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.
Hey guys, i have been owning this piece of great phone for almost two years. But it never gave me a big issue.
Nevertheless, few months back i flashed cm12 and it worked great too.. I had been using it gracefully till i decided to update to cm12.1. So i decided to update, but the update always crashed google play services. The update did not happen automatically so i had to flash the zip through custom recovery (already installed) by myself.
I could not come out of that so i went ahead and did a full wipe and flashed cm12.1 along with gapps. Since then when i am unplugged it goes only to about few minutes (on battery) and shuts down. So, i now decided that this piece of update is buggy and did a full wipe and reflashed the original cm12 zip and gapps which i had placed in the first place. But, to my horror even this time it could not go past the bootscreen even and turns itself off when its about to start up. (Battery is full charged, did an overnight charge as well).One very unusual thing i noticed that almost all the the time i try to power it on it showed me "optimising app X of Y" which is weird. This kinda happens only on first boot.
But if i keep my phone plugged in to ac charge then it works fine.. but only last night it hanged and turned off even on charge. So there i decided that the cm thing is not for me. So i followed this tutorial and flashed the stock 5.1.1 rom (did a full wipe, tried oem lock and re unlocked and proceeded too).
But, i find the same problem same issue!! When unplugged my device, it just turns off even on full battery charge.
Can someone explain me the technical parts of the issue and what has gone wrong and how it can be fixed?
Please, Thanks
EDIT
Last time i locked - unlocked bootloader and proceeded with a fresh factory image flash, the device turned off on boot even when plugged in to my mac and it's hot on the back side
Sounds to me like there''s something physically wrong with the phone, probably the battery. Time for a new one anyway. Lithium batteries degrade with use. After ~500 charge cycles it'll have lost upwards of 20% of its original capacity and might show other signs of wearing out like inconsistent voltages. After 2 years of use, you'll be well beyond 500 cycles. A new battery off eBay is pretty cheap, and some sellers include the needed tools.Go to ifixit.com for a tear-down guide. A hair drier can help soften up the adhesive. The fact that it turned off despite being plugged in to your computer also points to the battery being toast - the USB amperage from a computer is less than the typical wall charger.
If it's not the battery giving you woes, I don't know what it could be.
And FYI, the whole "optimizing app" thing is the OS rebuilding the cache. When you flash your GAPPs package or a zipped Titanium backup it has to build the cache for the new apps. Same as when you do the "wipe Dalvik and cache" part of standard flashing procedure to avoid conflicts. In order for apps to load quickly, Android stores a lot of the necessary data in cache, so when you clear it or have new apps, it has to rebuild the cache. On Lollipop this takes a loooooooong time because of the way ART works.
Planterz said:
The fact that it turned off despite being plugged in to your computer also points to the battery being toast - the USB amperage from a computer is less than the typical wall charger.
If it's not the battery giving you woes, I don't know what it could be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How can i be completely sure that it's the battery which needs to be replaced? The battery shows charge. When i plug in and boot up it shows enough battery power left.
Currently, without external power it does not go past the google screen on boot. When i plug in power while device is off, the battery meter shows just a little depletion from full charge. When turned on, battery level is 82 %
After all , all this hardware mess up can be the consequence of a bad cm flash ?
the whole "optimizing app" thing is the OS rebuilding the cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this. Earlier it was happening on each boot. Now it seemed to be stopped.
By any chance did you have your phone charging while flashing and booting up your ROM?
ChainFires Son said:
By any chance did you have your phone charging while flashing and booting up your ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May be? But not the the first time
Nezam said:
Hey guys, i have been owning this piece of great phone for almost two years. But it never gave me a big issue.
Nevertheless, few months back i flashed cm12 and it worked great too.. I had been using it gracefully till i decided to update to cm12.1. So i decided to update, but the update always crashed google play services. The update did not happen automatically so i had to flash the zip through custom recovery (already installed) by myself.
I could not come out of that so i went ahead and did a full wipe and flashed cm12.1 along with gapps. Since then when i am unplugged it goes only to about few minutes (on battery) and shuts down. So, i now decided that this piece of update is buggy and did a full wipe and reflashed the original cm12 zip and gapps which i had placed in the first place. But, to my horror even this time it could not go past the bootscreen even and turns itself off when its about to start up. (Battery is full charged, did an overnight charge as well).One very unusual thing i noticed that almost all the the time i try to power it on it showed me "optimising app X of Y" which is weird. This kinda happens only on first boot.
But if i keep my phone plugged in to ac charge then it works fine.. but only last night it hanged and turned off even on charge. So there i decided that the cm thing is not for me. So i followed this tutorial and flashed the stock 5.1.1 rom (did a full wipe, tried oem lock and re unlocked and proceeded too).
But, i find the same problem same issue!! When unplugged my device, it just turns off even on full battery charge.
Can someone explain me the technical parts of the issue and what has gone wrong and how it can be fixed?
Please, Thanks
EDIT
Last time i locked - unlocked bootloader and proceeded with a fresh factory image flash, the device turned off on boot even when plugged in to my mac and it's hot on the back side
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly same problem is started with my Nexus 4 ... I really wonder, what is causing this. Meanwhile, have it sorted for you ? is that hardware (Battery) issue?
Nezam said:
Hey guys, i have been owning this piece of great phone for almost two years. But it never gave me a big issue.
Nevertheless, few months back i flashed cm12 and it worked great too.. I had been using it gracefully till i decided to update to cm12.1. So i decided to update, but the update always crashed google play services. The update did not happen automatically so i had to flash the zip through custom recovery (already installed) by myself...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too am facing kinda similar problem.
It first started on my stock Lollipop 5.1.1. I had kept it on charge and when I removed it, it got switched off. Thinking that it might be just another of the multitude of bugs in Lollipop, since I already had lots of problems with it, I decided to flash CM 12.1 Stable on it.
Unlocked bootloader, flashed TWRP recovery, created a backup (using TWRP), wiped data, cache, dalvik and started installing CM 12.1. Now comes the problem, I selected 'restart system' and it did restart and CyanogenMod logo was displayed for few minutes before the phone crashed. I switched it on again normally and the Google logo got displayed, and then again phone got off just after the Google logo. I tried flashing again by same procedure, but this time not even the Cyanogen logo was displayed. The Google logo got displayed and the went off.
Then I decided to restore the backup. Restored it but it still had the same problem at the startup Google logo.
Now I have managed to install CM 12.1, which works fine unless I don't open certain apps. When I open certain apps like Phone or Clock (those are some I have tried yet), it crashes the system.
This maybe a hardware or software problem, but pretty sure it isn't battery problem, coz it retains good charge when I switch it back on after crash.
shazR00t said:
I too am facing kinda similar problem.
It first started on my stock Lollipop 5.1.1. I had kept it on charge and when I removed it, it got switched off. Thinking that it might be just another of the multitude of bugs in Lollipop, since I already had lots of problems with it, I decided to flash CM 12.1 Stable on it.
Unlocked bootloader, flashed TWRP recovery, created a backup (using TWRP), wiped data, cache, dalvik and started installing CM 12.1. Now comes the problem, I selected 'restart system' and it did restart and CyanogenMod logo was displayed for few minutes before the phone crashed. I switched it on again normally and the Google logo got displayed, and then again phone got off just after the Google logo. I tried flashing again by same procedure, but this time not even the Cyanogen logo was displayed. The Google logo got displayed and the went off.
Then I decided to restore the backup. Restored it but it still had the same problem at the startup Google logo.
Now I have managed to install CM 12.1, which works fine unless I don't open certain apps. When I open certain apps like Phone or Clock (those are some I have tried yet), it crashes the system.
This maybe a hardware or software problem, but pretty sure it isn't battery problem, coz it retains good charge when I switch it back on after crash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since you already unlocked the bootloader, and therefore already wiped everything, you could try flashing a factory image.
I also got the same problem. I thought this is battery problem, so I replaced the battery but problem still there. I thought this is problem of lollipop, never installed CM or anything. It is always running stock android. After that I even downgrade to Kitkat stock version still it is not working. One more thing I noticed is If I don't unlock the device than it will be powered on, but as soon as I unlock it and if it is not plugged in to charger it will be switched off. Any suggestion what should I do?
I have the same thing for several month now.
Always thought it is the dying battery.
theminikiller said:
Since you already unlocked the bootloader, and therefore already wiped everything, you could try flashing a factory image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tried flashing Lollipop 5.1.1 (LMY48I) factory image. The same problem still exists. Faced few weird problems on running the first time. Following scenarios explains it exactly...
Not On Charge: Crashes after startup Google logo
Connected to Laptop (USB Charge): Crashes a few minutess after entering "Optimizing apps" screen
On Charger (AC): Completed the install (optimizing apps and setup) without problems
Now I can access the home screen and menu without problems. But when I start any app, phone will go off. Not just apps, at times even when the recent apps menu is opened.
shazR00t said:
Just tried flashing Lollipop 5.1.1 (LMY48I) factory image. The same problem still exists. Faced few weird problems on running the first time. Following scenarios explains it exactly...
Not On Charge: Crashes after startup Google logo
Connected to Laptop (USB Charge): Crashes a few minutess after entering "Optimizing apps" screen
On Charger (AC): Completed the install (optimizing apps and setup) without problems
Now I can access the home screen and menu without problems. But when I start any app, phone will go off. Not just apps, at times even when the recent apps menu is opened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you flashed the factory image did you do it via fastboot or by flashing a zip file. If you used the zip file I would suggest you do it with fastboot.
theminikiller said:
When you flashed the factory image did you do it via fastboot or by flashing a zip file. If you used the zip file I would suggest you do it with fastboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By "flashing zip" you mean using "fastboot update" command? ...If so, nope I didnt. I extracted all compressed files and then flashed each of the img's using fastboot. Flashed a total of 6 img files.
shazR00t said:
By "flashing zip" you mean using "fastboot update" command? ...If so, nope I didnt. I extracted all compressed files and then flashed each of the img's using fastboot. Flashed a total of 6 img files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I meant flashing each of the image files. If you did that then u don't have any other suggestions.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 20:42 ---------- Previous post was at 20:41 ----------
shazR00t said:
By "flashing zip" you mean using "fastboot update" command? ...If so, nope I didnt. I extracted all compressed files and then flashed each of the img's using fastboot. Flashed a total of 6 img files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I meant flashing each of the images. If you did that then I don't have any other suggestions.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
I m too facing the similar issues. Phone is getting turned off suddenly when not charging, on charging it is working fine. i have done factory reset and also done factory image reset to 5.1.0. i m still facing the same issues. I don't think so it is related to battery. if anyone have the solution then please let me know.
shazR00t said:
By "flashing zip" you mean using "fastboot update" command? ...If so, nope I didnt. I extracted all compressed files and then flashed each of the img's using fastboot. Flashed a total of 6 img files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the very basic flash technique by double clicking the flash-all.bat. It's not the same as flashing the imgs one by one.
Battery is the issue. Get it changed. I also faced same problem, and visited LG service center and they changed the battery. Phone working fine now.
gautam.is.sharma said:
Battery is the issue. Get it changed. I also faced same problem, and visited LG service center and they changed the battery. Phone working fine now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so Battery was the problem!! Got it changed, phone working fine now. Thanx all!
Ok guys i confirm that this is a battery issue. I took it to the service center and the guy temporarily replaced battery to show me issue solved... But... there i saw another issue due to which i did not buy the battery. I saw half the touchscreen not working (including the navigation buttons ). The guy at the center told its a h/w issue and i would have to spend 7K on it so i left my phone dead for now. The Question is ... can this be a s/w issue.. or result of bad flash which can solve on reflashing ??
same problem with my nexus ,but one thing i noticed that the phone does not power off while in recovery...Any idea??
My G2 has been acting really funky lately, hanging on boot and not being able to "hold" recovery flashes. I'll start from the beginning of my little story.
On Saturday, I wanted to do a nandroid backup from TWRP (not sure which version, an older one but not terribly old). It failed several times. I went back into the OS (CM 12.1) and backed up all apps and app data to an OTG USB via Titanium Backup. This was successful. I tried to go back into TWRP a second time. Nothing. Recovery is not even there, I get a security error from what I believe is fastboot. I went back to CM and tried to re-flash TWRP. Now I get a security error on the LG screen. Nothing would boot, no recovery mode, I did have download mode although I had no PC with me so I didn't know this at the time. I was away last weekend so I had to go without a phone for a day... which was actually... kind of pleasent. Don't ask me why I carried two 32GB USBs and an OTG adapter on my keychain but no laptop, because I have no idea why I would do this, lol.
Came home Sunday afternoon and decided to nuke the whole phone with a TOT flash. Since I always wanted to try CloudyG2 since we all know AOSP-based ROMs don't do the camera justice, I went ahead and TOT flashed, re-rooted, re-AutoRec, etc. Everything worked wonderfully; I did a full wipe in TWRP, flashed in Cloudy, then the KK radio, then Xposed. Played around with things like XCam and a few Xposed modules. Everything was working awesome, so I did my restore in Titanium. Took a few hours, but Titanium says everything went fine (sans for a few CM apps which did not restore by design I guess). I checked out a few apps, all my data is there, wonderful. Titanium told me to restart so after poking around a bit, I went for the restart. Hang on boot. For several hours. Tried to go to recovery, fastboot security error. Seems it can't "hold" recovery or something else that I'm flashing?
Clearly I am doing something incorrect here with flashing and all that, but I can't figure out what. I'm not new to flashing and modding, and I've flashed regular CM updates and other goodies onto this G2 for quite a while with no issues. I'm going through the same steps I would normally with CM, and I've had plenty of success with that. Any ideas what I am doing wrong here?
Had same issue and know I hard bricked it trying to get it fixed ... Off to a different phone I guess .. Not sure why it wouldn't hold a recovery either after a few hours ... I gave up .. Good luck
Sent from my SCH-I535 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Sorry for the long post! As a bit of background, I was running stock rom with sytemless root, EX Kernel, TWRP and I had just enabled xposed (the only new variable in my setup). So I plugged my 6P in at the gym before I play some ball. Phone proceeds to random "reboot" a few seconds later, no huge deal I thought. Then it enters The Indestructible Bootloop (IBL). It won't boot past the animated colored dots. Play for a couple hours, phone still not booted; slight to moderate anxiety setting in. I figure, worst case scenario, I have to flash a factory image when I get home. So I try to reboot it a couple times by booting into the bootloader (holding power and down vol), then recovery then reboot. I also flashed the xposed uninstaller and deleted /data/data/de.robv.android.xposed.installer/conf/modules.list: neither worked to solve the IBL. Then I just waited til I got home and tried to plug it into my Win 10 PC. Nothing. Device manager doesn't even recognize it as anything plugged in; moderate to high anxiety setting in. Note that I could previously connect it just fine and device manager doesn't see ANY kind of device connected, so I don't believe it's a driver issue or anything like that. So, through TWRP, I look to see what's on the device storage: I have an old nandroid ( I believe stock unrooted) and a custom rom, Chroma as well as some GApps and a couple custom kernels. At this point I wanted to preserve my text messages so I did a new nandroid then tried restoring the old nandroid as well as flashing Chroma without wiping data. Nothing, still won't get past the colored dot IBL. So then I tried doing a full wipe before trying the old nandroid and Chroma again. Nothing. Figured it may have been a malicious file on my sd card so I deleted a few files that I didn't immediately recognize in TWRP and tried all the above steps again. Still nothing. So I just called Google and they offered to replace it. However I would like to have my phone for the weekend and not have to have a $650 hold on my account. I'm on Project Fi so I can't use a temporary burner phone. I figure I'm probably screwed but hopefully one of you geniuses could help me out. Thanks in advance!
tl;dr: Phone randomly rebooted and entered indestructible bootloop. Windows device manager won't recognize it at all. Tried everything I can, including clean flash of custom rom and an old nandroid: phone still won't get past bootloop.
At this point I have completely run out of options. I AM CALLING UPON THE XDA COMMUNITY TO PLEASE HELP ME. Little bit of background info, nexus 6p was rooted and modified through xposed. Had some modules installed, mostly quality of life and visual/theme modules, as well as the latest version of SuperSU.
These past few days my Nexus 6P has completely stopped responding at times. Extremely laggy and could not do **** with it, systemui kept restarting over and over and over again for no reason. Had to keep force rebooting (holding down the power button for 10 seconds) multiple times over and over again, to the point where it suddenly stopped booting into the OS, it just kept giving me the boot animation loop, i could only access the TWRP recovery i had installed. Before all of this **** went down, I had created a TWRP backup because it would be my safety net if i could somehow miraculously get it to work. Now i have a backup of my TWRP BACKUP FILE on my desktop.
I have wiped caches more times than i can count, have tried factory restoring and formatted the data, and tried flashing the stock google image (the same one that i originally flashed at the time that I got the phone when i started to root) as well as flashed the old TWRP version i had, as well as the current latest version of TWRP, and then transferred the backup i made back onto the phone's internal storage. Tried restoring the old backup from TWRP, and each time it restores, it just reboots without reaching 100% and once it reboots, it still gives me a bootloop, this time, no boot animation, it just gets stuck at the Google text with a little "unlocked" logo at the bottom. I have completely run out of options, and have A LOT of EXTREMELY IMPORTANT information i have saved on the phone.
I will say it again. I am EXTREMELY DESPERATE to get my data back, to the point where i am even willing to offer a cash reward for any help to get my phone working back to the way it used to, or even at least to extract the information through the backup, if at all possible.
Additional information about the files and images I used:
angler-mdb08k is the name of the google image i had back when i had the phone and have flashed again
twrp-2.8.7.2-angler is the TWRP version i had back when i had the phone originally at the time
I had flashed and followed guides online through adb method.