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Dead photon?

Hello, my Photon started acting up really weird. First of all, it was really slow. I thought it's because I had like 150MB left and it was nearly full data-wise. However, I erased most of the data, and left it with 3GB left. Didn't work and it got worse.
I have these stripes around the display (just at sides, not at middle), while phone is turned on. Doesn't matter if in system, or at boot logo. Doesn't matter, because whenever I get to system, I can be in system for like 1 minute, then every application starts crashing (Apex launcher, Google play, whatever you pick) and I basically can't get anywhere. Also if I go to sleep mode, phone is basically dead and it's pure luck when I will turn on phone again. I am trying every few minutes and it's worthless, because any time I get to system anyway, I crash after few seconds.
What to do? I was planing to install custom ROM yesterday, but never got to that, because this all started to act up. So what should I do? Reset system? Any other ideas? Is phone dead?
Sorry for bad english, no bully please.
Thanks in advance

Update - now when I am trying to start up my phone, I have just black screen with white lines in the middle. Then phone shuts down. I will give more info when I will be at home and can get phone on charger

Well definitely try to charge the device up. You might try re-flashing the stock ROM using RSD Lite... Although from your description I fear your issue may be hardware related.

Could turn device on. Apparently that black screen with white lines was just discharged phone. When I put it on charger, I could again boot into system and it was working until I pressed power button to go to sleep mode and phone is again dead. Will try to flash RSD Lite later today and will post what happened

kanek06 said:
Could turn device on. Apparently that black screen with white lines was just discharged phone. When I put it on charger, I could again boot into system and it was working until I pressed power button to go to sleep mode and phone is again dead. Will try to flash RSD Lite later today and will post what happened
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Charge the device as much as you possibly can before doing anything with RSD. Ideally you should have at least 50% battery in the device when flashing anything.

This is really miserable. I can't really get into bootloader. Because phone after that 'crash' or whatever you want to call it is dead and I can't even see if it's turned on or not. Basically I am randomly waiting when it's gonna restart and then I just get into system. Even if I fully discharge it, it will have black screen with white lines first, it flashes quite couple times and then it will finally boot into system. Also I remember it was ***** in past to get into recovery. Can I do anything from system? Because as soon as I don't turn off my screen by power button, phone is working, though it has those lines on side of LCD (I will try to borrow camera from someone and post it here today).
I set automatic turning screen off for 10 minutes and I am really careful about pressing power button. Sucks there is only option for just 10 minutes, so I have to tap on screen at least for once every 10 minutes or I will not have working phone. **** my life, really.

kanek06 said:
This is really miserable. I can't really get into bootloader. Because phone after that 'crash' or whatever you want to call it is dead and I can't even see if it's turned on or not. Basically I am randomly waiting when it's gonna restart and then I just get into system. Even if I fully discharge it, it will have black screen with white lines first, it flashes quite couple times and then it will finally boot into system. Also I remember it was ***** in past to get into recovery. Can I do anything from system? Because as soon as I don't turn off my screen by power button, phone is working, though it has those lines on side of LCD (I will try to borrow camera from someone and post it here today).
I set automatic turning screen off for 10 minutes and I am really careful about pressing power button. Sucks there is only option for just 10 minutes, so I have to tap on screen at least for once every 10 minutes or I will not have working phone. **** my life, really.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why can't you turn the phone off and charge it while off, or boot to recovery and charge the phone in recovery?

arrrghhh said:
Why can't you turn the phone off and charge it while off, or boot to recovery and charge the phone in recovery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About charging it while turned off - Can't because when I try to turn it on again, it's roulette when I get finally bootloader logo and not black screen with white stripes.
And boot to recovery. Is it possible to like download some command prompt application and boot to bootloader from there? I know when I had my G1 (and when I actually understood android ) you could boot to recovery or bootloader via console. I have astro installed on phone, so downloading some console application and installing it shouldn't be problem.
Btw as we are speaking, I tried to call someone and I basically get same thing like when I am going to sleep mode, I get black screen and now I am just waiting, when phone will eventually want to restart itself.

kanek06 said:
About charging it while turned off - Can't because when I try to turn it on again, it's roulette when I get finally bootloader logo and not black screen with white stripes.
And boot to recovery. Is it possible to like download some command prompt application and boot to bootloader from there? I know when I had my G1 (and when I actually understood android ) you could boot to recovery or bootloader via console. I have astro installed on phone, so downloading some console application and installing it shouldn't be problem.
Btw as we are speaking, I tried to call someone and I basically get same thing like when I am going to sleep mode, I get black screen and now I am just waiting, when phone will eventually want to restart itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still sounds like some sort of a hardware issue, is the phone new to you?
You can certainly force bootloader mode, in several ways. When it's off you can hold power + camera and it will give you a choice of what to boot. When it's in Android you can do "adb reboot recovery" or "adb reboot bootloader" depending on where you want to end up. There are various apps which can also do this for you, if you are on the stock ROM but rooted.

arrrghhh said:
Still sounds like some sort of a hardware issue, is the phone new to you?
You can certainly force bootloader mode, in several ways. When it's off you can hold power + camera and it will give you a choice of what to boot. When it's in Android you can do "adb reboot recovery" or "adb reboot bootloader" depending on where you want to end up. There are various apps which can also do this for you, if you are on the stock ROM but rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phone is not new. I bought it used about one year ago.
I am not entirely new to android, but I didn't have android phone for 2 years and then I got this one. So I am really pretty **** with android atm
I will try reboot to bootloader from some console application.
I am rooted, opened bootloader, stock rom

Finally got into recovery, what now?
Also, when I once booted to system, I downloaded some root checking app, and root apparently isn't here. Well cornholio told me it is rooted back when I gave him my phone to perform sim card mod, but whatever. However, I am in recovery, but device is not detected by RSD Lite.

kanek06 said:
Finally got into recovery, what now?
Also, when I once booted to system, I downloaded some root checking app, and root apparently isn't here. Well cornholio told me it is rooted back when I gave him my phone to perform sim card mod, but whatever. However, I am in recovery, but device is not detected by RSD Lite.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well reading back thru this thread, I was suggesting RSD Lite back to stock. I'm not really sure what you want to achieve tho, what your "final" goal is here.
I'm not even sure what kind of recovery you are booted into - stock recovery? CWM?
Either way, if you want to RSD the phone back to stock, you need to boot into fastboot/bootloader mode - not recovery. Just make sure the phone is charged up as much as possible before flashing in RSD.

Oh, sorry - misunderstanding from my side, thought I can switch to fastboot from recovery, oh well.
Also yeah, stock recovery.
To spread more facts - in case somebody would have similiar problems, when I try to just turn phone on, I have zero success what so ever. There's just this blank black page flashing every few seconds. However, when I remove back cover, I somehow force phone to load to bootloader logo, then I finally get chance to force phone to get to recovery. I will try to get to fastboot

kanek06 said:
Oh, sorry - misunderstanding from my side, thought I can switch to fastboot from recovery, oh well.
Also yeah, stock recovery.
To spread more facts - in case somebody would have similiar problems, when I try to just turn phone on, I have zero success what so ever. There's just this blank black page flashing every few seconds. However, when I remove back cover, I somehow force phone to load to bootloader logo, then I finally get chance to force phone to get to recovery. I will try to get to fastboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if stock recovery has adb enabled, but if you have adb you can 'adb reboot bootloader'.
Otherwise do the power+cam trick I mentioned earlier.

http://i.imgur.com/3XYLngJ.png

kanek06 said:
http://i.imgur.com/3XYLngJ.png
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you remove the getvar lines from the xml file...?

Yes

Weird. I only recall seeing that when people were trying to downgrade... but you are flashing 4.1.2.
The phone is in fastboot mode? What happens when you click "show device"? The "Device Properties" section is eerily empty.

I know it sounds shady, when I am coming back here again in few weeks, just been a bit busy lately, sorry about that.
However, somehow I got phone to flash it. The white graphical lines on sides dissapeared, however I got some new bug - I can't use phone in portrait mode, just in landscape - aka I need to swipe keyboard to have phone working. Also, that thing when phone completely stops working now occurs only when I am in that portrait mode, but I can restart phone this time.
When I finished this, it was midnight so I went to bad, so I tried to set up alarm, if it's gonna randomly shutdown like before and unfortunately, yes it did. I was waken up with this classical white line graphical bug black screen and had to reboot the phone. Oh well, managed to boot to system and it takes 5 minutes to fetch sim card (I have sim card mod from cornholio) and as I said, those white lines on side aka mysterious graphical bug is back.
Unfortunately for me, starts looking like real hardware issue now

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.

Help with LG G3 Turns off During Boot & Unable to Factory Reset (is it a lost cause?)

Help with LG G3 Turns off During Boot & Unable to Factory Reset (is it a lost cause?)
Hello everyone. This is kind of a complicated issue, and I would love any help I can get.
Back story:
I have a Verizon LG G3, purchased in December of 2014. I never rooted the phone, so it has been stock this whole time. A couple of months ago, the SD card holder randomly stopped working (no spills or drops). I tried multiple, new SD cards, formatted them and everything, but the phone just kept ejecting the SD card, and corrupting them, so I just gave up on it and stopped using an SD card in the phone. This is not the current issue at hand, but I wanted to preface that I've been having issues with the phone.
Fast forward to a month ago. I had my phone plugged into the wall charging, and was not using it. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my phone turned off. I unplugged the phone and tried turning it back on. It showed the LG logo screen, then the verizon screen, and then just turned off. When I tried powering it again, it did nothing. I pulled the battery, put it back in, and pressed the power button. I got the same series of lg logo, verizon logo, then off. I thought maybe it was a battery issue and took it to a local phone repair shop. They put in a new battery, but got the exact same boot problem I did. I left the phone with them, and they took it apart to see if it was a hardware issue (and the infamous stuck power button issue). When I returned, they told me that they did not find any hardware issues. It also was not an issue of the stuck power button/power button not working. They decided that it must be a software issue. Their explanation was that the phone had probably tried doing a software update and something went wrong. They said they could only fix it by completely wiping the phone and installing the software back on. I was reluctant to go through with it because (1) I would lose all my data (and I did not back it up, my fault, I know) and (2) it seemed like they wanted me to pay almost 100$ for something I could do at home. So I kept the phone and left it alone for a while. Now, it has been a month since the issue began, and I'm trying to see if I can fix it. Here is what I have tried.
1. Tried to power it normally again, but now the phone won't boot past the lg logo screen (no verizon screen, just turns off)
2. Held down the power button and volume down button, and able to get into recovery.
3. Tried safe mode -> boots to lg logo and turns off
4. Tried wipe cache -> boots to lg logo and turns off, does it twice
5. Tried USB debug -> shows the android icon, looks like its working, turns off
6. Finally tried factory data reset -> goes through the "are you sure" screen; select yes; shows android icon, looks like its working, turns off
7. Tried holding down the up button and plugging it into a computer to reinstall firmware, shows logo and turns off
8. When I plug the phone into the wall, it charges normally. Simply won't turn on past that.
I'm not sure what else I can do to the phone. Is there a way to factory reset from a pc or mac without the phone being on? Will I just have to take it to the tech store so they can do whatever magic they seem to possess? I already plan on never getting another android after the issues with this phone (and many androids before this one), but I need this phone to last until December.
Sorry for rambling and thank you for any help!

Bump

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

Hey everyone, I'll start by saying I'm new to these forums, so go easy...
I've had an S7 (Verizon SM-G930V) for probably 3 years, recently it randomly glitched/locked up (screen had strange color bars through what I was looking at) phone restarted and then was stuck in a boot loop. It's never been wet or dropped hard and is in really good shape. I shut it off and attempted to re-start with the same results... Got a new S20+ so I at least have a device, but I'm determined to get the lost month on the old S7 back since I had a backup from early Feb.
I tried a new battery since that was mentioned, didn't change anything, however in messing with trying to get the phone to boot have discovered a few strange message screens and behavior...
1. Phone will eventually stop responding to key presses, have to pull battery connector, wait, then it will re-boot, but every time the blue 'Recovery Mode...' is displayed. If I touch nothing, it will boot and start 'installing updates' but eventually lock and restart. At one point it made it as far as the Verizon screen, then died.
2. I can get the phone to to into the recovery menu and it will respond to commands. I've tried restart normally, boot to safe mode, and shut down phone normally, all of which result in the same restart and recovery mode message and then the lock during the update.
3. I have successfully made it to the download mode screen a few times, but don't have the knowledge of what needs to be done there and which files I would need to upload to it to make that work. (phone was totally stock rom) It had recently updated to the latest version available from Verizon which I think was 8.0?
4. Now I have found a new error screen which I have not seen before... The little Android guy has X's in his eyes and a large yellow sign with ! in it says 'No Command' and then the phone restarts? It also during that finally responded to being plugged in via USB charging, however normally it shows no signs of charging other than being warm and actually charging the battery (verified with a meter)
5. When the phone is on, it gets warm quite quickly (it's still split open and the tin covers are warm, but not hot)
Hopefully someone can help out. I wouldn't say there's anything too critical on there, but there are some pics I'd really like to have back :crying:
Thanks everyone!

bigblkyj said:
Hey everyone, I'll start by saying I'm new to these forums, so go easy...
I've had an S7 (Verizon SM-G930V) for probably 3 years, recently it randomly glitched/locked up (screen had strange color bars through what I was looking at) phone restarted and then was stuck in a boot loop. It's never been wet or dropped hard and is in really good shape. I shut it off and attempted to re-start with the same results... Got a new S20+ so I at least have a device, but I'm determined to get the lost month on the old S7 back since I had a backup from early Feb.
I tried a new battery since that was mentioned, didn't change anything, however in messing with trying to get the phone to boot have discovered a few strange message screens and behavior...
1. Phone will eventually stop responding to key presses, have to pull battery connector, wait, then it will re-boot, but every time the blue 'Recovery Mode...' is displayed. If I touch nothing, it will boot and start 'installing updates' but eventually lock and restart. At one point it made it as far as the Verizon screen, then died.
2. I can get the phone to to into the recovery menu and it will respond to commands. I've tried restart normally, boot to safe mode, and shut down phone normally, all of which result in the same restart and recovery mode message and then the lock during the update.
3. I have successfully made it to the download mode screen a few times, but don't have the knowledge of what needs to be done there and which files I would need to upload to it to make that work. (phone was totally stock rom) It had recently updated to the latest version available from Verizon which I think was 8.0?
4. Now I have found a new error screen which I have not seen before... The little Android guy has X's in his eyes and a large yellow sign with ! in it says 'No Command' and then the phone restarts? It also during that finally responded to being plugged in via USB charging, however normally it shows no signs of charging other than being warm and actually charging the battery (verified with a meter)
5. When the phone is on, it gets warm quite quickly (it's still split open and the tin covers are warm, but not hot)
Hopefully someone can help out. I wouldn't say there's anything too critical on there, but there are some pics I'd really like to have back :crying:
Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If what you've described is correct, all of the solutions involve flashing the stock firmware which will of course wipe the device.
Were your photos not stored in a folder on the SD card?
There is a chance you can recover the device using Samsung Kies with the emergency recover option but if you've encountered the "no command" screen it's not looking good.

Unfortunately I did have an SD card installed, but I normally kept my camera pics on the phone's memory, since I have had an SD card fail as well and lost everything on there.
So this took an unexpected turn yesterday pretty much right after posting this... I've been messing with the phone, unplugging the battery each time, and have managed to get into different menus which kept making me think that something still had to be working if I could do that. Well, after leaving the No Command message on the screen it magically booted into the Recovery menu with (finally) the option to wipe the cache partition, which I did and rebooted normally. Believe it or not, it booted normally and into the OS like nothing ever happened?!
I instantly plugged it into my PC and ran Smart Switch which started taking a backup! About 25% though the device restarted again and was really warm to the touch on the RF covers inside. Bummer...
So I figured heat was now the issue for some reason... I waited for it to cool and then reinstalled the SD card and figured, if I could get it to boot long enough, the SD card is a quicker transfer and I'd just use ES File Explorer to try and do a photo dump to the SD card and see how far it would get. It actually made it all the way through and gave me enough time to grab some other stuff before getting hot and restarting again.
I believe the overheating is being caused by my opening of the device though... Currently I have the antennas removed and the speaker so that I'm able to quickly access the battery connector (which BTW seems to be the trick here to this working) But inadvertently, without the larger wireless charging coil in place, it relieved the pressure on the motherboard and broke the thermal paste connection between the chipset and the copper heatsink (I didn't tear it down further to check, but I can hear the 'sticking and peeling' when you press down on it).
I think what I'm going to do is apply pressure with a chip clip or something similar (non conductive) and see if I can grab a backup again before it restarts. After the cache wipe the phone seems to understand that it's plugged in and charging now which is a new thing as well...
Sorry for the long winded posts, but if this at all helps even one person with the same situation as I have, maybe that'll be worth getting lost in here

Question Z flip 3 bootloop

The problem I have is with the galaxy z flip 3, it worked just fine inthe morning but after it ran outta juice and I charged it to a certain percentage, it stopped working properly, and got into an infinite boot loop, I tried forcing it to restart by long pressing volume down+power , but it didn't work, then I tried opening the recovery by long pressing on volume up+power and yet it also didn't work (I think that maybe it's because it was trying to boot at the time), so have you guys any solutions , please do help me cuz this phone really is important and with all honestly, isn't even mine XD, I'll be waiting for an answer

Your failsafe options are contact Samsung or do a factory reset (and then potentially contact Samsung).
If you can't boot it to anything, the only real option you have is to flash firmware, which likely won't help without wiping.
Unfortunately, not booting doesn't have a whole lot of options that don't wipe data without being rooted. Even then, you'd need recovery.

I see, then I may consider giving it to samsung, as long as they won't reset it, cuz the only reason why the phone is so important is because of the data, altough, isn't there any other way to acess recovery? Cuz I had this problem with the s10 before and I fixed it somehow (a certain Bixby key combination), but this time it seems there isn't any hidden combination.

Samsung is going to reset it. It's a required first step for them to do any work on it, even if the work has nothing to do with the software. What may help find a way to recover the data is starting with how it got to this point. Did you install anything new, change any important settings, or anything else that could have been a part of the issue? If not and it is an unexplained hardware failure, the data is likely gone already.
If it's something you might have installed or changed, it's possible that putting the phone in safe mode and undoing it may solve the issue and let you boot normally.
Booting into Safe Mode:
Make sure the device is powered off (charging is ok, as long as it is not currently trying to boot)
Hold the side key to power on and continue holding until "SAMSUNG" appears and the device vibrates
Immediately release the side key and begin holding volume down until boot completes
If the device has booted into safe mode, you will see a translucent "Safe Mode" in the bottom left

twistedumbrella said:
Samsung is going to reset it. It's a required first step for them to do any work on it, even if the work has nothing to do with the software. What may help find a way to recover the data is starting with how it got to this point. Did you install anything new, change any important settings, or anything else that could have been a part of the issue? If not and it is an unexplained hardware failure, the data is likely gone already.
If it's something you might have installed or changed, it's possible that putting the phone in safe mode and undoing it may solve the issue and let you boot normally.
Booting into Safe Mode:
Make sure the device is powered off (charging is ok, as long as it is not currently trying to boot)
Hold the side key to power on and continue holding until "SAMSUNG" appears and the device vibrates
Immediately release the side key and begin holding volume down until boot completes
If the device has booted into safe mode, you will see a translucent "Safe Mode" in the bottom left
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Well I just asked the original owner (my mother), and apparently she doesn't remember downloading anything new into it, and it just went crazy by itself, also something else I wanna note, I tried charging it and it booted into recovery all by itself, I taught it was weird but Still went and wiped the cache and then when I tried restarting it it suddenly ran out of juice once again, also, it's second display shows some weird curruption/bug or glitch-like lines. So based off of this, can you really find the origin of this problem and if there is really any hope of saving it's data XD. Thank you btw, and once again, I'll be waiting for an answer

There are hundreds of reasons it could do that, including a faulty board. Thanks to the removal of physical sdcard support, you'd need to get it to boot into something with at least adb support to pull anything off it. Stock recovery doesn't provide any ways to perform a decent backup, but it sounds like the only option that wouldn't wipe the device didn't work.

I see, alright, thanks a lot, I'll consider resetting it

It may be worth trying to flash firmware first. Go into it knowing it may reset the device or leave you needing to reset it, but it doesn't hurt to try if you run out of safer options.

Same here, same symptoms, happened in front of my wife's and eyes face. We are fairly techy and understand our way around our devices. We also noticed the device crashed then would make it all the way to the home screen launcher and before catching signal the crash would cause a restart at that point I went in and did a cash swipe rebooted right back into recovery by itself then I unplugged the cable and it was acting as if it has a dead battery but when the cable was last plugged in during a couple of crash and then restarts all the way to the home screen I know the battery was at 70 something percent. My next step is going to probably be flashed the current firmware that just released on top of it as a dirty flash and see if I can get it to boot. If not then I'm going to do a hard reset and see if that works. When plugged in it automatically starts exhibiting symptoms as if the buttons are stuck. The devices in the OtterBox and it's fairly brand new I would say mint. Not dirty or any smudges either. all I'm saying is I'm one of those type of technicians that say yeah right when people say it just happened I don't know where but this actually happened I don't know when I was able to witness it. I'll come back and let you guys know what works and what doesn't. (By the way excuse my grammar I was voice typing while driving )

ariveraiv said:
Same here, same symptoms, happened in front of my wife's and eyes face. We are fairly techy and understand our way around our devices. We also noticed the device crashed then would make it all the way to the home screen launcher and before catching signal the crash would cause a restart at that point I went in and did a cash swipe rebooted right back into recovery by itself then I unplugged the cable and it was acting as if it has a dead battery but when the cable was last plugged in during a couple of crash and then restarts all the way to the home screen I know the battery was at 70 something percent. My next step is going to probably be flashed the current firmware that just released on top of it as a dirty flash and see if I can get it to boot. If not then I'm going to do a hard reset and see if that works. When plugged in it automatically starts exhibiting symptoms as if the buttons are stuck. The devices in the OtterBox and it's fairly brand new I would say mint. Not dirty or any smudges either. all I'm saying is I'm one of those type of technicians that say yeah right when people say it just happened I don't know where but this actually happened I don't know when I was able to witness it. I'll come back and let you guys know what works and what doesn't. (By the way excuse my grammar I was voice typing while driving )
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Click to collapse
Hello everyone just a quick update. Once I got home I plugged the device into a Samsung fast charger and Samsung OEM USB type-c cable and realize the device booted all the way to the home screen but register the same battery level as I mentioned above. Device was working as if nothing happened to it. So I updated all the apps on the Galaxy store then updated all the apps left over from the Google Play store, I then proceeded to check for a firmware update because I know the April update just released and installed the update with no issues. Updated the apps that needed to be updated again somehow there's always something and unplug the device from the power cable. Everything was working if no issues about half hour later the device cuts off and does not want to power on. FYI I already had my wife contact T-Mobile and get a warranty replacement we only paid $5.00 so my thoughts and conclusion on what's going on something happened to the battery or it's defective. Btw we only use Samsung OEM cables and equipment at home and in the car while connected through Android auto. it's only working while being plugged in it's not charging all the way even though it's registering it's charge level while the device is on.