Simple guide to [VM firmware recovery thread] v2

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wwjoshdew

Inactive Recognized Contributor
Dec 30, 2008
1,389
1,400
Seattle
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Josh. It would probably be best if you waited. That isn't a full true fix. It's all cosmetic. There are things that go much deeper than the Virgin Mobile banner on the screen. It works in a sense, but it's really just a bandaid for a much larger issue.

Also. You might want to wipe the fingerprints off your laptop now. :) Just joking around.

~co~

Do you wanna know the WORST part? I was like, "how do you know my laptop is dirty?" lmao

Thanks for the heads up. I've just never ventured this far out into Android.
And the EVO3D is no longer my daily driver! :)
 

HSadler93

Senior Member
Jun 29, 2010
183
21
Do you wanna know the WORST part? I was like, "how do you know my laptop is dirty?" lmao

Thanks for the heads up. I've just never ventured this far out into Android.
And the EVO3D is no longer my daily driver! :)

Like he said there is no true fix and UnknownForce is working really hard to bring a full fix.

Once UnknownForce completes his work doing a video would be a really great idea because i'm sure lots of people will have questions as this has affected many users on XDA
 

jlechner

Senior Member
Jan 23, 2008
1,316
251
Kansas City
off topic: Just called about pricing for the LTE. Buy back is $90, LTE is $130, which becomes $79.99 after a rebate. The sucky part for me, I'm on an employee account and can't upgrade till after 90 days of launch. They do this to get normal customers the phone first, then they let employees buy. lame-o.

on topic, I'm gonna go back 10-15 pages and copy a few posts here and there and update the op in about an hour or so.
 
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ckombo

Senior Member
Jul 16, 2010
196
17
off topic: Just called about pricing for the LTE. Buy back is $90, LTE is $130, which becomes $79.99 after a rebate. The sucky part for me, I'm on an employee account and can't upgrade till after 90 days of launch. They do this to get normal customers the phone first, then they let employees buy. lame-o.

on topic, I'm gonna go back 10-15 pages and copy a few posts here and there and update the op in about an hour or so.

May I ask how you are getting this pricing?
I just called and they said my best option is to pay the early termination fee ($120 in my case). Then, upgrade to the EVO LTE for $199 (plus $36 activation). I guess I could then get $90 for the buy back on my 3D. So my total would be around $260 + tax.

Your pricing sounds much better!
 

jlechner

Senior Member
Jan 23, 2008
1,316
251
Kansas City
May I ask how you are getting this pricing?
I just called and they said my best option is to pay the early termination fee ($120 in my case). Then, upgrade to the EVO LTE for $199 (plus $36 activation). I guess I could then get $90 for the buy back on my 3D. So my total would be around $260 + tax.

Your pricing sounds much better!

I'm eligible for upgrade.

Sent from my Sprint/Virgin Mobile hybrid
 
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Unknownforce

Retired Recognized Developer
Nov 18, 2008
2,044
4,268
OK, So, since starting over, I deleted all the Partition 19's that people sent me. This is both for ease of starting over as well as user confidentiality. (I'm not in the business of selling people's info, nor do I want to have the possibility of them all being on my computer where someone could find them.)

But, I need these again. However, this time, I need much more information. I'm working on determining the pattern to these VM flashes and I'm getting to a point where I need more test data, which is good, because I can start to develop a working fix shortly.

So, what I need is people who are obviously willing to take a risk as well as trust me not to steal their info. (didn't do it last time, and won't do it this time, but just reminding you that this partition contains all the unique phone info, number, MSL, imei, ESN, etc etc)

What I'm going to do first is find the right pattern and the correct spots to fix for every possible scenario, then I'll run through the partition, find the places that need to be fixed and run my patch against your partition, I'll send you back the fixed partition and have you flash it to your device. If I get enough of these that work, I can then simply release the fix.

Use the following adb command on a rooted rom:

adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p19 of=/sdcard/p19.img

Then pull the p19.img from the sd card, and zip it (it's compacts to really small compared to the 8MB it starts at)

Please use this template when sending them to me...

1.) What works:
Data works Yes/No
Texts Yes/No
Phone calls Yes/No
In/Out of Roaming constantly Yes/No
Everything works, just stuck on Virgin Mobile Banner Yes/No
Provide any additional notes about functionality here:

2.) Things I have done to try and fix it:
rfg_1/2 flashing
flashed 1_53.145 "fix"
flashed VIN's fix
erased partitions to try and revert
flashed 2.17 firmware to try and fix
flashed something else: Explain
Anything else that you tried to do:

Basically, I need as much info about what your current situation is on your phone, and exactly what you've done up to this point. I need to find a pattern and figure out what's working, and what's not working, and why. I need everything you've done from the point of VM flashing on... Anything you've tried to do is relevant. Because like I said before, it's different on every phone.

So, Send me a PM, I'll give you an email address to send it to. Do not post it here, it contains your personal info on your phone.
 

phonetec

Senior Member
Dec 4, 2009
859
119
OK, So, since starting over, I deleted all the Partition 19's that people sent me. This is both for ease of starting over as well as user confidentiality. (I'm not in the business of selling people's info, nor do I want to have the possibility of them all being on my computer where someone could find them.)

But, I need these again. However, this time, I need much more information. I'm working on determining the pattern to these VM flashes and I'm getting to a point where I need more test data, which is good, because I can start to develop a working fix shortly.

So, what I need is people who are obviously willing to take a risk as well as trust me not to steal their info. (didn't do it last time, and won't do it this time, but just reminding you that this partition contains all the unique phone info, number, MSL, imei, ESN, etc etc)

What I'm going to do first is find the right pattern and the correct spots to fix for every possible scenario, then I'll run through the partition, find the places that need to be fixed and run my patch against your partition, I'll send you back the fixed partition and have you flash it to your device. If I get enough of these that work, I can then simply release the fix.

Use the following adb command on a rooted rom:

adb shell dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p19 of=/sdcard/p19.img

Then pull the p19.img from the sd card, and zip it (it's compacts to really small compared to the 8MB it starts at)

Please use this template when sending them to me...

1.) What works:
Data works Yes/No
Texts Yes/No
Phone calls Yes/No
In/Out of Roaming constantly Yes/No
Everything works, just stuck on Virgin Mobile Banner Yes/No
Provide any additional notes about functionality here:

2.) Things I have done to try and fix it:
rfg_1/2 flashing
flashed 1_53.145 "fix"
flashed VIN's fix
erased partitions to try and revert
flashed 2.17 firmware to try and fix
flashed something else: Explain
Anything else that you tried to do:

Basically, I need as much info about what your current situation is on your phone, and exactly what you've done up to this point. I need to find a pattern and figure out what's working, and what's not working, and why. I need everything you've done from the point of VM flashing on... Anything you've tried to do is relevant. Because like I said before, it's different on every phone.

So, Send me a PM, I'll give you an email address to send it to. Do not post it here, it contains your personal info on your phone.


pm sent
 

Will32

Senior Member
May 12, 2011
1,523
659
Benton
I'm gonna say yes, just because nobody else will, lol. But I'm not positive because I don't use WiMAX.
 

adrand

Member
Oct 16, 2010
27
4
boston
PM sent. Willing to send you a copy of my partition if you still need more. Thanks for all your work thus far.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
 

Unknownforce

Retired Recognized Developer
Nov 18, 2008
2,044
4,268
unknown, did you get enough pm's?

Sent from my Sprint/Virgin Mobile hybrid

Oh yeah, got plenty. Thanks.

I keep running into brick walls, but I'm still trying things...

The biggest problem I'm facing right now is that somehow certain devices are tripping some low level security that is wiping the radio_config clean, and disabling the radio.

This happens when I just change something as simple as the PRI number to a lower number.

To make matters worse, This doesn't happen on my device. So it makes testing REALLY hard because everything that I do on my end, ends up not working on others...

I've gone over everything and I'm not missing any steps that I'm doing that is any different... so I need to figure out why devices are not responding the same way. Or some way around that low level security wipe...

Still going though... little by little, I'm eliminating possible issues that could be causing it.

This partition is not very friendly. :(
 

ministersin

Senior Member
Aug 25, 2008
163
12
I did the Nocturnal fix and then updated PRL through the setting menu and i took me to 21089 from 21087. Is this a Sprint or VM PRL? Anybody else?
 

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  • 39
    So, who's ready for good news? :)

    One phone that was getting no signal... has been brought back to life and re-activated... All sprint banners, and I just spoke to him on that phone ;)

    So, we have a fix, but I'm going to spend some time getting this down to a little less complicated of a process hopefully.

    I've got a few more testers making sure that certain things go according to plan. Once I get a few successful tests in a row, I'll consider it stable and release to public.
    28
    Close guys. I'm lucky to have two phones right now to try different things on and have been pretty much out of service for the past two days trying to get this sorted out. Unknownforce has been putting in overtime trying to fix this and i've been trying out his creations :D
    27
    The thread is created, but just not ready yet. I have just sent out another wave of "test" PM's to have a few more people test this... Hoping for positive results here. Fingers are crossed.

    Not trying to keep everyone waiting, but I don't want to be the cause of Sprint getting an influx of "dead" devices.

    I'm trying to get this done as quickly as possible, I need a break from this :eek:
    26
    As a mini update, I'm taking a few steps back and starting over a little bit here. The patch still isn't producing the results I'm looking for. As such, I have a new phone coming shortly, and someone else has a new phone that they are willing to test with me as well, so we're both going to pull complete emmc partition dumps and I'm going to study them to the T and find all the changed parts...

    This will take some time, but it will be the correct way to do it. with the mixed results I've gotten so far, I'm thinking that it's possible that something other than the radio_config has changed here... and if that's the case, I need to find where that is, so that we can make sure we're not missing anything.

    So, while this will set us back a little bit, it will also help find anything that I could be missing, and ultimately get a proper patch and also open up the door to some interesting abilities for the new tool. (refurb status reset, RELOCKED -> LOCKED, lifetime stats reset, and possibly more)

    Basically the more I study it the better it's going to be.
    22
    Ran into a few issues when freeza tried it, delayed a little bit... will update tomorrow. Be patient guys.