[Q] Bootloader/Download mode blocked on new/replacement Vibrants?

---

Hello community!

I own 2 Vibrants, both rooted with no issues. I'm no stranger to flashing through Odin, I've flashed many of the Vibrants in my workplace back to the stock 2.1 (seems to fix most of the issues short of GPS problems, even though it's supposed to be the same), so download mode is nothing new to me.

Recently a few of the people who've come to me with Vibrants have shown how they can't get in to recovery or download mode without using ADB, the hardware keys just don't seem to work for it. I've tried myself and was able to confirm this. We were still able to root them with no issues using one click root. I prefer to manually flash the update.zip myself, but whatever does the job. I've just received a replacement for one of the Vibrants (menu button went out), and noticed I can not get in to recovery/download mode. Naturally I rooted, installed terminal, then rebooted in to download mode, started a flash with Odin.

It hung on cache.rfs. I waited... and waited.. and it mocked me in it's frozen status. So now I'm at the phone+!+computer screen, which I've been at several times on my main Vibrant, but the key's still do not work for download mode. To clarify, I've tried each of the following methods to enter in to download mode, several times. It won't work. I'm in the process of trying different button combination's to see if there is another way to get in. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Edit: Included working steps so people don't have to search the thread

Provided by rhcp0112345:

Try this.

1. Take out battery, put it back in. (to turn the phone fully off)
2. Don't turn it the phone on!
3. Plug the phone into your PC, do not hit the power button!
4. See if the phone shows anything on the screen (powers on its own when plugged in)

IF the phone screen does 'turn on' after being plugged in without you hitting the power button, so far so good.

5. Now while it's on like this, hold the volume up AND volume down buttons.
6. Hold the power button as well as the volume buttons until the screen goes black.
7. As soon as the screen goes black, let go of the power button! But DON'T let go of the volume buttons!

Originally Posted by stepinmyworld

"have your usb in, press down both the volume up/down toggle and the power button.... hold them until the screen goes black and as soon as it does, let go only the power button and it should appear there again

however, i found out that you need to take out the battery and get into download mode freshly again...."

Hello,

If the above does not work for you.

Can you supply a full dump of the phone? Perhaps I/others can take a look at it.

Thanks!

I have tried that. I have tried almost every combination I can think of. I have tried holding both volume rockers then inserting the battery while plugged in to USB, holding the power through 1 and 2 cycles, I have even tried 3 and 4 cycles as well. I have tried just vol down, just vol up, both with the same results. I have purposefully bricked my main Vibrant to test this out and make sure I wasn't losing my mind. I was able to get in to download mode several ways, none of which work on this new device.

@rhcp0112345 - How do I grab a full dump of the phone? I'll be honest, I've never spent very long in phone+!+computer before tonight. I've never been stuck here long enough to see how to connect via computer. At this moment, plugging the phone into the pc gives me no prompts that something has been plugged in, the phone isn't seen by adb (big shock) or Odin. I'm at a loss myself.

Well,

First thing.

Can you please dump like so:

adb shell
su
busybox ls -al /dev/block/

Post that here.

Also,

adb shell
su
dd if="/dev/block/bml0!c" of=/sdcard/bml0.backup

Please 7zip the bml0.backup file and upload it someplace and PM me the info. Dont post it public.

Thanks!

I'll be happy to do that with the next device I have this issue with, but I can't boot the phone, therefore I can't connect via ADB (been trying, if I could do adb, I could just simply 'adb reboot download' to get in to download mode). I'm thinking at this point I will have to exchange the phone, as I can't get past the phone+!+computer screen no matter what I try.

I was running into this problem too. I re-extracted the files and tried again and it worked. I also tried it without loading the .pit into odin, not sure which of two or both did it. Not sure if its the right way, but that did it after hangin on the cache numerous times.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Follow the unbrick method.

You pull the battery and some other stuff.

To get it past that.

I think its volume up? + power?

Yeah, removing the .pit file seems to fix the lock up issue in Odin, but unfortunately, I'm not even getting to the download screen, so I can't get Odin to find the phone. I'm sure once I get to download mode I can get it running, but I'm unable to get download mode on this one device.

Try this.

1. Take out battery, put it back in. (to turn the phone fully off)
2. Don't turn it the phone on!
3. Plug the phone into your PC, do not hit the power button!
4. See if the phone shows anything on the screen (powers on its own when plugged in)

IF the phone screen does 'turn on' after being plugged in without you hitting the power button, so far so good.

5. Now while it's on like this, hold the volume up AND volume down buttons.
6. Hold the power button as well as the volume buttons until the screen goes black.
7. As soon as the screen goes black, let go of the power button! But DON'T let go of the volume buttons!