(RESOLVED)
Alright so in order to not bore you all, ill get to the point. I messed up trying to do impossible things with my I537 because I didn't read any forums before trying... stupid I know. That being said I now have a "soft bricked" phone stuck in download mode. I have been looking around (I assume not hard enough) for the right file to flash with ODIN to get me back up and running so I can actually do my research this time before playing with different stock roms.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to get the right files to unbrick this thing?
First things first: this forum is for the SGH-I537 AT&T Galaxy S4 Active, not the I527 Galaxy Mega. I just want to make sure you have the right device. If you have the Mega (I527), you want this forum, and ignore the rest of this post.
If you do in fact have the Galaxy S4 Active (I537), then check out this thread, it has all the official firmware files that have been released for this device. I would recommend using the firmware files for NE3 (KitKat) to flash in Odin. The NE3 build is the easiest to root, and you can always use the keep-root method to upgrade to lollipop if you so desire.
Oh yes sorry that was a mistype. I did indeed mean to type I537. Ok Ill give this a shot and update on how it goes.
Ok so Im currently downloading the Full Odin package, but I have already rooted the phone with towelroot. Is that going to be an issue?
Nah it won't be a problem. Flashing firmware files with Odin will unroot your phone (it resets everything to original factory settings). You can always reroot with towel root again
Ok new problem though, I was able to get everything flashed through ODIN, it restarts; then I get the Samsung boot screen, att boot screen and then it just goes black. I put it back into download mode and tried to re-flash it a couple times but it keeps doing the same thing. Thoughts? This Is the section I got the file from;
I537UCUCNE3 (4.4.2) Released 2014-06-06 - OFFICIAL
Issue has been solved, I just had a battery issue but after changing that and letting the phone charge up it started up great. Thanks for all your help "thisisapoorusernamechoice"
Related
Hey folks. I basically just want Gingerbread on my phone, but I'm having issues doing it through Kies as it won't recognize the current firmware when I connect.
I'm not able to flash to JF6 in Odin OneClick without getting an ATT boot screen and nothing more.
Apparently I need to have JF6 in order to get Kies to recognize the phone. I'd like to get this done today (Been two weeks without full function), and I'm thinking I just want to flash to a good rom that runs 2.3.
Is there anything I can do to flash to something other than I896UXJL1-stock or I896UXJI2 TORONTO? These flash well, but are not what I was looking for. Again, I'm going to need something that doesn't require JF6, or another method to get JF6 on without getting stuck at the ATT screen.
Any flash with Odin does not require you to be on a prerequisite firmware, it will flash over whatever you're running.
Go to the Dev section, find a gingerbread firmware with bootloaders included, put phone in download mode and flash.
Full List of Necessary Files for Successful Flash
Okay, I've been browsing around, trying to find something suitable, but now it would seem that I'm not able to flash anything except for the OneClick method which gives me that ATT screen.
I read somewhere that later editions of the Captivate may not work out well with certain Odin flashes. I think my phone is 1038?
I'm hoping that someone might be good enough to show me how to get this thing to flash to what Samsung sent to Rogers from the factory, or at least to a point that I can successfully flash to 2.3. Right now I'm stuck.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Okay, I'm back to UXJL1, using Odin 1.81, and I also found a OneClick that reportedly switches out the bootloaders for GB bootloaders. I tried it, and it did give me an ATT screen, followed by a normal boot and I was back to having apps like Titanium crashing on boot, which is beyond annoying to figure out.
My biggest issue is that I think I have a decent grasp of what's involved in this process, but I don't know which file is compliant with which. I seem to always use 512 for the partition, but I see some variations in that. I also don't know what to do about the bootloader situation except the one tool I mentioned above.
Basically I could either use what I have, go back to Firefly, or keep trying this GB upgrade. I'd rather keep trying but I also need a phone.
I have a ton of different firmware files at my disposal and can download whatever else I need if mentioned, I also have a few different versions of Odin, and OneClick. I downloaded Odin OneClick 2.xx for rooting purposes and it seemed to work with a flash I did today.
Again, thanks for any help.
As for bootloaders. If the 1 click doesn't work, or you don't know if your phone likes 1 clicks I've attached a pda.tar and a odin in a rar that contains just GB bootloaders. This isn't my work I downloaded from somewhere in xda, I just can't remember where so I can't link. All credit to whoever created it. I can't speak specifics for I896 but random FC's usually means a bad flash. Try downloading again or another odin rom. Sorry I can't be any more help.
hi everyone, im a newbie and im having a little trouble understanding and fixing my phone.
so ill start at the beginning, i bought a note 3 from at&t N900A and then moved out of the US (after contract expired and i sim unlocked with the code they gave me.)
I could not connect to at&t servers from outside US to OTA update. (i dont remember if i was mj5 or mi9)
So i learned about rooting while trying to update and decided to use kingo root app and got root access
then i installed safestrap 3.71 for a custom recovery, then i backed up my stock rom and made a new rom slot. Then i resorted my stock rom to rom slot 1.
this is my mistake: i flashed the knoxraid rom from here
http://galaxynote3root.com/att-galaxy-note-3-roms/knoxraid-kitkat-rom-for-att-galaxy-note-3/
however i forgot to do the data/factory wipe. To make matters worse i realized this and pulled the battery out after about 20 seconds (the download bar was about 10% complete)
when i put the battery back in the phone went straight to recovery (recovery and download mode were the only ones working)
i started panicking as this was my first time rooting/installing roms and tried to find a solution
i found one and used this:
http://www.droidviews.com/how-to-unbrick-att-galaxy-note-3-sm-n900a/
i flashed all the files correctly and odin got to about 95% and the said FAIL
i panicked again when i turned my phone on and it went to an error screen saying firmware upgrade incountered an issue etc.
before i harm my device further i would like to know what to do (i can still get to download mode)
odin mode say it is A2 so i belive that is mj5
i want to know: should i reflash stock mj5, and if so please provide link
should i do this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=48243768&postcount=1
should i use the N900AUCUBMI9_OneClickBin.exe
or should i flash nc2 files found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-3-att/general/n900aucucnc2-odin-files-t2838117
will the nc2 kitkat brick my device? keep in mind it is running A2 which im sure is mj5
Thank you everyone in advance
NC2 won't brick your device, but it'll upgrade your bootloader to A3 which will prevent you from ever downgrading back to MJ5 (not that you'd want to anyway). I'd just go with NC2 since it's rootable with TowelRoot anyway. Also, in your case I'd recommend using the 4-file method rather than the 1-file method since it's an upgrade from 4.3 rather than just a restore to stock 4.4.2.
Sent from my AT&T Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk®
andygev35 said:
NC2 won't brick your device, but it'll upgrade your bootloader to A3 which will prevent you from ever downgrading back to MJ5 (not that you'd want to anyway). I'd just go with NC2 since it's rootable with TowelRoot anyway. Also, in your case I'd recommend using the 4-file method rather than the 1-file method since it's an upgrade from 4.3 rather than just a restore to stock 4.4.2.
Sent from my AT&T Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk®
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thank you
infinitephase said:
thank you
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You might want to consider adding the Pit file too to repartition your phone just in case anything got messed up in the failed odin flash that would definitely clean everything up. It might be overkill but I don't think it would hurt to do since you're doing a factory reset with the 4-file install anyway
Hey guys so recently I had rooted my i537 S4 active and have been researching and modifying here and there until i decided to get a custom ROM. I found WickedROM via this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2491762 and considering it had worked on this person's i537 I decided to flash the ROM. After flashing I had become stuck in a bootloop and I can't get to anything besides DOWNLOAD MODE. Due to this problem I decided to run a stock firmware via Odin with this one_click http://rootzwiki.com/topic/44121-sgh...axy-s4-active/ ... this filled up until the bar was about 90% and then all of a sudden fails at <ID:0/003> system.img.ext4. I've tried other firmwares with no luck and have resorted to posting about this problem. please help and guide me in the right direction, my phone's been bricked for 3 days now. Trying to boot into recovery gives me the "there's been a problem with your firmware update, please run in Kies recovery" and Kies doesn't recognize my phone.
nickeon1 said:
After flashing I had become stuck in a bootloop and I can't get to anything besides DOWNLOAD MODE.
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You forgot to flash the masterpatch which makes roms designed for the AT&T S4 (not active) work for our phone. If I understand correctly it needs to be flashed immediately after the rom is installed (i.e. still in SafeStrap, before you attempt to boot up).
nickeon1 said:
Due to this problem I decided to run a stock firmware via Odin with this one_click http://rootzwiki.com/topic/44121-sgh...axy-s4-active/ ... this filled up until the bar was about 90% and then all of a sudden fails at <ID:0/003> system.img.ext4 and Kies doesn't recognize my phone.
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That link is for MF1, an outdated firmware. Here is a collection of stock i537 firmwares. I can personally confirm the NH3 file is usable since I used it to upgrade to the most recent firmware without losing root.
This thread will provide you instructions on how to use Odin to flash any stock firmware. I can only add I recommend using Odin v3.07, as I've used it with the most success and fewest issues. Also use NH3 firmware or at the very least NE3, because anything else is outdated, assuming you were on stock KitKat originally, and you will encounter similar issues if trying to downgrade to jellybean.
Also flashing with Odin deletes all your saved files/user info etc. on your phone. From the sound of it, fixing your phone is going to involve inevitably wiping it one way or the other, so I hope you have a backup saved somewhere other than your phone's internal memory.
nickeon1 said:
Hey guys so recently I had rooted my i537 S4 active and have been researching and modifying here and there until i decided to get a custom ROM. I found WickedROM via this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2491762 and considering it had worked on this person's i537 I decided to flash the ROM. After flashing I had become stuck in a bootloop and I can't get to anything besides DOWNLOAD MODE. Due to this problem I decided to run a stock firmware via Odin with this one_click http://rootzwiki.com/topic/44121-sgh...axy-s4-active/ ... this filled up until the bar was about 90% and then all of a sudden fails at <ID:0/003> system.img.ext4. I've tried other firmwares with no luck and have resorted to posting about this problem. please help and guide me in the right direction, my phone's been bricked for 3 days now. Trying to boot into recovery gives me the "there's been a problem with your firmware update, please run in Kies recovery" and Kies doesn't recognize my phone.
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When you flash back to stock, you can only flash a version that is equal to or greater than the version you were already on. So if you were originally on 4.4.2 you can only flash a 4.4.2 stock ROM, any other ROM will fail to flash.
thisisapoorusernamechoice said:
You forgot to flash the masterpatch which makes roms designed for the AT&T S4 (not active) work for our phone. If I understand correctly it needs to be flashed immediately after the rom is installed (i.e. still in SafeStrap, before you attempt to boot up).
That link is for MF1, an outdated firmware. Here is a collection of stock i537 firmwares. I can personally confirm the NH3 file is usable since I used it to upgrade to the most recent firmware without losing root.
This thread will provide you instructions on how to use Odin to flash any stock firmware. I can only add I recommend using Odin v3.07, as I've used it with the most success and fewest issues. Also use NH3 firmware or at the very least NE3, because anything else is outdated, assuming you were on stock KitKat originally, and you will encounter similar issues if trying to downgrade to jellybean.
Also flashing with Odin deletes all your saved files/user info etc. on your phone. From the sound of it, fixing your phone is going to involve inevitably wiping it one way or the other, so I hope you have a backup saved somewhere other than your phone's internal memory.
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Click to collapse
Thanks very much for this! I flashed an NE3 firmware and was able to get my phone in working condition. So if I wanted to flash a rom on my phone I would have to masterpatch AFTER the rom flash via Safestrap?
nickeon1 said:
Thanks very much for this! I flashed an NE3 firmware and was able to get my phone in working condition. So if I wanted to flash a rom on my phone I would have to masterpatch AFTER the rom flash via Safestrap?
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Yes, but make sure the phone doesn't reboot in between flashing the ROM and flashing the Masterpatch.
Forgive me I am a noob. I recently rooted my AT&T S5 cause was waiting for the 5.0 update to come out. I decided to go back to stock and upgrade and removed the root all except the bootloader still appears with custom when starting phone and is only trace of root is all can seem to find but is keeping me from installing new 5.0 as it gets to 28% and restarts says unable to install instillation interrupted. How can I replace bootloader with stock one and where may I find one? Any and all help appreciated. I am running 4.4.4 android and is a SM-G900 AT&T S5 with kernel G900AUCU2AOA1.
Emt269
Install Samsung Kies on your PC/MAC, and try flashing a new firmware with Kies. Follow the on screen instructions
I have tried that and tell me that my software is up to date have also tried a few different stock roms which were supposed to work with my phone with Odin and they all fail.
Flash the file in this thread.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/att...w-to-unbrick-flash-to-stocknce-g900a-t3077652
Thank you very much for the help and sorry has taken so long to get back and let you know it worked great. Thank you so much
I've been searching and searching for either file and I've got nothing but dead links. The one file I did find is bad and failed to write in Odin. It's been a long time since I worked on this phone and it's currently on 4.4.2, NC2 and it's not able to receive calls after unlocking and switching carriers...so my one thought is to flash the modem file. The phone is rooted but Safestrap is not installed. Going from NC2 up to what's currently available seems very daunting and there are many conflicting instructions on how to go from one version to another.
So, does anyone have a good link to either of the mentioned files? I've been looking for Odin files but I'd install Safestrap (if I can find the right one) and flash in recovery if that is the way to do it.
Or is it possible to update 4.4.2 to 5.0? What are the best instructions? I've spent four hours researching and it's just not obvious what I can or should do. I just want the phone to receive calls.
Safestrap is installed but won't work. Installed reinstalled busybox, etc. No love.
Found this, finally. https://mega.co.nz/#F!wg5wRQrQ!vR7a6pze9dgSWjbaRSyhWA. I flashed the modem but there is still the same problem. Did unlocking break the phone? I'm going to go ahead and download the whole stock ROM and try that next.