[Q] Need help - failed OTA update with "Failed to update firmware" message

viva.fidel

Senior Member
Aug 27, 2010
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London
Hi,

My phone quits during the update process to JB in recovery at around 32% and then once booted back into android displays a popup saying failed to update software, try again using kies or use a samsung service centre. It doesn't connect to kies (stays stuck at connecting) and pretty sure samsung will just wipe the phone which I'd rather not do.

I originally had the phone rooted with Siyah 1.5.3 but have since reflashed the stock i9300 3e android recovery, reset the flash counter to 0 and official binary with triangle away and fully removed root from within SuperSU. I have also wiped the cache, any ideas on why the update is still not applying? I would like to stick the stock rom and avoid wiping.
 
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Aladdin Sarsippius

New member
Apr 5, 2008
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Same here,
Stock Rooted S3 with CWM and busybox. Used Mark Skipper's toolbox for that, and also used that to unroot, flash stock recovery and uninstall busybox. JB update also gets an error at 32%. Do I have to uninstall SU too? Really don't want to do a complete reinstall since CMW didn't manage to backup my phone...
 

viva.fidel

Senior Member
Aug 27, 2010
410
48
0
London
Same here,
Stock Rooted S3 with CWM and busybox. Used Mark Skipper's toolbox for that, and also used that to unroot, flash stock recovery and uninstall busybox. JB update also gets an error at 32%. Do I have to uninstall SU too? Really don't want to do a complete reinstall since CMW didn't manage to backup my phone...
Haven't tried to update since I unrooted (ota is only available during a few hours in the afternoon here and hasn't become available yet) but it removed the SuperSU.apk when I unrooted. Stweaks app is still there but doesn't work due to the lack of root. The only other non-stock thing left is the kernel but I don't think that should matter seeing as I've used triangle away and reset the counter and binary to official. I'll post on whether it works next time around
 

shaneel1491

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2011
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Try removing cwm somehow, many people find that this is a problem, same happens with me, apparently cwm fixed it in newer updates.:good:
 

Simonetti2011

Senior Member
Sep 3, 2010
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Belo Horizonte
CWM is the culprit. I really don't know why people insist on using that. It is utterly useless.

Download the ROM you want from samsung-updates.com or through CheckFUSDownloader, extract the .MD5 file from the downloaded ZIP, copy the .md5 file to the device, and flash using MobileOdin.

Then, if you want, just flash SiyahKernel again using Odin.
 
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viva.fidel

Senior Member
Aug 27, 2010
410
48
0
London
I had already removed cwm recovery and replaced it with the stock i9300 3e recovery but still didn't work, I downloaded the ota update manually and found it be a small incremental update which still didn't flash in the stock recovery due to a mount error..

in the end I checked the latest update available from checkfus, downloaded it from samfirmware.com and flashed it using odin.. and now got jelly bean without wiping! Reflashed siyah & su binary and everything is good now. Only issue now is the OS sees the device being modified (even after triangle away reset) so a future ota updates is off the cards.
 

plctech

Member
Nov 13, 2012
39
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0
fordham, essex
this worked for me.

I had already removed cwm recovery and replaced it with the stock i9300 3e recovery but still didn't work, I downloaded the ota update manually and found it be a small incremental update which still didn't flash in the stock recovery due to a mount error..

in the end I checked the latest update available from checkfus, downloaded it from samfirmware.com and flashed it using odin.. and now got jelly bean without wiping! Reflashed siyah & su binary and everything is good now. Only issue now is the OS sees the device being modified (even after triangle away reset) so a future ota updates is off the cards.
in triangle away there is a box that says something like modified workaround, tick that then run triangle away, when it restarts your status will be normal, then go to application manager and remove triangle away. after about 15 minutes go into superSU and unroot.