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Last night i tried installing Clockwork Recovery on my Tab (it's a US T-Mobile model). I got an error message in ADB, but i thought i had worked through the issues. Then i installed Rom Manager and tried to make a backup through Rom Manager. It rebooted my Tab, but it never made it to Recovery; it froze on the white T-Mobile screen. At this point, i can reboot, but it always gets stuck on the white T-Mobile screen. If i hold down volume-down and power, i get into download mode, and if i hold down both volume-up and volume-down with power i get some text (sorry, can't remember specifics b/c i'm at work w/o my Tab).
I'm not a total Android noob, but i am new to Samsung (i've had a Droid and a Droid X, and i am very familiar with SBF-ing Mototorla android devices... i assumed that Samsung devices used something similar but i guess i was wrong). I feel that since i can get into download-mode, i should be able to re-flash the stock firmware and resurrect my Tab, but i'm not familiar enough with Odin (which i gather is what i'll need to use) to know HOW to do this, let alone where to get the correct version of Odin. I have found a file on these forums: T-Mobile.zip, which i think is what i'll need to flash, but again, i don't know how to do it.
I'd appreciate if someone would take pity on me and help me through my problems!
-dave
Looks like i figured it out myself. Thanks to anyone who was contemplating a reply
-d
What was the fix?
Just out of curiosity, how did you resolve it?
As i said in my original post, i had found a T-Mobile.zip file on these forums. I originally tried using Odin to flash it to my Tab without success. Then, while scouring the web for answers, i found a blog post where someone flashed that same file to his semi-bricked Tab and it worked. The video showed the version number of Odin (1.7), which was different than the version i had tried using. Sooooo, i found v1.7 online, downloaded it, and used the PDA option to flash T-Mobile.zip to my Tab... and it WORKED!
I did have a lot of force quits of my apps after rebooting, and the guy on the blog said that if this happened, to do a factory data rest. So, success AND now i know how to flash back to stock which is even better! I hope this info is useful to others who get themselves into the situation i got myself into.
-d
impulse630 said:
As i said in my original post, i had found a T-Mobile.zip file on these forums. I originally tried using Odin to flash it to my Tab without success. ack to stock which is even better! I hope this info is useful to others who get themselves into the situation i got myself into.
-d
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Click to collapse
Hi impulse ..can you please point to post where is the t-mobile.zip file you are referring to...is this a complete t-mobile rom which can be flashed normally using odin ..or maybe other procedure needed ....my regards.
Here's the link to the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=855851
-d
I don't think I've bricked my phone, I hope you can help me. Done some reading here, but still a big time noob! Trying to flash back to stock for the Verizon upgrade, my phone is stuck on the screen with a gold triangle and a exclamation point in the center of a cell Phone and a computer. I found a thread with a similar problem. I can't seem to have a successful flash in odin. I keep getting a fail when i flash the test file. I would be content if I could just get the phone to boot and have my Miunia Rom working again. Someone please help.
Al bergie man1 said:
I don't think I've bricked my phone, I hope you can help me. Done some reading here, but still a big time noob! Trying to flash back to stock for the Verizon upgrade, my phone is stuck on the screen with a gold triangle and a exclamation point in the center of a cell Phone and a computer. I found a thread with a similar problem. I can't seem to have a successful flash in odin. I keep getting a fail when i flash the test file. I would be content if I could just get the phone to boot and have my Miunia Rom working again. Someone please help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That means you have no kernel our rom in the phone. Not sure what this "test file" you are trying to flash is, but I'm not surprised its failing. Flashing dl 17 should work. If not, flash the ec07 leak, with the proper pit file, repartition unchecked. Then flash dl17.
Dished out by my dumb digits
now it's worse, I hit the dark abyss
So, I flashed(with odin) the clean Eco7 stock with with the correct pit file. It seemed to be doing fine, it got all the way to recov.bin but then I froze there for about an hour. At this point i didn't think it was going to pass anyway so i unplugged the phone and stopped the program(oops?). Now my phone is even worse, it seems lifeless. The phone won't even go to down load mode. I found on another post where someone else was also getting nothing, no power just blackness, and I followed those directions. Still a black screen. It seems more grim than ever! One thing I have noticed that while attempting to flash, a few times my computer completely rebooted. Out of know where! This has happened about 5 or 6 times. I'm just about ready to turn on my old flip phone but I just don't want to give up yet! Any more suggestions?!
Oops, is right. You may have hard bricked yourself. I've tried helping people out of this one before, with no sucess. That is the reason I told you to make sure repartition was unchecked. You can try to power on, and issue an adb command, if you have it installed. But, I doubt it will work. The reason you don't have download, at this point, is because you don't have a secondary bootloader on your phone, anymore. It turns into a catch 22. Download mode is supposedly hard written on the chip. So, you could use a jig to force it into download mode. I'd say that that is your best bet, at this point.
did uncheck repartition
I did uncheck repartition but obviously with no avail. I Will try the"jig" but I don't know anything about it. Is this a file I can download or what?
No matter what happens, thanks soooo much for the efforts to help me!!! Especially wolf??
No. A jig is a piece of hardware. Do a youtube search for 'download mode jig' and you''' get some good hits. You'd have to construct it, or get ahold of some of the devs that have. I don't recall the name, but one dev made one for the Fascinate. I'd imagine it would work for our phone too.
If anyone can remember who it is (I want to say Adam Outler, but I might be wrong) pipe up.
​Hello all, obviously I have done something catastrophically wrong, (and may the almighty smite thyself down for such ignorance) but I am hopeful there is a kind soul that will bestow his knowledge upon thee. I am aware of the several ways to approach getting help on the internet and I am going to just come out and say; I am no programmer, I ****ed up the process somewhere, thank you if you can assist me in anyway. So here it is, I followed "The All Things Guide" http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=53758227, and was on the way to flash the "Foxhound" ROM found here, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=53758227 (version incompatibility?). I was in recovery mode, flashed the ROM, Flashed the modules, and then the SuperSU, I then rebooted it, and- nothing, gave it ten minutes, still nothing. So (bad idea get ready) I removed the battery and booted to recovery mode, from there I noticed I could not restore the backup I had made, "E:Unable to mount '/system'", this is where I am at. I am following a few guides as of now in order to remedy this problem, if anyone has any advice, or guides (I know how you guys love those), I would be extremely appreciative, I understand this could take 5 minutes of your time, but due to my lack of knowledge in this area its going to take me hours, please save me that hell. Thank you!!
It's probably best to Odin the nb1 tar file at this point and start over.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=50667360
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
Is safestrap still working? Did you validate the md5 hash was correct on foxhound? Odin is probably your safest or quickest to get up and running.
Alright, thank you gents, I will do that, and yes safestrap is still working.
EDIT: Is there any specifics for what i'm doing? Im seeing guides for going from mk2 to nb1, is that the same as going from nc1 to nb1?
Thank you fine gentlemen, this process fixed it, on to my next ill thought-out endeavor.
Ok, please I hope you can help. New to rooting, I rooted my s5, and was working fine for days, then I got the error and yellow triangle "system software not authorized by Verizon" I downloaded one md5 firmware I found and flashed it using odin, after was done had the same error though. I was on version 4.4.2. (don't know if that matters) I cannot find any other "stock" firmware online to try that are md5 that I can use with odin. I can find all these custom roms in zip format but don't know how to flash to odin when they are in the zip format and not tar or md5. Right now im just bricked and cant do anything and trying to learn how to fix all this.
Links to all files you need to download and full instructions on how to Odin back to stock can be found here ==>
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2784880
To properly root your device follow these instructions here ==>
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2784860
You can not just flash a ROM to your phone like with older phones, due to the locked bootloader. You have to install Safestrap and install the ROM there. You will find all you need to do that along with a link to a Youtube video explaining it all here ==>
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2793891
ok, I did just like the guide says and applied the tar file. it goes through the whole process but when it reboots it still says "secure fail:modem" in the left hand corner and "system software not authorized by Verizon wireless has been found on your phone please turn off and got to nearest wireless store for help". Im lost....
do I have to download and flash all those files? the nk2,n12, ne9, ncg??? what is the difference? hope someone can help...been working on this for hours and there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on my issue
tr889 said:
do I have to download and flash all those files? the nk2,n12, ne9, ncg??? what is the difference? hope someone can help...been working on this for hours and there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on my issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stick with my instructions to reset and the instructions to root. I have all the files and instructions you need for root linked in the how to root section in the OP.
I did it word for word, and after boot it still comes up to the system software not authorized by Verizon screen. Don't know how to proceed?
any help would be greatly appreciated because at this point im out 450 dollars.
Took it too Verizon and they said there is nothing they can do but give 178 dollar gift card...anyone here have any other ideas? Followed the rooting guide here, updates were turned off, don't know what went wrong
tr889 said:
Took it too Verizon and they said there is nothing they can do but give 178 dollar gift card...anyone here have any other ideas? Followed the rooting guide here, updates were turned off, don't know what went wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you re-partition using the pit file when trying to go back to stock? This doesn't make any sense. To the best of my knowledge, even tripping knox won't result in this ...
Yeah I did. Don't know what to do...I seem to be the only one that has had this issue. My question is, what did I do to wrong to make this happen? How do I prevent it when I get a new phone? It seemed to happen after tethering using x tether on xposed? Is there an issue with xtether ?
No there's no issue there. I run it and have Odined back to stock a couple of times and re-installed it.
Work backwards. Un-install all xposed modules. Un-install SuperSU, towel root and everything else you have added. Do a factory data reset and then try to Odin back to stock maybe? Take it all the way back to NGC
You don't use any kernel tars, just the full factory image tar
This started as a beg for help thread, but since the GS4 is coming up on 3 generations old, help is quite slow, yet does still exist as of this edit (3-20-15).
None the less, I will try to explain what happened so that people searching for similar problems might find this thread and resolve their issues.
I soft bricked the phone flashing PacMan. ... The instructions CLEARLY stated that you need to flash the rom, then flash GApps. Well, I forgot to Flash Gapps because I was so excited that I had a successful root and new rom to test that I finger ganged the phone.... The phone booted just fine and worked just fine, but I did not have ANY google apps, and went into a panic... LESSON #1 DO NOT PANIC......
What I failed to realize is that Android Lolipop (at least PacMan's version) requires the user to select options in the developer section of the settings menu to enable you to boot into your custom recovery after you have flashed your custom rom.... I DID NOT KNOW THIS and the information was NOT readily available. So what happened was I panicked and tried to flash another recovery which was apparently NOT the correct recovery for my phone.. (the cascade of errors began here). My phone was soft bricked and NOTHING I did would get me out of it.
So, after at least 50 attempts using Odin to try and flash a good recovery, re-root the phone, whatever I could think of, I finally got out of soft brick, and back to a working phone, yet still no google apps, and no recovery (or so I thought).
By this time, I had asked ....no. begged for help on 2 or 3 different threads to no avail when what I thought was a brain storm came to me.... I googled and located the google play store apk, and google play services apk and thought that if I could just get these 2 things installed, I would be able to log onto the google play store and download the apps I need and all would be right with the world....... Yeah.... Remember the cascade of errors thing I mentioned a few lines up ^^^ ?
Once I installed those 2 apk's and rebooted the phone, I was in nag screen hell with no way out, no custom recovery (remember...or so I thought) and no way to access ANYTHING on the phone because literally the second I hit "ok" on the nag screen, it would immediately pop back up...This "nag screen" was the one that pops up and tells you that "google play services has stopped working".. I came inches away from launching the phone against the wall and buying another one... something... anything but a Samsung GS4.
So here we are, 14 hours (of actual face in the phone, Odin, XDA, Google, YouTube) frantically searching for ANY solution.....and NOTHING presented itself, when I decided to take a step back and walk away from it for a couple of hours.......
The next thing I tried was pounding my way through the nag screen... Literally hitting the "ok" toggle to clear the screen, while instantly trying to hit any other button on the screen to get me into the settings menu, because during my little self imposed time out, I had an epiphany.... of sorts..... What really happened is that I remembered seeing a "factory reset" toggle in the settings menus somewhere.....and I was determined to find it........ SO....... 13,386,329 clicks of the "ok" button later, I managed to engage the factory reset switch at the exact right moment, followed by another 4,388 presses of the "ok" button to get to the "confirm" button.......... and like a beacon from heaven...... My phone rebooted, and factory reset, and the #%g^7**&^|@# nag screen was GONE !!!!! Oh my GOD it was GONE !!!!!!! After recovering from my full blown conniption, catching my breath and feeling like a raver must feel after a good night of Molly and glow stick euphoria, I had a working phone again..... almost.
What I did next was go immediately to Odin, re-root the phone, install a DIFFERENT rom, and the latest version of TWRP and like another beacon from the gods I had a wonderfully functional phone with all of the google apps I needed.... and all was good with the world........Pretty much....
I am nearly certain that I cost myself 5 years of healthy living with the stress I imposed upon myself throughout this ordeal ---- The following are lessons learned. Hopefully they save you from madness...
(1) Do NOT use a USB hub to connect your phone to the computer. The phone MUST be connected directly to a USB port on your machine.
(2) Understand the workings of the rom you are going to flash BEFORE you flash it.
(3) DO NOT PANIC
(4) DO NOT randomly install apk's just because you think you are smarter than a 5th grader, and you are so mad your phone doesn't work, you are going to try anything regardless of how retarded it might be.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST and actually probably the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do is locate, download and CONFIRM GOOD a stock firmware for YOUR phone BEFORE YOU ROOT or flash a new rom..... If you get to brick he11 like I did, you will spend more time searching for the tools to get back to zero than you can imagine. You will be revved up, angry with the world, and your google fu will fail you......miserably I might add......
Get all of your ducks in a row BEFORE you root, and before you flash a new rom. That means finding the stock firmware and opening it up in Odin with your phone connected to CONFIRM you have a good firmware to go back to should you fail miserably.... Your very sanity could depend on it...
Team Scream said:
Does anyone have and is willing to share a stock Galaxy S4 rom so I can go back to stock on my phone? I am currently soft bricked and completely dead in the water...
I need to be able to flash the rom using Odin since that is the ONLY way I can communicate with this phone right now....I can flash whatever recovery I want using Odin, but I cannot boot into that recovery once successfully flashed with Odin. It boot loops and goes back to the completely useless PacMan 5.02 rom I flashed previously that repeatedly shows the "google play services has stopped working" screen.... and no number of attempts to clear it by hitting ok will get me to a working desktop
I bricked my phone by flashing PacMan and forgetting to flash GAPPS before rebooting, then trying to install google play services apk and google play store apk manually because I could not get back into recovery for whatever reason....
I have spent the ENTIRE day searching for a stock rom that I can flash with Odin so I can at least get back to zero with this S4 which is actually a brand new phone for me....
PLEASE do not link me to mediafire or rapidgator downloads because I have tried every one of those that google will reveal.. I need one that YOU know is good, and will work. NONE.... NOT ONE of the files I have been able to find online are legitimate .tar files... They ALL unzip with errors and I have tried them on multiple computers.....Multiple download attempts and NOTHING... I have literally been at this for 10 hours now and really need some love.
On a side note, if I can pull the stock rom from my wifes brand new S4 without screwing up her phone, PLEASE tell me how to do that. She literally picked up her brand new replacement S4 today...
Any help is genuinely appreciated... PLEASE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung Galaxy S4 (SPH-L720)/Stock ROMs
KennyG123 said:
http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung Galaxy S4 (SPH-L720)/Stock ROMs
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Click to collapse
Man thank you! THANK YOU! I really appreciate it... I woke this morning to find this reply after leaving my computer running all night for another corrupted downloaded image file.... I have my fingers crossed !!! THANK YOU
P.S. how do I know which one of those files I actually need? I have no idea what the difference is in each of those folders.... Forgive me for noob but I really am pretty noob at this.....
I just looked at the link to help you and noticed that Wilco stops at the NAE baseband. A lot of phones are on the NG2 baseband and if you have a 720T, it could be even a different baseband. Go to settings, "About Phone". Look for" "Baseband" and "Model Number". Write that information down. Once you have that, the last three characters are what is in the list in the link KennyG123 sent you. (For example, I have the original S4 so I have a SPH-L720 and my baseband is L720VPUFNG2 (or NG2 for short. Which was not on that list.) If it is not on the list, go to www.sammobile.com and search for your model number (For example, I am on the SPH-L720. If you just bought your phone from Sprint, you probably have the SPH-L720 or SPH-L720T). You can download the tar file from there. It is a little slow but it will get it done for you. The tar file for both phones are here in this forum if you want to search but going to Sammobile would probably be a little easier from the sounds of it.
dyandell said:
I just looked at the link to help you and noticed that Wilco stops at the NAE baseband. <snip>
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Click to collapse
Hey brother, thank you so much for the help and reply. I might have forgot to mention that I cannot get into the phone to read the model # or get any information from it at all. The nag screen telling me that google play services has stopped working is so persistent that I can't do anything with the phone once it boots.
Is there a way to brute force wipe the phone so that the only thing left when that process is done is a custom recovery like TWRP or Philz or anything other than stock?
If so, would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of a tutorial that would help me get through that process.... I am either not using the right search terms or I am just too old to be good at this and should have stayed home when the rooting lessons were being handed out...
Anyway, I genuinely appreciate your help... Thank you so much !!
Ok I was able to pound my way through the nag screen to the settings menu and eventually got to the baseband and model #
baseband: L720TVPUBOA3
model #: SPH-L720
I have tried 3 times to download the only version I can find on the sammobile.com website using the baseband to search and the file fails to download after getting about 2/3 complete.... I have tried it on 2 separate computers from 2 different locations now...... This is horrifying ...... Every single force that can be working against me, is working against me.
Ugh...... If you have a link to a method I can use to force wipe the phone without a stock rom, but with a recovery I can boot into to flash a rom I have on my external SD card, I would love to see it...... im losing my mind here...
<<<<<<<< EDIT>>>>>>>>>
I was also able to pound my way into the settings menu and do a factory reset which removed the google play nag. From there I was able to root around in the developer options folder where I discovered that in order to be able to boot into recovery, you need to select the "boot options" tab and allow the device to boot into recovery....
I know this device is old now and most people have moved on, and I am pleased that there are some people who stick around here to keep this device alive. I only wish that someone would have advised me to check the boot options selection when I indicated I could not boot into recovery... That would have saved me 2 days of manic obsessive he11....... This was complete he11...... But I am on the other side of it now, and have reflashed another rom... I am back among the living.
Team Scream said:
Ok I was able to pound my way through the nag screen to the settings menu and eventually got to the baseband and model #
baseband: L720TVPUBOA3
model #: SPH-L720
I have tried 3 times to download the only version I can find on the sammobile.com website using the baseband to search and the file fails to download after getting about 2/3 complete.... I have tried it on 2 separate computers from 2 different locations now...... This is horrifying ...... Every single force that can be working against me, is working against me.
Ugh...... If you have a link to a method I can use to force wipe the phone without a stock rom, but with a recovery I can boot into to flash a rom I have on my external SD card, I would love to see it...... im losing my mind here...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sprint phones have always been able to downgrade and thinking that has not changed. You should be able to Odin the last one listed on the link I gave you...NAE...then your phone should boot...you can then take the Sprint OTA if you like then root and recovery as normal. Then you can get to the stuff on your SD and flash. The only issues I remember popping up these days is if you mismatch the modem and OS...which wouldn't be the case if you Odin'd NAE.
Team Scream said:
Ok I was able to pound my way through the nag screen to the settings menu and eventually got to the baseband and model #
baseband: L720TVPUBOA3
model #: SPH-L720
I have tried 3 times to download the only version I can find on the sammobile.com website using the baseband to search and the file fails to download after getting about 2/3 complete.... I have tried it on 2 separate computers from 2 different locations now...... This is horrifying ...... Every single force that can be working against me, is working against me.
Ugh...... If you have a link to a method I can use to force wipe the phone without a stock rom, but with a recovery I can boot into to flash a rom I have on my external SD card, I would love to see it...... im losing my mind here...
<<<<<<<< EDIT>>>>>>>>>
I was also able to pound my way into the settings menu and do a factory reset which removed the google play nag. From there I was able to root around in the developer options folder where I discovered that in order to be able to boot into recovery, you need to select the "boot options" tab and allow the device to boot into recovery....
I know this device is old now and most people have moved on, and I am pleased that there are some people who stick around here to keep this device alive. I only wish that someone would have advised me to check the boot options selection when I indicated I could not boot into recovery... That would have saved me 2 days of manic obsessive he11....... This was complete he11...... But I am on the other side of it now, and have reflashed another rom... I am back among the living.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you got it fixed! I have had my phone for over a year now and never heard of a boot options tab. I guess you learn something new every day.
Also glad you got it fixed. But let's keep this open in case someone else has the same or similar issue.
KennyG123 said:
Sprint phones have always been able to downgrade and thinking that has not changed. You should be able to Odin the last one listed on the link I gave you...NAE...then your phone should boot...you can then take the Sprint OTA if you like then root and recovery as normal. Then you can get to the stuff on your SD and flash. The only issues I remember popping up these days is if you mismatch the modem and OS...which wouldn't be the case if you Odin'd NAE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well not being able to leave well enough alone, I locked my phone up again.
Because I was able to get out of soft brick without needing a stock firmware, I never bothered downloading NAE from the link you provided.
Turns out after 2 separate downloads (one using Chrome and one using Firefox) I have determined that the md5.tar files on that site http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung%20Galaxy%20S4%20%28SPH-L720%29/Stock%20ROMs are worthless.... BOTH downloads failed in Odin before I could even get out of the gate....
They failed the md5 check that Odin performs and would not allow me to continue.... IS there something I am missing?
Team Scream said:
Well not being able to leave well enough alone, I locked my phone up again.
Because I was able to get out of soft brick without needing a stock firmware, I never bothered downloading NAE from the link you provided.
Turns out after 2 separate downloads (one using Chrome and one using Firefox) I have determined that the md5.tar files on that site http://www.rwilco12.com/downloads.php?dir=Files/Devices/Samsung%20Galaxy%20S4%20%28SPH-L720%29/Stock%20ROMs are worthless.... BOTH downloads failed in Odin before I could even get out of the gate....
They failed the md5 check that Odin performs and would not allow me to continue.... IS there something I am missing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remove the .md5 extension at the end and try again.
KennyG123 said:
Remove the .md5 extension at the end and try again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sweet baby Jeezes please tell me that is not all I had to do.... I spent 4 hours staring at the screen downloading files last night .... I waited 4 hours and finally could not stay awake any more but I finally got the OA3 firmware from SamMobile downloaded successfully. I left the .md5 extension and it is now flashing via Odin as I type this.... I could have saved myself a few more hours of misery if I had known you can remove the .md5 extension..... This learning curve is hard on an old man like me hahaha!
Thanks Kenny
<edit> Ahhhhh.... the sweet smell of success !!! I am now booted back into a stock phone!!!
Man I hope this thread can help save someone else from the anguish I have put myself through with this thing....
Team Scream said:
Sweet baby Jeezes please tell me that is not all I had to do.... I spent 4 hours staring at the screen downloading files last night .... I waited 4 hours and finally could not stay awake any more but I finally got the OA3 firmware from SamMobile downloaded successfully. I left the .md5 extension and it is now flashing via Odin as I type this.... I could have saved myself a few more hours of misery if I had known you can remove the .md5 extension..... This learning curve is hard on an old man like me hahaha!
Thanks Kenny
<edit> Ahhhhh.... the sweet smell of success !!! I am now booted back into a stock phone!!!
Man I hope this thread can help save someone else from the anguish I have put myself through with this thing....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sure it will! Glad you got it working and glad I helped! Some versions of Odin don't care about the md5 extension and others barf it up. With the way your luck went....well...don't buy a lottery ticket this week...hahaha.