Camera issues + Reset without losing root - Asus ZenFone 3 Ultra Questions & Answers

Hi everyone,
I hope some of you are still following up on this device or maybe my query is not too specific after all...
To give you some background: When I rooted my Zenfone 3 Ultra in April 2019 the storage was encrypted such that I had to enter a key each time I powered it up. After ~ 1 year or so I could not access the OS anymore after a reboot because it said the key I entered was wrong. So I went to twrp and did a wipe in order to set everything up again, this time not using device encryption. I noticed that after this wipe the flash light and third party apps using the camera would cause crashes (black screen or immediate reboot). I could live with it so far but recently I thought more and more often that it would be nice to finally use the camera in third party apps. So yesterday I had some time and decided to address the issue by doing a factory reset.
Now the factory reset did not resolve the issue. I remembered that when I had rooted the device (and everything was still working) I had created a nandroid backup in twrp which I then restored. I included everything in the restore which was offerd by twrp, i.e. Boot, Data (excl. storage), System and System Image. Still the same issue. I am not sure anymore if I created the one nandroid backup which I still have before or after rooting but when I boot up the device and install Magisk Manager, Magisk is shown with the version I installed back then.
According to the ZU680KL unlock/root thread unlocking is not possible anymore. However, I would like to keep root / be able to regain it. I assume the latest firmware (UL-ASUS_A001-WW-14.1010.1804.75-user.zip) as well as the corresponding boot.img and recovery.img which @ndi provided in this thread (thanks!) would allow me to go back further. However, I noticed that in my boot menu it says "DEVICE STATE - locked", which already makes me kind of nervous due to the unlocking issue above. I just don't want to try anything else on my own because I am afraid to do something foolish. So maybe you can help me with these two questions:
With everything being as it is, how could I start as clean as possible without loosing root / the ability to root again?
If I was willing to sacrifice root access, how could I proceed to bring everything back to stock?
Or maybe you have some other idea to fix the camera issue. Any help will be appreciated.
Many thanks!

Hello again everyone,
I decided to move on and go back to stock. Eventhough I was not able to maintain/regain root, there is an approach that might be applicable to our device as well. Also, I would like to share what I found out regarding my initial goals (i.e. camera issues and resetting a rooted device).
Camera issues: It seems to me that these appear on (some?) ZU680KL devices running Android 7 (Nougat). They can affect the flashlight or the camera in general, as you can read here. I decided to go back to the latest Android 6 (Marshmallow) realease as suggested in the same thread. The system no longer crashes when I use the flashlight or the camera is used by a third party app. However I sometimes still need to start the camera app in order to make it work in third party apps.
Going back to stock: A guide for the Zenfone 3 siblings can be found here. I went back to stock using TWRP and a MicroSD card (with boot.img, recovery.img and ROM zip file):
I first flashed the boot and recovery (i.e. TWRP) partition with the stock images for the ROM I was planning to flash.
Then I booted into stock recovery and flashed the ROM zip file. The key combination to get into stock recovery was a little weird ('volume -' followed by 'volume +' while keeping 'power' pressed). It had to be entered during the 'no command' notification that was shown after choosing recovery from the fastboot menu.
After successfully flashing the ROM, I wiped cache and data and rebooted. I ran into a "Dm-Verity in EIO mode" error (see attached). This error had already occured after my last try to restore a nandroid backup in TWRP but I could resolve it with the steps described in this youtube video and repeated (2.). When I think about it now I guess I should have started with (3.) right away because of the Dm-Verity issue.
Regaining root: I think this is something yet to be done but it does not seem completely hopeless.
I hope this can be of help if you face any of these issues.

Related

Stuck in a bootloop + CWM question

Edit: Solved, see bottom
ROM (D6633_Customized HK_1290-5630_23.4.A.0.546_R6C_HK_SuperSU2.46_XZDR2.8.21-signedv2)
Bit of a dumb move on my part. It all started when my snapchat stopped working, I updated, and then Titanium Backup wouldn't restore the data properly (giving me "parse error"). I was trying to fix that and read online that sometimes this is caused by improper permissions, so I booted into recovery mode, couldn't find the option, but somehow decided "hey, maybe my root permission (?) is wrong slash it's 6am and I just watched a wild 2016 election end" and I hit the button. Now my phone is stuck in a bootloop.
So my question:
1) What exactly does re-root phone do (in CWM), and why would that have messed me up? Is it because I have a pre-rooted rom?
2) I wiped cache and delvik and it doesn't help
3) How do I fix this? I was thinking of loading a SuperSU zip on the SD card from my computer and flashing that, assuming somehow a corrupted root is at fault. I can't seem to get the thing in ADB mode as a side note.
3b) If that seems like a good idea, does it matter what one I use?
4) If I reflash the ROM, it should keep my apps and stuff, ya? I don't actually care if my phone is crippled, I just need it to work long enough to properly back up some media, and mainly get my whatsapp over to my new SIM card. If I can't get in it's forever stuck on my old number which I don't have the SIM for anymore.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
Edit: I don't know how to delete this. Anyways, with other resources I found out that because I used a pre-rooted ROM, there were issues with using CWM to try to do the rooting with its built in functions, softbricking the phone. Reflashing the original pre-rooted ROM worked fine.

Need help on how to flash TWRP properly (Exynos) (SM-G930F)

Hi there. Recently (just yesterday) I tried flashing TWRP 3.1.0-0-herolte via Odin V3.12.3.0. However I ran into a little issue. Bootloop. TWRP seemed to work fine, but the phone wouldn't boot into android (stock touchwiz), exhibiting the 'samsung galaxy S7' logo periodically, but not going past that. Firstly I'll give some details on the phone and how I 'tried' to to flash TWRP. The phone I have is an Exynos variant SM-G930F running Android 7.0 and the recent update from late March. It is an Australian model (otherwise known as the 'international' version I think). Anyway as for what I was using as a guide, it was this. Before attempting this I enabled 'OEM unlocking' within the developer options but not 'USB debugging' (not sure if this contributed to the issue, but thought I'd mention it anyway). Later on I downloaded the Samsung Mobile Drivers and the tar file for TWRP. Installed the drivers, opened up Odin, entered download mode on the S7. I placed the tar file in AP and connected via micro usb. Almost everything, including auto-reboot, was turned off except F. Reset Time. Though chances are I probably left it on because I'm a doofus. After all that I pressed 'start' without doing any button combinations. Then after the screen went blank I pressed volume up + home hey + power button, roughly all at the same time. And then I entered TWRP. I then swiped to 'allow system modifications'. However as I didn't want to root the phone at the time, I decided to power it off through the menu. The next time I pushed the power button however, it was stuck in a bootloop. I then went back into TWRP and noticed that when I went into the install menu and was looking at the internal storage it appeared as 0mb (I thought that twrp had deleted all my files at the time), and I couldn't access the files I normally do like the downloads folder or app folders. However it seemed like most of the system folders were there like 'root' and 'data' etc. I then formatted the data and then did a factory reset as I thought it might fix the problem but it didn't. I swiped to install the twrp app but unchecked the two boxes. I then did some research and found out that if I ever were to run into an issue like this that I should flash the stock firmware, which is what I did. And viola! It worked again! I was slightly stressed at the time, lol. Luckily the apps and data I had previously were stored in the cloud.
After all this I have a question, what do you guys think I did wrong? Have you ran into this issue before? And what do you think may have caused the bootloop. I eventually want to start rooting my S7 and perhaps flash a rom, but I don't want to run into the issue again. Cheers!
P.S. I'm probably the biggest tech noob I know so go into a little bit of detail if you know what I did wrong so I don't make the same mistake again
Sounds like you hit the problem listed in step 9 & 10.
At this point, you will reach the screen asking you if you want to allow system modifications.
By swiping right, you will trigger dm-verity, and if you don't follow the next step you will be unable to boot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You swiped to allow system modifications, but you chose not to root and turned it off.
I don't see any mention of you flashing the dm-verity and force encryption disabler zip in TWRP which is required even if you're not rooting.
Beanvee7 said:
Sounds like you hit the problem listed in step 9 & 10.
You swiped to allow system modifications, but you chose not to root and turned it off.
I don't see any mention of you flashing the dm-verity and force encryption disabler zip in TWRP which is required even if you're not rooting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hm, that might actually be it. As a question how would be able to do that? Do I need to download that separately or something ( the dm-verity and encryption disabler zip I mean)?
EDIT
Actually never mind, it seems to say it right within the guide lol. So the problem should go away if I do that first yeah?
Yep just download it and put it on an SD card or transfer to the phones internal storage (I think TWRP lets you USB transfer) and go install zip in TWRP and select it.
That should stop your boot issues after installing TWRP, should even work even if you do it after a failed boot.
Beanvee7 said:
Yep just download it and put it on an SD card or transfer to the phones internal storage (I think TWRP lets you USB transfer) and go install zip in TWRP and select it.
That should stop your boot issues after installing TWRP, should even work even if you do it after a failed boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey bro, just wanted to say thanks. Got it rooted soon after as well. I found out I had to format data first before because it wouldn't let me install any zips. But after doing that it worked without any hiccups.
Cheers.
You should reset/wipe ur device after you have installed twrp through odin. That's a simple that some people wouldn't see in the tutorial. Then if you want root access you can flash SuperSu. Hope your problem will be solved. Good luck.
amalantony said:
You should reset/wipe ur device after you have installed twrp through odin. That's a simple that some people wouldn't see in the tutorial. Then if you want root access you can flash SuperSu. Hope your problem will be solved. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Already did that before bro. Works as swell as a bell.
TheNickleS said:
Hey bro, just wanted to say thanks. Got it rooted soon after as well. I found out I had to format data first before because it wouldn't let me install any zips. But after doing that it worked without any hiccups.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad it's all working.
First time I installed TWRP I installed a ROM straight after which said to to format data, so never knew TWRP install alone needed the format data too.
Beanvee7 said:
Glad it's all working.
First time I installed TWRP I installed a ROM straight after which said to to format data, so never knew TWRP install alone needed the format data too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I understand that's because the ldm-verity triggers. And so formating the data removes any encryption allowing for things to be flashed. But because I didn't do all of that first my S7 wouldn't boot up past flashing twrp.

All data wiped after Oxygen OS 5.1.6 update [rooted phone]

Hi,
My phone and all my personal data (4 years of photos, videos, and other app data) just got WIPED.
Here's how it happened:
* I was on OS 5.1.5 till yesterday. Had TWRP as my recovery and Magisk as my root method. Everything was hunky dory.
* Oxygen OS 5.1.6 hit my phone today. I downloaded the update and installed it. Before installing - it clearly stated that my phone will be unrooted by the update. I was ok with that, as I would have simply installed Magisk again from TWRP.
* After the reboot, I opened Magisk manager and saw that Magisk wasn't installed.
* So I did a reboot to recovery from the phone's reboot options (advanced reboot was ON in developer options)
* It did not boot to TWRP. Instead, I saw a stock recovery type screen (black background, OnePlus logo).
* There was a single text called "Decrypt" and a terminal type basic keyboard displayed on the screen.
* At this point I knew TWRP is gone and this would definitely be the stock recovery, asking me for my PIN, to decrypt storage.
* I entered my PIN and pressed ok. IMMEDIATELY after that the screen displayed the message - "Wiping" along with "do not turn off your device while this happens" or similar.
* I was shocked to see this, as all I had done was enter my PIN in a stock-looking recovery with the OnePlus logo.
* The phone rebooted, and lo and behold - I see the new installation screen saying "Hello" to me!
ALL MY DATA IS GONE. Without any fault of mine! I simply did an OS update, and boot to recovery!
PLEASE HELP!
So you went 4 years without doing a backup? I think your out of luck.
First, I am pretty sure all your data is gone absent some expensive recovery.
Second, when you took the ota, you went back to stock, which is why twrp and magisk disappeared. This is actually how the system is supposed to work.
I don't know what you did in the stock recovery to cause a wipe. You should have rebooted to bootloader and reinstalled twrp from fastboot.
iElvis said:
First, I am pretty sure all your data is gone absent some expensive recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is it possible to recover encrypted storage on an android? i have simply turned the phone off immediately on seeing the new install screen boot up.
iElvis said:
Second, when you took the ota, you went back to stock, which is why twrp and magisk disappeared. This is actually how the system is supposed to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair enough. I knew that.
iElvis said:
I don't know what you did in the stock recovery to cause a wipe. You should have rebooted to bootloader and reinstalled twrp from fastboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly where it's just crazy wrong. It just booted up to a recovery, with a screen saying "Decrypt" and a keyboard! NO mention of the next step being "Wiping".. ! This is just plain crazy, if that's how its designed!
94burns said:
So you went 4 years without doing a backup? I think your out of luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pretty much. was just migrating data from one phone to the next using titanium backup/restore.
How could 4 years of photos and vids be gone? The phone is only weeks old. Surely you have backed these up to a cloud or even a pc at some stage? If you habe data backup turned on, you should have all your apps ready to reinstall.
You should have booted into bootloader, flashed twrp and magisk after the update. The OTA will always resort any custom recovery to stock.
hallo dare said:
How could 4 years of photos and vids be gone? The phone is only weeks old.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just kept migrating it from the previous phones to the next phones. Google photos does have backup of photos and videos. But there was so much more: SMS, call logs, whatsapp photos (the ones which were unlinked due to being moved to SD card earlier), screenshots, voice recordings, telegram images/videos, google authenticator tokens, and many apps whose data doesn't get backed up as part of android/google backup.
angadsingh said:
is it possible to recover encrypted storage on an android? i have simply turned the phone off immediately on seeing the new install screen boot up.
This is exactly where it's just crazy wrong. It just booted up to a recovery, with a screen saying "Decrypt" and a keyboard! NO mention of the next step being "Wiping".. ! This is just plain crazy, if that's how its designed!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have answers for either question. You might have more luck posting in the OP community, or in the official firmware thread.
angadsingh said:
Hi,
My phone and all my personal data (4 years of photos, videos, and other app data) just got WIPED.
Here's how it happened:
* I was on OS 5.1.5 till yesterday. Had TWRP as my recovery and Magisk as my root method. Everything was hunky dory.
* Oxygen OS 5.1.6 hit my phone today. I downloaded the update and installed it. Before installing - it clearly stated that my phone will be unrooted by the update. I was ok with that, as I would have simply installed Magisk again from TWRP.
* After the reboot, I opened Magisk manager and saw that Magisk wasn't installed.
* So I did a reboot to recovery from the phone's reboot options (advanced reboot was ON in developer options)
* It did not boot to TWRP. Instead, I saw a stock recovery type screen (black background, OnePlus logo).
* There was a single text called "Decrypt" and a terminal type basic keyboard displayed on the screen.
* At this point I knew TWRP is gone and this would definitely be the stock recovery, asking me for my PIN, to decrypt storage.
* I entered my PIN and pressed ok. IMMEDIATELY after that the screen displayed the message - "Wiping" along with "do not turn off your device while this happens" or similar.
* I was shocked to see this, as all I had done was enter my PIN in a stock-looking recovery with the OnePlus logo.
* The phone rebooted, and lo and behold - I see the new installation screen saying "Hello" to me!
ALL MY DATA IS GONE. Without any fault of mine! I simply did an OS update, and boot to recovery!
PLEASE HELP!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a rooted device with a custom recovery so how did you install those in the first place and not loose data then? That wipes your phone doing that. It wiped again because it was being unlocked and relocked that always wipes it. Don't claim this is no fault of your own your running a modified device so yes it is your fault don't come on here and play victim it's really annoying
---------- Post added at 11:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 AM ----------
94burns said:
So you went 4 years without doing a backup? I think your out of luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wants to go 4 years without a backup then mod his phone and claim it's not his fault he lost data ??? what a joke
That happened to me too, but I solved it because after I flashed stock and then upgraded to 5.1.6 I installed TWRP in fastboot before booting to recovery.
angadsingh said:
I just kept migrating it from the previous phones to the next phones. Google photos does have backup of photos and videos. But there was so much more: SMS, call logs, whatsapp photos (the ones which were unlinked due to being moved to SD card earlier), screenshots, voice recordings, telegram images/videos, google authenticator tokens, and many apps whose data doesn't get backed up as part of android/google backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Surely you have those titanium backup files though still right? Just restore from that, sure you may lose a week or two but it's better than 4 years.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk
TechOut said:
You have a rooted device with a custom recovery so how did you install those in the first place and not loose data then? That wipes your phone doing that. It wiped again because it was being unlocked and relocked that always wipes it. Don't claim this is no fault of your own your running a modified device so yes it is your fault don't come on here and play victim it's really annoying
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is supposed to wipe data only on unlocking the device. Once it's unlocked there's no reason Android should automatically wipe data.
It did not get relocked. It is still unlocked. How did you come to that conclusion?
Also, I root my device ONLY to install TitaniumBackup and Helium. I do not meddle with anything else being root (no ROMs, tweaks, etc.). Is it my fault that Android STILL doesn't have a way to backup everything without having to root your phone and install special backup apps?
How can the OS just wipe the data partition without user consent? With NO message displayed whatsoever. Just ask a password go on "Wiping.. please wait". What the hell.
geoff5093 said:
Surely you have those titanium backup files though still right? Just restore from that, sure you may lose a week or two but it's better than 4 years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I could recover some data from the SD card of my previous phone. Not the TB backups though.
I really need a way to (a) image the phone so that I can possibly recover/pay for recovery in the future (b) recover the data from the phone
I did a little reading. Apparently forced encryption is something that Android Oreo comes along with. All the data files are now by default encrypted (at a file level not a partition level). It is apparently encrypted with some randomly generated encryption key decided by Android, and not the PIN you have set to lock the phone. The PIN is just associated with that key. I'm pretty sure that key got deleted as well when the device was wiped (I'm assuming it must have been implemented like that as a security measure). So I have a wiped data partition with encrypted files!
NateDev said:
That happened to me too, but I solved it because after I flashed stock and then upgraded to 5.1.6 I installed TWRP in fastboot before booting to recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You knew the data partition would get wiped otherwise? I've been rooting for years and never seen such behavior
angadsingh said:
Yes I could recover some data from the SD card of my previous phone. Not the TB backups though.
I really need a way to (a) image the phone so that I can possibly recover/pay for recovery in the future (b) recover the data from the phone
I did a little reading. Apparently forced encryption is something that Android Oreo comes along with. All the data files are now by default encrypted (at a file level not a partition level). It is apparently encrypted with some randomly generated encryption key decided by Android, and not the PIN you have set to lock the phone. The PIN is just associated with that key. I'm pretty sure that key got deleted as well when the device was wiped (I'm assuming it must have been implemented like that as a security measure). So I have a wiped data partition with encrypted files!
You knew the data partition would get wiped otherwise? I've been rooting for years and never seen such behavior
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take this as a lesson, always have a backup. Especially if you mod your phones
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk
angadsingh said:
Android is supposed to wipe data only on unlocking the device. Once it's unlocked there's no reason Android should automatically wipe data.
It did not get relocked. It is still unlocked. How did you come to that conclusion?
Also, I root my device ONLY to install TitaniumBackup and Helium. I do not meddle with anything else being root (no ROMs, tweaks, etc.). Is it my fault that Android STILL doesn't have a way to backup everything without having to root your phone and install special backup apps?
How can the OS just wipe the data partition without user consent? With NO message displayed whatsoever. Just ask a password go on "Wiping.. please wait". What the hell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It did have consent when you took the OTA with your modded device and it said decrypt and asked for your password it was about to wipe. Again you modded your phone and didn't keep a back up this is no one's fault but yours
Yeah I always back up my messages, photos, etc.. To a PC before any type of flash or update, I use smsbackup and have it uploaded to Google drive also titanuim backup and move the files to PC and just back ur DCIM folder. Sorry for ur luck but we all learn lessons the hard way, and no u Cannot recover, but if u have ur old phone may still have the texts on them and use oneplus switch to move them over
I guarantee this post is from a troll, nobody is dumb enough to do any or all of the idiotic things the OP claims.
Got the (important parts) of my data back. It only wiped the "data" partition - which contained internal app data and sms/calls, etc. It did not wipe the "sdcard" partition (also called "internal storage"). Found this out when I was installing TWRP again (before going through the OS welcome process) to create a dd image of my device for possibility of a future recovery. Android file transfer (thanks to TWRP's MTP support) popped up and showed all my files on the sdcard partition. Immediately backed it up.
To all those senior members who're making fun of this, thanks for all the help, really. You guys were really helpful.
angadsingh said:
Hi,
My phone and all my personal data (4 years of photos, videos, and other app data) just got WIPED.
Here's how it happened:
* I was on OS 5.1.5 till yesterday. Had TWRP as my recovery and Magisk as my root method. Everything was hunky dory.
* Oxygen OS 5.1.6 hit my phone today. I downloaded the update and installed it. Before installing - it clearly stated that my phone will be unrooted by the update. I was ok with that, as I would have simply installed Magisk again from TWRP.
* After the reboot, I opened Magisk manager and saw that Magisk wasn't installed.
* So I did a reboot to recovery from the phone's reboot options (advanced reboot was ON in developer options)
* It did not boot to TWRP. Instead, I saw a stock recovery type screen (black background, OnePlus logo).
* There was a single text called "Decrypt" and a terminal type basic keyboard displayed on the screen.
* At this point I knew TWRP is gone and this would definitely be the stock recovery, asking me for my PIN, to decrypt storage.
* I entered my PIN and pressed ok. IMMEDIATELY after that the screen displayed the message - "Wiping" along with "do not turn off your device while this happens" or similar.
* I was shocked to see this, as all I had done was enter my PIN in a stock-looking recovery with the OnePlus logo.
* The phone rebooted, and lo and behold - I see the new installation screen saying "Hello" to me!
ALL MY DATA IS GONE. Without any fault of mine! I simply did an OS update, and boot to recovery!
PLEASE HELP!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is impossible.. First the phone didn't return to me the root message before updating like oneplus 5 and second point, if you enter the pin to decrypt your data in recovery it never do an automatic wipe i'm a bit confused on what you've really done, but for sure you did something wrong because updating system had never wiped anything
Hitman478™ said:
I think this is impossible.. First the phone didn't return to me the root message before updating like oneplus 5 and second point, if you enter the pin to decrypt your data in recovery it never do an automatic wipe i'm a bit confused on what you've really done, but for sure you did something wrong because updating system had never wiped anything
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well this is completely possible, I just had the same thing happened to me. It was exactly as OP described it (except it was OOS 5.1.7, and it did not even ask me to input a pin when I rebooted to recovery). Fortunately I had a backup, so it didn't impact me much but still, it is a very weird thing.
angadsingh said:
Got the (important parts) of my data back. It only wiped the "data" partition - which contained internal app data and sms/calls, etc. It did not wipe the "sdcard" partition (also called "internal storage"). Found this out when I was installing TWRP again (before going through the OS welcome process) to create a dd image of my device for possibility of a future recovery. Android file transfer (thanks to TWRP's MTP support) popped up and showed all my files on the sdcard partition. Immediately backed it up.
To all those senior members who're making fun of this, thanks for all the help, really. You guys were really helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for being sarcastic about being helpful. Sorry we can't hold your hand and fix all your problems because your not responsible for your own actions of modding your phone and can't take the consequences when they arise. Maybe you should learn how some more things work and what can happen when you do this before you do it and don't backup your device ever

oneplus6 seems damaged following a failed twrp restore

So here is situation.
Phone been running 8.x version of havocos for months, however I was never fully happy due to broken usb tethering and random lockups (blue light freeze).
I decided to work on the phone 2-3 days ago, this involved doing a manual backup of all of data/media, and a nandroid backup. As well as some exports of configs in tasker etc.
I then flashed OOS stock, and nolimits, discovered tethering was still broken (yet it works with same sim in samsung galaxy s7 and hauwei).
This was the only issue tho, everything else was functioning as expected, phone was still fast.
Then I needed quick access to something that was on my phone from havocos, so decided to do a nandroid restore, this nandroid backup had all partitions ticked. The restore I also had all ticked.
The restore failed with an error 255 during data restore, I googled and found out is a nasty known bug for 2 years on TWRP, this backup was done on 3.2.3, I know now is a newer 3.3.x where this particular bug with corrupt backups might possibly be fixed.
I decided to try and boot havoc anyway but it boot looped, so I then went back into TWRP, and restored the vendor partition which was skipped. As it stopped on data, still boot looped, but also now this created a device is corrupt error on every rom boot even on stock OOS.
I spent ages trying to fix this error and during the process, discovered my phone no longer can be detected in flash boot as a com device in windows so currently the phone cannot be used with the MSM tool.
Eventually I reflashed stock using a flash-all script from here, and also put back on twrp using that script, and noticed even more issues that were not there before.
1 - phone is now much slower, stock before booted in one second after first boot, now its way way slower. Over 10 seconds so 10x as slow.
2 - I think before was a cache partition but is now gone. Supposedly these arent a thing anymore tho.
3 - nolimits zip will no longer flash with an error 1, I did exact same process as before but simply doesnt work now, the twrp detailed log right before the error 1 says "Please install the latest Magisk!" which suggests its failing to detect magisk.
4 - camera app is way slower, and OOS feels slower, laggier in general than before the problem.
5 - MTP no longer works when phone is booted up, again this is stock OOS and even if phone isnt rooted no magisk etc. But still works in TWRP. Basically the device pops up, I can see internal storage, but the size information is missing, and is no visible files/folders.
From what I can see I think my EFS is fine, I see an imei number.
I did fix the corrupted device error using a reboot command someone posted in that thread, so that error is gone now at least.
Try to flash oxygen os beta version from the official download links, let it install the stock recovery, then boot into rom, finish the installation progress by just skipping it and then factory reset it twice from recovery mode.
after doing that and finishing the setup , try to take picture and see if its saves it to gallery ( if the picture delete it self try to factory reset it through recovery for 1 more time)
I think you have figured out whats wrong, it just clicked, and I went to post and found your post so sorry no reply yet.
Indeed the problem seems to be a lack of /data/media/0
I have multiple times wiped data, and twrp has been putting files directly in /data/media, I just discovered I Cannot even take screenshots, magisk cannot download modules as well.
So I guess the stock recovery creates this structure?
Pretty shocking that twrp doesnt fix this or even have an option to. I will report back and let you know how things go, thanks.
Issue still there after stock recovery reset, wow these phones are damn hard to work with.
Also it seemed to do nothing, no settings were lost etc.
So basically stock recovery even if I choose full wipe does nothing, there seems to be some kind of lock on the internal storage that anything made by one plus is refusing to write.
I wonder if this is due to the device is corrupt message I had before where it said the device can no longer be trusted.
I can confirm that files that are on there are now visible in file manager and root explorer. But file manager can do no writes. root explorer can create new stuff but cannot delete or overwrite anything there, gets access denied.
I propose to start over again following this guide, option flash-all-partitions.bat. Helped for me.
I already stated thats already been done.
I eventually got msm working. and that luckily worked.
@chrcol ..., but you've issues
chrcol said:
I already stated thats already been done.
I eventually got msm working. and that luckily worked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In recovery, format data. Problem fixed. Wipe will never fix your problem but format will.

One partition/slot corrupted(?)

One of my slots/partitions does not work anymore. Both should have the same OOS with blue_spark kernel and his TWRP mod - but slot A doesn't boot (stuck on the "bootloader unlocked" warning screen, doesn't reboot as far as I can tell) and when I have it active, the recovery doesn't prompt me for my PIN - and all user data is still encrypted. Slot B works flawless though.
(It's been like that for a few months already, I just forgot about it since I haven't rebooted my phone in a while.)
What course of action should I take?
I've looked before and found this thread - https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-6/help/bootloop-one-partitions-t3809859
But honestly, I'm not sure if it's the same issue. I can't tell if it's bootlooping and I assume it isn't, since it's stuck on the warning.
Not very sure how I managed to do this exactly but I think it's because I forgot to remove my fingerprint lock etc. before flashing a new custom rom (or because I removed it directly after and switched partitions unintentionally? I have no clue anymore)
I've back most of my important data up, so I'd be open to basically reset everything, if that's the only way.
Would the appropriate way about this be to just go into recovery and tell it to wipe everything?
Use the MSM tool to flash a fresh image onto your phone. Then, once you're booted, flash an ota image (this will be flashed onto the other slot) via the oneplus local system update option.
This should work as I have faced your issue a couple of times while changing roms.
Personally I would just start fresh and use the MSM tool. Read a post somewhere on Reddit yesterday when I was in the same boat and some guy said you could clone slot A with B and vice versa using TWRP or some Motorola based tool, but seeing as it would have been quicker and cleaner to just do it the MSM route, I went for that.
It sounds like a security patch incompatibility. I don't think there's any way to fix it besides reformatting that slot. You will of course lose all your data.

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