[Q] Noob managed to de-sponge his SPH-L710; wants to learn from his mistakes!

[wilberfan]

I'm that dangerous combination of excitement and ignorance and noob--which means I occasionally get into trouble with my phone.

Yesterday, I was completely manually wiping my phone--via each of the format options in the PhilZ touch, when I got impatient and pulled the battery when formatting the /data partition seemed to be taking too long. Suddenly I was in a boot loop of some kind.

After panicking for an hour or two, I figured I'd have to start over and push a stock rom via odin onto the phone.

I've had the phone since January of this year, and it happened to be a L710VPAMG2. (Full disclosure: I'm not even sure what that number means. Is the G2 at the end the modem??)

Rightly or wrongly, I downloaded this 'stock' ROM: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2565972 and pushed it onto the phone via odin. It booted (thank God!), but did I see some kind of "phone updated" message? The next time I went into download mode, I saw the red "Warranty Bit=1". That didn't seem good. Is that the Knox bootloader indicator? (SuperSU also later said it detected knox, and asked if I wanted it dealt with.)

If so, did I get knoxed because I chose the wrong stock ROM--or did the phone automatically update itself? (I sure didn't see any options to stop an automatic update.

I think I was thinking that the "MK3" in the ROM description was modem-related, but now I'm wondering if it had nothing to do with that. Is it, in fact, a designation of something else?

For some odd reason, I had no audio whatsoever with the first two custom ROMs I flashed. I redid the odin push a second (or third??) time, and managed to get a Dirty Unicorn running with the audio restored. I don't understand what would have affected the audio loss like that.

By the way, unrelated, but, what's the best file format to use on the sdcard? ext2? ext4? something else?

And, for future reference, when I want to do a "complete" wipe, do I perform ALL of the following (based on the choices in the PhilZ)? Or should I omit some because they're unnecessary or cause more trouble than they're worth?

format /boot
format /system
format /cache
format /data
format /storage/sdcard1
format /modem
format /data and /data/media (/sdcard)

(Is that final option just a combination of the 4th and 5th options?)

If I AM knoxed, I can still live a rich, full, custom ROM'd life, right? I'm just stuck with that bootloader for eternity?

I'd appreciate any advice, explanations, corrections, suggestions, derisive laughter--whatever will help me better understand what I did, and where I may, or may not, have come off the rails--or what I SHOULD have done instead.

Gracias in advance.

 

[Saafir]

I'm that dangerous combination of excitement and ignorance and noob--which means I occasionally get into trouble with my phone.

Yesterday, I was completely manually wiping my phone--via each of the format options in the PhilZ touch, when I got impatient and pulled the battery when formatting the /data partition seemed to be taking too long. Suddenly I was in a boot loop of some kind.

After panicking for an hour or two, I figured I'd have to start over and push a stock rom via odin onto the phone.

I've had the phone since January of this year, and it happened to be a L710VPAMG2. (Full disclosure: I'm not even sure what that number means. Is the G2 at the end the modem??)

Rightly or wrongly, I downloaded this 'stock' ROM: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2565972 and pushed it onto the phone via odin. It booted (thank God!), but did I see some kind of "phone updated" message? The next time I went into download mode, I saw the red "Warranty Bit=1". That didn't seem good. Is that the Knox bootloader indicator? (SuperSU also later said it detected knox, and asked if I wanted it dealt with.)

If so, did I get knoxed because I chose the wrong stock ROM--or did the phone automatically update itself? (I sure didn't see any options to stop an automatic update.

I think I was thinking that the "MK3" in the ROM description was modem-related, but now I'm wondering if it had nothing to do with that. Is it, in fact, a designation of something else?

For some odd reason, I had no audio whatsoever with the first two custom ROMs I flashed. I redid the odin push a second (or third??) time, and managed to get a Dirty Unicorn running with the audio restored. I don't understand what would have affected the audio loss like that.

By the way, unrelated, but, what's the best file format to use on the sdcard? ext2? ext4? something else?

And, for future reference, when I want to do a "complete" wipe, do I perform ALL of the following (based on the choices in the PhilZ)? Or should I omit some because they're unnecessary or cause more trouble than they're worth?

format /boot
format /system
format /cache
format /data
format /storage/sdcard1
format /modem
format /data and /data/media (/sdcard)

(Is that final option just a combination of the 4th and 5th options?)

If I AM knoxed, I can still live a rich, full, custom ROM'd life, right? I'm just stuck with that bootloader for eternity?

I'd appreciate any advice, explanations, corrections, suggestions, derisive laughter--whatever will help me better understand what I did, and where I may, or may not, have come off the rails--or what I SHOULD have done instead.

Gracias in advance.

L710VPAMG2 means you should be on a MG2 modem, Build Number for firmware, warranty bit is knox related 1 meaning tripped by root/custom recovery, you may have had audio problems with mg2 modem and mk3 rom, {im no expert, just peeing in the wind} theres a deknoxer script search for it and learn about knox, you can still flash roms you just cannot go back to prior bootloaders... like from ND8 to MK3. full system wipe.. delete Everything /system, /cache, /dalvik, /data and /data/media - if anything is inaccurate sorry im no expert just tryin to help

 

[Spark91]

L710VPAMG2 means you should be on a MG2 modem, Build Number for firmware, warranty bit is knox related 1 meaning tripped by root/custom recovery, you may have had audio problems with mg2 modem and mk3 rom, {im no expert, just peeing in the wind} theres a deknoxer script search for it and learn about knox, you can still flash roms you just cannot go back to prior bootloaders... like from ND8 to MK3. full system wipe.. delete Everything /system, /cache, /dalvik, /data and /data/media - if anything is inaccurate sorry im no expert just tryin to help

That's the correct way for manually wiping, but just use the normal Wipe Data/Factory Reset > I want to install a new ROM ( If you're on Philz Touch )
It'll wipe Data / Cache / System, but not the internal SD Card for you.

For the loss or reduced audio powersave issues on kitkat / KNOX you'll need to add these 3 lines in build.prop.

lpa.decode=false
lpa.use-stagefright=false
tunnel.decode=false

Usually if you have an custom equalizer / audio system on the device ( For Ex: Viper4Android ) it'll ask and automatically disable it for you.
But you'll need to manually input that into the build.prop every time you try a new ROM that has that power-save audio feature.

And it looks like your device is a Virgin Mobile one isn't it? You'd want the "NDC" firmware if you want to update to the latest.
And yes, bootloader downgrade will BRICK your device permanently.

So be carefuls and cheers =X