That would be cool if you can get the WiFi working for everyone,
If you do find a solution, please let me know and I will promptly update the OP.
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Also, it looks like the QPST method for fixing a hard brick WOULD work, but unfortunately, I don't have a Samsung-signed MPRG8960.hex file. If someone has that, please send it my way? (very doubtful)
It appears my only remaining option is to JTAG this thing. Ideally, I want to just JTAG the sbl2 and sbl3 if possible, but it looks like I might have to flash the whole boot chain to get it back to download mode.
Here's the questionable part: I've read up a small amount on efuses. It seems once you flash a newer version of a bootloader, you typically can't go back because it will reject anything older than its current increment (permanent). As far as I can tell, here's my current boot chain, with version numbers:
pbl = (stock, of course...)
rpm = MF3
sbl1 = MDB (no patches to-date have changed this)
sbl2 = MF3
tz = MDL
sbl3 = MF3
aboot = MDL
Now, I'm not sure if the chain of trust was violated when the sbl2 loads and authenticates TZ... or if things break when the sbl3 tries to load aboot? Either way, I'd like to just restore all of these back to MDB (or MDL even).
Question #1(ish): if I were to JTAG this, could I restore all of these back to an earlier version (does JTAG have such power)?
Question #2(ish): if I am now stuck with MF3 (a.k.a. need to update aboot & tz to MF3), can a JTAG be performed whilst keeping my /system and /recovery partitions in-tact?
If I can keep my current /recovery and /system, I don't think that I would mind losing Loki. I would just be stuck on the stock ROM forever. But if I had root & a custom recovery, I could still live with that. But I would still prefer to revert all of this back to MDB or MDL.
@AdamOutler or
@connexion2005 - Can you please take a few moments out of your busy lives to answer some of the questions above? Adam, I know that you have a LOT of knowledge on the chain of trust, so you might be able to enlighten me(us) about what is broken here. Josh, you have a lot of experience JTAGing this device and hundreds (thousands?) of others. Can you provide some answers here?
Thank you both, and thank you everyone else for the input/info so far. If I can get this device back up and running, I will be happy to continue contributing my time and efforts into this project and some other S4 projects I have put on hold.