[Q] Restore to stock with Kies - flash counter question - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi
I'm currently on CM11 (nightly and TWRP) and want to revert to stock. Kies has the "Firmware upgrade and initialization" option ..
My question is:
Is it necessary to reset the flash counter in order to use this? What will happen if I try to use it without resetting the counter?
I tried to find an answer for the last few days, but couldn't (or couldn't understand what I found).
The backstory is my serial number was reset and I can't connect to network after flashing ArchiDroid with a new modem. I afterwards flashed a different (JB) modem. I was already on Samsung stock 4.3 so I guess my efs is v2 (so no Ariza's patch..), and I have some backups of it.
I'd rather not use Odin or ADB. I figured the easiest and safest way is to reset and restore everything to stock, send to a lab if necessary, then reinstall cm11. I'm also not sure how restoring the efs works ..
I'll be very thankful for any feedback, as I've been wasting a lot of time on trying to solve it recently ..
Ron

Kies sucks. Flash with Odin and no it don't matter about flash counter. Flash counter only matters when sending back to samsung service.

andrewwright said:
Kies sucks. Flash with Odin and no it don't matter about flash counter. Flash counter only matters when sending back to samsung service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Flashed with Odin - something went wrong at first, then went fine and now the phone won't boot But I'm on the right track and lost my fear of Odin, so thanks

Factory reset it stock recovery and reboot.

andrewwright said:
Kies sucks. Flash with Odin and no it don't matter about flash counter. Flash counter only matters when sending back to samsung service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to Odin.
Kies creates more problems than it solves.
~ RazorMC

andrewwright said:
Factory reset it stock recovery and reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That solved it. Unfortunately my phone would not connect to the cellular network stating "service is not available". Good thing I have a backup phone (in which the same SIM works ...)
Personally I don't think Kies is that back, but Samsung's mobile-related software (Android, apps, etc.) is truly bad. Kies was mainly useless when it was relevant ..

Once you come to XDA you should learn the best ways of doing things. Odin is a very good tool. Kies should be deleted once you come here and understand what odin can do. I didn't like odin at the start but have grown to have respect for its uses. Saved my s3 a few times :thumbup:

Related

Can't wipe data/factory reset, and after flashing phone boots up in recovery

Hello. Today i installed I9100XWLPW_I9100OXELPA_I9100XXLQ6 4.0.4 rom, and when i entered recovery to install syiah kernel. it is stucked at formatting /data about 5-6 min and the phone reboots automaticaly. Something happened with my data partition. I'm trying this tutorial http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1457458 with gingerbread files and the odin stuck's at DATAFS (data.img). What can i do? Thanks in advance.
davidsgs23 said:
Hello. Today i installed I9100XWLPW_I9100OXELPA_I9100XXLQ6 4.0.4 rom, and when i entered recovery to install syiah kernel. it is stucked at formatting /data about 5-6 min and the phone reboots automaticaly. Something happened with my data partition. I'm trying this tutorial http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1457458 with gingerbread files and the odin stuck's at DATAFS (data.img). What can i do? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
first of all u should not do anything with the stock recovery of 4.0.4 ma8.
since the stock kernel's of android v4.0.4 are prone to 'eMMc' brick bug.
u cannot flash a custom ROM/KERNEL from stock recovery in the first place
u could have flashed the siyah kernel from odin in the first place, which could have safegaurded ur phone from brick bug issue
now do not do too much experiment on ur phone since it might potentially get hardbricked.
if ur phone is still under warranty take it to ur nearest Samsung service center and get it repaired F.O.C
I have to go at orange's service, but i don't know what i can tell them, because if they see that i changed the rom they will not repair it, and i will loose the warranty. There isn't a way to repair it myself?
davidsgs23 said:
I have to go at orange's service, but i don't know what i can tell them, because if they see that i changed the rom they will not repair it, and i will loose the warranty. There isn't a way to repair it myself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did u install that ROM? ODIN or KIES.
Odin.
EDIT: I installed 4.0.3 rom with odin, and syiah kernel with odin, but i still have problems with the data partition.
EDIT 2: If tomorrow i go to the service and I say that i factory reset the phone from settings, and it doesn't boot anymore forwarder than Samsung Galaxy S II screen it's plausible?
davidsgs23 said:
Odin.
EDIT: I installed 4.0.3 rom with odin, and syiah kernel with odin, but i still have problems with the data partition.
EDIT 2: If tomorrow i go to the service and I say that i factory reset the phone from settings, and it doesn't boot anymore forwarder than Samsung Galaxy S II screen it's plausible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
give it a try, u may get thro with 50:50 chances either way
Sun90 said:
give it a try, u may get thro with 50:50 chances either way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you Sun90 for the help. Yesterday night i installed syiah kernel, wiped everything, also the internal sdcard and installed my carrier 4.0.4 rom. This morning i went to the orange shop and the customer looked at binary counter and everything looks fine. He turned on the phone in download mode and flashed with odin a pit file i think(because he said that i will loose every data i had on the phone), and failed(in odin). He said that he will send it to the samsung central service i think, and it will be repared. I am happy that i didn't loose the warranty. I wish they will send me a new phone )
I think you got hardbrick
In this situation. you must change youy mainboard
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Is there any chance to recieve a new phone from samsung service center?
I think they fix your phone Not give new

Reset counter in bricked Jelly Bean?

I should just delete the pictures in the camera folder from the internal store from my computer, when the phone froze and I had to disconnect it and restart it. It would then only go in bootloop, and I could just access download mode, not recovery. Odin just stucks on "nand write start" and then fails, no matter what rom/cable/odin version I try. The phone has always been stock, and it was on 4.1.2 when this happened. I was about to ship the phone back to Samsung as there is still warranty left on it, when I noticed that I now has 2 counts of custom firmware in download mode, probably after trying to flash Siyah kernel, even tho Odin would'nt flash that either.
Made a jig, and the phone goes into download mode, but it wont reset because of the newer firmware I guess.
Any other way to reset counter? If not; should I try to flash pit files as a chance to get it working again?
Mach III said:
I should just delete the pictures in the camera folder from the internal store from my computer, when the phone froze and I had to disconnect it and restart it. It would then only go in bootloop, and I could just access download mode, not recovery. Odin just stucks on "nand write start" and then fails, no matter what rom/cable/odin version I try. The phone has always been stock, and it was on 4.1.2 when this happened. I was about to ship the phone back to Samsung as there is still warranty left on it, when I noticed that I now has 2 counts of custom firmware in download mode, probably after trying to flash Siyah kernel, even tho Odin would'nt flash that either.
Made a jig, and the phone goes into download mode, but it wont reset because of the newer firmware I guess.
Any other way to reset counter? If not; should I try to flash pit files as a chance to get it working again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ive had the problem of odin not getting passed nand write. After about the 5th/6th time it worked. Think I also tried different filmware ie bloated carrier then stock unbloated link below. Use odin 3.0.7. Not sure about the counts though.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1544487
stonedpsycho said:
Ive had the problem of odin not getting passed nand write. After about the 5th/6th time it worked. Think I also tried different filmware ie bloated carrier then stock unbloated link below. Use odin 3.0.7. Not sure about the counts though.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1544487
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is actually the firmware I've tried the most, flashed another S2 with it, so I know the image is valid, and the computer/cable/drivers is correct. Also tried odin 3.07 now, among with many other older versions, but always stuck on "nand write start".
Nothing to lose to flash pit now?
Im sure you know your situation.If samsung see youve flashed stuff,they can refuse warranty.If you brick your phone,how can they tell what youve done.
And a jig only resets counter on gb/old bootloader.If youve no recovery,and odin doesnt flash anything,then I cant see how you can change anything.

[Q] BINARY FLASH Reset problem

Does anybody have a solution to reseting the flash counter on the gs3 i9300 because I have tried EVERYTHING to reset this counter including using root triangle away and that doesn't work and I've tried just flashing the stock firmware back to the i9300 and that won't reset the counter and I even have a jig that's compatible with the s2, s3, s4 and that won't even reset the counter all the jig does is brings me into download mode but on my s2 it resets the counter and as of right now my counter is reading like 17 so could "somebody" Please tell me if there is some special way to reset this counter on the gs3 i9300, I'm even willing to give some money to who ever in this forum can tell me a way that this counter can be reset, and please no smart-a$$ Comments. But like I said anybody that gives me a working method to reset this binary flash counter I'll make it worth your time. Oh and like I said before, for some reason (root) triangle away does Not work on this phone so don't tell me to use that program.
Downgrade bootloader to BLFB, then use triangle away. Worked for me.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
boomboomer said:
Downgrade bootloader to BLfB, then use triangle away. Worked for me.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give that a try right now but where would I find blfb bootloader at?
boomboomer said:
Downgrade bootloader to BLFB, then use triangle away. Worked for me.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disregard my last reply I've found the bootloader but I see this bootloader is for ICS and the current firmware on my i9300 is 4.3 jelly bean so how would I go about using this bootloader?
boomboomer said:
Downgrade bootloader to BLFB, then use triangle away. Worked for me.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that if I was to just flash this new bootloader to my gs3 with 4.3 on it I would hard brick the device because the blfb bootloader is for ics and I'm on jelly bean, so a Lil more help in how to go about doing this would be a big help.
Bootloader is irrelevant to firmware, I'm on 4.3 with BLFB bootloader, just don't use download mode afterward as it isn't SDS safe.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
You could try XXELLA. Triangle Away seems to work fine with that bootloader, and it's SDS safe. I'm running it with no problems on my phone, and I have KitKat on my phone.
Hello, having the same problem with my I9300 , running MK7 booloader (4.3) and triangleaway isn't working . I found the XXELLA file to flash with odin, but is it really safe to downgrade from 4.3 Bootloader to a
4.1.2 one ?
DopeShow said:
Does anybody have a solution to reseting the flash counter on the gs3 i9300 because I have tried EVERYTHING to reset this counter including using root triangle away and that doesn't work and I've tried just flashing the stock firmware back to the i9300 and that won't reset the counter and I even have a jig that's compatible with the s2, s3, s4 and that won't even reset the counter all the jig does is brings me into download mode but on my s2 it resets the counter and as of right now my counter is reading like 17 so could "somebody" Please tell me if there is some special way to reset this counter on the gs3 i9300, I'm even willing to give some money to who ever in this forum can tell me a way that this counter can be reset, and please no smart-a$$ Comments. But like I said anybody that gives me a working method to reset this binary flash counter I'll make it worth your time. Oh and like I said before, for some reason (root) triangle away does Not work on this phone so don't tell me to use that program.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same problem a few days ago .... solve this ..
-wiped everything (settings, accounts, and cancel the backup, restore factory settings)
- Installed a stock room 4.3, using Odin-v3-09, again wiped all
-root with CF-Auto-Root-M0-m0xx-gti9300,
triangleaway installed this (https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbzgi7j1uor7e5k/triangleaway.apk)
- And it was ok
I hope it will work for you
OK , so i successfully downgraded to XXELLA , downloaded from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=36414335&postcount=10588
TriangleAway worked perfect with this bootloader unlike the MK7 one that came with my 4.3 stock rom , after i saw it worked i flashed stock 4.3 again , and everything is perfect. needed to wipe data from the recovery but now device is like new . so thanks for everyone.
razjaren said:
I had the same problem a few days ago .... solve this ..
-wiped everything (settings, accounts, and cancel the backup, restore factory settings)
- Installed a stock room 4.3, using Odin-v3-09, again wiped all
-root with CF-Auto-Root-M0-m0xx-gti9300,
triangleaway installed this (https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbzgi7j1uor7e5k/triangleaway.apk)
- And it was ok
I hope it will work for you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK so I went with your instructions before I tried the others that were posted here because basically I already had the stuff you said I needed and I went through and did like you said and the first time it nothing happened so I went back into recovery and wiped everything again then went straight back to triangle away and tried it again and it worked and said 0 so as course now after putting in a new flash recovery it reads one now also I restored my backup I had from cwm and restored everything back to the way it was before I tried this and went back into download mode and it still reads 1 so I tried triangle away again after that restore and it wouldn't work so basically I guess the only way to get this to work is with it freshly reset with no info put into the device and then the flash counter will reset, so thank you for your help
Thank You for everybody's input, in the end I was able to reset the flash counter going by Razjaren's instructions then restoring back to my cwm backup, so thank you again everybody.

[Q] Please Help! Odin failed on stock ROM re-flash, now I'm bricked

So, I'm sending my Verizon Samsung S4 Sch-1545 back to Verizon for a warranty return.
So while help with bricking is needed, I really still need to be able to flash the stock ROM.
I previously had rooted my phone, and decided to flash the stock ROM via Odin v 3.09. I used the 1545VRUFNC5 ROM which is the correct one for my model.
However only partially through the flashing I get the FAIL message in Odin and now my phone is bricked and I get the message upon boot "Firmware Upgrade encountered and issue. Please select a recovery mode in KIES and try again".
I even re-tried using a different USB cable and port on my computer, that didn't change anything.
I don't know what to do now, and how to get my phone un-bricked and flashed back to the stock ROM with Odin failing. Per the Odin dialog box, it keeps failing at system.img.ext4.
Please help! I have to send my phone back to Verizon ASAP and I'm at a loss here.
Thanks!!
Try Odin 3.07
DX.Deception said:
Try Odin 3.07
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that worked and it passed. So at least my phone is working again, but I'm having other problems now.
My phone rebooted automatically to the normal home screen, however I keep getting the dialog box that won't close out that says "Unfortunately, the process android.process.acore has stopped" as well as "android.process.media has stopped".
So I'm not sure at this point what to do . Should I try flashing it again, or doing a factory data reset? All II'm really trying to do is take this completely back to to stock for the warranty return.
Did you use the no wipe tar or full wipe?
DX.Deception said:
Did you use the no wipe tar or full wipe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know there was a difference? I used the 1545VRUFNC5 ROM .
Was this a setting that I should have chosen in Odin? The TAR file didn't specify wipe or no wipe in it's filename.
z71Kevin said:
I didn't know there was a difference? I used the 1545VRUFNC5 ROM .
Was this a setting that I should have chosen in Odin? The TAR file didn't specify wipe or no wipe in it's filename.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK so I did a hard factory data reset, that seemed to fix the problem.
I installed ES File Manager and Root Checker and there's no evidence of root access or the SU binary.
Sounds like I may be good to go with sending this back to Verizon. What do you think?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2735172 that should help, remember full wipe completely wipes all data on your phone pictures and everything.
DX.Deception said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2735172 that should help, remember full wipe completely wipes all data on your phone pictures and everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool. Thanks for all your help! Looks like I'm all set now.
No problem man.

Help me! Upgrade stock rom via Odin failed!

i've just flash rom 4.3 for I9300 via odin but my phone is SHW-M440S. Odin showed red "fail" and the progress in s3 was about 10% and i unplugged the usb cable. When i turn on my s3 again, it said that upgrade... and i can only go to download mode. I'm downloading SHW-M440S rom and gotta install it again. May it work? I'm too scared now :crying:
Flash the firmware via odin and it will work for sure. Be sure to perform a factory reset after flashing. This happens for various reasons. No need to panic.
i've flash it again, odin fail and s3 even didnt show the progress
sriram231092 said:
Flash the firmware via odin and it will work for sure. Be sure to perform a factory reset after flashing. This happens for various reasons. No need to panic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just dont know i could thank you. It worked. Thank for encouraged me :crying: I'm really really crying
But i still want to ask you: why i install new rom but my phone isnt different from its before? My apps and data still there
Fails occur due to various reasons some of them are loose usb connections, drivers problem, Samsung kies running in the background etc., So the stock firmware would definitely recover the phone. And the main point of your mistake is, you flashed the wrong firmware. Glad that your phone isn't hard bricked! The shops won't get deleted most of the times but it's better to backup your data and factory reset the phone from recovery mode for a fresh installation.

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