I know now that this was completely stupid. Now, after booting the phone, the phone setup crashes after the Google account settings and loops back to the LG language/accessibility screen. I had placed a system.img on the root of internal storage prior to factory resetting, but that is now gone evidently. Could someone please assist me in getting the phone back to a factory state? Thanks in advance and I'm more than happy to buy someone a beer, doughnut, breakfast, etc.... I'm embarrassed.
which model and firmware version do you have?
you may be able to use a KDZ to restore your device
Not stupid, it happens sometimes, besides you're most probably still in good shape since you can boot to system . You can try one more factory reset or flash KDZ like X1ras said and re-root. That is assuming you're on 5.1.1PR, I'm not sure if there are KDZ's available for AT&T.
I'm on AT&T firmware version 511x. I checked out the thread detailing the process for flashing 511PR KDZ, but it clearly stated that attempting to do so on a phone with my firmware would yield a bricked device. I can receive calls and access settings, but MTP doesn't seem to be available and there is no option for a factory reset in the security section.
There shouldn't be problem with standard recovery method. Instal USB drivers and LG Mobile Support Tool from LG Website, turn off your phone and plug it to your pc while holding volume up button. U will boot into download mode, then just start LGMST and go for options -> recovery or something like that. It will download proper KDZ from internet and flash it afterwards.
For some reason, I didn't think LGMST didn't work with the G Flex 2. I wish I had read this earlier, as I sent the phone off to LG to be re-flashed. I hope they don't charge me for this, but we'll see. The lesson I'm taking from this boondoggle is to be more patient and deliberate when tampering with my devices. I failed to account for the difference in modifying the GF2 and my previously owned Nexus devices.
txsouthpaw said:
For some reason, I didn't think LGMST didn't work with the G Flex 2. I wish I had read this earlier, as I sent the phone off to LG to be re-flashed. I hope they don't charge me for this, but we'll see. The lesson I'm taking from this boondoggle is to be more patient and deliberate when tampering with my devices. I failed to account for the difference in modifying the GF2 and my previously owned Nexus devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's the best thing about Nexus devices, you can always bring them back to life.
I'm curious to see if LG will charge you anything...let us know what happens
Flex 2 is mine 4th LG device and i was always using LGMST to bring them back to life. Sadly previous ones had unlocked bootloader unlike flex 2 :/ I would really like to see custom mods on flex 2 as this device is really powerful and will last for few years atleast. But that's not the topic. Hope u will get your flex 2 back soon
Thanks for the support and insight. I will reply back with details / costs surrounding the repair. I'm lucky in that I'm located in Dallas and the repair facility is in N. Fort Worth. I hope that contributes to a quick turnaround (shipping is overnight both ways). For whatever it's worth, thus far I have found LG very easy to deal with. I made a call and within 10 minutes had an email with instructions and a prepaid FedEx label. They do take care of shipping both ways.
txsouthpaw said:
Thanks for the support and insight. I will reply back with details / costs surrounding the repair. I'm lucky in that I'm located in Dallas and the repair facility is in N. Fort Worth. I hope that contributes to a quick turnaround (shipping is overnight both ways). For whatever it's worth, thus far I have found LG very easy to deal with. I made a call and within 10 minutes had an email with instructions and a prepaid FedEx label. They do take care of shipping both ways.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same as in Poland, there is free door-to-door warranty, i did send my Flex 2 two times for warranty and it took them 1 day to deliver it by DHL to LG Service across the country, second day to repair and third day to deliver it back
It doesn't appear that there will be any charge for the repairs. LG provides a repair tracker that tracks the stages of the service. As soon as the phone arrived at the facility and was formally received by LG, the "awaiting payment" indicator disappeared. The tracker states that the phone has been diagnosed and that it is currently being repaired. Hopefully, I'll have it back on Wed. Thus far, LG's warranty service has been nothing but impressive.
If some of you can get device back from LG service centre in a few days then you're lucky to have this. Last time I sent it to them it took up almost 30 days before getting the device back. So now I am very careful about what I'm doing.
enzo_cz said:
If some of you can get device back from LG service centre in a few days then you're lucky to have this. Last time I sent it to them it took up almost 30 days before getting the device back. So now I am very careful about what I'm doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. I hated to have to send the phone to be repaired, but I can at least confirm that there will in fact be no charge for the repair. The phone was shipped back out to me yesterday and should be here today or tomorrow. I'm eagerly awaiting it's return as the ZTE Obsidian that I have been using in the interim is dreadful.
The phone arrived back today and it has been updated to V.511z. Everything is working great and I'm very pleased to have only been without it for 6 days as well as the fact that I didn't have to pay a cent.
tl;dr: My chronology of the infamous LG V10 boot loop death which got repaired under LG's unannounced extended 15 months warranty. Important lesson learned is make sure to back up all the phone's valuable data (even though I technically didn't lose anything critical).
01/03/2017: I finally experienced the infamous boot loop of death with my AT&T LG V10 yesterday (01/02/2017). The boot loop I encounter isn't due to flashing gone bad or wrong, but due to regular use. My phone wasn't excessively overheating at the time, but I do know that the metallic ring around the power/finger print sensor was warm due to surfing the internet at the time on Chrome. I do have a tempered glass on the phone and a slim translucent plastic cover to protect my phone. What happened was that my phone suddenly just powered off the display screen. I thought the phone just experienced a force close and forced reboot, not that I ever experienced one with the V10, but other Android phones before (i.e., very old ass Android phones). But I waited for the phone to boot up, but it never did. I tried to reboot the phone and then that's when it got to the home screen and locked up. Ever since then, reboots failed to get pass the AT&T logo, but could pass the LG logo.
I've already tried the refrigerator/freezer trick to cool down the phone, but it appears that I'm passed that stage where the phone would not boot pass the LG logo or AT&T logo. The more I tried to get the phone to boot up, the more it will just stall or reset at the LG logo, or refuse to boot up (i.e., speed up its death). Even the charging screen once showed, no longer reaches the charging stage where it shows the percentage of the battery's power remaining through the wall charger or being plugged into a computer laptop. Pulling the battery and letting the phone sit idle (to cool down the internal circuits?) for a while will allow it to come back to life with the boot loop problem or the ability to charge the battery via a computer's USB port. I tried charging with the wall adapter, but that forces the phone to boot up, and render the phone useless thereafter, so I elected to charge the phone via computer.
My AT&T LG V10 (H900 variant) is on Android 6.0 (H90021w00). It's not rooted anymore due to upgrading to Android 6.0 (I updated back in November 2016 here) without issue and wasn't abused (e.g., phone dropped, water damage) for it to cause the boot loop of death. The hardware version (H/W) is 1.0 with the SKU 6084A. Battery manufacturing date appears to be 2015.11.07 (D). The OEM package boxing has DHHS Code MC1, manufactured date of 12/2015 and made in Korea.
I wanted to try and save some data off of my phone, but the phone couldn't stay on life support long enough. Of course, fastboot won't allow me to save data (it's design is to write data only). I did manage to put the phone into download mode (i.e., phone powered off, hold down volume button and plug in USB cable from computer) one time and try to flash an upgrade of Android 6.0 firmware H90021w00 with LG Up, but it failed somewhere after 10%.
Good thing I have Google Photos backing up all my photos and videos, and nothing critical resides on my phone other than auto logins. I'll just have to change all my passwords soon enough if my phone has to be taken away for warranty. I wanted to at least save data and do a data wipe to make sure that nothing falls into the wrong hands. But I now can't do any of the two. I called the nearest AT&T corporate store, but was directed to one that has a warranty center. I will be on my way to an AT&T corporate store later tonight that has a warranty center. Just doing so to avoid traffic. I know my phone has the usual 1 year warranty, and speaking to the AT&T corporate store with the warranty center, I was told that I have at least 80 something days left of warranty. So good thing I'm not screwed and can at least get a replacement phone.
Currently the phone is sitting on my desk charging at a slow ass rate and up from fluctuating anywhere between 12% and 21% to a now whopping 30% power capacity. I want to at least demonstrate the boot looping to AT&T personnel and it's not due to physical damage or water damage. I'll report back what's happening with my situation so that way, anybody else who experienced this situation will have something to go by.
Update 01/04/2017: I read through the freezer trick thoroughly this time and the entire thread. I decided to try it again, but this time, I left the phone in the freezer for a short time (half an hour or so) without the battery. After time elapsed in the freezer to cool down the phone, I plugged in the USB to the phone while having my laptop near the refrigerator with LG Bridge loaded and ready to back up, and then put in the battery. Lo and behold, the phone did manage to boot up all the way to the lock screen, due to various sound cues from the phone (AT&T logo) and USB connectivity (from Windows 7). However, when I tried to unlock the phone, that's when it froze and rebooted. After that, it hit the boot loop and won't get as far as the initial try. So I'll keep trying to revive my phone long enough to get some data off of it and wipe it clean. I still have time with warranty, so I'm in no hurry. Besides, I attempted warranty processing last night and missed the opening as the warranty department closed early.
Update 01/11/2017: I managed to get my LG V10 phone to boot up further than the freezer trick by utilizing the hair dryer trick here. Basically, what the video shows is that one must take a hair dryer, blow dry on the highest heat setting to the bottom of the backside phone up to the point where the phone gets hot, without the battery for over a minute. After that, put in the battery, boot up the phone and blow dry the bottom of the phone and heat it up even further while it's booting. I had to repeat the hair dryer heating process many times in order to stabilize my phone because it would reboot within minutes after I try to initially back up with LG Bridge's LG Backup tool. I did manage to overheat the bottom part of the phone so much that Android denied charging the battery via USB connected to the computer. Further exacerbating the problem was that the battery was so hot, LG Bridge denied backup because it thought the battery charge status was under 30% when in fact, my LG V10 showed at 49%. I did get the most important file that I was after on my phone after many tries (kept rebooting on me), but I'll persist to back up the entire phone in case I needed something else before turning this phone over to AT&T warranty service.
Update 1/19/2017: As much as I tried to back up my LG V10 and wipe afterwards, my attempts were futile. The phone couldn't stabilize enough after reaching the home screen, and would reboot shortly thereafter. At least I got what I've wanted. When I kept trying to revive it with the hair dryer trick, it just wouldn't go pass the boot screen most of the time (i.e., LG logo or AT&T logo). It even got to the point where it would turn on slowly (i.e., there's a delay booting up when power was pressed on). So at this point, it appears that the boot loop of death is sinking in further into my LG V10. I also tried the freezer trick again and then going back to the hair dryer trick when the freezer trick stopped working, although not back to back, otherwise that would provide temperature shock to the components. The freezer trick did manage to get further, but it only happened twice where it got to the home screen and then rebooted. Note to those wondering if condensation would trip or activate the moisture sensors on the phone and the battery, it does not when you take careful steps of taking the phone out of the freezer and putting it into the refrigerator and then take it out, letting maybe 10 minutes pass by for each step of temperature transition so that the phone's temperature can get to room temperature without condensation buildup.
Anyways, I decided that I've spent way too much of my time trying to revive my phone to back up data that most likely I wouldn't need. I went the route of sending my phone to LG for repair instead of going to AT&T store and receiving a refurbished LG V10. I'd rather have my phone repaired by LG and receive my phone back with the repaired hardware than to receive someone else's LG V10. I based my decision on this thread here over at Android Central where someone sent in their phone for repair, got theirs back with a clean start (i.e., don't expect LG to either back up your data or reuse your memory storage as no personal data was saved). It is good to note that LG has extended LG V10 warranty of 1 year (12 months) to 15 months. I'm pretty sure LG granted a 3 month warranty extension on LG V10s due to the boot loop issue. I didn't realize I got the extension until thinking back, when I called AT&T warranty center, they told me I had about 86 days of warranty left, which is about 3 months extended from my 1 year of warranty when it ended. The phone was bubble wrapped (removed back cover, battery, SIM, microSD) and shipped off in a small box that I re-used from another item that was shipped to me. Shipping carrier is by FedEx Ground that was paid for by LG, being shipped to LG's repair center in Texas.
Update 01/24/2017: The phone has arrived at the Texas facility yesterday (Monday) according to FedEx, but the status of my repair hasn't been updated anymore than giving me estimated delivery date of 9 days. What's odd is that LG didn't update the received date at repair facility field and have deleted my FedEx tracking number.
Update 01/25/2017: LG updated the repair status last night which pretty much acknowledged item received, diagnosed, repaired, and prepared for shipment back to customer. The repair was "Swap Board (Main/RF) : Others". I should have the phone back on 01/28/2017 and will update then accordingly. It appears that LG probably replaced the entire mother board which would include the 64 GB of memory holding user data, among others. Considering that others have reported of receiving a freshly formatted phone, I would expect the same once the phone reaches back to me. I would highly doubt LG went the extra length to migrate data off of the failing motherboard onto the new one. It would be nice if they did.
Update 01/28/2017: I have received my phone today via FedEx Ground shipping, and they delivered on a Saturday. The status of my phone was factory reset. I can tell it was factory reset because I still have the unlimited tethering (hotspot) enabled from the previous rooting (Lollipop) and then went to Marshmallow and losing the root, but still have unlimited tethering. Also, Android OS is updated to H90021x (from the previous H90021w00), build number MRA58K, with Android security patch level 2016-11-01. You will need to set up the phone just like you did the first time. They also removed my tempered glass and left a narrow sticky film that doesn't cover the entire front screen glass that can be peeled off. Good thing I have an extra tempered glass for the V10. The phone came back with the same serial # and ESN/IMEI that I've sent to LG. If you're like me trying to migrate data from one LG phone to another, it's best to use the LG Backup in Backup & Reset under Settings that's found native in the phone. LG PC Suite and LG Bridge won't work with Verizon's LG G4 (VS986) on Windows 7 for me, no matter what I did (installed many LG G4 drivers, including Verizon's). Some backup apps, such as LG Backup (Sender) and Super Backup & Restore do not back up everything, neither does the native backup LG Backup in the Android Settings menu.
Update 02/03/2017: What appears to be a puzzling action on my repaired LG V10 is that I'm going to take no chance and back up my phone in case I end up losing data again. What happened earlier was that I was surfing the Internet with Chrome, reading up on a news article, when I was prompted to Miracast and enter a PIN. WTF? I ignored it a few times and then it got to the point where my phone was unresponsive with the Miracast prompts, but I was able to force my phone to reboot. Upon reboot, I noticed that the phone loading up was sluggish and not typically responsive. I decided to shutdown my phone to prevent further irreversible problem in the future (hint: boot loop). I waited for my phone to cool down for perhaps a few minutes before I powered on the phone again. This time, when the phone booted up, it was responsive as it normally has. Before all this happened, I didn't use my phone excessively nor extensive in a short period of time. I really have doubts that LG really applied a fix to their faulty connection problem and just used a replacement just to pass by.
Update 02/04/2017: I received an e-mail from LG requesting my feedback with respect to the repair. I gladly answered the survey, gave them good credit with respect to the repair itself, but when it comes to the quality of the LG product, they took a hit and I expressed my concern with respect to the boot loop.
These bootloops have been happening quite a lot lately. Makes me worried.
Affangta said:
These bootloops have been happening quite a lot lately. Makes me worried.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would suggest that anybody with a functioning LG V10 to do their due diligence and back up their data on the phone in case there's a catastrophic event such as the boot loop I've experienced. At least I have most of my data backed up. Just some that I disabled but now realize it's worth having.
It happened to me too on Nov 2016. I have been told to return the phone to AT&T and get a replacement phone under warranty. I did receive a replacement V10. Now AT&T pissed me off on changing the phone contact expiry date to next year. I am on AT&T Next 12 plan. I am supposed to get a new phone on January 2017, but now I have to wait till 2018. Next time, I am buying phone myself.
anand_pv said:
It happened to me too on Nov 2016. I have been told to return the phone to AT&T and get a replacement phone under warranty. I did receive a replacement V10. Now AT&T pissed me off on changing the phone contact expiry date to next year. I am on AT&T Next 12 plan. I am supposed to get a new phone on January 2017, but now I have to wait till 2018. Next time, I am buying phone myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A replacement phone under warranty should not extend your contract. Did you contest the contract extension? Under the warranty exchange, there's no mention of contract extension required: https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1044996
Its kind of best to buy the phone out right.
On AT&T Next. What ever payment plan you choose, you dont get to keep the phone until it is completely "paid off". Which pushing through the confuseing payments costs as well as additional costs, in reality your technically paying more then the phone sells for. So if you intend on keeping your next phone. Just go out and buy an unlocked version. Or get an unlocked international version.
Try baking it?
My wife's v10 started bootlooping about a week ago and is out of warranty. This happened right after doing a FOTA security update. I figured it was due to that so I tried resetting the phone but could not boot in to anything to get it to reset. After extensive searching and reading, I have "fixed" the phone so far. It has been booted up and running for almost 2 full days now. We are not using it at the moment, we had a spare phone so its not like we were going to be out of anything. Instead of the freezer trick (was not worried about data backup), I did the baking trick and as surprised as I was...it worked! Here is what I did if it might help anyone else.
Please note that your warranty will really be void after doing this, especially if anything gets damaged. The information here is reference only and results may vary due to altitude and baking temps (thought I would NEVER put that in a disclaimer for gadgets and software, lol). You may or may not have data loss either, so do not blame me!
You will need to take the phone apart so you will need a small precision set of screwdrivers. Check out the video from the link below to see how to disassemble the phone, you only need to get to the part where the circuit board is removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N_mGT-P1ZA
And now...seriously,
1. Pre-heat your oven to 385 F (~195 C).
2. CAREFULLY take the circuit board out of the phone, use the video above as reference.
3. Place the circuit board in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. I set my board on a baking rack so it was not directly on a cookie sheet.
4. Take circuit board out, shut off oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes to fully cool down. Add salt for flavor? (j/k)
5. After cool down, CAREFULLY place circuit board back in and put phone back together.
6. Put battery in and let charge if needed before booting the phone up.
7. Cross fingers and turn the phone on!
We were at a point to where we did not want to file a claim if we were going to end up with the same phone possibly again and have issues so I figured I would try it out. My kids thought I was insane watching me bake a circuit board.
However, the electronics knowledge in me knows this is just enough to actually do solder reflow on the board. From the numerous posts that I have read, it appears that some of the soldering is faulty and sometimes a reflow will fix the issue. Since circuit boards are so small and intricate, it takes extremely serious skill to actually use a solder iron to fix those...so for those of us who are not extremely seriously skilled in soldering, the oven seems to work. Don't get me wrong, I can solder like no tomorrow...but not on circuit boards
So if you have nothing to lose...give this a shot!
I had the same problem, I'm unsecured so I take a repair where a technician and told the hay processor to re-weld it because it got off the board.
Ten days ago, during an ordinary work morning, and without warning, my V10 entered the boot loop spiral of death. The unprompted reboots became more frequent, moving backwards from home screen, to AT&T screen, to LG screen, from where the phone eventually refused to proceed. I bought the phone during the first week of U.S availability in October 2015, so it's past warranty, of course.
I submitted a ticket at the LG website, and shipped my comatose V10 via FedEx an exact 27 miles across the DFW metroplex to the LG Service Center near Alliance Airport north of Fort Worth. The package arrived there the next day thanks to close proximity to local ground service, rather than making a fun trip to Memphis and back.
My V10 returned yesterday. I paid $72 + tax for out-of-warranty replacement of the main logic board, which we surely suspect to have failed because of the well-known factory defect that appears to have affected the V10, G4, and even the G3. $72 is still a fair price for this type of repair on a large premium smartphone. My software and settings were easy to restore after my having number moved back from my wife's old G2 to a new SIM.
Will it last? I hope so.
Your are genius, so does your kid will grow up the same way...
Hi John!
I register this forum just for the purpose saying " Thank You! You are genius"
I followed your step by step guide and brought up my LG V10 to life, which casued by the so called " boot loop" problem few days ago.
I was almost ready to send my V10 back to the LG, and requesting for the replacemnt of the internal board of my LG V10. Luckily, I read your thread, and presume that your assumption is right with logical analysis. Now my phone is working without boot problem, and I successfully bring back my data from the internal memory, too.
Thank you so much, John!
eddie.
johnkirchner said:
My wife's v10 started bootlooping about a week ago and is out of warranty. This happened right after doing a FOTA security update. I figured it was due to that so I tried resetting the phone but could not boot in to anything to get it to reset. After extensive searching and reading, I have "fixed" the phone so far. It has been booted up and running for almost 2 full days now. We are not using it at the moment, we had a spare phone so its not like we were going to be out of anything. Instead of the freezer trick (was not worried about data backup), I did the baking trick and as surprised as I was...it worked! Here is what I did if it might help anyone else.
Please note that your warranty will really be void after doing this, especially if anything gets damaged. The information here is reference only and results may vary due to altitude and baking temps (thought I would NEVER put that in a disclaimer for gadgets and software, lol). You may or may not have data loss either, so do not blame me!
And now...seriously,
1. Pre-heat your oven to 385 F (~195 C).
2. CAREFULLY take the circuit board out of the phone, use the video above as reference.
3. Place the circuit board in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. I set my board on a baking rack so it was not directly on a cookie sheet.
4. Take circuit board out, shut off oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes to fully cool down. Add salt for flavor? (j/k)
5. After cool down, CAREFULLY place circuit board back in and put phone back together.
6. Put battery in and let charge if needed before booting the phone up.
7. Cross fingers and turn the phone on!
We were at a point to where we did not want to file a claim if we were going to end up with the same phone possibly again and have issues so I figured I would try it out. My kids thought I was insane watching me bake a circuit board.
However, the electronics knowledge in me knows this is just enough to actually do solder reflow on the board. From the numerous posts that I have read, it appears that some of the soldering is faulty and sometimes a reflow will fix the issue. Since circuit boards are so small and intricate, it takes extremely serious skill to actually use a solder iron to fix those...so for those of us who are not extremely seriously skilled in soldering, the oven seems to work. Don't get me wrong, I can solder like no tomorrow...but not on circuit boards
So if you have nothing to lose...give this a shot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hoang51 said:
tl;dr: My chronology of the infamous LG V10 boot loop death which got repaired under LG's unannounced extended 15 months warranty. Important lesson learned is make sure to back up all the phone's valuable data (even though I technically didn't lose anything critical).
01/03/2017: I finally experienced the infamous boot loop of death with my AT&T LG V10 yesterday (01/02/2017). The boot loop I encounter isn't due to flashing gone bad or wrong, but due to regular use. My phone wasn't excessively overheating at the time, but I do know that the metallic ring around the power/finger print sensor was warm due to surfing the internet at the time on Chrome. I do have a tempered glass on the phone and a slim translucent plastic cover to protect my phone. What happened was that my phone suddenly just powered off the display screen. I thought the phone just experienced a force close and forced reboot, not that I ever experienced one with the V10, but other Android phones before (i.e., very old ass Android phones). But I waited for the phone to boot up, but it never did. I tried to reboot the phone and then that's when it got to the home screen and locked up. Ever since then, reboots failed to get pass the AT&T logo, but could pass the LG logo.
I've already tried the refrigerator/freezer trick to cool down the phone, but it appears that I'm passed that stage where the phone would not boot pass the LG logo or AT&T logo. The more I tried to get the phone to boot up, the more it will just stall or reset at the LG logo, or refuse to boot up (i.e., speed up its death). Even the charging screen once showed, no longer reaches the charging stage where it shows the percentage of the battery's power remaining through the wall charger or being plugged into a computer laptop. Pulling the battery and letting the phone sit idle (to cool down the internal circuits?) for a while will allow it to come back to life with the boot loop problem or the ability to charge the battery via a computer's USB port. I tried charging with the wall adapter, but that forces the phone to boot up, and render the phone useless thereafter, so I elected to charge the phone via computer.
My AT&T LG V10 (H900 variant) is on Android 6.0 (H90021w00). It's not rooted anymore due to upgrading to Android 6.0 (I updated back in November 2016 here) without issue and wasn't abused (e.g., phone dropped, water damage) for it to cause the boot loop of death. The hardware version (H/W) is 1.0 with the SKU 6084A. Battery manufacturing date appears to be 2015.11.07 (D). The OEM package boxing has DHHS Code MC1, manufactured date of 12/2015 and made in Korea.
I wanted to try and save some data off of my phone, but the phone couldn't stay on life support long enough. Of course, fastboot won't allow me to save data (it's design is to write data only). I did manage to put the phone into download mode (i.e., phone powered off, hold down volume button and plug in USB cable from computer) one time and try to flash an upgrade of Android 6.0 firmware H90021w00 with LG Up, but it failed somewhere after 10%.
Good thing I have Google Photos backing up all my photos and videos, and nothing critical resides on my phone other than auto logins. I'll just have to change all my passwords soon enough if my phone has to be taken away for warranty. I wanted to at least save data and do a data wipe to make sure that nothing falls into the wrong hands. But I now can't do any of the two. I called the nearest AT&T corporate store, but was directed to one that has a warranty center. I will be on my way to an AT&T corporate store later tonight that has a warranty center. Just doing so to avoid traffic. I know my phone has the usual 1 year warranty, and speaking to the AT&T corporate store with the warranty center, I was told that I have at least 80 something days left of warranty. So good thing I'm not screwed and can at least get a replacement phone.
Currently the phone is sitting on my desk charging at a slow ass rate and up from fluctuating anywhere between 12% and 21% to a now whopping 30% power capacity. I want to at least demonstrate the boot looping to AT&T personnel and it's not due to physical damage or water damage. I'll report back what's happening with my situation so that way, anybody else who experienced this situation will have something to go by.
Update 01/04/2017: I read through the freezer trick thoroughly this time and the entire thread. I decided to try it again, but this time, I left the phone in the freezer for a short time (half an hour or so) without the battery. After time elapsed in the freezer to cool down the phone, I plugged in the USB to the phone while having my laptop near the refrigerator with LG Bridge loaded and ready to back up, and then put in the battery. Lo and behold, the phone did manage to boot up all the way to the lock screen, due to various sound cues from the phone (AT&T logo) and USB connectivity (from Windows 7). However, when I tried to unlock the phone, that's when it froze and rebooted. After that, it hit the boot loop and won't get as far as the initial try. So I'll keep trying to revive my phone long enough to get some data off of it and wipe it clean. I still have time with warranty, so I'm in no hurry. Besides, I attempted warranty processing last night and missed the opening as the warranty department closed early.
Update 01/11/2017: I managed to get my LG V10 phone to boot up further than the freezer trick by utilizing the hair dryer trick here. Basically, what the video shows is that one must take a hair dryer, blow dry on the highest heat setting to the bottom of the backside phone up to the point where the phone gets hot, without the battery for over a minute. After that, put in the battery, boot up the phone and blow dry the bottom of the phone and heat it up even further while it's booting. I had to repeat the hair dryer heating process many times in order to stabilize my phone because it would reboot within minutes after I try to initially back up with LG Bridge's LG Backup tool. I did manage to overheat the bottom part of the phone so much that Android denied charging the battery via USB connected to the computer. Further exacerbating the problem was that the battery was so hot, LG Bridge denied backup because it thought the battery charge status was under 30% when in fact, my LG V10 showed at 49%. I did get the most important file that I was after on my phone after many tries (kept rebooting on me), but I'll persist to back up the entire phone in case I needed something else before turning this phone over to AT&T warranty service.
Update 1/19/2017: As much as I tried to back up my LG V10 and wipe afterwards, my attempts were futile. The phone couldn't stabilize enough after reaching the home screen, and would reboot shortly thereafter. At least I got what I've wanted. When I kept trying to revive it with the hair dryer trick, it just wouldn't go pass the boot screen most of the time (i.e., LG logo or AT&T logo). It even got to the point where it would turn on slowly (i.e., there's a delay booting up when power was pressed on). So at this point, it appears that the boot loop of death is sinking in further into my LG V10. I also tried the freezer trick again and then going back to the hair dryer trick when the freezer trick stopped working, although not back to back, otherwise that would provide temperature shock to the components. The freezer trick did manage to get further, but it only happened twice where it got to the home screen and then rebooted. Note to those wondering if condensation would trip or activate the moisture sensors on the phone and the battery, it does not when you take careful steps of taking the phone out of the freezer and putting it into the refrigerator and then take it out, letting maybe 10 minutes pass by for each step of temperature transition so that the phone's temperature can get to room temperature without condensation buildup.
Anyways, I decided that I've spent way too much of my time trying to revive my phone to back up data that most likely I wouldn't need. I went the route of sending my phone to LG for repair instead of going to AT&T store and receiving a refurbished LG V10. I'd rather have my phone repaired by LG and receive my phone back with the repaired hardware than to receive someone else's LG V10. I based my decision on this thread here over at Android Central where someone sent in their phone for repair, got theirs back with a clean start (i.e., don't expect LG to either back up your data or reuse your memory storage as no personal data was saved). It is good to note that LG has extended LG V10 warranty of 1 year (12 months) to 15 months. I'm pretty sure LG granted a 3 month warranty extension on LG V10s due to the boot loop issue. I didn't realize I got the extension until thinking back, when I called AT&T warranty center, they told me I had about 86 days of warranty left, which is about 3 months extended from my 1 year of warranty when it ended. The phone was bubble wrapped (removed back cover, battery, SIM, microSD) and shipped off in a small box that I re-used from another item that was shipped to me. Shipping carrier is by FedEx Ground that was paid for by LG, being shipped to LG's repair center in Texas.
Update 01/24/2017: The phone has arrived at the Texas facility yesterday (Monday) according to FedEx, but the status of my repair hasn't been updated anymore than giving me estimated delivery date of 9 days. What's odd is that LG didn't update the received date at repair facility field and have deleted my FedEx tracking number.
Update 01/25/2017: LG updated the repair status last night which pretty much acknowledged item received, diagnosed, repaired, and prepared for shipment back to customer. The repair was "Swap Board (Main/RF) : Others". I should have the phone back on 01/28/2017 and will update then accordingly. It appears that LG probably replaced the entire mother board which would include the 64 GB of memory holding user data, among others. Considering that others have reported of receiving a freshly formatted phone, I would expect the same once the phone reaches back to me. I would highly doubt LG went the extra length to migrate data off of the failing motherboard onto the new one. It would be nice if they did.
Update 01/28/2017: I have received my phone today via FedEx Ground shipping, and they delivered on a Saturday. The status of my phone was factory reset. I can tell it was factory reset because I still have the unlimited tethering (hotspot) enabled from the previous rooting (Lollipop) and then went to Marshmallow and losing the root, but still have unlimited tethering. Also, Android OS is updated to H90021x (from the previous H90021w00), build number MRA58K, with Android security patch level 2016-11-01. You will need to set up the phone just like you did the first time. They also removed my tempered glass and left a narrow sticky film that doesn't cover the entire front screen glass that can be peeled off. Good thing I have an extra tempered glass for the V10. The phone came back with the same serial # and ESN/IMEI that I've sent to LG. If you're like me trying to migrate data from one LG phone to another, it's best to use the LG Backup in Backup & Reset under Settings that's found native in the phone. LG PC Suite and LG Bridge won't work with Verizon's LG G4 (VS986) on Windows 7 for me, no matter what I did (installed many LG G4 drivers, including Verizon's). Some backup apps, such as LG Backup (Sender) and Super Backup & Restore do not back up everything, neither does the native backup LG Backup in the Android Settings menu.
Update 02/03/2017: What appears to be a puzzling action on my repaired LG V10 is that I'm going to take no chance and back up my phone in case I end up losing data again. What happened earlier was that I was surfing the Internet with Chrome, reading up on a news article, when I was prompted to Miracast and enter a PIN. WTF? I ignored it a few times and then it got to the point where my phone was unresponsive with the Miracast prompts, but I was able to force my phone to reboot. Upon reboot, I noticed that the phone loading up was sluggish and not typically responsive. I decided to shutdown my phone to prevent further irreversible problem in the future (hint: boot loop). I waited for my phone to cool down for perhaps a few minutes before I powered on the phone again. This time, when the phone booted up, it was responsive as it normally has. Before all this happened, I didn't use my phone excessively nor extensive in a short period of time. I really have doubts that LG really applied a fix to their faulty connection problem and just used a replacement just to pass by.
Update 02/04/2017: I received an e-mail from LG requesting my feedback with respect to the repair. I gladly answered the survey, gave them good credit with respect to the repair itself, but when it comes to the quality of the LG product, they took a hit and I expressed my concern with respect to the boot loop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may not have to change your passwords. Depending on what hardware is damaged they will likely trash the whole board. If any part of the chipset is fried or damaged in some way, your safe since everything is on a single chip. So if it is a hardware failure on the chip, then all your stuff thats on there is going in trash to never see light of day again.
mobile_edc said:
Hi John!
I register this forum just for the purpose saying " Thank You! You are genius"
I followed your step by step guide and brought up my LG V10 to life, which casued by the so called " boot loop" problem few days ago.
I was almost ready to send my V10 back to the LG, and requesting for the replacemnt of the internal board of my LG V10. Luckily, I read your thread, and presume that your assumption is right with logical analysis. Now my phone is working without boot problem, and I successfully bring back my data from the internal memory, too.
Thank you so much, John!
eddie.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear it worked, you are most welcome!
@johnkirchner you are a genius. Thanks for the advice, freshly baked V10 back to life.
johnkirchner said:
My wife's v10 started bootlooping about a week ago and is out of warranty. This happened right after doing a FOTA security update. I figured it was due to that so I tried resetting the phone but could not boot in to anything to get it to reset. After extensive searching and reading, I have "fixed" the phone so far. It has been booted up and running for almost 2 full days now. We are not using it at the moment, we had a spare phone so its not like we were going to be out of anything. Instead of the freezer trick (was not worried about data backup), I did the baking trick and as surprised as I was...it worked! Here is what I did if it might help anyone else.
Please note that your warranty will really be void after doing this, especially if anything gets damaged. The information here is reference only and results may vary due to altitude and baking temps (thought I would NEVER put that in a disclaimer for gadgets and software, lol). You may or may not have data loss either, so do not blame me!
You will need to take the phone apart so you will need a small precision set of screwdrivers. Check out the video from the link below to see how to disassemble the phone, you only need to get to the part where the circuit board is removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N_mGT-P1ZA
And now...seriously,
1. Pre-heat your oven to 385 F (~195 C).
2. CAREFULLY take the circuit board out of the phone, use the video above as reference.
3. Place the circuit board in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. I set my board on a baking rack so it was not directly on a cookie sheet.
4. Take circuit board out, shut off oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes to fully cool down. Add salt for flavor? (j/k)
5. After cool down, CAREFULLY place circuit board back in and put phone back together.
6. Put battery in and let charge if needed before booting the phone up.
7. Cross fingers and turn the phone on!
We were at a point to where we did not want to file a claim if we were going to end up with the same phone possibly again and have issues so I figured I would try it out. My kids thought I was insane watching me bake a circuit board.
However, the electronics knowledge in me knows this is just enough to actually do solder reflow on the board. From the numerous posts that I have read, it appears that some of the soldering is faulty and sometimes a reflow will fix the issue. Since circuit boards are so small and intricate, it takes extremely serious skill to actually use a solder iron to fix those...so for those of us who are not extremely seriously skilled in soldering, the oven seems to work. Don't get me wrong, I can solder like no tomorrow...but not on circuit boards
So if you have nothing to lose...give this a shot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Big thanks to you, LG V10 baked back to life, LG BackUP running 57% !
Its too bad I didn't know about this before hand. My phone just bootlooped last Saturday without warning. I contacted my carrier but I was literally 4 days over the warranty period with them. Contacted LG, and they told me they couldn't either repair or replace my phone because its an international model and they did not have the hardware for international models(no clue why they couldn't replace it, unless they stopped manufacturing this specific model). Either way, I didn't worry too much about my files as I had contacts and texts on the SD card as well as Google, and my pictures and media where stored on my SD card. However, for the latter, I didn't realize that you could only 'unlock' files with the same phone you locked them with, so they were sitting on my SD, completely useless. I also lost all my progress on Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links because apparently Konami are idiots that don't realize they can link progress to a Google account rather than going through their own service.
I just got done disassembling the device and heating it up with a heat gun. I had nothing to lose, so why the hell not? Surprisingly, its managed to remain working just fine for 2 hours now. Managed to recover my locked files, my Duel Links progress, and my Authy backup. Still, I know it will eventually happen again, and I'm still under contract for another year so I'll be forced to buy another phone and still pay for this "almost" paper weight. Here's hoping that Class-Action Lawsuit actually leads somewhere and LG deals with this fairly.
@johnkirchner
You saved me couple of hundred of bucks.
I almost made a deal to buy a new phone and for the sake of wasting time, i tried your method.
I am shocked to see my phone in working again.
You are amazing.
Pretty sure my phone isn't in warranty anymore anyway since it's been over a year since obtaining it (sadly it's not eligible for an upgrade until January of next year, since pay-off rates are now every 2 years minimum), but I'm hesitant to try the bake method -- especially since I don't have my own oven currently, being that I'm staying with someone else's family currently due to economic situations.
With that said, I can get to the factory reset option by holding the Vol-Down + Power buttons, I just don't want to lose my data. I know for a fact USB Debugging is enabled, because I always enable that pretty much first thing when I get my Android phones, but I can't get ADB to recognize it. Windows always shows it as a "USB Charge Only Interface". I know there's a way to use ADB to backup data ("adb backup -all" should work IIRC) so I was going to try that first, then try the factory reset and see if it helps at all. Any suggestions?
If I can even get the phone to start up at all, just long enough to take it to AT&T, I can just trade it in for a new phone. Otherwise I'm stuck paying over $200 more for a phone that doesn't even work anymore anyway, just to get a new one.
johnkirchner said:
My wife's v10 started bootlooping about a week ago and is out of warranty. This happened right after doing a FOTA security update. I figured it was due to that so I tried resetting the phone but could not boot in to anything to get it to reset. After extensive searching and reading, I have "fixed" the phone so far. It has been booted up and running for almost 2 full days now. We are not using it at the moment, we had a spare phone so its not like we were going to be out of anything. Instead of the freezer trick (was not worried about data backup), I did the baking trick and as surprised as I was...it worked! Here is what I did if it might help anyone else.
Please note that your warranty will really be void after doing this, especially if anything gets damaged. The information here is reference only and results may vary due to altitude and baking temps (thought I would NEVER put that in a disclaimer for gadgets and software, lol). You may or may not have data loss either, so do not blame me!
You will need to take the phone apart so you will need a small precision set of screwdrivers. Check out the video from the link below to see how to disassemble the phone, you only need to get to the part where the circuit board is removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N_mGT-P1ZA
And now...seriously,
1. Pre-heat your oven to 385 F (~195 C).
2. CAREFULLY take the circuit board out of the phone, use the video above as reference.
3. Place the circuit board in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. I set my board on a baking rack so it was not directly on a cookie sheet.
4. Take circuit board out, shut off oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes to fully cool down. Add salt for flavor? (j/k)
5. After cool down, CAREFULLY place circuit board back in and put phone back together.
6. Put battery in and let charge if needed before booting the phone up.
7. Cross fingers and turn the phone on!
We were at a point to where we did not want to file a claim if we were going to end up with the same phone possibly again and have issues so I figured I would try it out. My kids thought I was insane watching me bake a circuit board.
However, the electronics knowledge in me knows this is just enough to actually do solder reflow on the board. From the numerous posts that I have read, it appears that some of the soldering is faulty and sometimes a reflow will fix the issue. Since circuit boards are so small and intricate, it takes extremely serious skill to actually use a solder iron to fix those...so for those of us who are not extremely seriously skilled in soldering, the oven seems to work. Don't get me wrong, I can solder like no tomorrow...but not on circuit boards
So if you have nothing to lose...give this a shot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am absolutely blown away...i can't believe this worked. not that i didn't believe you, but i had to be skeptical until i tried it. and it worked. plain and simple. thanks so much for this post. i'm beside myself with excitement
Edit: well that lasted a whole 20 hours, this morning back to bootloop . sigh....was good while it lasted i guess
johnkirchner said:
My wife's v10 started bootlooping about a week ago and is out of warranty. This happened right after doing a FOTA security update. I figured it was due to that so I tried resetting the phone but could not boot in to anything to get it to reset. After extensive searching and reading, I have "fixed" the phone so far. It has been booted up and running for almost 2 full days now. We are not using it at the moment, we had a spare phone so its not like we were going to be out of anything. Instead of the freezer trick (was not worried about data backup), I did the baking trick and as surprised as I was...it worked! Here is what I did if it might help anyone else.
Please note that your warranty will really be void after doing this, especially if anything gets damaged. The information here is reference only and results may vary due to altitude and baking temps (thought I would NEVER put that in a disclaimer for gadgets and software, lol). You may or may not have data loss either, so do not blame me!
You will need to take the phone apart so you will need a small precision set of screwdrivers. Check out the video from the link below to see how to disassemble the phone, you only need to get to the part where the circuit board is removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N_mGT-P1ZA
And now...seriously,
1. Pre-heat your oven to 385 F (~195 C).
2. CAREFULLY take the circuit board out of the phone, use the video above as reference.
3. Place the circuit board in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. I set my board on a baking rack so it was not directly on a cookie sheet.
4. Take circuit board out, shut off oven and let sit for at least 20 minutes to fully cool down. Add salt for flavor? (j/k)
5. After cool down, CAREFULLY place circuit board back in and put phone back together.
6. Put battery in and let charge if needed before booting the phone up.
7. Cross fingers and turn the phone on!
We were at a point to where we did not want to file a claim if we were going to end up with the same phone possibly again and have issues so I figured I would try it out. My kids thought I was insane watching me bake a circuit board.
However, the electronics knowledge in me knows this is just enough to actually do solder reflow on the board. From the numerous posts that I have read, it appears that some of the soldering is faulty and sometimes a reflow will fix the issue. Since circuit boards are so small and intricate, it takes extremely serious skill to actually use a solder iron to fix those...so for those of us who are not extremely seriously skilled in soldering, the oven seems to work. Don't get me wrong, I can solder like no tomorrow...but not on circuit boards
So if you have nothing to lose...give this a shot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I gotta give it to sir john. I was hesitant to bake my board, but i figured i really wanna toast it anyway so what the heck. 15min after i turned off the oven i reassemble my v10, and it now boots onto home screen like magic.
Salt to taste
mobile_edc said:
Hi John!
I register this forum just for the purpose saying " Thank You! You are genius"
I followed your step by step guide and brought up my LG V10 to life, which casued by the so called " boot loop" problem few days ago.
I was almost ready to send my V10 back to the LG, and requesting for the replacemnt of the internal board of my LG V10. Luckily, I read your thread, and presume that your assumption is right with logical analysis. Now my phone is working without boot problem, and I successfully bring back my data from the internal memory, too.
Thank you so much, John!
eddie.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks john
After limited temporary success with the hair dryer method your post led me to the baking method. It took 3 attempts at increasing time and temps . Started at 385 for 7 min. And it tried to boot but not. Then tried 385 for 10 min and it made it to just past the red round hello. Then I went all in. 400 for 13 min. With a dash of salt and a sprinkle of mesquite flavor. I'm in Kansas city... we love our bbq...what can I say? Anyhow, it sure as hell worked.... can't believe it but yes indeed... and it makes for a great no **** kinda story... thanks to all who shared here... oh btw, toothpaste does in fact make for a great heat sink..... paddle faster I'm hearing banjos