[Q] Samsung Galaxy S5 unroot/Unbrick not woring - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So im just going to explain what happened. Originally i rooted my samsung galaxy s5 g900a with towelroot, and i got some rooting programs. It went fine for a while but then there was an at&t update, and i accidently updated it(please dont ask how), and I did, and eversince then i couldnt acess google play, it said no connection, so I tried logging in and out of my account, and then it wouldnt let me log in to my account. So i reset my phone did so much stuff and still wouldnt work. I couldnt even re-root it or anything, and it said it was not rooted, so i just tried to root it everyday. Today it worked rooting, and i rooted it and then deleted the hosts file for freedom which fixed me being able to login in to my google account, but google play still said no connection so i tried everything it said to fix it with no avail. Then i tried reinstalling the firmware, but odin just wont work, i can install the stock kernal but not the rom. I am sure I have it right. So then with safe strap i tried to reinstall the firmware with, but it still didnt work, so i tried reseting, but i went reset the data cache and something else, which i am pretty sure was the os. Now i can put it into download mode, or recovery mode, and i also cant install the firmware with recovery mode, but anything past that it keep showing the Samsung start screen and shows a unlocked lock and says custom, but wont go past there. This whole time whenever i try odin i just says fail. I have no idea what to do know, i am pretty sure i just bricked my phone, and if i could get it unbricked, i would also like to know how i can fix the google play no connection, i have tried everything i have found online so far, so this is my last resort, and my only hope please help. Thank you. for taking the time to read this!

jobi123 said:
So im just going to explain what happened. Originally i rooted my samsung galaxy s5 g900a with towelroot, and i got some rooting programs. It went fine for a while but then there was an at&t update, and i accidently updated it(please dont ask how), and I did, and eversince then i couldnt acess google play, it said no connection, so I tried logging in and out of my account, and then it wouldnt let me log in to my account. So i reset my phone did so much stuff and still wouldnt work. I couldnt even re-root it or anything, and it said it was not rooted, so i just tried to root it everyday. Today it worked rooting, and i rooted it and then deleted the hosts file for freedom which fixed me being able to login in to my google account, but google play still said no connection so i tried everything it said to fix it with no avail. Then i tried reinstalling the firmware, but odin just wont work, i can install the stock kernal but not the rom. I am sure I have it right. So then with safe strap i tried to reinstall the firmware with, but it still didnt work, so i tried reseting, but i went reset the data cache and something else, which i am pretty sure was the os. Now i can put it into download mode, or recovery mode, and i also cant install the firmware with recovery mode, but anything past that it keep showing the Samsung start screen and shows a unlocked lock and says custom, but wont go past there. This whole time whenever i try odin i just says fail. I have no idea what to do know, i am pretty sure i just bricked my phone, and if i could get it unbricked, i would also like to know how i can fix the google play no connection, i have tried everything i have found online so far, so this is my last resort, and my only hope please help. Thank you. for taking the time to read this!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What update version did you take and which one are you trying to load now? You can't downgrade, so if you are trying that, that's probably failing, but since you didn't mention what the error was then I can't really provide much more assistance.

jobi123 said:
So im just going to explain what happened. Originally i rooted my samsung galaxy s5 g900a with towelroot, and i got some rooting programs. It went fine for a while but then there was an at&t update, and i accidently updated it(please dont ask how), and I did, and eversince then i couldnt acess google play, it said no connection, so I tried logging in and out of my account, and then it wouldnt let me log in to my account. So i reset my phone did so much stuff and still wouldnt work. I couldnt even re-root it or anything, and it said it was not rooted, so i just tried to root it everyday. Today it worked rooting, and i rooted it and then deleted the hosts file for freedom which fixed me being able to login in to my google account, but google play still said no connection so i tried everything it said to fix it with no avail. Then i tried reinstalling the firmware, but odin just wont work, i can install the stock kernal but not the rom. I am sure I have it right. So then with safe strap i tried to reinstall the firmware with, but it still didnt work, so i tried reseting, but i went reset the data cache and something else, which i am pretty sure was the os. Now i can put it into download mode, or recovery mode, and i also cant install the firmware with recovery mode, but anything past that it keep showing the Samsung start screen and shows a unlocked lock and says custom, but wont go past there. This whole time whenever i try odin i just says fail. I have no idea what to do know, i am pretty sure i just bricked my phone, and if i could get it unbricked, i would also like to know how i can fix the google play no connection, i have tried everything i have found online so far, so this is my last resort, and my only hope please help. Thank you. for taking the time to read this!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i guess you have messed up with CSC or something to start with stopping the google play from working..and then you have had your partitions wiped with wrong file system and thats why the rom wont boot..you need to flash the firmware on your device using odin with pit file as your drive map, and make sure you select nand erase all..i guess that will fix it..worth a try..wish you luck:good:

thanks
Thanks for the info but I did manage to figure it out, I had to flash everything except for the bootloader, when I kept trying to flash just the ap

Related

HELP!!! Where do you get "update.zip" from??

I rooted my sister's phone, then installed launcher pro, and it bricked! (UGH!!!)
So I came here looking for rescue and did the Odin system restore steps. Like another poster there mentioned, it appeared to work, and everything seemed fine other than one critical component: it wouldn't sync at all with her google account!!! I've tried installing the clockworkmod, too, because that same poster said he got it to work by doing the clockworkmod reset. I can't get it to reboot into the clockworkmod recovery console, just the android one. How do I get to the clockworkmod console???
Remember that I have no market access until the google account syncs properly.
I did all the steps I could, but I still can't get the phone to sync with my sister's Google account. It locked up and perma-black screened after rooting and installing launcher pro, so I tried to use the backup from Odin to save it. Saved the phone. Seems to work. The verizon backup option successfully restores her contact info.
I can't get it to sync with her google account, and I am LOSING MY MIND because I have to leave early tomorrow morning, and I don't want to leave my sis. with a broken phone.
And where in the heck do you get the oft-mentioned "update.zip" file from???
HELP!!
SirKronan said:
I rooted my sister's phone, then installed launcher pro, and it bricked! (UGH!!!)
So I came here looking for rescue and did the Odin system restore steps. Like another poster there mentioned, it appeared to work, and everything seemed fine other than one critical component: it wouldn't sync at all with her google account!!! I've tried installing the clockworkmod, too, because that same poster said he got it to work by doing the clockworkmod reset. I can't get it to reboot into the clockworkmod recovery console, just the android one. How do I get to the clockworkmod console???
Remember that I have no market access until the google account syncs properly.
I did all the steps I could, but I still can't get the phone to sync with my sister's Google account. It locked up and perma-black screened after rooting and installing launcher pro, so I tried to use the backup from Odin to save it. Saved the phone. Seems to work. The verizon backup option successfully restores her contact info.
I can't get it to sync with her google account, and I am LOSING MY MIND because I have to leave early tomorrow morning, and I don't want to leave my sis. with a broken phone.
And where in the heck do you get the oft-mentioned "update.zip" file from???
HELP!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into Privacy - Settings - and do the system reset / factory restore. That should allow you to re-synch with google.
namebrandon said:
Go into Privacy - Settings - and do the system reset / factory restore. That should allow you to re-synch with google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. Giving it a try right now.
What guide did you follow for Clockwork? I've seen a number of people with the missing update.zip file, and I cannot figure out how that is happening.
It's like 1 out of every 5 people have this problem, and I don't get it.
HOLY CRAP BATMAN.
You're a LIFESAVER. It worked. Hallelujah!!!!!
Thank you sooooo much!!!
No problemo.. Sat there for about 2 hours myself before I figured that one out.
namebrandon said:
What guide did you follow for Clockwork? I've seen a number of people with the missing update.zip file, and I cannot figure out how that is happening.
It's like 1 out of every 5 people have this problem, and I don't get it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This one:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=788099
Did it carefully, step by step, as far as I can tell. Now I'm having trouble rooting the phone again after that factory reset. It pushes the files, resets the phone, then starts the rooting process ... then it says device disconnected, even though I see no signs that it is, and it still says on the screen that it is connected. I think I will try the long, manual rooting option next.
Ok, I successfully got it to root, but only by the slower manual method. I could never get the one click method to work again, even after multiple tries. It got all the way through most of the process but failed to install superuser.apk. Once that part was done, it's been working great so far. I hope. So far so good ....
Unfortunately I think you learned that the hard way..
Take your time, don't take shortcuts, don't make assumptions.
Most of the time the one-click solutions end up causing more problems than their worth.
I bet if you had to do that "long" process again, you could do it in ~5 minutes now.
Glad you got it all working.

[Q] superuser cannot be get rid of ?

basically, i accidentally wipe all data on my phone and needed a new android version
so i flashed the 4.1.2 rom from some other website
google asked me if i wanna get the backups back
i pressed yes (dont know if this is why) (my phone was rooted)
nothing happened throughout the night, i have a game which only works on non-rooted devices, and it worked
but when i wake up the next morning, a superuser icon appeared on my phone
i tried to open it, and i can tell that it is a old version, because it has only got apps, and log list
then i tried to start up my game and it didnt work
so i tested it on root explorer and realized that my phone isnt even rooted?
which led me to finding root websites and wanted to root my phone again
and my phone still isnt rooted........
so, now im tired of reflashing everything (i flashed it 3 times before)
i just wanted to uninstall superuser off my phone and undo whatever i did using that link...
i tried uninstalling from google play, it asked me to update superuser first, so i did, but when i pressed the uninstall button after, it only uninstalled the update
tried to use "root app uninstaller", dont even see superuser in the list...
tried to use root explorer, only allowed me to stay in "read-only" mode, so i couldnt delete the superuse.apk in /system/apps..
please help...... thanks
(ill flash rom if there is no choice... and please provide a trust-able link... i tried so many different rom flashing websites and they all dont work well...)
thanks
Factory reset as long as you're not on 4.0.4.
Sent from the little guy
gastonw said:
Factory reset as long as you're not on 4.0.4.
Sent from the little guy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my phone wont even start up now....
i stays on the "samsung" screen
Try to get in either Recovery (Vol up+power+home) although i doubt you have any newfirmwares stored there, but you can, as gaston said, wipe data + cache and dalvik cache then from there you can press (Vol down+power+home) to get into download mode and from there flash the firmware you want.
Hope it helps!
I dont think you can just uninstall SuperSU, but i maybe am wrong. It seems like you don't want to be rooted anymore which is why i suggst to flash a stock Samsung official firmware through download mode. Get stock official firmware from here (choose the one that fits your phone's information) and if you need more help, just reply.

Towelroot and reset

Hi Guys
Awhile back i used towelroot to root my phone. Now with all the talk about the Flashlight app I want to reset my phone. The news article that I read said that if your flashlight app is over a meg in size then it most likely contains spyware. I am not able to boot into recovery mode. I have even tried to use a couple apps called Reboot Recovery and Quick Boot. When I try these two apps or use the pwr,home and vol up it boots to this screen then boots normally
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fkxyrqz1tf6daqs/20141031_014341.jpg?dl=0
The phone has nothing of importance on it because its new, all I want is to get back to factory settings. Its a Samsung Galaxy 3 (Canada)
Thanks
Rick
trickyrick said:
Hi Guys
Awhile back i used towelroot to root my phone. Now with all the talk about the Flashlight app I want to reset my phone. The news article that I read said that if your flashlight app is over a meg in size then it most likely contains spyware. I am not able to boot into recovery mode. I have even tried to use a couple apps called Reboot Recovery and Quick Boot. When I try these two apps or use the pwr,home and vol up it boots to this screen then boots normally
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fkxyrqz1tf6daqs/20141031_014341.jpg?dl=0
The phone has nothing of importance on it because its new, all I want is to get back to factory settings. Its a Samsung Galaxy 3 (Canada)
Thanks
Rick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The size of the Flashlight app wouldn't be the main indicator. Did you get the app from the Play Store? If so, look at the permissions of the app. Does it request to look at your contacts, SMS, etc? If so, then be worried and reset. If not, then unlikely it's doing anything untoward. As far as resetting, it's odd that CF Auto Root didn't restore the stock recovery. At this point, you will want to do 1 of 2 things:
1) Use Odin to install the stock recovery.
2) Use Odin to install a proper custom recovery.
With a working recovery in place, then resetting the phone will be a breeze.
Ok i used Odin to install a stock recovery. Odin failed and now I get a messege when I reboot the phone
Firware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again.
Keis will not connect.
Any ideas
ok i was able to use kies to get my phone back to where it was before using Odin.
In Kies I used tools - Firware upgrade and initalization. Got a message that said the device can be initalized to its original settings. All settings and data will be deleted and the latest software version will be installed.
When it was all said and done nothing was deleted all my apps and accounts I installed were still there. I did notice that it removed root
Whats going on
I still want to reset to factory settings
anyone have another way
trickyrick said:
ok i was able to use kies to get my phone back to where it was before using Odin.
In Kies I used tools - Firware upgrade and initalization. Got a message that said the device can be initalized to its original settings. All settings and data will be deleted and the latest software version will be installed.
When it was all said and done nothing was deleted all my apps and accounts I installed were still there. I did notice that it removed root
Whats going on
I still want to reset to factory settings
anyone have another way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So after the restore, you still can't get into the stock recovery? And it sounds like you used the wrong recovery. Let me know the model number of your S3 and which build version of the software you are on and I let you know what you should use.
Thanks you were right I got the wrong recovery found the right one did it again and Im good to go
Thanks again
:
trickyrick said:
Thanks you were right I got the wrong recovery found the right one did it again and Im good to go
Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:good::highfive::victory:

LGLS990 booting into recovery mode after trying to update latest OTA patch, any help?

Hey guys, I was running stock ZVC (with stock recovery and bootloader) until just a few minutes ago, when I finally gave in and told the phone to apply the OTA update that was pushed out last week (the "ZVE" one). It started doing its thing, but next time I looked back at the device it was in recovery mode, just sitting there at the menu prompt...
I've since tried rebooting and powering off about half a dozen times, but it just keeps looping back to recovery mode. I also tried wiping the cache and rebooting, with no luck... It still loops back to recovery mode. I don't know what went wrong, but I'm assuming it could be related to one of two things that I didn't think about until afterwards:
1) The phone was rooted via Kingoroot, and root was still active when I tried to apply the update.
2) Just a FEW programs were frozen via TitaniumBackup (as well as Android's own app management system, using the "disable" feature), but these weren't system- or kernel-critical apps. They were things like LG Health, Sprint Money, etc...
Can anyone suggest a fix? Right now it just keeps rebooting into stock recovery and I've never had to deal with an issue like this, so I'm not sure what to do. I was obviously running the stock ROM, so I'm not set up to flash stuff. Although if it can be done with the default recovery, I suppose I could obviously do that... Once again, everything was stock on the phone except for Kingoroot, which was still enabled during the update.
I'm in a pickle here, guys. It's not like I'm any different than everyone who "needs their phone for work," but yeah, I need my phone for work... If I have to wipe data/factory reset, there's probably no way to pull some data off of the phone via PC first, is there? I suppose it's not that big of a deal, but I have some data and some program data that I hadn't gotten around to backing up yet, because I didn't think I'd need to until before I attempted to flash a new ROM or custom recovery.
Any help would be HUGE. Thanks...
EDIT: I took it into the Sprint store today a couple hours after I posted this, and they said I'd have to send it in to LG for warranty service. I don't know if the Sprint tech person knew what she was doing or not (because she had to use Google to figure out how to put the phone into download mode, even though she owns the same model), but she said that she couldn't establish a connection between the PC and the phone...
Now I'm not sure if that's the case, or if she just didn't have the right drivers installed, or if she was even in the right mode (I think she was using some Sprint-made flashing tool, but she did get it into download mode). She also seemed bored and like she just didn't wanna deal with it, so I don't know...
Assuming I can flash back to an earlier build like ZVB (and assuming I can even find it online), is that done from download mode or from recovery? By the way, we also tried just doing a factory reset and that didn't work either; just keeps rebooting to recovery...
Thanks...
EDIT 2: Fixed by flashing to stock via these instructions. Had to select Board DL and use a different key sequence as described here.

My story of almost bricked into rooted, unlocked bootloader, and custom rom

I thought you guys might find this amusing, and hopefully it will help some people that get into a similar situation as myself. First, a little background - I rooted and installed Alliance Rom years ago back before the bootloader was unlocked. This worked amazing for me for a long time but I've recently had some weird issues with my phone so I decided to do a factory reset.
I went into settings, clicked factory reset, and then my phone got into a boot loop on recovery. I remember from before I had to do a regular boot then click recovery at the prompt instead of doing the factory recovery so I did that.
Instead of doing a normal wipe, I wanted to wipe everything on my phone and start from scratch so I did the full wipe (in what I think was TWRP or safestrap or whatever). When I went to reboot my phone it had a message like "are you sure? there's no OS installed" and I clicked ok. Well now I couldn't get the phone to boot into anything except download mode so at least I can use Odin.
I'm frantically searching google to try and find ways to install some sort of recovery so I could load AllianceRom again since I still had the zip file for it. Eureka, I found TWRP for my phone! I tried to flash TWRP through Odin but that doesn't work because my bootloader wasn't unlocked.... I remember this from last time ... all of the places I found online to install any sort of recovery required the phone to be booted into android.
So I'm clicking around and someone has a recovery randomly posted in a thread so I install it thinking, what the hell, what's the worst that could go wrong. So I install it through Odin and boot into normal recovery and I get this message saying my phone has been tampered with and to go to a verizon store immediately! Oops... upon further investigation (looking at the download screen), I tripped the knox flag... oh well, it's not like my phone is in warranty anymore (I got it on release day).
I search around looking for what I should do next and I found a thread that talked about being on complete stock, rooting, then unlocking the bootloader. I download all the files I need (newest firmware here - https://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/galaxy-note3/SM-N900V/ and thread here - https://forum.xda-developers.com/ve...guide-ob6-of1-root-bootloader-unlock-t3439010) to go back to stock and flash in Odin. Actually I didn't download from sammobile.com because it was downloading too slow so I just googled the file name and found it somewhere else faster, go figure.
Everything seems to be going ok then all of a sudden FAIL in Odin... Ahhh what the heck do I do now? Try again obviously! Second try works woo hoo! Phone start booting up, things are looking good!!! hooray!! But wait... it's taking forever to start and it's stuck on the Verizon logo... uh oh... taking way too long to boot up so I pull the battery and try again. Boots right in saying that android is upgrading so I think I'm finally in the home stretch here.
I try to run the ArabicToolApp for Root but I installed the latest firmware which isn't supported DAMN IT! Downloaded the correct firmware (OB6!), flashed in Odin, same problem before where it was stuck on the red verizon screen, pulled battery, rebooted, finally time to get root!
Phone finally boots into OS and I get a popup "unfortunatley com.google.process.gapps has stopped" great... and it keeps coming up over and over again after I hit ok... just my luck! Reboot again to see if that fixes the issue. Seems weird that I didn't have to go through all the initial setup stuff I did on the other version I installed... hmm... or maybe it was because I pulled the battery on the red verizon screen? Whatever. I somehow manage to get to options to do a factory reset and I let the verizon screen stay on a while this time. I'll go take my contacts out and give my wife some love while I wait
Come back and the phone is at the setup wizard, this is good news. Enabled USB debugging, installed root, done! Thank god!
Next I want to unlock the bootloader. I follow the steps here which aren't very clear (I'm guessing on purpose for novice computer users) - https://forum.xda-developers.com/ve...l/official-note-3-verizon-bootloader-t3359370
1. I installed eMMC from the play store to make sure my CID started with a 15, it does so I know I'm good to use the hack.
2. I installed both files in the unlock kit (adb and driver setup)
3. Fired up adb, navigated to where I had unlock_n3, and ran through the first part of the code once, reboot my phone, checked that the CID was the developer CID, and then ran the second part of the code three times before it worked
I verified the bootloader was installed correctly by trying to install TWRP through Odin, which worked!
I'm going to try out Jasmine Rom since it's a popular one that is on 5.0. My SD card only showed 30 megs free or something like that, so I formatted it from within android and copied the zip file over and installed the Rom through TWRP. Rom installed just fine, so I did one last factory reset which worked great and I think I'm finally good to go!
If you have any questions or run into any issues feel free to reply here and I'll try to help as much as I can.
Glad it worked out for you in the end.
From making a few mistakes I know that sinking feeling "oh no, what have I done?"
FWIW, the bootloader unlock method (in principle) works from nearly ANY ROM which is rooted - so, you would have saved yourself a bunch of time if you had started with that before you wiped the Alliance ROM. So long as you have root and a CID value that starts with 0x15, you just need root privileges - no need to return to stock and re-root.
(The "in principle" part is that there were several bugs in the "safety checks" portion of the unlocker binary that were sensitive to the OS revision, so you might have to search through the unlock thread to find a version of the unlock binary that is compatible with whatever rooted ROM is on the phone when the unlocking is attempted.)
good luck
PS The AryaMod ROM (w/ phantomOne kernel) is pretty solid - Marshmallow w/ S-Pen apps, too! As with any other dev ROM, there are a few sharp edges, but mostly everything works (except NFC).
.

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