Is this the end of the line for my N5? - Nexus 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm a serial lurker here and hate to ask for help, but want to reach out (and finally start hitting thanks).
My N5 was on MMB29S 6.0.1, SuperSU version 2.65 for root, xposed v79 (gravitybox, APM+, snapprefs), and ran perfectly fine up until a few weeks ago when I started having issues. Apps would sometimes FC, and (not always right after) system would hang and then reset. Sometimes the screen would go black but notification light still would blink.
Upon reset, it would either (a) get stuck at google screen and bootloop or (b) get stuck at some point during the boot animation. If the phone did start, it would usually work for a variable amount of time - minutes, hours, but usually not more than a day. Other times, the phone simply would not start and required a slowly increasing amount of time to boot while holding down the power button, sometimes not even booting at all. The phone would sometimes be unresponsive to holding the power button for up to 12 hours before the phone booted up again. Not saying I help the power button that long, but tried frequently over that period of time.
Over the past few days I've taken to troubleshooting in the ways I could think of and what I've read here on xda (I can link to any of the threads if you are curious) and the rest of the web. I started by disabling xposed, restoring stock boot image and removing root, and have since flashed completely to stock MMB29V and have followed the advice of @audit13 to even flash the userdata.img file and perform a factory wipe before booting the phone for the first time.
Nothing works. Even after being bone stock now there are still random resets, with the power button having to be held down for quite some time to power back on (if at all). The only difference is that it hasn't been getting stuck on the boot animation when it does power on.
I'm a bit sad, and realizing that this is probably the end of the line for my venerable Nexus 5, but any help/suggestions are welcome. Thank you in advance!

Download the Nexus Root Toolkit for your computer to try to restore your Nexus.

Could be a power button issue that's causing the resets? Have you tried removing the motherboard and quickly pressing and releasing the power button several times in a row using more pressure than normal?

audit13 said:
Could be a power button issue that's causing the resets? Have you tried removing the motherboard and quickly pressing and releasing the power button several times in a row using more pressure than normal?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have yet to try that, but will try that in the next couple days. Might not get to it tomorrow as I have an upcoming exam.
I'm not completely sure if that's it though since the system seems to hang/freeze before powering down, but I can give it a shot. Thank you for the idea!
FelipeRodrigo said:
Download the Nexus Root Toolkit for your computer to try to restore your Nexus.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a last resort I could try that -- how do you think that would solve my issue? Thank you!

Maybe a battery problem? I'm just guessing at the different things that may cause a boot problem or resets.

Related

[Completed] Htc One M8 hardware buttons working weirdly

Hello everyone! So I've had my phone (HTC One M8) rooted and custom recovery and rom installed for a little while now. The latest rom I've installed was Android Revolution HD 22.1. I also have twrp 2.8.1.0 installed. The other day my phone got wet and started to constantly reboot itself, wouldn't shut off and stay off, would never actually start. I put it in a cup of rice for 2 days, then proceeded to plug it in to charge it. Once charged enough I tried to turn it on. It only made it the HTC One logo screen and would vibrate every 10 seconds or so. I tried rebooting several times and no matter what I did with different button combinations I could not get it to load into bootloader. Eventually with restarting different ways and "mechanically stressing" the phone (short temper lol) I managed to get it to loading into the rom itself. From there I opened hasoons all in one toolkit to reboot directly into recovery and recovered to the stock rom. So the phone will now reboot with no problem into this rom. I haven't tried reflashing the ARHD 22.1 rom again because im afraid it'll break again. However, while in the stock rom everything work fines except for the volume up button which does nothing, except for while the screen is off, if I turn my phone to landscape the camera app will open without me even pressing the volume up button. If I reboot into bootloader via the quickboot app or hasoons toolkit, my volume down button with make the cursor go up, the volume up button does nothing, and the power button does nothing. The only thing I can do in bootloader is to hold power+volume up to get the phone to reboot. I also cannot get bootloader to load by holding volume down+power. So, After all that explaining, my main question would be, do you think that the buttons are shorting in a weird way because of water damage, or do you think my software got corrupted because of all the rebooting it did? Any help is appreciated, thanks!
-Tim
Hi,
You could try a clean flash of the rom.... If you're sure the wonky buttons won't interfere with the flash, because if they do... You'll be left with no OS on the device.
Water can affect many things, especially with power on while it was wet. This will be hard to solve, and could get costly. Usually with water damage, you fix or replace one thing, only to find now that something else doesn't work. Can turn into a real money pit.
You're issue isn't so bad, but my usual advice for worse cases are save your money for a new device, because you may never get your device fully working and spend a lot of money trying to fix it.
Ah, I just saw you already asked for help in your device section. Good. ?
Then this thread can be closed, as we're here to help navigate the site, not support.
Thank you.

Need help troubleshooting random reboots

Hi guys,
I was running Cataclysm/EX last week when my phone started randomly rebooting about 10-20 times a day, often getting stuck in a boot loop. I've since switched to Euphoria, but it only helped to reduce the number of lockups and reboots to about 5-10 a day.
Before I go stock and unroot the phone, I wanted to know if there are any tools or terminal commands that could help me track down the issue. Running cat /proc/last_kmsg just gives me a wdog_reset as my last reboot reason.
Many thanks!
Sounds like a faulty power button to me unfortunately.
Flash stock firmware with fastboot, if you can. If it reboots in the bootloader, or recovery, it's definitely the power button... And flashing could be dangerous, since it could reboot half way.
But a clean flash of a few roms, and it's the same with all... Sounds like power button for sure.
Quite a common issue.
Thanks Darth,
Would a faulty power button give a watchdog reset error on last_kmsg though? Seems like it thinks some software is hanging before resetting the phone.
To your point, I haven't had a reboot in about 12 hours, so perhaps the random nature of the issue points to the power button.
Do you know of any guides to fix the issue? I've opened up phones before so would at least give it a shot.
doron07 said:
Thanks Darth,
Would a faulty power button give a watchdog reset error on last_kmsg though? Seems like it thinks some software is hanging before resetting the phone.
To your point, I haven't had a reboot in about 12 hours, so perhaps the random nature of the issue points to the power button.
Do you know of any guides to fix the issue? I've opened up phones before so would at least give it a shot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure about the error. Sorry.
As far as checking out the button, just google "nexus 5 power button stuck", you'll find lots on it. Throw in "xda" in your search for results from here.
If it does it after flashing the stock firmware and no other apps.... It has to be something hardware related, power button or something else anyway.
I'd try that first.
I've never played with one myself, sorry. ?

Soft- or Hardware Defect M8

Hey Guys,
I´m no English native so please be patient. I`m although no noob with Android and hardware but can`t figure out some strange defects on my M8. Hope for help!
So here is the story: A week ago I woke up late. My Phone was stuck in Bootloader and I couldn’t select any option. Only my Volume Up Button did change the marking
of options. Strangely it did so in the wrong way. Means Volume Up changed up to down. Pushing the Power Button shortly to select an option didn`t do a thing at all.
But pushing it for long did what it should: It shut the Phone down. As I restarted it I again got stuck in bootloader. By trying out different ways I managed to somehow
boot in safe mode. It took me some time to figure out that my Volume Down Button was stuck and was therefore the reason for the strange booting procedure.
It´ll get more strange from here on so please remember: Bootloader, only Volume Up Button working but in the wrong way, Power Button only reacts to long periods
of pushing, probably Volume Down Button stuck.
In safe mode the Power Button worked fine again and did respond to all kinds of pushes as it should. Volume down did not do a thing (As expected). Theory seems
confirmed. To rule out software issues I did a full reset in TWRP which I had to start from cmd on my desktop as my phone still did not take any selections in bootloader.
And additionally flashed a new rom (Skydragon GPE 5). Didn´t change my problem at all so I went to bed. My phone was nearly powered out and I forgot to plug it.
In the morning I found it dead so I plugged it in and booted it up. Strange thing: It booted completely normal. All Buttons were working. Yes, even the Power Down
Button. Now I realized that Wi-Fi isn`t working which could be because of my old firmware and the new rom. So I started to learn how to update the firmware - which
took me 15 minutes. As I got back to my Phone to get it started the Volume Button was stuck again. Now it finally has to be some hardware defect right? I found the
spare parts on Ebay and wanted to give it one last shot before I placed the order. So risked to get stuck in safe mode or bootloder (again) and pushed the Power
Button down hard. But surprise my phone decided to open a new chapter of strangeness: Nothing happened at all. Now the Power Button wasn`t working any more.
No reaction to short pushes and what’s completely new, no reaction to long pushes too. So I avoided restarts form that point on and used my phone for the last days
in that condition. Decided I could life without two of the three hardware buttons But as I could not flash the firmware without restarting the phone no Wi-Fi starts
to bother.
To be honest: I don`t know what to do! I don`t want to waste money on spear parts if there’s the option of some really strange software failure. A defect over night
without any physical forces aside from really high room temperatures seems unlikely to me. Even more if you count in the strange healing over night and the factor
that it not only broke down again but although spread it´s desesse to the power button. I`m really out! Any Ideas?
FabianX2 said:
Hey Guys,
I´m no English native so please be patient. I`m although no noob with Android and hardware but can`t figure out some strange defects on my M8. Hope for help!
So here is the story: A week ago I woke up late. My Phone was stuck in Bootloader and I couldn’t select any option. Only my Volume Up Button did change the marking
of options. Strangely it did so in the wrong way. Means Volume Up changed up to down. Pushing the Power Button shortly to select an option didn`t do a thing at all.
But pushing it for long did what it should: It shut the Phone down. As I restarted it I again got stuck in bootloader. By trying out different ways I managed to somehow
boot in safe mode. It took me some time to figure out that my Volume Down Button was stuck and was therefore the reason for the strange booting procedure.
It´ll get more strange from here on so please remember: Bootloader, only Volume Up Button working but in the wrong way, Power Button only reacts to long periods
of pushing, probably Volume Down Button stuck.
In safe mode the Power Button worked fine again and did respond to all kinds of pushes as it should. Volume down did not do a thing (As expected). Theory seems
confirmed. To rule out software issues I did a full reset in TWRP which I had to start from cmd on my desktop as my phone still did not take any selections in bootloader.
And additionally flashed a new rom (Skydragon GPE 5). Didn´t change my problem at all so I went to bed. My phone was nearly powered out and I forgot to plug it.
In the morning I found it dead so I plugged it in and booted it up. Strange thing: It booted completely normal. All Buttons were working. Yes, even the Power Down
Button. Now I realized that Wi-Fi isn`t working which could be because of my old firmware and the new rom. So I started to learn how to update the firmware - which
took me 15 minutes. As I got back to my Phone to get it started the Volume Button was stuck again. Now it finally has to be some hardware defect right? I found the
spare parts on Ebay and wanted to give it one last shot before I placed the order. So risked to get stuck in safe mode or bootloder (again) and pushed the Power
Button down hard. But surprise my phone decided to open a new chapter of strangeness: Nothing happened at all. Now the Power Button wasn`t working any more.
No reaction to short pushes and what’s completely new, no reaction to long pushes too. So I avoided restarts form that point on and used my phone for the last days
in that condition. Decided I could life without two of the three hardware buttons But as I could not flash the firmware without restarting the phone no Wi-Fi starts
to bother.
To be honest: I don`t know what to do! I don`t want to waste money on spear parts if there’s the option of some really strange software failure. A defect over night
without any physical forces aside from really high room temperatures seems unlikely to me. Even more if you count in the strange healing over night and the factor
that it not only broke down again but although spread it´s desesse to the power button. I`m really out! Any Ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might have better results by asking those that own your device.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/help/help-thread-htc-one-m8-questions-t2897783
The_Merovingian said:
You might have better results by asking those that own your device.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one-m8/help/help-thread-htc-one-m8-questions-t2897783
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did see it more as a general Problem not only related to the divice. But thanks will try!

Nexus keeps rebooting. Even if I'm in recovery trying to reset, it reboots

Hi guys,
I have a problem with my Nexus. It started rebooting every 5 seconds, with different outcomes.
At first it was rebooting, then updating the apps, then when it reached the block screen, it reboots.
Tried to enter recovery and it reboots even in recovery.
I can't recover the data because the system is not up for that long to allow internal drive recognition.
What should I do in your opinion?
I tried also to clear cache or enter safe mode, but it reboots anyway.. During the spinning logo, before, after. It's quite random.
Power button could be stuck
I have the same problem, although it comes and goes over the last 24 hours. At first I thought it was an app, then I thought it was Android System WebView. I saw a post that said it could be a sticky power button, so I tried pressing it in different spots and that seems to have fixed it for now. I may get the power button replaced if this persists.
Sounds like a bad power button. There are a few threads in this forum about it. Best solution is to have a lab replace it.

Can't boot, restarts constantly

Bought a Nexus 5 about 6 months ago USED. It has been amazing. I got the latest OTA a week ago or so, not sure if that has anything to do with current issues.
About 2 days ago started randomly restarting. Today, it shut down and has been in continuous loop restarting. I see "Google" and maybe even the boot dots loading, then it is off. Three seconds later, starts again and repeats. Never makes it all the way into Android system. I let it sit for a while and when I pick it up, without touching any buttons, it repeats all of this. I suppose it is probably dead in general, but I don't know. Do you guys have any ideas? Again, I bought it used and from a ma/pap store who said they buy 100 in bulk, which made me skeptical, but they also had a 60 day guarantee and it was amazing the first 60 days and even after. It has been error free for 6 months, so I don't know if this is just a random issue or if the previous owner dropped it in a lake and I got lucky, or what. FWIW the damn thing has been in a case and never dropped, so it isn't anything that I have done I don't think. Thanks for any help.
edit: never rooted, never messed with, always been stock
Another user reported some instability since the last OTA update.
Flashing the full factory images did the trick.
a friend of mine gave me his nexus 5 to repair and its doing something similar. He had ir rooted and on latest 5.1.1 (i think). Either way, he said it was randomly locking up and rebooting. When i got it it had the red blinking light when plugged so i got a new battery. That got fixed but then the constant bootloop showed itself. I flashed TWRP (many versions, 2.6.3.1; 2.7.1.1; 2.8.7.1; the one that worked best was 2.7.1.1). So, once in twrp wiped, pushed cm 12 snapshot, flashed it, pushed gapps, falshed, pushe supersu flashed. Started the system. That precise order of things (ie: pushing flashing, then pushing something new and flashing it) was what gave me best results to actually boot up at least once. Once booted up and logging in and everything to cm i had some sort of stability (even rebooting and powering off) but i think that everything went wrong when i plugged the phone to the computer and it was back to bootloops and not even getting to the recovery. Flashed everything again. Didnt work. Had to leave the phone sit for a while (without the back casing) before trying again, in order, before getting any success. Im starting to think of ovrheating but it doesnt even get that hot...
Dunno if you guys have any ideas on this. Or if i can give you mor details to help us out.
Regards!
Looks like I'm having a similar problem to what is described here, as well as http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help/bootlooped-dont-how-to-enable-debugging-t3215951
I've had one of my Nexus 5 phones running OmniROM 5.1.1 for some time now, very stably. After trying out the Marshmallow preview and going back to that ROM, I started having spontaneous hard reboots and hard crashes. The phone would often boot loop before even getting to the OmniROM boot animation. It was also very recalcitrant about entering and staying in the boot loader, rebooting spontaneously shortly after rendering the boot loader screen. I was occasionally able to "grab" control long enough to get it to boot into TWRP, from which a boot to Android seemed to usually get it out of the loop and into running Android.
I've flashed back the boot loader and baseband from factory-stock 5.1.1 LMY48M (HHZ12h and 2.0.50.2.26) using the flash-base.sh script from a freshly downloaded and extracted hammerhead-lmy48m. Things appeared to be OK last evening and this morning, but things got worse today.
Now the phone is in a state where it is not responsive to the power button when unplugged. I can hold it down for 30 seconds with no response.
If I plug in USB, it spontaneously starts rebooting, not showing more than about two seconds of the Google boot loader screen. If I hold the down-volume button, I can get the boot-loader screen, but no matter how fast I try to be, I can't select anything more than "Restart bootloader" (or "Power off") option before it spontaneously reboots (to boot loader).
As far as I know, the battery had a significant charge before this started happening.
I see the same behavior if the phone is connected to a USB charging source, rather than a USB port.
I've tried pulling the SIM, but that doesn't change the behavior.
adb wait-for-device never returns, so poking it over adb doesn't seem to be an option.
fastboot devices also doesn't see the phone, for the brief time the boot loader is running.
Any suggestions on how to get this into the boot loader so I can at least re-flash it?
Nexus 5 D820(E) 32 GB
Edit:
WaxLarry said:
In my opinion your problems seems power button's related.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trying to see how I can "clean" or "clear" the power button now.
Edit:
Paul22000 said:
This morning my Nexus 5 was turned off all of a sudden after not having used it for 20-30 minutes. I held the power button and nothing. I plugged it into power and the "Google" screen appeared. It then went into a reboot loop on and off, on and off, on and off. I held the Volume Buttons and it went into fastboot, but then boot looped out again and again. Searching on Google yielded that this was indeed a common problem. [...]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Edit: Repeatedly pressing the power button seems to have temporarily allowed a boot to Android.
In retrospect, I had noticed over the last few days that the phone didn't seem to respond properly to the power button, either "ignoring" it, or when a second press got things started, it would unexpectedly come up with the long-press-volume menu.
One link on how to replace the power switch yourself is http://protyposis.net/blog/replacing-the-nexus-5-power-button/
Ok @jeffsf keep going on this thread. I had the same damn experience, that ended with RMA. LG said that the problem is related to some tension change in the power button. After the RMA I used the phone totally stock and never had a problem. Two months ago I switched to blu_spark kernel and some weeks after i noticed some problem. When I pressed the button to lock the screen, phone locked itself and then screen turned on, sometimes showing the shutdown option. So i understood that something was happening to the power button. I tried to overvolt with a +5mV on general offset and since then i never had problem. If you can enter recovery or bootloader i suggest you to flash some kernel with volt change support and then overvolt the general offset... and keep finger crossed
jeffsf said:
Looks like I'm having a similar problem to what is described here, as well as http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help/bootlooped-dont-how-to-enable-debugging-t3215951
I've had one of my Nexus 5 phones running OmniROM 5.1.1 for some time now, very stably. After trying out the Marshmallow preview and going back to that ROM, I started having spontaneous hard reboots and hard crashes. The phone would often boot loop before even getting to the OmniROM boot animation. It was also very recalcitrant about entering and staying in the boot loader, rebooting spontaneously shortly after rendering the boot loader screen. I was occasionally able to "grab" control long enough to get it to boot into TWRP, from which a boot to Android seemed to usually get it out of the loop and into running Android.
I've flashed back the boot loader and baseband from factory-stock 5.1.1 LMY48M (HHZ12h and 2.0.50.2.26) using the flash-base.sh script from a freshly downloaded and extracted hammerhead-lmy48m. Things appeared to be OK last evening and this morning, but things got worse today.
Now the phone is in a state where it is not responsive to the power button when unplugged. I can hold it down for 30 seconds with no response.
If I plug in USB, it spontaneously starts rebooting, not showing more than about two seconds of the Google boot loader screen. If I hold the down-volume button, I can get the boot-loader screen, but no matter how fast I try to be, I can't select anything more than "Restart bootloader" (or "Power off") option before it spontaneously reboots (to boot loader).
As far as I know, the battery had a significant charge before this started happening.
I see the same behavior if the phone is connected to a USB charging source, rather than a USB port.
I've tried pulling the SIM, but that doesn't change the behavior.
adb wait-for-device never returns, so poking it over adb doesn't seem to be an option.
fastboot devices also doesn't see the phone, for the brief time the boot loader is running.
Any suggestions on how to get this into the boot loader so I can at least re-flash it?
Nexus 5 D820(E) 32 GB
Edit:
Trying to see how I can "clean" or "clear" the power button now.
Edit:
Edit: Repeatedly pressing the power button seems to have temporarily allowed a boot to Android.
In retrospect, I had noticed over the last few days that the phone didn't seem to respond properly to the power button, either "ignoring" it, or when a second press got things started, it would unexpectedly come up with the long-press-volume menu.
One link on how to replace the power switch yourself is http://protyposis.net/blog/replacing-the-nexus-5-power-button/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got a notification for this post since you quoted me. I'm not sure if you're having the same problem but I'll tell you what happened to me, just in case. I called T-Mobile and they referred me to the nearest 3rd party phone repair shop. I went there and after an evaluation, the repairman told me the power button on my phone was indeed broken. They replaced it for $55.
The story doesn't end there though. I took my phone home and a few hours later I tried to use bluetooth and it didn't work. I took it back and found out that unfortunately, when the guy replaced the power button, he inadvertently broke the bluetooth. There's no way to fix bluetooth without replacing the motherboard entirely, which would cost $200. I'd rather buy a new phone at that point since my Nexus 5 was getting old. He refunded me, which was nice. At least the power button worked so I could use my phone. Bluetooth isn't as valuable as being able to you know, turn on the phone, so at least it was a net gain.
After that, I purchased a Nexus 6 and rooted it so I could use double-tap-to-wake (along with the automatic screen on when you pick up the Nexus 6). I also use the following app in order to turn off the screen by swiping up from the home button (I don't care about losing the shortcut to Google Now): Screen Off and Lock
I can now literally go weeks without using the power button on my Nexus 6. (I literally only use it when tap to wake sometimes becomes unresponsive which is rare.)
Bottom line: I will never buy another phone without tap to wake functionality! :good:
A local repair shop here indicated that one sometimes does changing the power switch resolve the issue. They have seen situations where the issue appears to be one of the power-management ICs. Just something to be aware of when examining the potential cost of a repair and who you would have do the work.

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