What I have:
I have a Samsung J5 (2015) SM-500FN which ran out of storage and basically hung itself up. There is no data I want to recover, but I want to install either a stock ROM or (preferably) something else like Lineage - I just want to get a usable phone again.
My problem:
My question: How do I get out of this catch-22?
It seems that if I could just get around that E3004 then I would be fine. But I have found no ways to trick the installer into ignoring that error.
I have a Samsung J5 (2015) SM-500FN which ran out of storage and basically hung itself up. There is no data I want to recover, but I want to install either a stock ROM or (preferably) something else like Lineage - I just want to get a usable phone again.
My problem:
- I have tried to download *many* stock ROM
- Flashing with ODIN anyway gives a FAIL result and a device that cannot boot, not even into recovery: It gives a green screen with the text: `An error has occurred while updating the device software. Use the Emergency recovery function in the Smart Switch PC software.`
- Ironically, the Smart Switch software just says this device is not supported. The older Kies3 software lets me enter the exact model# followed by the serial# - but then it says this device is not supported. So neither Samsung software is usable, but I can still use ODIN.
- Even with the phone in this broken state, I can install TWRP again. So it is not completely bricked. I boot into TWRP and copy a LineageOS ZIP file to /sdcard, but when I try to install that, the TRWP console says: `E3004: This package is for device j5nlte,j5nltexx; this device is .` Note how it doesn't appear to recognize that this device is indeed the model j5nlte!
- Android.SE says that "E3004" means my TWRP is too old, but I use `twrp-3.1.1-1-j5nlte` which is currently the newest version for this phone.
- I would also like to try a factory reset, but that requires the stock recovery which won't boot (see step 2 above).
My question: How do I get out of this catch-22?
It seems that if I could just get around that E3004 then I would be fine. But I have found no ways to trick the installer into ignoring that error.