[GUIDE][DISCUSSION] How To Restore The Sprint LG G3 (LS990) To Stock w/ LG Flash Tool

[fergie716]

Introduction

**EDIT**: Please see 4th post on how to obtain your MSL/SPC Code for the last step in restoring stock firmware

I figured it would be good to have a dedicated Factory Restore thread here for the LS990 (Sprint) G3 seeing as how we now have root and people want to be sure they can restore their phones if they screw something up.

First off, I am not presenting any new material here, I just simply gathered guides/tips/tricks from many forum members in an attempt to make it easier for LS990 users to restore their phones. Also, if you notice something wrong with the guide please say so! I have no ego here, we're all here to help one another so if I made a mistake please let me know

Hopefully this will be helpful to those who want to restore their phones back to stock and allow a thread for troubleshooting if someone is having issues

Disclaimer

I, nor anyone on XDA, is responsible for any damage done to your device. Please use at your own risk! The LG Flash Tool has the power to save your phone from a bootloop or soft-brick, however it can also do more damage if used improperly for the specified device. Please use with CAUTION.

Thank-You's/Credits

@wolfgart for hosting the stock G3 files. Please thank him in his thread here

@dokyson for his guide on how to restore the LG G2. Please thank him in his thread here

@AlanVenu for pointing out Sprint users should select "Board DL" in the LG Flash Tool. Please thank him at his post here

Team Codefire for finding an exploit that allows us to root our phones. Please thank (and donate if you can) to them here

Now lets get started!

Prerequisites

• Sprint LG G3 (LS990)
• Windows 7/8
• LG Drivers (Links will be below)
• Sprint LG G3 stock .tot file (Links will be below)
• Sprint DLL file for LG Flash Tool (Links will be below)
• LG Flash Tool (Links will be below)
• A good/reliable USB cable
• Backup your data! This will format your internal storage, including user apps, SMS/MMS, Call Logs, Pictures etc. So please backup your data

Downloads

• Sprint LG G3 Stock LS990ZV4 .tot file
• Sprint LG G3 DLL File
• LG Drivers
• LG Flash Tool
• Generic LG G3 DLL (**ATTENTION!!! ONLY USE IF YOU EDITED THE BUILD.PROP TO A DIFFERENT PRODUCT MODEL/BUILD ID AND ARE STUCK IN A BOOTLOOP. USE THIS DLL INSTEAD OF THE SPRINT)<------Big Thanks to engine95 and autoprime

Steps

1. Download all files/zips above
   
2. Double click on the LGUnitedMobile exe to install the drivers
   
3. Extract the Setup_LGFlashTool.zip and double click on the exe inside the extracted folder to install the LG Flash Tool (note: make sure you don't choose a custom directory and that it installs to C:\LG\LGFlashTool)
   
4. Inside the extracted LG Flash Tool folder (where the exe is) there is a file called "MegaLock.dll". Copy this file and paste it in the C:\LG\LGFlashTool directory (overriding the current MegaLock.dll file)
   
5. If your phone is still working (and not in a bootloop or perpetually off) plug it in to your computer and let the installation of the LG Drivers finish (if your phone is in a bootloop or it won't turn off it shouldn't be a big deal)
   
6. Unplug your phone from your computer then turn off your phone
   
7. While its turning off you can open up the LG Flash Tool program (if no desktop icon was created for the program just do a search for it within your installed apps or browse for it from the start menu). You can open it with the default setting (Korea Factory)
   
8. Once your phone is completely powered off press and hold the Volume Up button and reconnect the phone to your computer via the USB while still holding the Volume Up button until you enter Download Mode (it will look like this)
   
9. Once you're in download mode let go of the Volume Up button and wait for the drivers to install on your computer
   
10. Once the drivers have finished installing navigate to your desktop and right-click on your Computer (or This PC) icon and select "Manage" (or do a search for "Device Manager")
    
11. In the Computer Manager screen select "Device Manager" then select Ports
    
12. Look for the LGE AndroidNet USB Serial Port (COM#) (where # just means whichever port is was installed to. Ex: (COM3)). Double Click on this and select "Port Settings"
    
13. Next, select "Advanced" then change the COM Port Number to COM41. Once COM41 is selected click OK, then OK again to save your settings. Now your Device Manager should have refreshed and the LGE AndroidNet USB Serial Port should have changed to (COM41). Exit out of Device Manager/Computer Manager.
    
14. Navigate to wherever you downloaded the LGLS990_20140704_LGFLASHv160_Download.zip and extract the zip.
    
15. Back in the LG Flash Tool Program the Model Config screen should be open. Select "Manual Mode". Right below it select the LGLS990_20140704_LGFLASHv160.dll you extracted for the DLL selection (navigate to wherever you extracted it)
    
16. After that select "Add" (immediately after the DLL selection option) and select the LS990ZV4_04.51101.tot file (navigate to wherever you downloaded it)
    
17. Now, navigate to Action Mode section and select Board DL. Click OK, then click the yellow arrow in the top left corner
    
18. After you click the yellow arrow (start) button the LG Flash Tool begins examining the DLL and tot file you selected. IF everything went OK after a little wait you'll see a "READY!!" prompt under the COM41 Port.
    
19. Once you see "READY!!" sign unplug your phone from the USB, wait 5 seconds, then plug your phone back into the USB
    
20. After you reconnected your device you'll notice the flashing process begins as indicated by the progress bar. It could take a while so just hang tight and keep an eye on the progress
    
21. Sometimes the LG Flash Tool will not show 100% progress but will successfully flash the firmware so keep an eye on your phone
    
22. Once the flash is finished (either indicated by 100% progress or the PASS sign that pops up) your phone will begin to reboot into the AAT Mini OS Screen. Once at the screen hold onto the power button and select "OK", then select the "normal boot (+power)" option
    
23. After that selection is made your phone should reboot normally
    
24. Sign into everything and let your phone settle for a few minutes. Then, restart the phone
    
25. If you're missing certain apps like WiFi Calling and Sprint Bloat please follow the links provided by @engine95 to restore these apps (I took apart the Sprint tot file and the apps are present, however for certain people these apps are not showing up immediately after the flash)

Success or Failure?

If your phone successfully rebooted into the system congrats! If not please look down for some trouble shooting tips (coming very soon! I need to hit the hay right now lol)

Again, I did not discover anything new, I thought it would be good to have a concise and detailed guide to restoring the LS990 to stock firmware. Hopefully this helps!

 

[fergie716]

General Tips & Tricks to AVOID a Bootloop/Soft Brick

• Stay away from editing the build.prop! Many users have reported that they made edits to the DPI, Build ID, Product Model. Then upon rebooting their phones they are in a boot loop. For right now, I'd say stay away from making any build.prop edits BUT if you do please have ADB ready along with the stock build.prop on your computer so you can troubleshoot
• Have a backup ready! As of right now we don't have a custom recovery, however if you are modifying system files/apks make sure you have stock equivalents on your computer and ADB ready to troubleshoot
• Only use mods/themes for the LS990 model. While the LS990 (Sprint) model certainly does share a lot of the same components as the international versions certain framework/system apps have certain Sprint/CDMA settings in them (ex: framework-res.apk, LGUSMms.apk, etc) so just be careful.
• Use common sense. As of right now we don't have a custom recovery; but we will at some point. So just hold off for a little bit on hacking up your system environment.

 

[fergie716]

Troubleshooting Tips if the Flash Failed

• Check your USB Cable. I know it may seem silly, but if you don't have a stable/reliable connection between your computer and phone bad things could happen. Once the phone is plugged into the USB port of your computer/laptop try not to move the phone/laptop too much (could interfere with the connection)
• If you get a "Wrong Device" error when trying to flash the phone, and you are 100% sure you do in fact have the Sprint LG G3 (LS990), replace the Sprint DLL file with the Generic LG G3 DLL file in the OP. This error is most common if you have changed the Product Name, Product Model, Display ID, and/or Build ID entries in the build.prop
• If you get any COM errors make sure you did indeed switch the LGE AndroidNet USB Serial Port to COM41

 

[fergie716]

How to Get your MSL/SPC

**NOTE** This will only work if your phone is able to turn on

• Make sure you have the LG Drivers Installed on your computer (link is in 1st post for that)
• Open up your dialer and enter ##DIAG#
• Enable DIAG Mode
• Connect your phone to your computer
• On your phone change the USB Connection type to Charge Only (pull down your statusbar and click on USB Connected)
• Download CdmaDevTerm on your computer(I prefer this version)
• Extract the CdmaDevTermZip
• Inside the extracted folder double click on the cdmaTerm file to start the application
• On the right hand side of the CdmaDevTerm screen select "Scan ports"
• Next select the LGE AndroidNet USB Serial Port from the drop down menu (mine was COM6) then click Connect
• In the SPC/Lock Options change NV to LG from the drop down menu
• Now click Read SPC
• Success!

 

[Will32]

Took me all day to figure this out. I Was hoping someone would make a thread like this in the sprint section.

Very well done. Thank you!

 

[fergie716]

Took me all day to figure this out. I Was hoping someone would make a thread like this in the sprint section.

Very well done. Thank you!

Yea I checked with a moderator to make sure it was OK because there is a universal Restore thread for the G3 but not a lot of people know about it

Do you see anything I missed in the OP? I quadruple checked it but since your memory is fresh from the experience I figured you may have some more useful tips for the community

 

[Will32]

Yea I checked with a moderator to make sure it was OK because there is a universal Restore thread for the G3 but not a lot of people know about it

Do you see anything I missed in the OP? I quadruple checked it but since your memory is fresh from the experience I figured you may have some more useful tips for the community

I only made it to the point where I selected the tot and dll, and changed my com port. I stopped just before I was supposed to hit the yellow arrow. I was really just trying to make sure I had it all figured out for when I need it.

However, your instructions seem to be spot on. I did see a typo that I was going to point out to you but can't find it now, haha. You must have found it.

 

[hoangps]

Thanks :laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

[treezy26]

HELP!!!

so i did a big no no and changed my build prop and now i am stuck in a boot loop. this method isnt working because it thinks my model is different. any ideas on how to fix it???

 

[matthew0776]

FYI... I edited my build.prop dpi the other day. And got bootlooped ...I used the same method as this one on my G3spr LS990 AND WORKED FINE. There are a few tweaks to GSM instructions...but seems OP has covered all of them. BTW Flashtool did error out at 93% but phone still booted after the mini Os step.

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk

---------- Post added at 11:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 AM ----------

so i did a big no no and changed my build prop and now i am stuck in a boot loop. this method isnt working because it thinks my model is different. any ideas on how to fix it???

what exactly is happening...and what step ?

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk

 

[treezy26]

FYI... I edited my build.prop dpi the other day. And got bootlooped ...I used the same method as this one on my G3spr LS990 AND WORKED FINE. There are a few tweaks to GSM instructions...but seems OP has covered all of them. BTW Flashtool did error out at 93% but phone still booted after the mini Os step.

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk

---------- Post added at 11:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 AM ----------



what exactly is happening...and what step ?

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk

Its failing because it tells me it's the wrong device. I changed the model name to sync with my gear 2 neo. Which is weird because it worked fine for a bit then I rebooted phone and it just boot loops now.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

 

[engine95]

You got everything covered,.Thank you
Where was this yesterday morn when I had to figure it all out. I found all the scattered info after I was done.
Thanks for posting this. ?

 

[roc342]

Warning

Do not modify Build.prop, you will soft brick your device. Wait until a recovery is Out. Just posting this as a clear warning. This Guide would have helped me big two days ago. Great info Thanks to OP again

 

[bhint15]

Its failing because it tells me it's the wrong device. I changed the model name to sync with my gear 2 neo. Which is weird because it worked fine for a bit then I rebooted phone and it just boot loops now.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I don't understand all this build.prop editing for the Gear 2 Neo. I've used my Gear 2 Neo on my G3 since phone launch...month or more before root existed. There are tutorials on XDA how to get it working and again ROOT IS NOT REQUIRED!!!

 

[fergie716]

Its failing because it tells me it's the wrong device. I changed the model name to sync with my gear 2 neo. Which is weird because it worked fine for a bit then I rebooted phone and it just boot loops now.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I would see if you can hook up to adb, either with the phone completely shut down or while it's rebooting and push the stock build.prop

Here's the stock build prop : https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b9hkqen9d19l9e/build.prop

I would try to mount the system as r/w first. So in adb shell enter this:

mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p41 /system

After that try to use adb push to get the new prop into the /system. Just use a terminal/Command Prompt and CD into the folder you have the stock build.prop saved in and push it with

adb push build.prop /system/build.prop

Then back in adb shell fix permissions

chmod 644 /system/build.prop

 

[engine95]

I would see if you can hook up to adb, either with the phone completely shut down or while it's rebooting and push the stock build.prop

Here's the stock build prop : https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b9hkqen9d19l9e/build.prop

I would try to mount the system as r/w first. So in adb shell enter this:

mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p41 /system

After that try to use adb push to get the new prop into the /system. Just use a terminal/Command Prompt and CD into the folder you have the stock build.prop saved in and push it with

adb push build.prop /system/build.prop

Then back in adb shell fix permissions

chmod 644 /system/build.prop

I tried that way before Flashtool. The problem is it's read only without root. If you root, then abd shell and grant root, then you can do that.
I may be wrong, but that's the issue I ran into.

 

[fergie716]

I tried that way before Flashtool. The problem is it's read only without root. If you root, then abd shell and grant root, then you can do that.
I may be wrong, but that's the issue I ran into.

So if you asked for su in shell it would give you an error?

I did some looking, I wonder if issuing these command manually would work. The phone needs to be plugged into the computer and then turn it on. As its turning on:

(1 @ECHO*off
(2)cd /d %~dp0
(3)echo.
(4)echo Waiting for device...adb wait-for-device
(5)echo.
(6)adb -d shell stop
(7)adb -d shell su -c "mount -o remount rw /system"

 

[engine95]

So if you asked for su in shell it would give you an error?

I did some looking, I wonder if issuing these command manually would work. The phone needs to be plugged into the computer and then turn it on. As its turning on:

(1 @ECHO*off
(2)cd /d %~dp0
(3)echo.
(4)echo Waiting for device...adb wait-for-device
(5)echo.
(6)adb -d shell stop
(7)adb -d shell su -c "mount -o remount rw /system"

Yeah. It would say read only.
That's following what you have in the post above this one, just adding su before all the commands.
What you have posted here may work. I'll admit, my adb skills aren't that great.

 

[treezy26]

I don't understand all this build.prop editing for the Gear 2 Neo. I've used my Gear 2 Neo on my G3 since phone launch...month or more before root existed. There are tutorials on XDA how to get it working and again ROOT IS NOT REQUIRED!!!

I used the build prop trick because it allows me to use everything such as s voice and download apps from the samsung store that's not available with just the gear manager app. I know it was a dumb mistake to change it since there is no recovery available yet. It worked fine for about an hour. I downloaded several apps for the neo just fine. Its when I changed a setting in xposed that needed a reboot to go into effect when everything went bad. I followed the steps here in the op to a tee and kept getting the red failed message after pressing the arrow. Didn't understand why till I read the error and it says wrong device. And that's when it clicked. Being stupid and impatient now I'm stuck with a bricked device. I don't think adb will work since it won't recognize it being Lg. Oh well thanks for you guys help. Luckily I'm still under warranty and have insurance. Do you think I will have issues with sprint since having it being rooted and change the build prop?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

 

[bhint15]

Break screen? Dont know never carried warranty on a phone or used a factory warranty so im no help.

Sent from my LGLS990 using XDA Free mobile app