[Soft-Brick] Stuck at boot screen

[GeezyTab88]

Hi guys,

(Samsung S4 Mini GT-i9190)

I could really use some help.

I have been searching all over and perhaps I'm not understanding what is being said so if it sounds familiar and there is a solution then i'm thankful.

So about a week ago, the phone came back from repairs and had the motherboard replaced after the phone was washed by accident. Nonetheless, there hasn't been any hardware defects besides signal loss now and then.

When the phone came back, it had 4.2.2 and it automatically picked up the update to 4.4.2 which I did. The phone worked fine until 2 days ago, where it just stuck at the Samsung galaxy gt-i9190 screen and just freezes there.

I can boot into a custom recovery (Philz) (not stock recovery for some reason) and download mode. I then attempted to install CM 11.0 as I got frustrated. It worked, booted past animated logo and install the apps until i came to the language section where the touchscreen which didn't work (unresponsive). I then reverted back to the stock ROM found at sammobile (i9190xxxCOD2XFA - South Africa), loaded the custom recovery and still no booting past the first screen. The custom recovery touchscreen (Philz) is also non responsive (besides using the volume keys, home button and power for navigation).

I flashed a couple of times, nothing works.

Is there a root cause to these issues? The unresponsive screen, not booting properly?

Some info: KNOX is voided 0x1

Please help!! Thank you in advance

 

[Boombastical]

It's not „root“ that cause your problem. You should have to choose right recovery for your model. Flash back to original ROM and look for one of fully supported custom ROM here on the XDA and fallow all steps how to flash it properly. Succes ! Cheers !

 

[GeezyTab88]

Alright, I'll try that. What I did in the meantime was flash, Slimkat 4.4.4 UNOFFICIAL rom for I9190 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2708677).
The rom booted into the andoird system but the touchscreen is still unresponsive.
@Boombastical .. If you can help me by giving me a guide in order to do what you say, then please do help. Even in recovery especially TWRP the touchscreen is unresponsive except for ClockWorkMod and Philz. So i don't know if it is hardware related or I'm doing something wrong.

Its driving me crazy :crying:

 

[GeezyTab88]

Update

So what I did last night:

I loaded the SlimKat rom and based on the stock bootloader and after doing a couple of battery pulls the screen starting functioning properly. However it was just luck or could've been something more technical.

I need help in understanding why that happened.

Then I decided I dont trust my method and reloaded the stock 4.4.2 firmware from sammobile. What then happened, is that it booted past the "Galaxy GT-I9190" screen into the samsung logo and then installed the applications. Come to the choose language screen, the touchscreen became once again unresponsive.

Bear in mind, that when I did a reboot with the stock rom, it didn't want to boot past the screen and just hung there.

So what could my problem be?

Is it the rom that I used? Using Unified Android Tool, I saw my region code is GB which I haven't seen anywhere in the stock roms.
Could the system somehow become corrupted? Emmc, partitions? Could the screen calibration be out of sync?

Must the bootloader always be the stock one? Are there custom bootloaders that one can use?
Please help, thanks

 

[GeezyTab88]

So what I did last night:

I loaded the SlimKat rom and based on the stock bootloader and after doing a couple of battery pulls the screen starting functioning properly. However it was just luck or could've been something more technical.

I need help in understanding why that happened.

Then I decided I dont trust my method and reloaded the stock 4.4.2 firmware from sammobile. What then happened, is that it booted past the "Galaxy GT-I9190" screen into the samsung logo and then installed the applications. Come to the choose language screen, the touchscreen became once again unresponsive.

Bear in mind, that when I did a reboot with the stock rom, it didn't want to boot past the screen and just hung there.

So what could my problem be?

Is it the rom that I used? Using Unified Android Tool, I saw my region code is GB which I haven't seen anywhere in the stock roms.
Could the system somehow become corrupted? Emmc, partitions? Could the screen calibration be out of sync?

Must the bootloader always be the stock one? Are there custom bootloaders that one can use?
Please help, thanks

Possible solution:

So I thought it could be screen calibration so this is what I did to make my phone work.
I loaded the CARBON Rom as I somehow lost root privileges with SlimKat. It loaded into the OS as per normal but the touch screen didn't work. So after numerous battery pulls, i read this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2353972&page=1 .

So then I connected the phone to the pc (having had the samsung drivers installed as well as adb) and booted into cmd promt as admin.

This is what I did in cmd prompt:

cd adb
adb shell (make sure there is a "#" as that ensures you that your phone is rooted)
echo 0 > /sys/class/sensors/proximity_sensor/prox_cal (did this several times)
echo 1 > /sys/class/sensors/proximity_sensor/prox_cal (did this several times)
@xcxa23

It then still didn't work (the touch screen) then somewhere on one of the pages in the above post, someone mentioned holding home button. I switched the phone off, I then held the home button (until it booted into the OS) and then powered the phone on. The phone booted into the OS and presto the screen worked again. I did a reboot and the screen is still fine.

Again I'm not sure if its that exact method but what I am sure of, is that I did a clean rom install (an option in Philz touch recovery), wiped the cache, formatted the options (boot, system, cache, preload, data) in mounts and storage and then proceeded to install the rom from the sd card.

I haven't tried with the stock rom as yet so if this helps you, goodluck and if you can help improve on this method or help me understand why this is happening, it would also be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[GeezyTab88]

Confirmed for that is

Possible solution:

So I thought it could be screen calibration so this is what I did to make my phone work.
I loaded the CARBON Rom as I somehow lost root privileges with SlimKat. It loaded into the OS as per normal but the touch screen didn't work. So after numerous battery pulls, i read this post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2353972&page=1 .

So then I connected the phone to the pc (having had the samsung drivers installed as well as adb) and booted into cmd promt as admin.

This is what I did in cmd prompt:

cd adb
adb shell (make sure there is a "#" as that ensures you that your phone is rooted)
echo 0 > /sys/class/sensors/proximity_sensor/prox_cal (did this several times)
echo 1 > /sys/class/sensors/proximity_sensor/prox_cal (did this several times)
@xcxa23

It then still didn't work (the touch screen) then somewhere on one of the pages in the above post, someone mentioned holding home button. I switched the phone off, I then held the home button (until it booted into the OS) and then powered the phone on. The phone booted into the OS and presto the screen worked again. I did a reboot and the screen is still fine.

Again I'm not sure if its that exact method but what I am sure of, is that I did a clean rom install (an option in Philz touch recovery), wiped the cache, formatted the options (boot, system, cache, preload, data) in mounts and storage and then proceeded to install the rom from the sd card.

I haven't tried with the stock rom as yet so if this helps you, goodluck and if you can help improve on this method or help me understand why this is happening, it would also be appreciated.

Thanks

Hey guys, just a quick update.

I reloaded Cyanogenmod mod CM13. I can confirm that my screen didn't freeze up and booted perfectly. I also then decided to take a chance adn reload the stock rom 4.4.2 and it also worked perfectly and booted directly into the OS.

I'm guessing the screen calibration was out.

So if this happens to you, I would suggest loading a custom rom and doing the screen calibration reset through adb and then test again with another custom rom. Once you comfortable, you can reload a stock rom.

I used Philz Touch for recovery

Thanks to everyone who put posts up .. Time to rest

 

[GeezyTab88]

Not working again!!

Hey,

So in my previous post I said I got it to work. Well I did, up until a few minutes ago when the phone just decided to freeze up again. I restarted the phone and would you know, back to square one!

I've noticed issues that I'm wondering if they could be the problem:

1) The audio didn't work at all. By audio, I mean the mic. When I did voice recording, it just gave static, whatsapp calls, the other person can't hear you as well as regular phone calls.

2) I just rooted the phone in order to change the audio_policy.cnf and delete lines relating to the above audio problem but then the screen, return, and menu button didn't function. The screen could still rotate until I pressed the power button to lock then unlock and then it didn't unlock :crying:

So once again, some help guys please. Is it rom related, hardware (motherboard, chip) or software that just isn't working right? Could it be KNOX?

Thanks