[Q] Stuck in Colored Circles screen

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Phillustrate

Member
Mar 12, 2014
5
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I've already searched the forums and found no thread with the solution to my problem. People have had a very similar issue, but not exactly mine, so prior solutions I've found seem to not solve it:

I have a Nexus 7 (2012 WiFi).

It is rooted, clockwork mod.

I have a mac (that seems to not want to detect my Nexus 7 anymore).

I got the update for KitKat, like an idiot, I jumped at it, let it update overnight, and now I'm stuck in the 4 circles loading screen. Since I have CWM, I'm stuck in the CWM recovery mode when I try to do a factory reset. The factory reset does nothing, I was hoping to get back into the stock recovery mode, but have no idea how to get there (nor do I think it's possible).

Keep in mind, I'm semi-tech savvy, but when it comes to "flashing blah blah" I have no idea what the hell anyone is talking about if it's not broken down step by step in layman's terms. If you say, "open the terminal, and type exactly this", then I'm golden, but otherwise, I'm just googling tab after tab to figure out what it means.

As stated above, my mac does not want to even acknowledge the existence of my tablet either with ADK or Android File Transfer. Is there maybe a way I can put a zip on an sd and somehow use an SD reader to mini-usb adapter to sideload a fix? Anyone have any other ideas of how I can fix this issue? I'm not enjoying my Nexus 7 as a paper weight.

Thanks.
 

khaytsus

Senior Member
Apr 8, 2008
7,258
1,175
Central Kentucky
I've already searched the forums and found no thread with the solution to my problem. People have had a very similar issue, but not exactly mine, so prior solutions I've found seem to not solve it:

I have a Nexus 7 (2012 WiFi).

It is rooted, clockwork mod.

I have a mac (that seems to not want to detect my Nexus 7 anymore).

I got the update for KitKat, like an idiot, I jumped at it, let it update overnight, and now I'm stuck in the 4 circles loading screen. Since I have CWM, I'm stuck in the CWM recovery mode when I try to do a factory reset. The factory reset does nothing, I was hoping to get back into the stock recovery mode, but have no idea how to get there (nor do I think it's possible).

Keep in mind, I'm semi-tech savvy, but when it comes to "flashing blah blah" I have no idea what the hell anyone is talking about if it's not broken down step by step in layman's terms. If you say, "open the terminal, and type exactly this", then I'm golden, but otherwise, I'm just googling tab after tab to figure out what it means.

As stated above, my mac does not want to even acknowledge the existence of my tablet either with ADK or Android File Transfer. Is there maybe a way I can put a zip on an sd and somehow use an SD reader to mini-usb adapter to sideload a fix? Anyone have any other ideas of how I can fix this issue? I'm not enjoying my Nexus 7 as a paper weight.

Thanks.

If your recovery is broken you need to boot into the Bootloader (Hold power until you see the Google logo, then press Vol down.) and then use fastboot to flash a good image from there. You can then do a factory reset etc. You could also do a factory reset from fastboot directly, but you'll want to fix your broken recovery at some point.

Or.. Possibly the better method, since your device is in an unknown state.

https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images

Get the image FOR YOUR EXACT DEVICE. Don't get the LTE version for the WIFI, etc. Then just run the batch file. It will reset everything (including the internal SD card) and reflash the stock OS. This will leave your bootloader unlocked, with a stock ROM, kernel, recovery. You can flash the custom recovery and supersu.zip if you wish to re-root it.
 

Phillustrate

Member
Mar 12, 2014
5
0
If your recovery is broken you need to boot into the Bootloader (Hold power until you see the Google logo, then press Vol down.) and then use fastboot to flash a good image from there. You can then do a factory reset etc. You could also do a factory reset from fastboot directly, but you'll want to fix your broken recovery at some point.

Or.. Possibly the better method, since your device is in an unknown state.



Get the image FOR YOUR EXACT DEVICE. Don't get the LTE version for the WIFI, etc. Then just run the batch file. It will reset everything (including the internal SD card) and reflash the stock OS. This will leave your bootloader unlocked, with a stock ROM, kernel, recovery. You can flash the custom recovery and supersu.zip if you wish to re-root it.

Thank you so much for the response. I apologize for my ignorance: My secondary issue is that my computer does not even recognize when I plug in my Nexus 7. It did previously before my tinkering with it, and before the KitKat update, but now it's like I'm plugging in a brick. I did get to the point of downloading the proper factory image, but it does me no good since I can't load it on there. I don't know how to flash the drive when my computer can't even load anything on to it.

Is it possible to load it through a micro-usb to SD reader adapter? I'm thinking I can load the factory image on to the SD card, and then "sideload" the factory image from there.
 

Phillustrate

Member
Mar 12, 2014
5
0
To add information so I maybe can get help:

I think the reason my mac doesn't detect it is because I can't get the device into MTP mode so that my mac will see it as a storage device.

I would have to be able to get into the Android OS settings to actually be able to change this setting. I can get into bootload mode, and cwm recovery, but nothing else. I just need some way to get this factory image file onto the Nexus 7, but can't figure out how since this connection does nothing.
 

Pirateghost

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jul 24, 2010
11,696
8,703
androidninjas.com
Fastboot and recovery do not require any settings configured in the OS. They are independent of the OS. You need to update your sdk on your Mac for the device to be seen in terminal

Sent from my Nexus 5
 

Phillustrate

Member
Mar 12, 2014
5
0
Fastboot and recovery do not require any settings configured in the OS. They are independent of the OS. You need to update your sdk on your Mac for the device to be seen in terminal

Sent from my Nexus 5

It is up to date. It is not recognized either in sdk, android file transfer, or just in finder as a device at all.
 

Pirateghost

Inactive Recognized Developer
Jul 24, 2010
11,696
8,703
androidninjas.com
You should never see it in a file browser of any sort while in recovery or fastboot mode. Use adb in recovery and fastboot commands in fastboot

Sent from my Nexus 5
 

Phillustrate

Member
Mar 12, 2014
5
0
I fixed it and recovered it back to 4.2.2, but I will take it!!! NOW I'm going to update to KitKat.

Unfortunately, I can't post links right now since I'm such a new member, but to anyone that has this same issue, I used this guide to get me through it:

Google "nexus 7 factory image restore" written by 2DefMouse. You should find it there.

Also, there's a youtube video counterpart, Google/Youtube this: "How to return to Stock / Updating with Factory Images / Unbrick your Nexus 7"

I'm sure this is fairly common and usual, but for some reason I couldn't figure it out, but to any morons like me, I recommend the guides I followed.

As a tip, for mac, when you type terminal commands, always put the ./ before every "fastboot"... so "./fastboot"

Also, in the guide, it says to type "./fastboot-mac"... I left out the "-mac".

Thanks everyone.