Debrick process: can't enter Recovery mode

[paupiette]

Hello everyone,

My phone (S4 mini GT-I9195) decided all of a sudden to stop working. I couldn't boot it, charge it, nothing but a black screen. After some research on the world wide web, I came to the conclusion that it might be "bricked", as the cool kids call it. I came upon a guide on this website that seemed promising: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2600869
I followed the instructions, found a debrick.img corresponding to my GT-I9195, put it on a sd card and managed to boot the phone.
Next was entering Download mode and flash with a stock firmware via Odin (v3.09). I used a 4.4.2 firmware I found on Sammobile (I9195XXUCNK4_I9195QXZCOA1_XEF) corresponding to my region and phone.
Everything went fine with Odin, I waited until it said "PASS!" and rebooted the phone.
The next step was to enter Recovery mode, and that's where I have a problem. I use the combination "Volume up + Home + Power" to enter it, it vibrates once, shows me the Samsung logo (+ model) with "Recovery booting...." written in blue on the top left corner, I release all the buttons, and after a few seconds, it goes to a black screen, it vibrates twice and reboot on the Samsung logo, but without the "Recovery booting..." message on top left corner. After that, it enters a bootloop that only ends when I remove the battery.
So, I can never enter the recovery mode (I tried multiple times, with different methods, such as releasing only the power button, but to no avail) and cannot complete the debrick guide. I tried different stock firmwares but always with the same result.

Did I do something wrong? What can I do differently to enter recovery mode? Should I prepare the funeral for my phone?
Thank you in advance for your answers.

 

[Exanneon]

You should try flashing cwm with odin, then formating your system partition, if you can externally put a rom on your memory card then do so, after that install that rom on your phone, if that doesn't work then try flashing your stock firmware after you had done everything...Of course I don't know if any of this will work because I haven't run into a issue like this before, though one time my recovery was blocked and flashing cwm on it fixed it, instead of flashing stock firmware I went for cyanogenmod (now lineage os) so it might work for you, who knows.

 

[paupiette]

Well, first of all, thank you for your leads.
Secondly, as you suggested, I tried flashing with Odin, with CMW (6.0.4.6 and 6.0.5.1). It went smoothly in Download mode, I get the green PASS!, but just as before, when it reboots in Recovery mode, it doesn't go beyond the blue "Recovery booting...." step, instead, the dreaded bootloop begins.
I also tried flashing with TWRP (3.0.2.0), but unfortunately no change...
And without any custom recovery, I cannot try the lineage os.

I'm begining to feel the end ^^

 

[JohnSoong]

Well, first of all, thank you for your leads.
Secondly, as you suggested, I tried flashing with Odin, with CMW (6.0.4.6 and 6.0.5.1). It went smoothly in Download mode, I get the green PASS!, but just as before, when it reboots in Recovery mode, it doesn't go beyond the blue "Recovery booting...." step, instead, the dreaded bootloop begins.
I also tried flashing with TWRP (3.0.2.0), but unfortunately no change...
And without any custom recovery, I cannot try the lineage os.

I'm begining to feel the end ^^

I have TWRP on my mini. When I first flashed TWRP (3.0.2.1) via Odin, I had to manually boot into recovery by holding VolUp+Home+Power as soon as I see PASS!, BEFORE the phone automatically reboots.

I have to try this a couple times to get TWRP to stick. From what I read, if you let the phone boot automatically after flashing from Odin, it will automatically overwrite the new flash with stock Samsung recover (which is bad in your case.) So you have to interrupt this by a manual reboot before the phone does its thing. If you are successful, you should boot directly into TWRP on the manual reboot. From then on TWRP will overwrite the stock recovery and you will be good to go.

I find the timing of this manual reboot a bit tricky on the phone. Do it too soon, and the TWRP was not flashed, a second too late, and the phone boots to stock. I had to try that a few times to get it right. Basically, be ready with the buttons and press it the instant you see PASS! So maybe you can try flashing TWRP again before giving up.

 

[Skilance]

I have encountered the same problems today. After waking up, my phone (S4 Mini) told me an update (17 MB) was available. Happy about still getting updates, I started the process and the telephone rebooted. When returning ten minutes later it was all dark and wouldn't respond to any button combination. After working through a lot of threads and forums, trying to fix the problem, I managed to get a debrick image for the phone as well as the right firmware from Sammobile (which is astonishingly the same one that paupiette uses, though I'm from Germany, but the phone seems to have a French regional code).

At first I wasn't able to get to the Download Mode, instead my phone always told me this while denying my attempts to flash it:
BOOTE RECOVERY MODE
CHECK BOOT PARTITIONS..
COPY FROM T-FLASH..
BOOT RECOVERY..
WRITE 139008 sectors..
FLASH WRITE FAILURE
ddi: mmc_read failed
ODIN MODE
PRODUCT NAME: GT-I9195
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Custom
KNOX KERNEL LOCK: 0x0
KNOX WARRANTY VOID: 0x0
CSB-CONFIG-LSB: 0x30
BOOTLOADER RPSWREV: 2
WRITE PROTECTION: Enable

Nothing seemed to work and some other topics on different forums blamed the internal flash chip (eMMC) to be the cause for all the trouble. I gave up on my phone, loosening the skrews on the back to get a look on the board. Before ripping apart the last bits, I tried to start the Download Mode one more time, so I put in the battery and hold the three buttons. Et voilà - the phone came up with that white booting screen. It was looping this process over and over as paupiette had allready described. I managed to start the Download Mode and flash with Odin3 (v3.12). A green "PASS!" told be, it worked until it began to enter the loop of rebooting again unable to enter the Recovery Menu.

So close but yet so far away from what I want.

Any new ideas or suggestions?