a Moto X Play to try for now. Fingers crossed!
Thanks again.

@Sevael - I'm glad you got out of the situation easily.
I've added a new guide for flashing Firmware Images in 'General.'
The only significant difference is the change of name for the 'Bootloader' partition and bin file. Some people have previously posted in the Firmware Images thread that they had successfully restore Stock Firmware - following the old Moto G Tutorial. Maybe all of them skipped the 'fastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img' command.
Since the command failed for you, it doesn't make any sense that it would hard-brick the phone - unless simply by using that command a new partition was created on the phone called 'motoboot' - which conflicted with the existing 'bootloader' partition.

Sevael said:
Windows.
I followed all instructions. The files were all in the same folder, I copy/pasted the commands to ensure no typos, I carefully went through line by line. But something is different about the 3rd gen that the tutorial from the first gen just doesn't seem to work.
I know that I had things setup right because I was able to get TWRP flashed no problem. Installed CM, gave it a whirl, decided to go back to stock. Went back into the bootloader (didn't re-lock it at any point, that might have been my mistake), then tried to follow the linked guide to restoring the stock firmware. I even downloaded the firmware archive twice to ensure that it was correct. I extracted it all into the folder with the ADB and mfastboot files.
That's what I thought, but the phone does not boot into the bootloader under any circumstances. I tried things like holding the power and volume down buttons for two minutes (tried both when plugged into PC and unplugged). I tried just the power button for two minutes. I tried every software solution I could find online (four hours of searching and trying). Nothing worked.
Fortunately, the store rep bought my story when I told him that the phone was like that right out of the box and he gave me a full refund. So I grabbed a different phone.
Thanks for trying to help out guys, I really appreciate it. XDA is always an awesome place. I'm not done with Motorola, but I've picked up a Moto X Play to try for now. Fingers crossed!
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It won't help you now, but technically all you needed to do to get back to stock was flash the system image files (and maybe the kernel if CM comes with its own kernel). You didn't even need to attempt to flash anything else. Its OK following guides but be aware that they aren't fool proof.

scott_doyland said:
It won't help you now, but technically all you needed to do to get back to stock was flash the system image files (and maybe the kernel if CM comes with its own kernel). You didn't even need to attempt to flash anything else. Its OK following guides but be aware that they aren't fool proof.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did try reflashing. As I said, the bootloader was gone. No devices detected by ADB, fastboot, mfastboot, qboot, or any other tool I tried. I put in commands and it just sat at "Waiting for device".

I'm glad that you get a Moto X. I can't understand what you did. But that is the past. Good luck and enjoy your phone! Thanks @lost101 for the new guide.
Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

Sevael said:
I did try reflashing. As I said, the bootloader was gone. No devices detected by ADB, fastboot, mfastboot, qboot, or any other tool I tried. I put in commands and it just sat at "Waiting for device".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,I meant for your first attempt at flashing back stock when your bootloader was OK. CM is just a new system image, you didn't need to even attempt to reflash a bootloader.
Even just using twrp to restore the system image alone would have got you back to stock.

scott_doyland said:
Hi,I meant for your first attempt at flashing back stock when your bootloader was OK. CM is just a new system image, you didn't need to even attempt to reflash a bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's true. But at the time I didn't know that. There was a thread with links to the stock firmware and a guide how to flash it, so I followed it. Oh well, at least the issues I had have allowed for better information to become available for everyone.
scott_doyland said:
Even just using twrp to restore the system image alone would have got you back to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also true. I didn't take the time to create a backup of stock after first installing TWRP because I am used to Samsung and LG phones where you just download a single file and can restore the stock firmware image under any circumstances with no problems. It didn't dawn on me that a Motorola phone (this was my first) would be more complicated. I had (wrongfully) assumed that all Android phones were as foolproof as those two brands.
Especially Samsung. Odin plus the SamMobile website is like having an unlimited amount of get-out-of-jail-free cards. Why can't all Android phones work like that?

Sevael said:
Yes, that's true. But at the time I didn't know that. There was a thread with links to the stock firmware and a guide how to flash it, so I followed it. Oh well, at least the issues I had have allowed for better information to become available for everyone.
Also true. I didn't take the time to create a backup of stock after first installing TWRP because I am used to Samsung and LG phones where you just download a single file and can restore the stock firmware image under any circumstances with no problems. It didn't dawn on me that a Motorola phone (this was my first) would be more complicated. I had (wrongfully) assumed that all Android phones were as foolproof as those two brands.
Especially Samsung. Odin plus the SamMobile website is like having an unlimited amount of get-out-of-jail-free cards. Why can't all Android phones work like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know that about Samsung and LG as I have never had one. So I have also learnt something

Anyone ever figure this out?
I just did basically the same thing as the OP, because I'm an idiot. If there's a way to recover (there's a fix for the 2nd gen model involving qboot, but I'm guessing the images are different) without having to hope Motorola will replace it without noticing the unlocked bootloader that would be awesome. Qboot.exe will recognize it, so if I had the right blank-flash images that would work in principle.
I still don't understand what happened. I skipped the motoboot step because I didn't want to replace the bootloader and now I can't even get the screen to turn on.

@mcrammerdocdoc - It would be helpful if you can provide as much detail about what you did, fastboot commands used etc. It's important to get a clear understanding as to why this is happening.
If you are not touching the Bootloader at all, then it can only be gpt.bin (Partition Table) - creating this situation - as all other fastboot files are benign. The other possibility is that it's not really hard-bricked; perhaps there is a bug suddenly dropping battery life to zero (this occurred with Moto G (1st Gen)) and letting the phone charge will resolve this.

lost101 said:
@mcrammerdocdoc - It would be helpful if you can provide as much detail about what you did, fastboot commands used etc. It's important to get a clear understanding as to why this is happening.
If you are not touching the Bootloader at all, then it can only be gpt.bin (Partition Table) - creating this situation - as all other fastboot files are benign. The other possibility is that it's not really hard-bricked; perhaps there is a bug suddenly dropping battery life to zero (this occurred with Moto G (1st Gen)) and letting the phone charge will resolve this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, sorry about that. Here's what I tried, ripped directly from Gammerson's stock-restore guide (new user, can't post the actual link apparently):
Code:
mfastboot flash partition gpt.bin
mfastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img # skipped; no motoboot.img in the zip
mfastboot flash logo logo.bin
mfastboot flash boot boot.img
mfastboot flash recovery recovery.img
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk1
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk2
mfastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk3
mfastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
mfastboot erase modemst1
mfastboot erase modemst2
mfastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
mfastboot erase cache
mfastboot erase userdata
mfastboot reboot
The only variations besides skipping the bootloader were the system.img chunks (there were 5 for my device) and the fact that I used plain old fastboot from the Android SDK vs. mfastboot. Right after that "fastboot reboot" command the screen went dead and hasn't done a thing since. Plugging it into a PC will get it listed as "Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008 (COM8)", which I'm guessing is some kind of emergency serial interface. I guess that means the battery isn't dead? Unless it's just pulling power out of the USB port. I'll try charging it for a bit and see if that helps.
Thanks! Hope some of that is useful. Seems like the thing to do would be dump a bootloader image over that serial link, but I've got no idea how to begin doing that.

@mcrammerdocdoc that's exactly what happened with me.
It wasn't battery-related because it was nearly full when I did the final reboot command and it was dead immediately. I left it plugged in overnight and it didn't change anything.
The qboot thing would be the solution if we had the applicable software for the 3rd gen. There is a thread on XDA (I didn't bookmark it) where they were discussing the black-screen brick and the Qualcomm device showing up in Windows for all three gens of Moto G. The last few pages made it clear that 3rd gen owners with this issue don't yet have a solution.
I think it might have been in the 1st gen Moto G forum. The thread was over 100 pages long and involved all three gens.

[TOOL] fastboot flash / info

I've made a .bat file for flashing and some other stuff. Basic stuff that I use the most.
I made it for One Vision but since Action use exactly the same flash commands, it works for Action as well.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Unzip .bat to same dir as your fastboot.exe and double click it or drag it to your cmd window and press enter.
Options:
[f] - FLASH FULL FIRMWARE.
[w] - FACTORY RESET. (erase userdata)
[g] - DEVICE INFO. (getvar all)
[p] - OEM PARTITION INFO. (oem partition)
- GET BOOTLOADER UNLOCK CODE FROM DEVICE. (oem get_unlock_data)
[r] - REBOOT TO SYSTEM, EXIT.
- REBOOT TO BOOTLOADER.
[e] - EXIT, leave the phone in fastboot mode.

Nice work! Really useful for flashing Android 9. However, couple of changes might be necessary for Android 10, in case anyone wants to use it for that. Minor changes.
Such as:
renaming bootloader.bin to bootloader.img
renaming fwbl1.nbl1.bin to fwbl1.img
renaming keystorage.bin to keystorage.img
renaming ldfw.bin to ldfw.img
Other than that, very good idea, and very useful tool!
Thank you!

Updated Fastboot command batch file for Android 10
This is the updated fastboot command batch file for Android 10. Just move to the platform-tools folder and execute it (obviously the stock firmware should be there as well )
Haven't added the fastboot reboot command at the end. You will have to execute that command manually after the flashing is done (in case the device doesn't automatically boots up).
PS: Can't upload the .bat file directly so had to compress it.

Attached the updated version for Android 10, including the rest of the tool, for anyone interested.

arsradu said:
Attached the updated version for Android 10, including the rest of the tool, for anyone interested.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your contribution. I actually updated the .bat it a few weeks ago to include both pie and A10 flash commands, since not everyone is updated yet.
Then I realized it would be stupid to share it cause someone would probably try to downgrade, which may result in i brick, and then blame me for it although it's common knowledge not to downgrade android version on new devices.
I'll probably have to add a warning about it in the .bat at least.

tys0n said:
Thanks for your contribution. I actually updated the .bat it a few weeks ago to include both pie and A10 flash commands, since not everyone is updated yet.
Then I realized it would be stupid to share it cause someone would probably try to downgrade, which may result in i brick, and then blame me for it although it's common knowledge not to downgrade android version on new devices.
I'll probably have to add a warning about it in the .bat at least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heey! Welcome back!
It is common knowledge indeed. And I always wondered why is that. Why does it result in a brick? I'm guessing there are some conflicts or something, right? If you have more info (which it sounds like you do) could you share it? I would love to know more about it.
I mean, you could do that pretty easily with older (Android 6 for example) devices. I mean, it's not advisable. But...if the update sucks or it brings some really nasty bugs and you cannot use your phone cause the modem part of it is broken, for example, there should be a way to safely go back to the previous version, right...? At least until the bug is fixed. Shouldn't it be possible to simply flash Android 9 the same way you do Android 10 (I'm guessing the answer is no, but just wondering why...)? You can even do that on iOS, for God's sake! Which is like the definition of no downgrades! But Apple still allows it. Not permanently, but for a while, yeah, if you have an issue with the new version, you can go back to the old one.
But, yeah, you're definitely not the first one advising against going back to, in this case, Android 9.
By the way, nice job with this script. I was working on a version for Mac, since I'm a Mac guy. And...I got pretty far. But one thing I can't figure out how to do: goto (especially for the "Back to Menu" option which is used pretty often). There is no such thing in Bash. So...you have to improvise. And so far, everything I tried failed, for one reason or the other. So..for now, I just boot into Windows if I need to flash anything. Then return to Mac. )
It's' good to see you around. And once again, thank you!
Update:
So...downgrading to Android 9 is definitely possible. You just need to make sure OEM Unlock is checked in Developer Options (allowing bootloader to be unlocked) and that you actually are bootloader unlocked. Everything else is the same.
Update 2:
There seems to be a typo in your script when flashing vbmeta.
It should be "fastboot flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img" according to the flashfile.xml for Android 9.

arsradu said:
Heey! Welcome back!
It is common knowledge indeed. And I always wondered why is that. Why does it result in a brick? I'm guessing there are some conflicts or something, right? If you have more info (which it sounds like you do) could you share it? I would love to know more about it.
I mean, you could do that pretty easily with older (Android 6 for example) devices. I mean, it's not advisable. But...if the update sucks or it brings some really nasty bugs and you cannot use your phone cause the modem part of it is broken, for example, there should be a way to safely go back to the previous version, right...? At least until the bug is fixed. Shouldn't it be possible to simply flash Android 9 the same way you do Android 10 (I'm guessing the answer is no, but just wondering why...)? You can even do that on iOS, for God's sake! Which is like the definition of no downgrades! But Apple still allows it. Not permanently, but for a while, yeah, if you have an issue with the new version, you can go back to the old one.
But, yeah, you're definitely not the first one advising against going back to, in this case, Android 9.
By the way, nice job with this script. I was working on a version for Mac, since I'm a Mac guy. And...I got pretty far. But one thing I can't figure out how to do: goto (especially for the "Back to Menu" option which is used pretty often). There is no such thing in Bash. So...you have to improvise. And so far, everything I tried failed, for one reason or the other. So..for now, I just boot into Windows if I need to flash anything. Then return to Mac. )
It's' good to see you around. And once again, thank you!
Update:
So...downgrading to Android 9 is definitely possible. You just need to make sure OEM Unlock is checked in Developer Options (allowing bootloader to be unlocked) and that you actually are bootloader unlocked. Everything else is the same.
Update 2:
There seems to be a typo in your script when flashing vbmeta.
It should be "fastboot flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img" according to the flashfile.xml for Android 9.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I don't know what it is that can cause bricks when downloading android version, but you're right, everything was easier with older android versions
Did you try to downgrade from 10 to 9, and it worked? It would be great if that was the case.
Thank you..again! Didn't notice that typo and I've had no problems or errors while testing/flashing with it.
I guess that's why I missed it. You don't look for errors if it's working
I'm attaching an updated tool with pie and android 10 flashing, and typo corrected. Also added you to "credits".
For now I've added a warning about downgrade since I don't have any confirmation on if it's possible or not.

tys0n said:
Sorry, I don't know what it is that can cause bricks when downloading android version, but you're right, everything was easier with older android versions
Did you try to downgrade from 10 to 9, and it worked? It would be great if that was the case.
Thank you..again! Didn't notice that typo and I've had no problems or errors while testing/flashing with it.
I guess that's why I missed it. You don't look for errors if it's working
I'm attaching an updated tool with pie and android 10 flashing, and typo corrected. Also added you to "credits".
For now I've added a warning about downgrade since I don't have any confirmation on if it's possible or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is possible. I'm back on Android 9 right now.
BUT, a few notes:
1. the problem causing boot failure (and flash failure, with error "(bootloader) validation image failed") is not so much the ROM itself, as it is the Security Patch. It seems that it HAS TO be at least the same version. Which makes me think that it should be possible (at least in theory) to downgrade to Android 9, even without unlocking the bootloader, IF the Security Patch you're coming from is the same as the one of the ROM you're trying to flash. In other words, if your Security Patch is not being downgraded. It has to be at least the same version, or newer, in order to work without any issues.
2. IF you already upgraded to something, anything, with a newer Security Patch, downgrading is no longer possible with a locked bootloader. It IS, however, possible after unlocking the bootloader (which will void the warranty).
3. once in this state (unlocked and downgraded to Android 9), you cannot relock the bootloader anymore (again, IF you're coming from a newer Security Patch). No errors when locking, but upon boot, you'll get the "your device has failed verification and may not work properly" warning, and, despite the message underneath that says "your device will boot in 5 seconds", it won't boot.
I'm guessing...it should be possible to relock the bootloader IF:
1. you're upgrading again to the ROM with the Security Patch you had before (January 2020 for example), but then you won't be able to downgrade again (unless you unlock the bootloader).
2. you're waiting for a security patch for the current Android version to match the one you had before (again, January 2020 for example).
So, in other words, you can either flash a January 2020 Security Patch included with a ROM, or wait to receive it via OTA.
Also, thank you very much for the update. Indeed, it doesn't show any errors. When upgrading to Android 10, I already corrected that line. But I forgot to do the same in the original script. No errors indeed (not sure if it makes any difference....) but it's probably better to be corrected nonetheless.
Soo...thank you!

Hey, first off thanks to both of you arsradu and tys0n for sharing some wonderful insights. What I failed to understand is the fact that how the initial tool was still able to flash the vbmeta file if you failed to mention which slot should it be flashed to? Is explicitly mentioning slot isn't compulsory for all the files?
Another thing which seems to intrigue me is the fact that how come we have fixed the slots in these fastboot commands. Because in dual slots, the active/inactive slots keep on changing every time we flash an OTA and REBOOT the device. So in those cases, why don't we have to modify these fastboot commands according to the changing slots?
For example, if we use fastboot flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img, then we always use this command only and not vbmeta_b vbmeta.img. It seems we are explicitly assuming that every device should be having 'A' partition as the inactive slot (before REBOOT), but that can't be universally applicable, right? But we all know it works like a charm! So what is it that is actually happening ??
Any update on this by you guys will be highly appreciated

binary**# said:
Hey, first off thanks to both of you arsradu and tys0n for sharing some wonderful insights. What I failed to understand is the fact that how the initial tool was still able to flash the vbmeta file if you failed to mention which slot should it be flashed to? Is explicitly mentioning slot isn't compulsory for all the files?
Another thing which seems to intrigue me is the fact that how come we have fixed the slots in these fastboot commands. Because in dual slots, the active/inactive slots keep on changing every time we flash an OTA and REBOOT the device. So in those cases, why don't we have to modify these fastboot commands according to the changing slots?
For example, if we use fastboot flash vbmeta_a vbmeta.img, then we always use this command only and not vbmeta_b vbmeta.img. It seems we are explicitly assuming that every device should be having 'A' partition as the inactive slot (before REBOOT), but that can't be universally applicable, right? But we all know it works like a charm! So what is it that is actually happening ??
Any update on this by you guys will be highly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your guess is a s good as mine. ) Maybe tys0n has some better knowledge about it. I was also wondering why only vbmeta_a.... And how does it work though, without specifying which slot to write to? There is no vbmeta_b in the xml. Why? I have no idea.
I mean, it's clear that, for other components, you need to specify it. At least, the flashfile.xml is specifying it. So you would assume it is important. Aaand I don't think anyone is assuming this is a universal tool for every device. Though it can definitely be adapted for other phones.... ) So I'm not assuming every phone is gonna write to the same partition. But these two (the Vision and the Action) seem to have this thing in common.
I'm not sure what you mean by switching slots. I honestly don't have enough experience with that. Also, I don't think the tool is for flashing the OTA updates... I think it's only for flashing the full images. Again, I could be wrong here. This is a new phone for me, and I haven't checked any OTAs for it yet. If you have one, we can analyse that. But...again, I'm not sure if this tool was meant for flashing OTAs.

arsradu said:
Your guess is a s good as mine. ) Maybe tys0n has some better knowledge about it. I was also wondering why only vbmeta_a.... And how does it work though, without specifying which slot to write to? There is no vbmeta_b in the xml. Why? I have no idea.
I mean, it's clear that, for other components, you need to specify it. At least, the flashfile.xml is specifying it. So you would assume it is important. Aaand I don't think anyone is assuming this is a universal tool for every device. Though it can definitely be adapted for other phones.... ) So I'm not assuming every phone is gonna write to the same partition. But these two (the Vision and the Action) seem to have this thing in common.
I'm not sure what you mean by switching slots. I honestly don't have enough experience with that. Also, I don't think the tool is for flashing the OTA updates... I think it's only for flashing the full images. Again, I could be wrong here. This is a new phone for me, and I haven't checked any OTAs for it yet. If you have one, we can analyse that. But...again, I'm not sure if this tool was meant for flashing OTAs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off I should have been more specific regarding the term "every device", what I actually meant was "every Moto one action device".... An error on my part [emoji2960]....
Regarding the OTA I didn't meant to say that this tool could be/couldn't be used to flash OTAs[emoji85]
Coming back to the point, while executing the fastboot command to flash vbmeta, we always keep the slot A attached to it, rather than checking for the inactive slot beforehand and then flashing. I guess the reason could be the fact that since we are using these fastboot commands to install the stock firmware from scratch...so whatever slot we install the system to, vbmeta needs to be flashed to that slot...
As we are installing system to slot A (fastboot flash system_a system.img), so it's 'vbmeta_a' vbmeta.img.
Now I'll try flashing all these sparsechunk files to slot b and then check whether vbmeta gets flashed to that slot without actually mentioning that slot (B) in its fastboot command [emoji14]
And yes, thanks for your prompt response
Sent from my motorola one action using Tapatalk

binary**# said:
First off I should have been more specific regarding the term "every device", what I actually meant was "every Moto one action device".... An error on my part [emoji2960]....
Regarding the OTA I didn't meant to say that this tool could be/couldn't be used to flash OTAs[emoji85]
Coming back to the point, while executing the fastboot command to flash vbmeta, we always keep the slot A attached to it, rather than checking for the inactive slot beforehand and then flashing. I guess the reason could be the fact that since we are using these fastboot commands to install the stock firmware from scratch...so whatever slot we install the system to, vbmeta needs to be flashed to that slot...
As we are installing system to slot A (fastboot flash system_a system.img), so it's 'vbmeta_a' vbmeta.img.
Now I'll try flashing all these sparsechunk files to slot b and then check whether vbmeta gets flashed to that slot without actually mentioning that slot (B) in its fastboot command [emoji14]
And yes, thanks for your prompt response
Sent from my motorola one action using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know why I love this community? Cause we can share interesting ideas and experiences like this. We can learn from each other. And at least for what I'm concerned, I do have a LOT to learn. And I'm glad I have nice people I can learn from.
As for your experiment, I'm also curious to know the outcome. I never wondered what would happen in that particular case. But then again, I'm very much a noob when it comes to this phone. It's a new phone, never done this on another Moto phone, and I know each manufacturer (and sometimes each phone) has its own particularities. So I'm happy to learn from you guys.

arsradu said:
You know why I love this community? Cause we can share interesting ideas and experiences like this. We can learn from each other. And at least for what I'm concerned, I do have a LOT to learn. And I'm glad I have nice people I can learn from.
As for your experiment, I'm also curious to know the outcome. I never wondered what would happen in that particular case. But then again, I'm very much a noob when it comes to this phone. It's a new phone, never done this on another Moto phone, and I know each manufacturer (and sometimes each phone) has its own particularities. So I'm happy to learn from you guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly! There are tons of new things to learn from everyone out there. And this being my first Exynos device, I'm just loving the challenges here. Till now I only had Snapdragon devices in which everything was a cakewalk. Furthermore, my recent devices were all Redmi/Xiaomi and it had a pretty neat escape even from hard-brick situations via EDL Mode. But with One Action, everything is so different, thanks to its processor

binary**# said:
Exactly! There are tons of new things to learn from everyone out there. And this being my first Exynos device, I'm just loving the challenges here. Till now I only had Snapdragon devices in which everything was a cakewalk. Furthermore, my recent devices were all Redmi/Xiaomi and it had a pretty neat escape even from hard-brick situations via EDL Mode. But with One Action, everything is so different, thanks to its processor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I was actually surprised (pleasantly surprised, I might say) it had a Samsung SOC. My previous Moto had a Mediatek and I did not enjoy that one bit. New versions are better though. But that one...not really. And before that I had a SONY Z3 Compact. Cool phone, plenty powerful for its time, but apparently SONY had some troubles with their glue...cause the display kept getting unstuck. )) Looks like this was its "thing".
Anyway, back to Moto Action, I'm liking it so far. The only thing I don't particularly like about it is the update. Kinda slow for an Android One device. But hey, it could be worse. ) I'm not expecting too much from a mid-range device. It's perfect for the price. And for my use case, it gets the job done.

arsradu said:
Yeah, I was actually surprised (pleasantly surprised, I might say) it had a Samsung SOC. My previous Moto had a Mediatek and I did not enjoy that one bit. New versions are better though. But that one...not really. And before that I had a SONY Z3 Compact. Cool phone, plenty powerful for its time, but apparently SONY had some troubles with their glue...cause the display kept getting unstuck. )) Looks like this was its "thing".
Anyway, back to Moto Action, I'm liking it so far. The only thing I don't particularly like about it is the update. Kinda slow for an Android One device. But hey, it could be worse. ) I'm not expecting too much from a mid-range device. It's perfect for the price. And for my use case, it gets the job done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You pretty much summed it up: "kinda slow, but could have been worse". I was confused between Mi A3 and One Action, but I ultimately decided to go with the latter (because of 720p display of Mi A3, there was really no point in going after that). And now I'm quite satisfied with my choice, even more so considering Mi A3 is yet to receive the Android 10 update.

binary**# said:
You pretty much summed it up: "kinda slow, but could have been worse". I was confused between Mi A3 and One Action, but I ultimately decided to go with the latter (because of 720p display of Mi A3, there was really no point in going after that). And now I'm quite satisfied with my choice, even more so considering Mi A3 is yet to receive the Android 10 update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lucky dawg, you already got it. You got it first, didn’t you? ))
Well, you know, I’m happy for you, man. This way you have more time to experiment with it so you can help others when they get theirs. So, if you think about it, it’s really a win-win. ))

i ****ed up
guys i ****ed up and bricked my moto one action xt2013-4 and now it wont boot and i cant flash stock firmware back to it

achmed420 said:
guys i ****ed up and bricked my moto one action xt2013-4 and now it wont boot and i cant flash stock firmware back to it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What did you do? What error do you get on boot? What error do you get when flashing?

i ****ed up
i unlocked boot loader and attempted to flash TROIKA_QSB30.62-17_subsidy-DEFAULT_regulatory-DEFAULT_CFC.xml some items failed other flashed some had verification image errors and now it won let me boot anything except recovery and fastboot ... i was on psbs29. 105-27-2 before this with january 2020 security patch

achmed420 said:
i unlocked boot loader and attempted to flash TROIKA_QSB30.62-17_subsidy-DEFAULT_regulatory-DEFAULT_CFC.xml some items failed other flashed some had verification image errors and now it won let me boot anything except recovery and fastboot ... i was on psbs29. 105-27-2 before this with january 2020 security patch
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where did you get the ROM from? Can you post a link? I'm trying to understand which exact variant (for which region) did you flash.
You still didn't tell me which error do you get upon boot.
Also, did you use the correct commands for Android 10? Which script did you use?
By the looks of it, you tried to flash a ROM with December security patch over one with January security patch. Which, with a locked bootloader is not gonna be possible, but...should be possible with an unlocked bootloader. But since you didn't tell me which error do you get upon boot, I'm not sure how to help you.