Just FYI, it appears with the new Blv3 firmwares, the device will only accept official firmware. Meaning, no more flashing U1 firmware on the carrier models, or vice versa. No more flashing U or U1 firmware to the Canadian W models. Flashing between carrier firmwares is fine as long as it's on a carrier branded device (running TMB on a VZW device, etc). But running 950U firmware on a 950U1 will result in a brick, that is this far unrecoverable.
If your currently are running U1 firmware on a U device, vice versa, or running W firmware on a U or U1 device, or vice versa, you need to flash back to the firmware version that shipped with your device BEFORE you accept any OTAs that take you up to Blv3. Currently the S series is still on BlV2, but may go to Blv3 like the Note series just did.
This has been tested and confirmed.
Credit goes to @me2151, @FatalONEM8 for discovering this and warning people. I didn't find the issue or test, it just passing on the info to hopefully save some bricks.
Update from @mweinbach:
"EDIT: After being tested by XDA Senior member me2151, it turns out cross region flashing does work. Prince Comsy Odin is working, but we can not test if the factory binary flashing will hard brick your phone. So flashing US unlocked onto a US carrier device should work."
To expand a bit on what @mweinbach*just said, @me2151*did some more testing, and he was able to successfully carrier switch from a 950U to 950W using Comsey ODIN. So it looks like Comsey ODIN is not patched as we originally thought. Not sure exactly what caused the tester's phone to brick, but it HARD BRICKED and had to be RMA'd at his expense. So we jumped on the forums here to warn others until more testing could be done. @mweinbach*wrote the article and @xdanilvaand I began posting here.*
We may have overreacted, but wanted to err on the side of caution to protect people from hard bricks.*
The Blv3 factory binary has not been tested, so still unsure if/how we will be able to use it, or if it will cause issues.*
For now, carry on as usual, but understand we still don't know the full implications of the Blv3 patches. One person has already HARD BRICKED, and @me2151*almost hard bricked testing all of this for us.
If your currently are running U1 firmware on a U device, vice versa, or running W firmware on a U or U1 device, or vice versa, you need to flash back to the firmware version that shipped with your device BEFORE you accept any OTAs that take you up to Blv3. Currently the S series is still on BlV2, but may go to Blv3 like the Note series just did.
This has been tested and confirmed.
Credit goes to @me2151, @FatalONEM8 for discovering this and warning people. I didn't find the issue or test, it just passing on the info to hopefully save some bricks.
Update from @mweinbach:
"EDIT: After being tested by XDA Senior member me2151, it turns out cross region flashing does work. Prince Comsy Odin is working, but we can not test if the factory binary flashing will hard brick your phone. So flashing US unlocked onto a US carrier device should work."
To expand a bit on what @mweinbach*just said, @me2151*did some more testing, and he was able to successfully carrier switch from a 950U to 950W using Comsey ODIN. So it looks like Comsey ODIN is not patched as we originally thought. Not sure exactly what caused the tester's phone to brick, but it HARD BRICKED and had to be RMA'd at his expense. So we jumped on the forums here to warn others until more testing could be done. @mweinbach*wrote the article and @xdanilvaand I began posting here.*
We may have overreacted, but wanted to err on the side of caution to protect people from hard bricks.*
The Blv3 factory binary has not been tested, so still unsure if/how we will be able to use it, or if it will cause issues.*
For now, carry on as usual, but understand we still don't know the full implications of the Blv3 patches. One person has already HARD BRICKED, and @me2151*almost hard bricked testing all of this for us.
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