Can't flash new roms, have SoD, rooted, V8BL installed, it gets way weirder - Acer Iconia A500

OK first, I will say that I have been reading for days and days and am getting nowhere at all. I am running out of time as I am leaving Monday backpacking from OKC to Portland to meet a friend, then proceeding immediately to about 35 national parks. I HAVE to get this thing functional so that I can depend on it on the road for communication. Its current state makes me nervous. I got this tablet already rooted, custom stock rom, and with an unlocked ICS boot loader version 0.3.11. The only problems with it were the common charger/screen response issue. For $100, I can deal with that.
I flashed the Lightspeed from from the main list, everything went well... Until it rebooted the first time. Since then, directly after the bootloader screen, it briefly shows what looks like semi-colorful TV static, then shows boot animation and boots into the OS. It has never frozen on either screen.
I decided Lightspeed was not at all what I wanted, so I flashed CM10. I have yet to find anywhere in the Aroma installer where I can choose the apps installed, ONLY THEME CUSTOMIZATION. After the flash, it kept the boot animation from CM, and loaded right back into what looked like Lightspeed, and shows Lightspeed in the about menu also. I reflashed it, choosing a different boot animation to test, and did the same thing again, except it loaded ZERO extra apps at all, not even the stock bloatware. Nothing from any of the 3 roms. I reflashed Lightspeed, same thing again. No extra apps and just bare basic stuff. EXCEPT SUPERUSER. THAT DID LOAD ONTO IT EACH TIME. I haven't lost root access, the recovery works fine.
I flashed the V8 bootloader, and tried the above again. Same issues still. All of them. I have read until I'm blue in the face. If there is a way to fix this without using a PC, that would be grand. I have very limited PC access.
Anyone have any ideas? I have followed every single step 100%, I'm positive. I'm not new to rooting, flashing, and jailbreaking (doesn't apply here I know),"so lay it on me.
EDIT- I downloaded the 4.0.4 FLEX-Reaper rom and going to try that now and then I give up for the night. Tomorrow is the last day I have to mess with this before I leave. I tried to upload screenshots of the problems, but it won't let me attach them. Maybe that is another problem. Ugh who knows. Help
EDIT- That rom bricked my tablet. Through that brick, I found a working solution for the SoD, found a way to recover without files on external SD, *THIS FIXES THE BRICKS CAUSED BY CM10 AND REFLEX!!!* and I didn't lose anything. This thing is back in pristine order. I can finally sleep! Will post later on how I did it. I need sleep now.

Related

Nothing works as it should...

I can't begin to describe how frustrated this phone has made me. I am not an Android "n00b" by any stretch. I have had 4 different Android phones, have flashed at LEAST 100 different roms, made complete rom themes, and even glued together one of the first complete Gingerbread roms to flash from recovery for the Motorola Droid (not from source, but first posted rom with working camera, Gapps, and all from standard recovery - not nandroid). With that being said, this phone is next to impossible for me to use. I've lost track of all of the problems I have had with this thing. Everything from CWM not being able to restore any backups, horrible battery life, boot loops galore, the phone freezing anytime it is plugged into the computer or wall (not the car charger, oddly enough), boot loops, tried the Yellow Clockwork (and everything failed that could on that), flashing roms that would work great until you reboot the first time, and so on and so forth. WHEN the phone works, it's great. However, that is starting to become quite rare. Most recently I have been stuck on trying to get either Evil Fascinate to work or MIUIWiz with no luck for either. EF works great...until I restore my apps. Once I reboot, it's all over. EVERYTHING force closes and it becomes completely unusable. Doesn't matter what kernel I use, it always happens. And this is now happening with both 3.5.1 and 3.6.0. Plus I could just watch the battery life plummet as I was using it. I even tried the EC01 radio with it, as it was suggested that might be better. So, I decided to try MIUIWiz. Followed the directions perfectly. Wiped everything, flashed a JT Kernel from 4/15, flashed rom, and...guess what? Boot loops. I am on ClockworkMod 3.0.2.7. I am familiar with how to wipe data/cache/dalvik. There were no voltage settings to wipe. I did check to see if Voodoo was enabled before booting. I just don't know what else to do. This isn't exactly rocket science and I really feel it can't just be user error at this stage with all of the different issues I have ran across. I'm pretty much at the stage that I am gonna return it to stock and sell it, but would really like to enjoy it for a little while longer... Thoughts?
Just for laughs, I downloaded Community Rom 1.3. Was on EF 3.6 (with nothing restored, just signed into Google). Rebooted to Recovery, wiped everything, installed Comm Rom and never got past the Samsung screen. *sigh* Seems odds since they are based on the same base, but yea, that's how it's been going for me.
I think since you are so god awfully experienced that you are looking over something that probably seems useless to you, ive NEVER experienced any of your problems and I can tell you its not the phone.. I would read up about your specific problems or ask a specific question and you might get the help you need.
Edit:Bootloops are user error nearly every time. Unless you have a corrupt download or something.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
As much as your sarcasm warrants a rude response, I'll choose not to stoop to that level. The point of the post was that there is not a "specific" problem. Hence the title, "Nothing works as it should..." Not every phone is the same, and just because you have experienced any of these problems does not determine whether my issues are phone related or not. Battery life issues are very common place, which is evident in many threads. The phone lagging when plugged in is most CERTAINLY a phone issue and has nothing to do with rom flashing. It appears this is a firmware issue and is not likely to be fixed at all. Also, I pointed out the steps used to flash the rom, which are posted in the thread, and still have problems with boot loops. So, I guess every rom I download is corrupted? Even though on different networks and computers? That's some luck I have...
Are you referring to "download" mode when you said yellow cwm? If so then maybe reinstall the samsung drivers and give it a clean flash including the pit with voodoo disabled. If you have bad problems like you are having that fixes anything I encounter.
Edit: if you use odin, try heimdall
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
The newest imnuts kernel installs a yellow CWM, and nothing worked right at all on that. Every verification failed. SO I ODINed back to stock and retried everything anew. Anytime I restore my apps with Titanium, the next reboot fails. I even just went back to stock again, flashed CWM Red 3.0.2.8ti and the stock kernel with recovery fix, restored apps again and rebooted and it did the same thing. I didn't have any issues with Titanium restoring stuff before, having successfully used it on EF 3.5.1 and ComRom 1.3 but not those don't work for me either anymore. I've tried restoring just the apps with no data and that doesn't seem to make a difference either.
EDIT - It must have something to do with Titanium. Gonna try an older version and see if that works. It looks like they updated it recently and maybe it is just not playing nice with anything for my phone.
When you restore try not restoring system data, that is check the box for user applications only. That might be the issue.
yea, I'm going to say Ti backup is the problem because you mention ti every time you have a problem. personally I don't use ti cause its never played nice for me, but did you try manually reinstalling a couple of apps reboot and see if the same problem happened? that would really narrow it down almost completely to ti.
Fascinate 2.2 1.2GHz(uv)
download the imnuts peanut butta jellytime kernel of choice and put it on your sdcard. Odin back to the stock rom of your choice (i recommended eb01 as other odin packages cause bad music quality.), and let the phone boot up.
Next, pull the battery and go back into download mode. Odin one of times_infinity's cwm packages. Then replace the battery and boot straight into CWM. Wipe data, cache, and dalbik and then flash community rom 1.3. IMMEDIATELY AFTER (meaning in the same cwm as when you flashed comm rom 1.3) flash the imnuts kernel that you put on your sdcard. Phone should boot up fine and be fully functional. As mentioned earlier by someone, dont restore system data with titanium backup.
It's not just the system data that is causing issues, as I have tried it both ways, and of course, only restoring system data that is labeled green when attempting to do so. And, it did work previously on EF 3.5.1 but no longer does. I'll give it another shot using thefunkbot's directions. Still confused as to why EF is the only rom that boots normally.
Alright, so that did get Com Rom running. I had actually tried that method before, but it took so long on the Samsung screen that I was sure that it was froze. I just let it go this time, and after about 5 minutes it finally started. None on the other roms I tried took that long, but whatever works...
that's probably due to voodoo, which takes about that time to install/initiate.
Yea, you can hear the creepy robot lady telling you what's going on, but it took a couple of minutes after that even. Also, I skipped Titanium and restored the apps manually. Some were from my SD card and some from the Market, and only about half of them worked after rebooting. Meh
Flash com rom, then flash the otb kernel. Comrom will boot and you will enjoy your phone.
I got Com Rom to boot, but alot of the apps won't reinstall without force closing after rebooting. Not being able to use Titanium is a major PITA to me. But it's not just Com Rom, it's EF, and even the stock rom. Just never had an issue with it before now. But even installing apps through the Market or from the SD card also created issues, so I dunno what is going on.
If you're getting a **** ton of FCs, try fixing permissions via Terminal Emulator. Run 'fxpms' and it *should* solve some FC issues. Also, the phone generally takes much longer than a couple minutes to boot up after doing a full wipe, because the dalvik cache has to be rebuilt. Guarantee that if you had just left the phone alone the first time it was stuck on the Samsung screen, it would've booted just fine.
There are many guides that should help if you run into problems. First odin back to stock update to get new modem (doesn't have to be the newest but might a well), use the pit as well. Second odin cwm. Then flash kern and rom with a voodoo conversion if desired.
At first don't restore any backups. Don't use any themes. Or make any other changes until you see how out runs. Also don't play with the under volting until you've used it a while.
After running it awhile "stock" a it were then start making your changes one by one. This way at least you will know what its causing the trouble.
That happened to me as well when flashed com rom. I took 3 batt pulls before I just let it go to find it was working all along just took its sweet time on first boot. Was not voodoo here. I also agree with your charger problem, but for me its reversed, only happens on the car charger. And I hate to say it but no froyo rom, stock or otherwise, plays nice with my fascinate. I get all kinds of weird bugs. And battery life got worse. Since I have come to the realization that no fascinate aosp or cm rom will ever have bluetooth headset support, I finally threw in the towel and spent an hour on the phone with verizon to get an upgrade. Sad but after all this time it was time to give up.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Wiping Davlik causes unusually long boot times on Froyo ROMs on the Fascinate. If you just wait it out (if it's more than 15 minutes, though, something's wrong) you should be golden. By the way, PBJ 5/23 is literally a non-starter, so I would suggest nemesis2all's OTB kernel until imnuts updates.
Another Fascinating post by my XDA app...
Thanks for all the help and advice everyone. After trying five different roms, I finally found one that works for me. Blackhole. I set it up just like the others, the difference being that Titanium and everything else works. Still have to test battery life, but just having all my apps and no force closes or boot loops is enough for now...
es0tericcha0s said:
Thanks for all the help and advice everyone. After trying five different roms, I finally found one that works for me. Blackhole. I set it up just like the others, the difference being that Titanium and everything else works. Still have to test battery life, but just having all my apps and no force closes or boot loops is enough for now...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Blackhole 4.4? Or an earlier version? I miss SonOfSkywalker's work since he added the Thunderbolt to his arsenal (he also devs for the Vibrant)
Another Fascinating post by my XDA app...
4.4. Haven't had any issues with it so far. Battery life is probably not the best so far it seems, however I don't even care at this stage as long as everything works. I also have not run it down and reset the battery or played with many settings yet so not ready to say it is the rom or anything of the sort. Everyone has their deal breakers with their phone, and not having Titanium work is one of my biggest things. I love that app. I didn't donate for it to not use it, you know? I'm a themer, and I have a lot of themed apps saved with it that makes the Market pretty much useless to reinstall stuff for me. Plus it is an easy way to uninstall system apps without screwing anything else up.

[Q] Installing Virtuous Fusion

Hey everyone.
I would appreciate some help or suggestions. Maybe someone will know the problem, which I can't seem to figure out. First thing first, I couldn't post in the release thread because I don't have the proper post count.
Anyways, I am not new to installing ROMs on my phone. I can install and run CyanogenMOD easily, and have done so many times. My phone is rooted. So I went from the stock ROM on the MyTouch 4G to CyanogenMOD 7, with no problems. I used it for a while, and then when I saw Virtuous Fusion come out, I wanted that installed. I had tons of trouble getting it to work, even though I was doing everything I was supposed to do. Reset my phone, cleared all caches and data, pretty much cleared everything out. I tried installing from the zip several times in clockwork recovery, and it wouldn't get me past the boot screen. The boot screen would either loop forever, and never get past it, or the boot screen would load up for 3 seconds and then the screen would go completely black (in a state where it looked like the phone turned off).
Eventually, after about the 10th install (which were done all the same exact way), the Fusion ROM decided to work on me and everything went perfectly. This was the first day it was released. I saw the ROM has been through some updates, so I decided to do the recommended clean install of the new version. I am having the same problem as I did before with the boot screen. I temporarily flashed Cyanogenmod so I can have a working phone again, but I would really like to be on Fusion. My favorite ROM out of all the ones I have tried. Does anyone know what could be causing this?
What version of ClockworkMod are you using? Make sure you're on 3.0.2.4 to insure ultimate reliability. Also verify the MD5 hash that eViL provides before flashing. Not doing so means you could have any number of problems caused by a corrupt file download.
Are you rebooting into ROM MANAGER. This ROM is not suppose to be loaded while in the Android OS.

[Q] Problem: Unresponsive screen after update

My wonderful wife gave me an Acer a500 for Christmas. Awesome gift. I had rooted it immediately with no problems, since all of my phones and families phone are rooted, it just seemed to be the natural thing to do.
As someone that "plays" with their android a lot I did all of the backups. Well, the time came to have my tablet "approved" for use at my company and also have the appropriate "encryption" software and keys added. Just as a precaution I decided to restore the original backup and unroot the tab.
All was going well until I received the update message. I went ahead and downloaded the update and ran it. During the install process it froze. I thought it was just busy so I left it for a good 20 minutes and finally realized it was frozen. I rebooted and it went through a couple of reboots and finally settled on the lock screen. But now I find the touch screen unresponsive.
I plugged in a mouse and keyboard in hopes that I could get back into it and start over, but, although, the mouse shows up, it is jumpy sluggish and will not grab the lock to slide open and eventually freezes.
I have tried all of the "update.zip" files I could find and they all fail at one point or another.
ADB allows me to explore in shell but since I unrooted, I cannot get su privileges.
Acer is of course, useless and the vendor it was purchased from is worthless.
I have been through every thread I could find and tried every trick I could come up with. Now I'm just stuck.
Any help is appreciated
I've had this a couple of times already. Usually just turning the screen off and on a couple of times does the job (the issue seems to be with the driver, also on various custom roms). Just try it after each off-on cycle, most of the time it takes no more than two or three tries, though there are exceptions.
Thanks, but it has been rebooted many many times since it's demise.
Decided to skip sleep tonight and keep plugging away.
I found an update.zip recovery file for an a501. Figured I can't do much worse so I went ahead and ran it.
It froze at about 95% but.........
Good News:
The tablet is responsive and touch panel works again.
Bad News:
It boots straight into system settings and although you can open the settings menu, nothing actually launches.
Decided to try all of the old update.zips and still everything fails.
No more ADB response.
When you originally unrooted your device did you revert back to the stock recovery or did you leave cwm on your device?? If you left cwm on your device that may be the problem with the update.zips and OTAs.
You are sooo right. I've never gone back to a stock rom before and I completely forgot about reverting to the stock recovery.
As a matter of fact, I was on Civato's Flexstriker 3.2.1 rom with the new CWM before I reverted back to the stock rom.
Well, at least we've determined my stupid mistake, but now the question lies: "How do I get back to any working rom?"
Here's an update. I did find an update.zip file that also begins to load but does not finish. It stops at 95% still.
I will attach the photos in case someone notices something otherwise I am at a loss. In addition to all of the above, I tried everything I could to get into APX mode but nothing. I am willing to try almost anything at this point, so all suggestions are appreciated.
Something I noticed was the recovery for the a501 was android with gears spinning in the body. The recovery I have now is a package with an arrow. The recoveries are different. The current update file is Acer_A500_1.145.05_COM_GEN1
So this brings me to a question: Can I put Thor's 1.6 CWM back on the a500 and at least work from there? I do have my original backups and thought I might be able to get somewhere that way.

[SOLVED] Suddenly G2 boots only into recovery mode (loop)

Sometime last night, my AT&T G2 (D800) decided to go from being powered on and idling, to going into TWRP recovery mode. All by itself. I saw this, unplugged it from USB, and tried to reboot into system mode. But it simply won't do anything except boot into recovery. Powering off, trying to get to the bootloader, none of that works.
This is not a custom ROM, it's 4.2.2 stock from LG. I only rooted the phone, which was several weeks ago, and haven't had any problems, aside from TWRP not wanting to back up anything. I've been using Android since the original TMO G1 with JesusFreke's ROM, so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing, hopefully.
The only recent changes I've made are:
I updated busybox about 3 days ago (but have rebooted fine since)
I grabbed several legit apps from the market last night
Last night I also DL'ed, but did not apply, a ~50MB OTA update that has been pending. I don't think that would install without explicit permission anyway, which I didn't give it?
This phone was encrypted from the start. Maybe that;'s what prevents TWRP backups,, but right now I'm seeing TWRP errors/logs saying something like "Unable to mount \data". And yet I can browse to other folders, and see filenames in \etc for example. However, I don't see any files at all in \boot.
Since this phone has no external memory, and it's customized and has numerous configured apps, I really really don't want to have to wipe it. Although at this point, that may not even fix the problem? Even if it did, since I haven't been able to make backup images, it would be a Bad Thing™ either way. (Yes, I do have a secondary plan with Titanium, with backups going to cloud storage, but these are tedious and now a few weeks old. And wouldn't restore the ROM & system en masse.)
Please help.
Solved?
I'm not sure what caused this to occur, but I found somewhat of a solution after digging deep into my Google-fu.
I followed the instructions in this XDA thread and it actually worked. I didn't have adb access, but I was able to use dd successfully. It allowed me to boot into the device, unencrypt it, then arrive at the lock screen.
However, when I put in the lock code, it went apesh!t and played multiple notification sounds, with a blue circular wait symbol. It also flashed the LED from green to blue, as it normally only does during boot. Once I pressed the power button, I was back back into TWRP.
So then I followed Step 2 again, and once in the phone, I used terminal to run the dd command from inside the OS. This might be what it ultimately needs, because the prior attempt in TWRP had an error to the effect of "no space left on device".
I can't call it Solved yet, but it looks good to at least be able to get in and use the phone. I'm backing up with Titanium before I do anything else and will reboot and test its permanency later.
I'm gonna close this thread now that I think I have a handle on what is going on. The fix does survive a reboot, so I believe it's possible to repair the issue permanently per the instructions above. I also ran the phone for 3 hours with heavy app usage and no problems.
I believe what may have happened is my OTA decided to override my choice to NOT update the ROM, as some have reported in this Reddit thread. There's a lot of good info in that one, including how to stop getting nagged by turning the OTA notifications off, or to freeze it entirely with Titanium Backup if rooted.
Anyway, what apparently happens is that when the OTA/upgrade goes to reboot, and encounters a custom recovery, it gets confused... when you try to power cycle or reboot again, it sees the stock recovery still hasn't run whatever it wanted, so it starts recovery again Lather, rinse, repeat.
Fun times.

I think I softbricked, but only CM13 seems to fix on my N7. What did I do/how to fix

Guys,
I'm not even sure where to start with what I'm seeing, but maybe you can help me.
I have had Timur's ROM on my N7 2012 for a couple years. It's been crashing randomly, even though I have few things installed on it, and a good power supply. I took it out of my car and put it on an iPad 2 amp supply, and it still crashed a bunch so I knew I needed to wipe and reinstall. I also wanted to go from 4.2.2 to 5+, which I know takes away a lot of the good features I need (like power on/deep sleep).
I booted into TWRP and wiped my tablet, which appeared to softbrick it (I think I have the usage right from searching). I downloaded the Pure Nexus 6.0.1, CM13, and already had Autodroid ROMs to use. I tried to install Pure through ADB sideload, and got it installed. When I finished and tried to reboot, it said I had no OS. When I rebooted, I got the boot animation, and nothing else.
Long story short, I tried Autodroid and CM13, and using CM13 I got it back going. Unfortunately, every time I try to flash another ROM over it, it will no longer go past the boot screen. With CM13, it boots properly, but doesn't like the gapps pico I tried to install (error message when booted, keeps returning to the same pop up error).
I'm quite sure there's something I'm missing, but I don't know what it is.
Thanks!
Eric
Ok, before anyone goes nuclear on me, I think I better understand what happened. When I got ANYTHING to work, I stopped doing anything. As I understand, it wasn't functioning...it was just in a temporary mode of some sort.
After not being able to get it to work properly, I used this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1781250 to try and restore the system. I followed all the directions, except for using the 5.1.1 version of the ROM, and used the corresponding file name for the zip file used.
After doing so, the bootloader won't go to TWRP, but goes to the pic as seen below. I did reboot the tablet, and after waiting quite a while, the tablet came on, but I don't understand what that picture means.
Thanks!
Eric
Ok...I realized that I lost root. I'm fixing it now. I had read before, but didn't understand what I saw.
Thanks,
Eric

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