[NOTICE] Gingerbread Related Bricking - May 27th 2011 update

There is no way to rule out GB as the cause of this failure right now. All we have is theories and the best fitting one is an emmc chip failure. Until we can find a user with a brick, who is still s-off, we can not learn more.

DO NOT FLASH OVER BRICKS, We need you to have s-off for trouble shooting.

UPDATE
We need info from brickers and non brickers please see

Please see here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1098363

--old post--

It has came to our attention, over the last few days that the recently leaked Gingerbread radios maybe causing a oddly large number of bricked phones.

This can affect any Thunderbolts running Gingerbread (except CM7 users), even after running fine for several days.

The cause at this point is not completely understood, and AndIRC as a whole recommends you revert back to Froyo until we understand it, or have a new leak.

When bricked, the phone is sent into an endless bootloop, no matter if you are booting into Android itself, or into the recovery. Trying to revert after the bootloop does not fix this issue.




Theories:

GB Radio causing corruption on the emmc:

Undisclosed chipset issue (Sorry no details will be coming unless verified)

GB miss reporting battery stats, aka just dead battery (Debunked by ryan2600 and I)
"Not sure if its the radio, i got a bootloop experience this morning after tethering my tablet on a freshly charged tbolt, few minutes later the phone died and stuck in a bootloop, there are times i can go to bootanimation sometimes it goes up to HTC screen and dies, I can go to HBOOT but before i can do anything the phone dies.
Good thing i have a 2 extra battery and an external charger from ebay, I swapped the battery and my phone is back to life, it seems like the GB roms are not charging the battery properly and reporting that the battery is around 80-90%" http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/hk54l/if_youre_using_the_leaked_gingerbread_build_or/

want a droid said:

Can this be confirmed? If yes then can't we just hang around with the froyo ruu file on sd in case we're set in boot loop.

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patdroid1 said:

So can we still get into bootloader and flash a pg05img if this happens???

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suzook said:

Yup. Its not a true brick. Its fixable.

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I too hit this problem yesterday. I worked with jcase all night (THANKS SO MUCH!) But at the end my phone cannot be fixed. It is 100% bricked. There is no saving it. Reloading the stock RUU (root or unroot) does not fix this.

erishasnobattery said:

At jcase's request, I'm going to post my experience with this.

Here's the situation:

My brother and I have identical set-ups. I did the entire setup on both. Alpha GB radio, running BAMF 2.05 and latest CWR.

Both phones worked great for 3 days. On Sunday, he powered down his phone to board a plane. Approximately 3 hours later, he turned it back on and it hung at the White HTC screen.

We got it into clockwork to attempt a restore, only to discover CWR would reboot after 8~10 seconds. I had him attempt to reflash the GB radio in fastboot to no avail. We then tried flashing the stock RUU at jcase's suggestion, also to no avail.

After flashing a few more RUUs that were suggested, we ended up on a phone with the SHIP bootloader S-ON and hboot 1.4.000 and had to turn it in for warranty.

My phone worked fine until yesterday when I flashed back to stock. I'm not going to risk it.

Bottom line, there is no rhyme or reason for what happened. Get back to Froyo as soon as you can, as there is currently no fix for this.

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You saved me from having to type this all out. I had an identical experience:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1094772

Bxsteez said:

From what i've been reading there aren't going to be any signs of bricking. The only sign you would get would be your phone not booting. I haven't had this problem but really why take the risk? Use Cyanogen and wait for a new radio. Just my opinion though

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There are no signs folks! I was listening to music, reset my phone and then boom, I was in bootloop hell! GET GB OFF YOUR PHONE UNLESS YOU CAN AFFORD TO BUY A NEW PHONE AT FULL PRICE. There is no guarantee that Verizon will replace my phone at this point! (nor should they have to)

Ok gang, now that ive read all 1,000,000,000,000 posts on this issue I am gonna just provide my two cents:

First off, there are 4 developers I swear by and trust (Adrynalyne, Butch, Jcase and Chingy). of course I mean no offense to others out there, these are just the ones I have always stuck with. So in my opinion, I would take there advice. Idont belive that Chingy has commented on this issue yet but the others have and thier recomendation is to go back to Froyo.

So opinions are gonna vary. I personally flashed back to Froyo about an hour ago. Do I miss GB? Being quite honest GB is great, but we all know (whether you admit it or not) that 30 days ago, we swore by Roms like Bamf Remix 1.6.3 and kernels like 4.4.7. So some are making it seem like its an earth shattering event to have to do this. I loved GB and my preference would be to get back to GB as soon as possible, however our fellow developers work around the clock to make cool sw for our phones and im sure they are trying to cook up a fix or work around for this issue as I sit and type this post. I flashed back to the 605.7 radio and restore from a previous Remix 1.6.3 backup. My phone is still running AWESOME and now that I have played with it for about an hour, I have to say, Froyo with the right Rom and Kernel is just as good as GB if not better. Yes, there are some cool bells and whistles on GB, but nothing that would make me take the risk of bricking my phone. I only say this because I have flashed this thing about 150 to 200 times testing out new roms and mods and never once has it failed me. I have seen many posts that state that the reulst will vary from on phone to another, so obviously, I have a good device in my hand that i dont want to break and then have to get a replacement phone that may not work as well. Call me supersticious, but I like my Tbolt, and I mean "my tbolt" as in this particular one. So to me, the risk is just not worth it.

The reality is that this device is just a couple of months old and definately one of the best android devices on the market if not the best, so chances are that: A. Our great developers will find out what is causing this and develope a fix. or B. there will be an official GB release via OTA or otherwise that developers will build from and things will be 100% fine. Until then, is Froyo that bad... HELLLLL NO!! My Tbolt is still running AWESOME!!!!!

So each is entitled to your own opinion and if you have the means to buy a new phone or file an Ins claim, then make your choice and stay GB. I mean no disrespect to anyone at all, just stating my thoughts. Personally, being a very experienced user, flasher, helper, contributor, researcher and supporter of our XDA community, if your asking for my advice, go back to Froyo, (Bamf Remix 1.6.3with the 4.4.7 kernel preferably) and you should not be dissapointed. I am sure our community will figure this out very soon and we will be back to GB goodness in no time.

You choice folks...

As always, Thanks to all and especially my developers of choice. You guys are the F$#%ing best!!!

So if I am reading all of these posts correctly as long as I have been running GB fine up until now I will not brick.

If I do go into the bootloop of death then as long as I have an RUU on my sd card I can fix it.

And if the above is wrong it is Jcase and Adryn's fault.

Got it.