Related
A day or two ago I unlocked my ChaCha using the HTCDev.com instructions. I then used DooMLoRD_v4_ROOT-zergRush-busybox-su to root it. Everything was going fine until I apparently deleted one too many system apps and now my phone is in extremis.
The problem: As the phone boots up and reaches the HTC logo screen, just when the main interface should appear, an error pops up. It says:
Code:
Sorry!
The process com.htc.bg has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.
[Force close]
When I close it, the HTC logo appears again as the main GUI is reinitialised, which leads to the same error popping up again, thus entering into an infinite loop.
I can just about manage to connect the phone to my PC as a disk drive, but it's not connected in such a way that RUU or unrooting applications can "find" it from within Windows, so if I'm to fix this it's gotta be from the SD card/Hboot.
Details:
* HTC ChaCha with the latest Android firmware.
* Unlocked and rooted, but remains S-ON (Superuser was installed and worked).
* Used Titanium to delete apps, but made backups and have them on my hard drive for safe keeping but can't access the phone in order to restore them properly.
* I was unable to restore backed-up system apps prior to this critical problem emerging, which I think is because my phone isn't "truly" rooted. I can apparently remove from but not add to the protected areas of the phone.
* I've tried flashing the device with numerous recovery ROMs and they all fail (wrong image, etc.). I'm having an extremely difficult time finding the original ROM anywhere and more importantly finding one which will work without the phone being connected to the PC at any stage of the flashing job.
* Factory resets and recovery boots don't seem to have any effect.
* It's a carrier-locked/branded phone, from Three/Hutchison 3G UK. I'm locked into my contract for another year at least.
* Before I rebooted the phone for the last time [prior to the beginning of the above problem] I noticed that my ringtones and related media were all gone and I was unable to download new ones even using third-party apps; the "unable to download sound" error was constantly popping up and when I received messages or phone calls the phone would vibrate but wouldn't play any tones.
* My brother and I spent the better part of 6 hours scouring the net and trying every combination of steps we could think of to try and resolve this. I wouldn't have posted here if I wasn't at the end of my tether and if I hadn't tried every solution I could find from others on various forums including this one, nor would I be so quick to reveal myself to be a deletion-happy moron to a forum of experts (I saw that anti-noob YouTube clip!).
Is there any hope of fixing this issue given my obvious lack of critical faculties?
Thank you for reading this.
You can always install clockworkmod recovery and from there a custom rom. Check the relevant thread, it is pinned.
OK,
don't panic. I almost thought you'd hard bricked your phone when modifying the NAND. This is a soft brick and ALL soft bricks can be recovered, they just take a bit of pain and suffering. Sometimes more suffering than others, but that's irrelevant.
Question, you say you can't restore system apps? How did you try? If a phone is perm rooted, it's rooted. Obviously a temp root is different to a perm root, but I believe this is a perm root as you can REMOVE apps from the system memory. If a root wasn't perm, every app would be sandboxed so no app, including titaniumbackup would work.
* Unlocked and rooted, but remains S-ON (Superuser was installed and worked).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
S-ON is part of HTC's snap on BL protection. The fact your phone is S-ON is now not that important, the BL is unlocked, thats what matters.
* Used Titanium to delete apps, but made backups and have them on my hard drive for safe keeping but can't access the phone in order to restore them properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, important advice here (for future ref), you shouldn't go mad with deleting unless you've tried freezing first. Freezing allows you to recover by simply doing a factory reset. Most bootloaders (including HTC's) allow you to perform an emergency factory reset from there. You might lose all the **** on there, but you will have a working phone. You also need to be careful with TitaniumBackup, I'm sure you didn't remove the obvious important ones, but the fact you lost access to your audio means you removed a sound/media package. Next time, google "HTC chacha, safe to remove" as more people root this phone in the next few weeks, safe to remove lists will appear. For SGS (my phone) there is a whole shared google doc with a list of system apps, and the consequence of removing them.
* I was unable to restore backed-up system apps prior to this critical problem emerging, which I think is because my phone isn't "truly" rooted. I can apparently remove from but not add to the protected areas of the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't restore a system app if there is a conflict. Try and identify the conflict.
* I've tried flashing the device with numerous recovery ROMs and they all fail (wrong image, etc.). I'm having an extremely difficult time finding the original ROM anywhere and more importantly finding one which will work without the phone being connected to the PC at any stage of the flashing job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the sounds of it, you are using ROMs designed for CWM. If you are going to do that, flash CWM first. There are shed loads of tutorials. If you want to install the stock rom all over again, just download the stock RUU.
* Factory resets and recovery boots don't seem to have any effect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See above about freezing.
* It's a carrier-locked/branded phone, from Three/Hutchison 3G UK. I'm locked into my contract for another year at least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter, you'll fix it, guarantee it.
* Before I rebooted the phone for the last time [prior to the beginning of the above problem] I noticed that my ringtones and related media were all gone and I was unable to download new ones even using third-party apps; the "unable to download sound" error was constantly popping up and when I received messages or phone calls the phone would vibrate but wouldn't play any tones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See what I said above.
* My brother and I spent the better part of 6 hours scouring the net and trying every combination of steps we could think of to try and resolve this. I wouldn't have posted here if I wasn't at the end of my tether and if I hadn't tried every solution I could find from others on various forums including this one, nor would I be so quick to reveal myself to be a deletion-happy moron to a forum of experts (I saw that anti-noob YouTube clip!).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried every combination of steps? You've clearly not tried CWM. I'm not suggesting that as a silver bullet (personally, I try to avoid CWM if I can) but it's the best way to give you low level access to the NAND so you could easily flash an OTA ROM, modded ROM or even return it to stock dead quick.
For a safe to remove list, check the Themes and Apps section.
skezza said:
OK,
don't panic. I almost thought you'd hard bricked your phone when modifying the NAND. This is a soft brick and ALL soft bricks can be recovered, they just take a bit of pain and suffering. Sometimes more suffering than others, but that's irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Music to my ears!
skezza said:
Question, you say you can't restore system apps? How did you try? If a phone is perm rooted, it's rooted. Obviously a temp root is different to a perm root, but I believe this is a perm root as you can REMOVE apps from the system memory. If a root wasn't perm, every app would be sandboxed so no app, including titaniumbackup would work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Titanium Backup I tried restoring the backups I made; the "Recovering Backup" notice would just hang indefinitely until I forced TB to close. This only happened with system apps. The backed up files are still on my PC hard drive from when I copied them from my SD card, but I'm not sure they're of any use at this stage.
skezza said:
S-ON is part of HTC's snap on BL protection. The fact your phone is S-ON is now not that important, the BL is unlocked, thats what matters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhh, this is probably my problem then. I ignored most of the fixes and workarounds listed as [S-OFF] because I didn't think they'd work for my device haha.
skezza said:
Ok, important advice here (for future ref), you shouldn't go mad with deleting unless you've tried freezing first. Freezing allows you to recover by simply doing a factory reset. Most bootloaders (including HTC's) allow you to perform an emergency factory reset from there. You might lose all the **** on there, but you will have a working phone. You also need to be careful with TitaniumBackup, I'm sure you didn't remove the obvious important ones, but the fact you lost access to your audio means you removed a sound/media package. Next time, google "HTC chacha, safe to remove" as more people root this phone in the next few weeks, safe to remove lists will appear. For SGS (my phone) there is a whole shared google doc with a list of system apps, and the consequence of removing them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm disappointed in myself for being so haphazard in my deleting, I'm usually not that stupid but I think I was a little overexcited to have finally gotten rid of some of the bloatware that'd irritated me for so long haha. I was like "oh boy, I can save even more battery power and internal space if I just remove a little more!". Lesson learnt
skezza said:
By the sounds of it, you are using ROMs designed for CWM. If you are going to do that, flash CWM first. There are shed loads of tutorials. If you want to install the stock rom all over again, just download the stock RUU.
...
Have you tried every combination of steps? You've clearly not tried CWM. I'm not suggesting that as a silver bullet (personally, I try to avoid CWM if I can) but it's the best way to give you low level access to the NAND so you could easily flash an OTA ROM, modded ROM or even return it to stock dead quick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said above I didn't realise I could make use of [S-OFF] materials so I didn't even attempt them for fear of making matters worse. I just now attempted to flash CWM and it hung on "parsing" which is what happened with previous flash attempts. If a flash attempt doesn't hang on "parsing" it parses for a second and then goes back to the main menu, apparently having no effect.
I'd be lying if I said I'm not overwhelmed by all of this; the tutorials I've read seem to assume a fair degree of prior knowledge that I definitely don't have haha. I hope I don't stretch anyone's patience here, but if you could explain it to me like a 6-year-old whose mother drank heavily during pregnancy I think it will help move things along!
Thank you for the thorough reply, much appreciated
Follow this to flash CWM, you need to do it with your computer and using fastboot, this is needed for S-ON phones.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681
dapaua said:
Follow this to flash CWM, you need to do it with your computer and using fastboot, this is needed for S-ON phones.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately I can't do anything via my computer; my phone isn't "discovered" by the command line, unrooting tools or anything else. It does allow me to access the SD card as a hard drive but that's all it does. Obviously this wasn't the case before my problems started, because I used my PC to root and unlock the phone originally, but now the phone's boot process can't reach a point where it becomes receptive to the PC's commands. I don't know why it lets me access the SD card though.
Is there any way to do this without my PC being involved beyond transferring files to the SD card? If not, am I screwed? haha
Thanks mate!
Can you boot into the bootloader (Whith the phone off, press Volume down + power for five seconds)?
Then boot into it, move up with the volume keys and then choose fastboot.
Then follow the procedures in the link I posted previously http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681 (start from step 3). Fastboot mode should be recognized.
The fastboot binary is here C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\tools , if you installed the android SDK, which I asume you did.
Good luck, I hope this works!
dapaua said:
Can you boot into the bootloader (Whith the phone off, press Volume down + power for five seconds)?
Then boot into it, move up with the volume keys and then choose fastboot.
Then follow the procedures in the link I posted previously http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681 (start from step 3). Fastboot mode should be recognized.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear CHRIST thank you for that - I didn't know about this feature, and it worked! I was able to connect to my PC and do everything I needed to. I used the command line to flash the CWM, then followed instructions for partitioning the SD card and installing a custom ROM. I feel like a real [email protected] I wonder if Anonymous are looking for any new recruits...
dapaua said:
Good luck, I hope this works!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It did - I'm back in business!! Thank you mate, if I could fellate you via WiFi I probably would. You'd have to be wearing some anti-virus trousers though, I'm not a slut.
Cheers!
PaddyM said:
Dear CHRIST thank you for that - I didn't...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great news (I thought you already knew about the recovery menu feature otherwise I'd have mentioned it).
As I said in my reply earlier, every soft brick can be fixed somehow. Some are just harder than others. If I'm honest, it seems like yours was pretty straightforward once you got into the Recovery menu.
By the way, if you decide you want to return to stock, you can do that quite easily. Also, if I was you, do the freezing technique I suggested earlier and use the safe list that's available.
If you keep CWM, do a Nandroid backup. You don't have to keep it on your SD, but they are great for doing a very fast recovery. I can usually restore my phone in about 10 - 15 minutes using Nandroid.
PaddyM said:
Dear CHRIST thank you for that - I didn't know about this feature, and it worked! I was able to connect to my PC and do everything I needed to. I used the command line to flash the CWM, then followed instructions for partitioning the SD card and installing a custom ROM. I feel like a real [email protected] I wonder if Anonymous are looking for any new recruits...
It did - I'm back in business!! Thank you mate, if I could fellate you via WiFi I probably would. You'd have to be wearing some anti-virus trousers though, I'm not a slut.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm happy it worked. Let's hope WiFi technology improves in the future
skezza said:
Great news (I thought you already knew about the recovery menu feature otherwise I'd have mentioned it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I knew about the recovery menu (the stock one, at least) but I didn't realise I could go into the Fastboot option and for the phone to then be recognisable to the PC, thus making it possible to flash via the command line. If I had known that I probably wouldn't have needed to post this thread at all haha.
skezza said:
As I said in my reply earlier, every soft brick can be fixed somehow. Some are just harder than others. If I'm honest, it seems like yours was pretty straightforward once you got into the Recovery menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah... I think if it happened to one of you guys you probably would have had it sorted in about 6 minutes. 3 days isn't bad for my first attempt though! hahaha
skezza said:
By the way, if you decide you want to return to stock, you can do that quite easily. Also, if I was you, do the freezing technique I suggested earlier and use the safe list that's available.
If you keep CWM, do a Nandroid backup. You don't have to keep it on your SD, but they are great for doing a very fast recovery. I can usually restore my phone in about 10 - 15 minutes using Nandroid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice man, I'll definitely be looking into the Nandroid backup option, although I hope I've learnt enough from this experience to have no need for it
Thanks to everyone who posted here, I appreciate the patience and the tolerance of my noobery.
Funnily enough, I tried TitaniumBackup today and the original poster is correct. While you can freeze, remove apps etc, you can't return them. especially system. I've not tried any of the alternative install methods that TB uses, but it's quite interesting.
TB is a bit quirky, I think. The system apps won't restore at all, but sometimes apps that I've downloaded myself will restore and other times they won't (the "Restoring App" notice just hangs there indefinitely). I usually find that forcing TB to close and then trying again does the trick, but I can't figure out why it happens in the first place.
Im wondering if anyone else has worked out a good configuration that will allow it to work every time?
I wondered if anyone knows of a way to 'repair' the system files on a fully locked Windows Phone without wiping the phone?
I've got a problem on my phone, which I've posted in various places but had no help with yet.
I'm on a Lumia 620 these days. It's a troublesome little thing, but I suppose it is new and teething so I'm sticking with it.
Thanks loads for any help!
My dear friend...
If you need to repair the system files it's because you have an unlocked one and started to play with some files or an update failed.
but since the phone is "fully locked", full flashing is the solution...
My advice, get rid of the official ROM and install any custom that can work with WP Backup, that way you'll have a backup to restore apps and its respective data to the phone, if you do a hard reset or change the ROM you can set your phone the way it was before the change.
WP Backup only work with customs...
Any help about the use PM me.
Remember, goodbye official ROM, HELLO CUSTOM...:good:
faustolg said:
If you need to repair the system files it's because you have an unlocked one and started to play with some files or an update failed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's brand new, unmodified, and never been updated. It may surprise you to learn that files can be corrupted because of file system errors.
And also that you can't unlock Nokia WPs or WP8s.
And that resetting is quicker and easier than re-flashing.
And that I asked about repairing the system files without having to do either. Obviously I know I can reset since I mentioned it in my post.
So well done. A really outstanding reply. So good that I didn't finish reading it. I'll skip the PM thanks.
at45 said:
It's brand new, unmodified, and never been updated. It may surprise you to learn that files can be corrupted because of file system errors.
And also that you can't unlock Nokia WPs or WP8s.
And that resetting is quicker and easier than re-flashing.
And that I asked about repairing the system files without having to do either. Obviously I know I can reset since I mentioned it in my post.
So well done. A really outstanding reply. So good that I didn't finish reading it. I'll skip the PM thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
your on a Windows phone 8 phone and that isn't unlocked/hacked in any way.
sorry to say this to you but there is no way for you to mod/fix System files on a unhacked phone
this means that you Need to do a Hard reset or Flash a new stock Rom (when possible)
So Mr. "PERFECT"...
You ask, and then you insult...
Why don't you sell that phone and get an android, since you are whining about WP, also the post is another idiotic misplaced post, since you have WP8, you have a serious sight problem: "Windows Phone 7 General" <-- This rings any bell for you?
you're asking about WP8 on WP7, you are incredibly "perfect"
I don't really care if you don't like my answers or if it helps you or not at all; next time don't even ask, since you already know the answer and you like to ask only to bash anyone who tries to give you help.
1st of all, i am a beginner. Just brought my android ics phone last month. I also rooted my phone by the help of my friend last week. But yesterday i was trying to restore factory settings. But i accidentally wiped my system. And now my phone wont boot. It stuck in BootScreen. Nothing happens then. I dont have the backup of my rom. what to do now ??? Please help!! Sorry for my bad English & Thanks in advance who wanna help me
..
What recovery are you using? Even if you wiped the phone you should still have it running. All you need to do is reboot in recovery mode. Hard to tell you how as I dunno what the phone is.
Before that you'll need to download your stock firmware and put it on the root directory of your SD card if you have one, so that once in recovery you'll actually have something to flash.
If the phone doesn't have a SD slot, then you'll need to use a recovery tool on your PC to flash it.
Right now shut the phone down, remove the battery, find some guides specific about your phone, and read them carefully. There's a reason why we're using recoveries. First thing you should have done is to backup your stock firmware somewhere on your computer or on the cloud, and make sure you knew how to use it if something like that was to happen... Little late for that now.
When you'll know what to do, just mind that you still have enough battery to flash the stock ROM. Come back to ask help here if there's something you don't understand. Good luck!
faisalsarkar7 said:
1st of all, i am a beginner. Just brought my android ics phone last month. I also rooted my phone by the help of my friend last week. But yesterday i was trying to restore factory settings. But i accidentally wiped my system. And now my phone wont boot. It stuck in BootScreen. Nothing happens then. I dont have the backup of my rom. what to do now ??? Please help!! Sorry for my bad English & Thanks in advance who wanna help me
..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. Just install this partition manager free. It is perfectly adapted for windows 8. And you are offered a variety of options which can swap/merge/separate new partitions. With a very easy-to-understand instructions, everything is perfect!
Thanks for kindly reply
ModRQC said:
What recovery are you using? Even if you wiped the phone you should still have it running. All you need to do is reboot in recovery mode. Hard to tell you how as I dunno what the phone is.
Before that you'll need to download your stock firmware and put it on the root directory of your SD card if you have one, so that once in recovery you'll actually have something to flash.
If the phone doesn't have a SD slot, then you'll need to use a recovery tool on your PC to flash it.
Right now shut the phone down, remove the battery, find some guides specific about your phone, and read them carefully. There's a reason why we're using recoveries. First thing you should have done is to backup your stock firmware somewhere on your computer or on the cloud, and make sure you knew how to use it if something like that was to happen... Little late for that now.
When you'll know what to do, just mind that you still have enough battery to flash the stock ROM. Come back to ask help here if there's something you don't understand. Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using TWRP recovery in my Chinese Branded SymphonyW35, Do i have to download my stock rom ?
faisalsarkar7 said:
1st of all, i am a beginner. Just brought my android ics phone last month. I also rooted my phone by the help of my friend last week. But yesterday i was trying to restore factory settings. But i accidentally wiped my system. And now my phone wont boot. It stuck in BootScreen. Nothing happens then. I dont have the backup of my rom. what to do now ??? Please help!! Sorry for my bad English & Thanks in advance who wanna help me
..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get original ROM and set him from a computer or through bootlouder
Thanks for kindly reply
lykosha said:
Get original ROM and set him from a computer or through bootlouder
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know how to flash my stock rom. Please refer me to a forum containing tutorial about Flash a Rom.....
Well that's the kick, is it? Most of what I found through a quick search was in foreign language... I do english, french, and a little spanish, but that's it...
I did find THIS quite easily though... My bet is, start from there to find infos... That's all I can do right now to help you, sorry!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2379132
Edit : and this one too : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=42938085
Mind you they may not be exactly what you're looking for, but you'll surely find your way to an answer if you take some time to read through these.
faisalsarkar7 said:
I don't know how to flash my stock rom. Please refer me to a forum containing tutorial about Flash a Rom.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What telephone, model, do you have? On the model of vehicle find a theme. All must be written up there.
Hi xda!
So a few days ago, late at night and yes i know this probalby was one of the most idiotic things i've ever done, i tried to recover some deleted messages on my phone.
I guess it was one emotional, spur of the moment action and i came accross "dr fone" ...
Bought it on the googly play store, it had about 5M downlaods, 3 stars, so i tought maybe people couldn't recover what ever. So i installed it it than asked me to also install some software on my PC, so i did without thinking. It told me the phone will be rooted because then i can search better so i did. Please remember it was a emotional/without thinking moment, I guess my gut told me it is stupid but i just wanted the messages back. I really hate myself for this i really do and ...
It wasn't able to recover the messages a few minutes later i kind of freaked out, removed the app from my phone, uninstalled the the app from pc and did go to bed with a very bad feeling but i tried telling myself its fine. Next morning i woke up immediately rememberd, frist thing i did was completely wipe my pc (new windows installation, hope that did the trick for the pc) and tried to factory reset my phone.
I noticed kind of a weired message something like "could not find correct software version" (cant recall it right now). Anyway I did make the factory reset and ...
I couldn't stop thinking about this message, at least what i figured out is that its probably because the phone was rooted right?
So i did some further investigations and realized after rooting a phone they would have had full access to the OS and could have done some modifications and a factory reset just clears data from phone but does not reset the OS and ROM. So if they put something bad there it wouldn't be reseted and further now i may not retrieve further updates and so on...
So my conclusion after sleeping a day or two about it is to put a new ROM on my phone because this wipes it clean right?
So i have following questions:
1. Is it possible the bootloader on my phone is hacked and how likely is it? (If likely what can i do about it?)
2. Does putting a new ROM on my phone wipe it clean?
3. I saw that there are Samsung stock roms out there are they legit should i use them? I'm also thinking about Lineage OS, since my phone is ****ed anyway and i might get no further samsung updates. - What are your toughts about this?
4. Guess i can figure this out myself (the other questions are bigger concerns to me) but some pointers for installing the ROM? (guess just watch a guide or so and do it with odin?)
I really really hope you guys can help me/ provide me with some background knwoledge.
Really appreciate your help!
Also thanks in advance (im really concerned)
android_rookie123 said:
So i have following questions:
1. Is it possible the bootloader on my phone is hacked and how likely is it? (If likely what can i do about it?)
2. Does putting a new ROM on my phone wipe it clean?
3. I saw that there are Samsung stock roms out there are they legit should i use them? I'm also thinking about Lineage OS, since my phone is ****ed anyway and i might get no further samsung updates. - What are your toughts about this?
4. Guess i can figure this out myself (the other questions are bigger concerns to me) but some pointers for installing the ROM? (guess just watch a guide or so and do it with odin?)
I really really hope you guys can help me/ provide me with some background knwoledge.
Really appreciate your help!
Also thanks in advance (im really concerned)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing a full manufacturers ROM with a full wipe will clean your phone. Flashing a custom ROM or only part of manufacturers won't. You don't say what manufacturer your phone is but I assume it's a Samsung since you mention Odin & Samsung so you want the full 4 files firmware to flash with Odin from a trusted source eg sammobile. com
Hey all, I did a bad thing. Please help.
Just wanna start off by saying I'm really stupid and things like this make me not want to modify my device anymore. I recently updated to 10.3.0, and after flashing something in the wrong order, I soft bricked my OP6. Since I wanted to basically start over with Android 10, I decided to just do a full wipe, without reading how to. I wiped all partitions through TWRP (Which I very quickly learned is a stupid thing to do) because that it how I went about installing new ROMs on my old phone. That left me with just the bootloader on my phone and nothing more. So I used fastboot to flash recovery and 10.3.0 and everything was fine, or at least I thought.
Everything has been fine for about a week now, until my phone randomly restarted. Upon reboot, my sim card wasn't reading and whenever I tried going to it's settings, it would say "com.android.phone keeps stopping" and after a bunch of searching around... I learned what an EFS Partition is and I'm pretty sure that bad boy is gone. Putting *#06# in the keypad gives me a MEID number, but no IMEI number.
So my question now is, is there anything I can do? I found a few posts that say you could try flashing ColorOS (but there is only an unofficial port for OP6), one comment I found said to use a program called EFS Professional and flash back to stock, and some others suggested MSM tool? Which I haven't used, so I have no clue what that's about. Does anyone have experience or a suggestion for me, please? Any help is greatly appreciated.
My phone is also completely working right now, apart from sim card use. The sim was also 100% working for about a week, before it randomly rebooted, is that normal? I just want to get my phone back to working order, I'm done with modifying. I feel stupid and defeated lmao, oh man, pls help.
Juwapa said:
Hey all, I did a bad thing. Please help.
Just wanna start off by saying I'm really stupid and things like this make me not want to modify my device anymore. I recently updated to 10.3.0, and after flashing something in the wrong order, I soft bricked my OP6. Since I wanted to basically start over with Android 10, I decided to just do a full wipe, without reading how to. I wiped all partitions through TWRP (Which I very quickly learned is a stupid thing to do) because that it how I went about installing new ROMs on my old phone. That left me with just the bootloader on my phone and nothing more. So I used fastboot to flash recovery and 10.3.0 and everything was fine, or at least I thought.
Everything has been fine for about a week now, until my phone randomly restarted. Upon reboot, my sim card wasn't reading and whenever I tried going to it's settings, it would say "com.android.phone keeps stopping" and after a bunch of searching around... I learned what an EFS Partition is and I'm pretty sure that bad boy is gone. Putting *#06# in the keypad gives me a MEID number, but no IMEI number.
So my question now is, is there anything I can do? I found a few posts that say you could try flashing ColorOS (but there is only an unofficial port for OP6), one comment I found said to use a program called EFS Professional and flash back to stock, and some others suggested MSM tool? Which I haven't used, so I have no clue what that's about. Does anyone have experience or a suggestion for me, please? Any help is greatly appreciated.
My phone is also completely working right now, apart from sim card use. The sim was also 100% working for about a week, before it randomly rebooted, is that normal? I just want to get my phone back to working order, I'm done with modifying. I feel stupid and defeated lmao, oh man, pls help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright calm down, yes what you have done isn't smart to do but nothing is gonna change that, we can't go back in time.
First of I would start with restoring your device by using the the MSM Download Tool which you can find here --> https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-6/how-to/tool-msmdownloadtool-v4-0-international-t3798892
All you need to know is described in the thread, read it carefully before attempting to restore your device. It will re-lock the bootloader, wipe the internal storage and restore all the partitions on your device. Make sure you made a backup of all your important files which might be stored on your device. If those instructions are still not clear enough you could watch this video which shows how to restore your device, here is a link to that video --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtc7EhNsfPA&feature=youtu.be
After restoring your device you should check if your device shows it's IMEI number again, if not I can't help you further. I've never used the EFS Professional tool with the OP6. So attempting to restore the IMEI with that tool is on your own risk.
I hope you learn from this experience, you should always make backups of the important partitions of your device before even thinking about modifying the system on your device in any way. This won't change your current situation by saying this but it will be helpful in the future.
Good luck!
Mr.FREE_Bird said:
Alright calm down, yes what you have done isn't smart to do but nothing is gonna change that, we can't go back in time.
First of I would start with restoring your device by using the the MSM Download Tool which you can find here --> https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-6/how-to/tool-msmdownloadtool-v4-0-international-t3798892
All you need to know is described in the thread, read it carefully before attempting to restore your device. It will re-lock the bootloader, wipe the internal storage and restore all the partitions on your device. Make sure you made a backup of all your important files which might be stored on your device. If those instructions are still not clear enough you could watch this video which shows how to restore your device, here is a link to that video -->
&feature=youtu.be
After restoring your device you should check if your device shows it's IMEI number again, if not I can't help you further. I've never used the EFS Professional tool with the OP6. So attempting to restore the IMEI with that tool is on your own risk.
I hope you learn from this experience, you should always make backups of the important partitions of your device before even thinking about modifying the system on your device in any way. This won't change your current situation by saying this but it will be helpful in the future.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thank you so much for the quick reply. So apparently it was just a problem with xXx NoLimits, I think? I tried uninstalling it right after making the original post and now my sim is working like normal. I'm confused because I don't think I had any settings with NoLimits that should of affected the sim or even storage of my phone. So why would it work fine for a week and just randomly decide to kill itself like that? As you can see in the screenshots, my IMEI was missing and is now back.
But I'm still worried about when I had wiped all partitions, is there something funky going on with the partitions/storage of my device? Is the "EFS Partition" the only partition that can be permanently lost? If I can still make a backup of it, I should definitely do that, and is there anything else I specifically should make sure I have backed up?
Juwapa said:
Hi, thank you so much for the quick reply. So apparently it was just a problem with xXx NoLimits, I think? I tried uninstalling it right after making the original post and now my sim is working like normal. I'm confused because I don't think I had any settings with NoLimits that should of affected the sim or even storage of my phone. So why would it work fine for a week and just randomly decide to kill itself like that? As you can see in the screenshots, my IMEI was missing and is now back.
But I'm still worried about when I had wiped all partitions, is there something funky going on with the partitions/storage of my device? Is the "EFS Partition" the only partition that can be permanently lost? If I can still make a backup of it, I should definitely do that, and is there anything else I specifically should make sure I have backed up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem!
Strange, sounds like something you configured in your xXx NoLimits config caused some trouble. Maybe you debloated an app that causes this behavior? It would be a guessing game for me.
If I was you I would restore the device using the MSM Download Tool to start clean again. After that I would make a full system backup using TWRP. So in case you do lose the EFS partition or something else you will have something to fall back on.
The EFS partition can indeed be lost but you would really need to badly mess with the system on your device. I've only once experienced a lost IMEI number after a system update on my LG G4 but I could restore it using the EFS Professional tool. The actual EFS partition was still there I think but got corrupted somehow. Luckily I had made a backup of that partition with TWRP but I still needed to write the IMEI number to it manually. You should just always make backups before attempting to modify the system on your device. Lesson learned right?
Mr.FREE_Bird said:
No problem!
Strange, sounds like something you configured in your xXx NoLimits config caused some trouble. Maybe you debloated an app that causes this behavior? It would be a guessing game for me.
If I was you I would restore the device using the MSM Download Tool to start clean again. After that I would make a full system backup using TWRP. So in case you do lose the EFS partition or something else you will have something to fall back on.
The EFS partition can indeed be lost but you would really need to badly mess with the system on your device. I've only once experienced a lost IMEI number after a system update on my LG G4 but I could restore it using the EFS Professional tool. The actual EFS partition was still there I think but got corrupted somehow. Luckily I had made a backup of that partition with TWRP but I still needed to write the IMEI number to it manually. You should just always make backups before attempting to modify the system on your device. Lesson learned right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for this info. May I ask what the best way to actually backup the EFS Partition would be? After a quick google search, a few different apps popped up. But based on your reply, I'm assuming you've done this before, so is there a certain method you would suggest for a noob like myself?
And as far as using the MSM Tool for a complete reset/backup, do you think that would really be necessary? From what I've read, newer versions of TWRP don't even let you delete/backup the EFS Partition, which means it would be unlikely that I even actually touched that partition, right? And my experience was most likely caused by some xXx NoLimits setting then, I'd assume. I think what messed me up when I first upgraded to 10.3.0, was that I accidentally wiped the Vender partition (which I believe is what the recovery is now on?) Which is why I had to flash via fastboot. But still, I would like to backup the EFS Partition just to be assured I won't have this come up in the future. But outside of the EFS Partition, isn't it pretty easy to fix any Partition/Bricks that might occur on the OnePlus 6?
And again, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to a silly goose like me. I've made it this far without damaging ant of my phones but I think it's about time I stop playing with fire and actually read/backup important stuff haha.
Nolimit and random reboot in android 10.0.3? Turn off kernel tweaks in Nolimit profiles, and then flash Nolimit. It will be fine.
Juwapa said:
Thank you so much for this info. May I ask what the best way to actually backup the EFS Partition would be? After a quick google search, a few different apps popped up. But based on your reply, I'm assuming you've done this before, so is there a certain method you would suggest for a noob like myself?
And as far as using the MSM Tool for a complete reset/backup, do you think that would really be necessary? From what I've read, newer versions of TWRP don't even let you delete/backup the EFS Partition, which means it would be unlikely that I even actually touched that partition, right? And my experience was most likely caused by some xXx NoLimits setting then, I'd assume. I think what messed me up when I first upgraded to 10.3.0, was that I accidentally wiped the Vender partition (which I believe is what the recovery is now on?) Which is why I had to flash via fastboot. But still, I would like to backup the EFS Partition just to be assured I won't have this come up in the future. But outside of the EFS Partition, isn't it pretty easy to fix any Partition/Bricks that might occur on the OnePlus 6?
And again, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to a silly goose like me. I've made it this far without damaging ant of my phones but I think it's about time I stop playing with fire and actually read/backup important stuff haha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have always used TWRP for making a backup of the EFS Partition, the option to do so is still available in the backup section in TWRP. It is indeed very unlikely you ever touched that partition but as you experienced it isn't hard to mess up the installation of your system so you should definitely back it up just to be sure you could restore it if something goes wrong. If I'm not mistaken the recovery is actually written to the boot partition and not the vendor partition or that has changed since Android 10. But I don't see any reason to ever wipe the vendor partition. You should always carefully read instructions before installing any kind of software so you are sure you are doing it right. And yes, fixing soft bricks on the OP6 isn't hard to do when you know what you are doing. Doing research is very important, by doing so you know what you are doing, how you should do it and you will have a higher chance to fix errors in case things don't turn out to work as they should. Luckily things didn't go very wrong for you but I hope you'll spend some time doing research before you are going to modify the system on your device. It will prevent a lot of trouble. But by making mistakes you will learn to right. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that you should copy your backups to an other device or storage in case your internal storage gets wiped.
It's not a problem to give a helping hand, that's what this place is for. I'm always glad to help those who kindly ask for help. :good:
Mr.FREE_Bird said:
I have always used TWRP for making a backup of the EFS Partition, the option to do so is still available in the backup section in TWRP. It is indeed very unlikely you ever touched that partition but as you experienced it isn't hard to mess up the installation of your system so you should definitely back it up just to be sure you could restore it if something goes wrong. If I'm not mistaken the recovery is actually written to the boot partition and not the vendor partition or that has changed since Android 10. But I don't see any reason to ever wipe the vendor partition. You should always carefully read instructions before installing any kind of software so you are sure you are doing it right. And yes, fixing soft bricks on the OP6 isn't hard to do when you know what you are doing. Doing research is very important, by doing so you know what you are doing, how you should do it and you will have a higher chance to fix errors in case things don't turn out to work as they should. Luckily things didn't go very wrong for you but I hope you'll spend some time doing research before you are going to modify the system on your device. It will prevent a lot of trouble. But by making mistakes you will learn to right. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that you should copy your backups to an other device or storage in case your internal storage gets wiped.
It's not a problem to give a helping hand, that's what this place is for. I'm always glad to help those who kindly ask for help. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I finally had time to sit down and make backups of my device. I made a backup of just the EFS and Modem Partition only and I made another complete backup of everything. This should be all I need right?
And yes, I will keep the backups on my PC and on the flash drive I keep my current rom, recovery, kernel, and magisk on.
Shyciii said:
Nolimit and random reboot in android 10.0.3? Turn off kernel tweaks in Nolimit profiles, and then flash Nolimit. It will be fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could be wrong, but I don't think I had KernelTweaks on to begin with. I keep reading people are having problems with it, so I think I'll just stop using it. And it wasn't reboots that were the problem, I only had the one reboot. The problem was my phone wasn't recognizing my sim card nor did it give me my IMEI number, which is why I thought I might of messed up the EFS Partition. But thank you for the reply.
I'm about out of options anyone tried using smt download mode on msm tool.? Then restoring efs partitions.? And had any success. I'm getting a sha 256 does not match error on msm tool when trying to download super partition. Op8 verizon bricked.