Database Info

[Completed] Is My Phone "Bricked?"

Some say "Bricking" is when the phone doesn't turn on at all, or does and displays and does nothing; some say there are different states of bricking. In any case... I'm only an intermediate, and I did not have any booting problems before this. So, with the least-common denominator in mind, please read on.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3, SGH-i747 ATT. It was out of warranty anyway and I've flashed custom ROMs on it many times before without issue. I dropped it about a week ago and the LCD broke. Upon having it fixed, I noticed it no longer booted properly. I am able to get into ODIN's download mode, and I am able to flash stock recovery, but neither have proven helpful.
I was originally running Slimkat 4.4, but decided to flash back to the stock Android ROM since it would no longer boot properly anyway. This is where it gets strange.
First I attempted to flash CWM and TWRP as my recoveries. ODIN said both were successful in flashing on their respective attempts, but each one was simply a black screen after the Samsung logo disappeared. The blue text in the top-left letting me know it was booting into recovery was present with the logo, but after it disappeared, nothing.
So I tried to install stock recovery, and to my surprise, it worked, though it's really not useful for anything. Chainfire's CF-autoroot was also flashable and functional, but when I tried using adb to push files to the device, I would get several errors:
From the ADB command line, when trying to push something, I'd get "Error: closed".
From the recovery's log, sometimes when I'd successfully send a ROM to be installed, I'd get various notifications, such as: "Failed to verify whole-file signature" and "Incorrect footer", "Installation aborted".
When I attempt to flash any ROMs via ODIN, I get a few different errors, including (Not verbatim, these are from memory):
REV CHECK FAIL
DEV UNSUPPORTED
FUSED 2 > BINARY 0 [This one is especially confusing to me]
SECURE CHECK FAIL
and one from the ODIN side that said something along the lines of "HLOS-BIN" or something when it failed to flash.
So I can turn the device on, get to download mode, and even flash the stock ROM and CF-autoroot... but after 20 hours of reading other people's similar problems and varying degrees of success in their solving them, I'm stumped. I hope someone here might be able to share their superior knowledge vis-a-vis Android!
-Krust

Update
I've tried many things.
Right now I'm trying to re-flash Slimkat 4.4 (Which I was already using), and I know anything JB 4.3 or above will restrict the bootloader from downgrading, so maybe that was the problem. But if this doesn't work... I'm not sure what to do. Will post error updates if any.
-Krust

Same Status
I still get REV CHECK FAIL Fused 2 > Binary 0 error.
I believe this is from attempting to flash to a version lower than what I had (4.4).
I am unable to find stock firmware for the ATT SGH-i747 for 4.4 or above.
Please help! This is my only phone, and I know it can be restored because I can still get into download mode, but something's blocking ODIN from performing the flash, even on packages that seem to be the correct version.

Update
From what I have been able to find, I will need to update to an Android variant 4.4.2 or above due to the restricted bootloader.
My only problem... I haven't been able to FIND any stock ROMs for 4.4.2.
Everything I try returns a variety of errors, the most common being FUSED 2 > BINARY 0 (Which I now understand means I am attempting to downgrade) because I have not been able to find anything like Slimkat 4.4.2 that is in .tar format to flash.
I am very stuck and confused, and this is my only phone. Lesson learned: Keep up with the nuances of updates. But for now, I really need to get this fixed. Does anyone have experience with this particular problem?

Update
I was able to flash a modded TWRP recovery and was able to boot into it.
However, when I try to install ROMs via zip, I get the error E: Cannot execute binary update file.
One ROM, a Slimkat for i747M (Which isn't even my phone), appeared to flash successfully, but wouldn't boot.
GApps for Slimkat 4.4.4 was also able to flash successfully on its own, but the corresponding Slimkat could not.
I am quite stuck. Please help.

Hi,
Try posting your question here:
AT&T Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting
The experts there may be able to help.
Good luck!

Bricked? This shouldn't be happening.

Here's a basic rundown of what happened. I completely rooted my Galaxy S III i535 on 4.4.2, and i installed SafeStrap (A Version of TWRP) since the Verizon S3 has a locked bootloader.
So here's what I tried to do. Using SafeStrap, I backed up my stock rom. And i selected another ROM slot. Using this, i tried experimenting by installing a ROM for another Carrier (They say not to do this, but i have in the past with success, so i thought it mightve worked)
(KEEP IN MIND, THE STOCK OS WAS STILL INSTALLED AND I EVEN HAD A BACKUP)
So, it didnt work and stopped halfway. I rebooted the phone, and Hard bricked.
Doesnt boot up, does not turn on, will not boot recovery or download, or any sign of some boot at all.
And, i get the qhsusb_dload sign on my pc.
Can anyone point me in the right direction, or at least tell me the cause of this problem? Thanks.

CrimsonKatsuro said:
Here's a basic rundown of what happened. I completely rooted my Galaxy S III i535 on 4.4.2, and i installed SafeStrap (A Version of TWRP) since the Verizon S3 has a locked bootloader.
So here's what I tried to do. Using SafeStrap, I backed up my stock rom. And i selected another ROM slot. Using this, i tried experimenting by installing a ROM for another Carrier (They say not to do this, but i have in the past with success, so i thought it mightve worked)
(KEEP IN MIND, THE STOCK OS WAS STILL INSTALLED AND I EVEN HAD A BACKUP)
So, it didnt work and stopped halfway. I rebooted the phone, and Hard bricked.
Doesnt boot up, does not turn on, will not boot recovery or download, or any sign of some boot at all.
And, i get the qhsusb_dload sign on my pc.
Can anyone point me in the right direction, or at least tell me the cause of this problem? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The solution may be a debrick image. They are designed to boot the phone from an external sdcard and from there reinstall the stock rom/firmware. I haven't searched yet, but check the general and development threads, possibly the stickied summary thread.
Check this thread

Root on PD2 6.0.1 Sprint S6 Edge/TWRP 3.0.2-1.

Hi folks,
just posting this writeup thinking maybe it might be of help to some people.
Started with a clean S6 Edge straight from Samsung repair for broken screen. Factory wipe, KNOX reset. It had the PD2 update. Tried using Skipsoft's Toolkit and ponied up a donation to get the Pro version with the S6 Edge 6.0.1 update, but it didn't work: it got stuck at the "SEANDROID NOT ENFORCING" screen after flashing TWRP 3.0.2. I know there are issues with 3.0.2, but it's what's optioned in Toolkit now.
Flashing TWRP 2.8.7.0 results in normal boot, but I could not enter recovery mode for some reason. 3.0.0-0 didn't work, either.
What I ended up doing is forcing phone into download mode (Power+Volume Down+Home), ODINing TWRP 3.0.2-1. This resulted in a bootloop (somewhat expected). But I could get into recovery easily. From recovery, I flashed Renegade's PD2-Aroma V3.0 Full ROM via ADB sideload. After a very long first boot, everything works 100%! Root, SuperSU, etc., all taken care of. Hotspot works.
Notes and tips:
- While I didn't use Skipsoft's Toolkit in the end, it's still worth supporting. Might work smoothly using 3.0.2-1 instead of 3.0.2.0, but I'm comfortable with adb/fastboot/etc. so just ended up using that. If you don't already have Android SDK and tools/platform-tools, Skipsoft conveniently includes those commands in its directory under C:\Unified_Android_Toolkit (they're named adb-toolkit and fastboot-toolkit. You can copy and rename them as "adb" and "fastboot" for convenience).
- Make sure you get the right TWRP 3.0.2-1 device version. You want to use twrp-3.0.2-1-zeroltespr.tar.md5 for Sprint S6 Edge. Remove the .md5 part and set it to use the .tar extension (stupid Windows asks you to confirm file extension type change).
- In TWRP you can either push your custom ROM or sideload it. To push a file, move the custom ROM into the same directory you've got adb/fastboot for convenience. Open a terminal window in that directory, and either "adb push customromfilenamehere.zip /sdcard/" or in TWRP, click Advanced/ADB Sideload, and enter "adb sideload customromfilenamehere.zip".
- If you're sideloading it, it's gonna take a while, and will start flashing even while the transfer percentage is creeping up. Example: at around 9%, it started AROMA, around 14%, it went through some of the installation options. It was done flashing everything and ready for reboot even though the terminal window said only 76% was transferred. That's ok. Click "finish" in AROMA on phone, reboot. Unplug phone. Wait a long time for first boot (this took around 20 minutes for me). ENJOY.
Remember: all is not lost as long as you can get into download mode! Power-Volume Down-Home until you get to screen prompting to get to download mode. Volume up to select that mode. You can ODIN from here.
Additionally: if you find yourself for whatever reason stuck at the initial S6 Edge boot screen with "SEANDROID NOT ENFORCING," you might be in some kinda of boot limbo. I was able to issue some adb commands here, even with recovery was borked and the phone didn't boot all the way. Doing an "adb reboot-bootloader" would let me do a complete boot to ROM while I was trying to get the different TWRP versions working (until 3.0.2-1).
Hope this helps someone.
tl;dr: For PD2/6.0.1 Sprint S6 Edge, manual flash TWRP 3.0.2-1. Push custom ROM through Recovery. Reboot, wait a long time. Success!

Just to Clarify (and mostly for myself), I think this is the simplest and most foolproof way to get yourself fully update and on a custom rom with root.
1. ODIN Stock PD2 Image. Reboot, make sure dev options + USB debugging is enabled.
2. ODIN latest TWRP 3.0.2.1 - HERE.
3. Obtain root by going into TWRP immediately after you install it and flashing the root kernel Ram did for this device - HERE
4. Then after wiping cache, dalvik and data in TWRP, flash Renegade ROM 3.0 PD2.
Using CFauto root method is known to cause issues. This is the type of approach I took and it was flawless. The initial boot of the Renegade ROM can seriously take like 20min though, I thought I was looping for a second.
If anyone disagrees with this method or sees where it can be done better, please advise. This seems to prevent the instance of any loops or issues. The Renegade ROM has a rooted kernel so flashing the root kernel is likely a redundant step. You could omit Step 3 if you are flashing a custom ROM, probably, but it seems to prevent any hangups. But if you plan to stay stock, you still have to flash a rooted kernel after TWRP.

Alpine- said:
Just to Clarify (and mostly for myself), I think this is the simplest and most foolproof way to get yourself fully update and on a custom rom with root.
1. ODIN Stock PD2 Image. Reboot, make sure dev options + USB debugging is enabled.
2. ODIN Ram's TWRP 3.0.2 - HERE I'm assuming the other guy's 3.0.2 works fine too, I am not sure why you hung and had to revert to a 2.x TWRP build.
3. Obtain root by going into TWRP immediately after you install it and flashing the root kernel Ram did for this device - HERE
4. Then after wiping cache, dalvik and data in TWRP, flash Renegade ROM 3.0 PD2.
Using CFauto root method is known to cause issues. This is the type of approach I took and it was flawless. The initial boot of the Renegade ROM can seriously take like 20min though, I thought I was looping for a second.
If anyone disagrees with this method or sees where it can be done better, please advise. This seems to prevent the instance of any loops or issues. The Renegade ROM has a rooted kernel so flashing the root kernel is likely a redundant step. You could omit Step 3 if you are flashing a custom ROM, probably, but it seems to prevent any hangups. But if you plan to stay stock, you still have to flash a rooted kernel after TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed chainfire now has a CF-autoroot for the 925P 6.01 and people were having success using the one for the 925F. Any verification on this? Haven't seen anyone on this forum say anything about it. I just bought a new S6 edge for sprint. I always am about year behind on phones because of the high cost of the latest and greatest. I picked the edge because my wife has had one a year and it gets a lot better reception than my N5. But, I gots to have root and don't wanna screw up a new phone. I know the first thing I need to do is check which software it's running. Should I do this before I activate it or can i stop any system upgrades before they install?

baknblack said:
I noticed chainfire now has a CF-autoroot for the 925P 6.01 and people were having success using the one for the 925F. Any verification on this? Haven't seen anyone on this forum say anything about it. I just bought a new S6 edge for sprint. I always am about year behind on phones because of the high cost of the latest and greatest. I picked the edge because my wife has had one a year and it gets a lot better reception than my N5. But, I gots to have root and don't wanna screw up a new phone. I know the first thing I need to do is check which software it's running. Should I do this before I activate it or can i stop any system upgrades before they install?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not attempted to use CF-autoroot just because of reported issues and the general recommendation being to use the standard method. It may work fine now that its been updated, but I have not personally tested it.

Alpine- said:
I have not attempted to use CF-autoroot just because of reported issues and the general recommendation being to use the standard method. It may work fine now that its been updated, but I have not personally tested it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just bought my phone new off ebay it updated to PF4 just as soon as I activated it. I couldn't stop it. Anyway I used the CF autoroot on it and it worked perfectly. I tried to do it manually a couple times first and never could get TWRP to flash. It would say it was successful but, stock recovery stayed. Anyways, I got er done and running Renegade wich btw is an awesome ROM. This is my first samsung device and had I done a bit more research I'd of known the majority of development is on the regular S6. I just picked the edge because my wife has one and it worked so much better in the boonies than my N5 did.

baknblack said:
I just bought my phone new off ebay it updated to PF4 just as soon as I activated it. I couldn't stop it. Anyway I used the CF autoroot on it and it worked perfectly. I tried to do it manually a couple times first and never could get TWRP to flash. It would say it was successful but, stock recovery stayed. Anyways, I got er done and running Renegade wich btw is an awesome ROM. This is my first samsung device and had I done a bit more research I'd of known the majority of development is on the regular S6. I just picked the edge because my wife has one and it worked so much better in the boonies than my N5 did.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Edge is better imo, certainly looks better. All you need is Renegade rom anyway. May be a few more roms in active dev for s6 but nothing better per se. Renegade rom dev is alive and well.

Would these root methods trip knox?

chen69chuck said:
Would these root methods trip knox?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes

Thanks.

Working for g920v 6.0.1?

freaking thank you been struggling with twrp on and off for two days trying to bring this phone back from the dead! YOU the man

Phone stuck on "Recovery is not seandroid enforcing" - Sprint 5.1.1 G920P Galaxy S6

Phone stuck on "Recovery is not seandroid enforcing" - Sprint 5.1.1 G920P Galaxy S6
I thought that after waiting nearly 2 full years of having my Sprint Galaxy S6 G920P droid version G920PVPU2BOF7 on Droid 5.1.1 that I'd be able to "easily" root it and then ROM it or put recovery on it etc.. whatever... and as it seems that was far from the case. I backed up "most of the phone" and realized when its too late that I missed a couple things.
Anyways, is there no way back from this "Recovery is not seandroid enforcing" to get into the UI for 5.1.1 OS to resume normalcy, other than to use ODIN to restore to a factory stock ROM?
Would you at this point instead restore to a Rooted rom?
If so, what is a good one that ya'll feel will work on the first shot?
I can't believe how much trouble I had rooting it or finding a good reliable root. I must not know where to look. Should I have started at CWM, CF or TWRP instead of googling around?
First time I tried, I lost all networking abilities. I wish now I had "backed up the stock Kernel somehow" before experimenting.
Right after that I got networking back trying a different 2nd Kernel root, but on boot it said "kernel is not seandroid enforcing", then the phone would start normally except for this "Unfortunately NetworkSystemProvider has stopped." popup that constantly was in my way and wouldn't allow me to get rid of it permanently. I could "OK" it away for 1 second to tap other things between it popping up and then I was able to shut the phone down for another root try with what I hoped would be the right Kernel.
On the 3rd attempt I got this "recovery is not seandroid enforcing" at the boot screen and accompanied with an infinite reboot loop where I could still see the Samsung and Android logo etc.. black screen. Loading to the stock recovery or stock bootloader preboot menu system no longer worked (up arrow + home + power) either.
Now I've got it at the downloading bluish screen waiting for me to either flash it with another Kernel (that I can only HOPE will work) or to completely wipe it out and reflash stock firmware or one that ya'll tell me will be worth trying.
This is very aggravating because I have 20 years of I.T. experience under my belt, but the resources on the web have gotten very difficult to navigate with so many ads, popups and CPU consuming pages while I'm trying to read.... its insane. I finally caved in and downloaded a stock rom from stockroms.net and sammobile.com (1 from each to compare) and I'm waiting before I wipe the phone out to see if there is a way to get it to boot again without wiping my data.
Any way to navigate the phone and mount it via USB to grab files before I wipe it?
Here's the phone info I was able to get off the About screen before I soft-bricked it:
Software version G920PVPU2BOF7
Hardware version G920P.02
Model #: SM-G920P
3.10.61-S6_UniKernel_v9-0000_beta
[email protected] #1
The Oct 8 19:35:09 MST 2015
Baseband version G920PVPU2BOF7
Build number LMY47X.G920PVPU2BOF7
SE for Android status
permissive
Security software version
MDF v2.0 Release 3
VPN v1.4 Release 5
KNOX version
knox 2.4
Standard SDK 5.4.1
Customization SDK 2.4.0
Container 2.4.1
CEP 2.0.1
SE for Android 2.3.0
SSO 2.4.1
TIMA 3.0
VPN 2.2.0
RATED
DC 9V; 1.67A

searcherrr said:
I thought that after waiting nearly 2 full years of having my Sprint Galaxy S6 G920P droid version G920PVPU2BOF7 on Droid 5.1.1 that I'd be able to "easily" root it and then ROM it or put recovery on it etc.. whatever... and as it seems that was far from the case. I backed up "most of the phone" and realized when its too late that I missed a couple things.
Anyways, is there no way back from this "Recovery is not seandroid enforcing" to get into the UI for 5.1.1 OS to resume normalcy, other than to use ODIN to restore to a factory stock ROM?
Would you at this point instead restore to a Rooted rom?
If so, what is a good one that ya'll feel will work on the first shot?
I can't believe how much trouble I had rooting it or finding a good reliable root. I must not know where to look. Should I have started at CWM, CF or TWRP instead of googling around?
First time I tried, I lost all networking abilities. I wish now I had "backed up the stock Kernel somehow" before experimenting.
Right after that I got networking back trying a different 2nd Kernel root, but on boot it said "kernel is not seandroid enforcing", then the phone would start normally except for this "Unfortunately NetworkSystemProvider has stopped." popup that constantly was in my way and wouldn't allow me to get rid of it permanently. I could "OK" it away for 1 second to tap other things between it popping up and then I was able to shut the phone down for another root try with what I hoped would be the right Kernel.
On the 3rd attempt I got this "recovery is not seandroid enforcing" at the boot screen and accompanied with an infinite reboot loop where I could still see the Samsung and Android logo etc.. black screen. Loading to the stock recovery or stock bootloader preboot menu system no longer worked (up arrow + home + power) either.
Now I've got it at the downloading bluish screen waiting for me to either flash it with another Kernel (that I can only HOPE will work) or to completely wipe it out and reflash stock firmware or one that ya'll tell me will be worth trying.
This is very aggravating because I have 20 years of I.T. experience under my belt, but the resources on the web have gotten very difficult to navigate with so many ads, popups and CPU consuming pages while I'm trying to read.... its insane. I finally caved in and downloaded a stock rom from stockroms.net and sammobile.com (1 from each to compare) and I'm waiting before I wipe the phone out to see if there is a way to get it to boot again without wiping my data.
Any way to navigate the phone and mount it via USB to grab files before I wipe it?
Here's the phone info I was able to get off the About screen before I soft-bricked it:
Software version G920PVPU2BOF7
Hardware version G920P.02
Model #: SM-G920P
3.10.61-S6_UniKernel_v9-0000_beta
[email protected] #1
The Oct 8 19:35:09 MST 2015
Baseband version G920PVPU2BOF7
Build number LMY47X.G920PVPU2BOF7
SE for Android status
permissive
Security software version
MDF v2.0 Release 3
VPN v1.4 Release 5
KNOX version
knox 2.4
Standard SDK 5.4.1
Customization SDK 2.4.0
Container 2.4.1
CEP 2.0.1
SE for Android 2.3.0
SSO 2.4.1
TIMA 3.0
VPN 2.2.0
RATED
DC 9V; 1.67A
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I can see the problem straight away, the kernel unikernel is not designed for the g920p variant. The only way to get back to is to make sure you have twrp if you haven't got it already and then flash a kernel that is compatible with 1. Your variant and 2. For the version of android you are running, through twrp.
Might be an idea to have a look in the sprint s6 forums in here to see if there is a kernel which will work. I have a g920f so not sure what the situation is over in that forum.

Thank you for your response. Means a lot.
What about reflashing my kernel with a stock kernel as you said for: 1. My variant and 2. For the version of android I am running?
Would that regain me stock access as I had before?
Also is there a way to just "mount like usb drive" the phone in the state its in now bypassing all the Android stuff?
What sources do you trust to know what ROMs, Kernels etc.. correspond to correct phone models and droid versions?

Ok, so I regained "most control" of the phone by using twrp-3.0.0-0-zerofltespr.img.tar 25.3M 2016-02-18 09:46:55 EST for my build of droid and having the G920P. EURKEA!
I loaded into TWRP and mounted the drive to USB and got the rest of my data off it (I had most of it, but forgot a few things before I started since how Android works is all data is saved scattered across the file system per app).
I think I had been thinking that RECOVERY and KERNEL = SAME thing, but now I get that the recovery portion is separate because I'm running the TWRP 3.0.0-0- and I see as you said I have the wrong UniKernel which is still yielding the "Recovery is not seandroid enforcing" message at boot (but it does BOOT into lollipop again) as well as the neverending "Unfortunately NetworkSystemProvider has stopped." popup once I'm in lollipop 5.1.1.
So now that I have TWRP onboard all I am interested in at this point is finding the right ROOT KERNEL that will run 5.1.1 for G920P so that I can customize the ROM I already have .. trim it down etc... save it etc.. I just seem to be having a lot of problems finding Kernels from a reliable source especially for Spring 5.1.1 for my G920P.

Just a tid bit of added info, I looked at my System Update menu and saw this:
Last update: 8/17/2015
So I'd need a 5.1.1 Kernel that works just at or after that timeframe. All I'm seeing is Marshmallow or Nougat Kernels herein this forum and on google. Basically .... is there anywhere that I can look for older Kernels that would work?

Ok, I'm again a model G920P on droid 5.1.1
I got my phone on twrp-3.0.0-0-zerofltespr.img.tar - so I can load TWRP recovery.
I'm on kernel Unikernel-v9-BOJ7-G920P-120615.tar - the latest and best choice I could find for my G920P.
I am stuck at "Unfortunately NetworkSystemProvider has stopped." and it will not go away despite my best efforts. Otherwise the phone seems to be working well except for the "recovery is not seandroid enforcing" error on boot.
Did anyone ever get past the "Unfortunately NetworkSystemProvider has stopped." error without having to REflash the entire phone? and did that even work?

recommended TWRP for SM-T900 (wifi only)

Hi all,
Subject line says it all. I've tried various versions but am getting the recovery SEANDROID message. TWRP runs however so I'm not sure if I have a problem or not. Backup function works with TWRP but I have not tried anything else.
My goal is to install lineage but I wanted to check on this issue before I went any further.
Thanks!

it means you are not running stock software (who would have thought):
https://forum.xda-developers.com/ga...-7-1-xsm-p900-unofficial-cyanogenmod-t3524788