[Q] Help: Black Screen after bootanimation

tenjou_89 · Mar 9, 2014

hello xda. i need your help. im desperate. i dont know what else to do with my moto g

here's what happened:

in short:

-dropped into water, started bootloop, then it turned itself off.
-next day it would display black screen after bootnimation, no matter what i did.
-if i choose wipe cache partition, the phone reboots.
-i've flashed it "sucsessfully" several times, still runs into a black screen after bootnimation.
-i've unlocked the boootloader
-if i try to reclock: process turns out okay("locked" word by the end), but status code remains being 3.
-i dont care about backups, i had nothing important in my phone (gdrive ftw)

my concearns are:

-possible hardware unrepairable damage

-bootloader got corrupted
-mineral condensation is still there deep inside the components
-maybe gpu? emmc corrupted? semi brick? idk..

my questions are:

-what can i do from now?
-i've read that a new bootloader can be flashed into the phone. risk of bricking my phone?
-if the bootloader is the problem, flashing a new one would solve it?
-in general, what am i doing wrong in all of this? has my phone any chance of functioning normally, at all?

please help me

, i miss my phone, i got it for christmas, it is my first smartphone and i woudl like to bring it back to life if possible. thank you for reading.

grahameaddicott · Mar 10, 2014

I can help!

My girlfriend dropped her Moto G in water too, and it also started showing a black screen after the boot animation. I just managed to fix it.

Even if you have done some of this stuff, do it again anyway.

1-Power phone off
2-Press and hold volume down key for 3 seconds, then press the power key, then release both
3-You will see the boot options menu
4-Press the volume down key to scroll to RECOVERY, then press volume up to select it
5-You will see the Motorola logo, then after 10-30 seconds (maybe longer), you will see a Android logo with an exclamation symbol
6-Press and hold the Volume Up key for 10 seconds, then tap the power button
7-You will see a new menu
8-Use the Volume down key to scroll to Wipe data/factory reset, and then press the power key to select it.
9-Then use the volume down key to select yes, and use the power button to confirm
10-Let the phone format, then press the power key to reboot.

Once the phone has switched back on, wait and see what happens. If the Motorola logo comes on and then stays on for ages WAIT! It takes ages, but the phone will come back to life normally and be working in a few minutes!

If you see a black screen again:

Repeat steps 1-7
When you see the new menu again, this time select the cache wipe option (it's the last option on the list)
Let the phone wipe and then it should reboot
This time you will defo see the Motorola logo on the screen for ages. Just keep waiting and press nothing. Hopefully after a minute or 2 it will then take you to the welcome screen

Hope this helped. I couldnt find any advice so had to experiment haha

tenjou_89 · Mar 11, 2014

Thank you for replying to my problem

i have already done your steps uncountable times.
every time i try to wipe cache, the phone reboots. it does not wipe anything at all, it just instantly reboots. then bootanimation, then black screen again, but nothing happens. not even after 2 minutes, after 5 or 10. nothing. just black screen until battery drains completely from continously powering the backlight. do you think maybe the water hardware-bricked my phone? also, im ocassionally getting blue screens out of a sudden, then the phone powers itself off.

grahameaddicott · Mar 11, 2014

Ah, ok, sorry my suggestion didn't help. I had exactly the same problem, so surprised this didn't help you. After being dropped in water, all I got was a black screen after the initial start animation. I don't really know much about phones tbh, I just managed to fix mine through trial and error. My girlfriends phone was initially sent to a shop for repair, and although the guy couldn't fix it, he said there was no signs of water damage. Not really sure then why the phone stopped working, but the method I suggested did work for me. I don't think there was anything else I tried. It's worth mentioning maybe that it took 6 weeks before I could fix the phone. Maybe it took that long to fully dry out? Straight after the accident though the phone was put in a bowl of rice for days so it should have been dried pretty quick. Don't really know what else to suggest, sorry I couldn't be more help. Have faith though, I reckon it'll come back to life soon

tenjou_89 · Mar 12, 2014

thank you for posting a reply and thank you for your advice. i appreciatte the attention given. i will further try some other methods in hope of a solution.

liveroy · Mar 12, 2014

Your bootloader is working fine, dont touch it.
Unlock the bootloader and try to install cwm or twrp recovery, mount and format /data , /cache , /system through the recovery (if you manage it get recovery working ofc).
After that download mfastboot and flash stock rom with it.

Btw if you ever put anything into bag of rise, DON'T CLOSE the bag, you`ll probably do more damage than good this way.It should be done in open-air conditions.

tenjou_89 · Mar 13, 2014

liveroy said:
Your bootloader is working fine, dont touch it.
Unlock the bootloader and try to install cwm or twrp recovery, mount and format /data , /cache , /system through the recovery (if you manage it get recovery working ofc).
After that download mfastboot and flash stock rom with it.

Btw if you ever put anything into bag of rise, DON'T CLOSE the bag, you`ll probably do more damage than good this way.It should be done in open-air conditions.

are you sure it has nothing to do with the bootloader? now that you mention this.. can a 4.4.2 bl load a 4.3 rom successfully? and moreover, if i flash another bl, it will overwrite my original one right? is there eny problem on that? i am asking because no matter what i do, regardless of the "locked!" message, the menu keeps showing code status 3.

what happens if i flash the recovery and cant mount or flash any rom? or if the black screen persist after that?

and i wish i had known the rice trick before, cause i kept the bag closed for almost a day :s

soumik shah · Mar 15, 2014

grahameaddicott said:
My girlfriend dropped her Moto G in water too, and it also started showing a black screen after the boot animation. I just managed to fix it.

Even if you have done some of this stuff, do it again anyway.

1-Power phone off
2-Press and hold volume down key for 3 seconds, then press the power key, then release both
3-You will see the boot options menu
4-Press the volume down key to scroll to RECOVERY, then press volume up to select it
5-You will see the Motorola logo, then after 10-30 seconds (maybe longer), you will see a Android logo with an exclamation symbol
6-Press and hold the Volume Up key for 10 seconds, then tap the power button
7-You will see a new menu
8-Use the Volume down key to scroll to Wipe data/factory reset, and then press the power key to select it.
9-Then use the volume down key to select yes, and use the power button to confirm
10-Let the phone format, then press the power key to reboot.

Once the phone has switched back on, wait and see what happens. If the Motorola logo comes on and then stays on for ages WAIT! It takes ages, but the phone will come back to life normally and be working in a few minutes! If you see a black screen again:

Repeat steps 1-7
When you see the new menu again, this time select the cache wipe option (it's the last option on the list)
Let the phone wipe and then it should reboot
This time you will defo see the Motorola logo on the screen for ages. Just keep waiting and press nothing. Hopefully after a minute or 2 it will then take you to the welcome screen

Hope this helped. I couldnt find any advice so had to experiment haha

It worked for me, Thanks

tenjou_89 · Mar 16, 2014

liveroy said:
Your bootloader is working fine, dont touch it.
Unlock the bootloader and try to install cwm or twrp recovery, mount and format /data , /cache , /system through the recovery (if you manage it get recovery working ofc).
After that download mfastboot and flash stock rom with it.

ok i did what you said, i tried to flash cwm and fastboot presented no problems, (output is "okay"), but un the phone screen there's a message "mismatched partition size (recovery)", and when i enter recovery, it boots normal STOCK recovery!! i donw know whats happening. i renamed the cwm image to cwm.img and typed in these commands:

fastboot erase recovery
fastboot flash recovery cwm.img

then i clicked recovery option in the bootloader menu... but it booted into stock recovery!! this is so confusing

liveroy · Mar 16, 2014

Now
mfastboot flash partition gpt.bin
mfastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
at first since it seems you got partitions a bit messed for some reason.
Then flash everything in order, skip those 2

Also if you are really suspcious about the bl is not working fine, just flash motoboot.img from the same version of android you need.

tenjou_89 · Mar 17, 2014

thank you i will proceed to try what you said. though i have a question: is it possible for the bootloader to be overwritten with a previous version?
and what does it mean when the phone outputs "hab check failed for boot/recovery/system (etc)" ? i sometimes get those errors when flashing other region (official) roms

tenjou_89 · Mar 17, 2014

liveroy said:
Now
mfastboot flash partition gpt.bin
mfastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
at first since it seems you got partitions a bit messed for some reason.
Then flash everything in order, skip those 2

Also if you are really suspcious about the bl is not working fine, just flash motoboot.img from the same version of android you need.

i tried what you said and it is all the same. i choose "recovery" after flashing a custom recovery image, but it boots into stock recovery. any ideas on what might be going on?? is it possible for water damage to cause this behaviour ?

liveroy · Mar 17, 2014

tenjou_89 said:
i tried what you said and it is all the same. i choose "recovery" after flashing a custom recovery image, but it boots into stock recovery. any ideas on what might be going on?? is it possible for water damage to cause this behaviour ?

Hmm, maybe leave the recovery aside for now and try to boot a 4.3 ROM (stock one).
Also you cannot downgrade to bootloader afaik, but the newer ones work fine with 4.3 ROMs.

I don't think that the eMMC got damaged, cos nothing will work then.I really can't say if your problems are coming from the water dip or it's just the Moto G being stubborn if you do even one thing the wrong way.

PS. How do you flash the recovery?
fastboot erase recovery
fastboot flash recovery recovery.bin
fastboot reboot bootloader
This way?

tenjou_89 · Mar 17, 2014

what about the ram? a guy on some other forum said that maybe the ram got damaged to a point where only a part of it is now writable, and it gets flooded just before the complete boot up of the system, wichi is why the phone would then crash and display a black screen. what do you think about that theory?

i am going to try with 4.3 roms now. oficial and custom and post the results.

tenjou_89 · Mar 17, 2014

liveroy said:
PS. How do you flash the recovery?
fastboot erase recovery
fastboot flash recovery recovery.bin
fastboot reboot bootloader
This way?

yes, exactly that way.

edit: except i have images instead of bins, so:

fastboot erase recovery
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot reboot bootloader

liveroy · Mar 17, 2014

Typo of mine, should be .img

About that RAM theory, it really doesn't sound viable to me, but who knows.

If I have to guess, I would say it's probably some crucial component failing to initialize properly and the kernel halts the system.

tenjou_89 · Mar 17, 2014

hmmm do you know of a method of checking for the conditions of individual hardware componets through a pc? like probing or running a full check of everything, not just the emmc..?

mokkami · Mar 18, 2014

These seem not to work.
But if you find the correct details, maybe there is something to test in the service menu.

ahank · Mar 22, 2014

I have the same problem without water damage. I guess its the 4.4 OTA bug.
Tried reflashing the firmware i already have but of no use.
Mine shows the Blue Motorola logo and then doesn't show the boot animation.
Please can anyone help me out :'(

[Q] Help: Black Screen after bootanimation

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