19 replies to this topic

[kitcostantino]

Okay. My bionic has been awesome since day one. I bought it used in march. It's one of the later production (16gb internal) 1.2ghz on ICS. I have had ZERO problems. Day before yesterday, I was having data issues. I powered down, pulled my sd card and my sim card, then powered on without them. After the no sim message, i powered down, replaced both cards, and voila! data again. A little later, I booted into safestrap, installed a rom (Icarus or blurry, i think blurry). I installed the rom on third rom slot. (stock, slot 1 (eclipse)), slot 3 (new rom). When I rebooted, i got low memory messages. I deleted unneeded crap (irrelevant, none was important). The rom worked beautifully until I used the included animation changer to change the animation for windows. The included app asked to reboot to apply said change. I clicked reboot and ended up in stock recovery. Red text/icon came up saying it had failed. It wouldn't let me go back (..../....) so i pulled the battery. rebooted. I deleted the slot i was on (slot 2) and rebooted into Eclipse. Eclipse booted up and about 10 min. later, the signal icon turned into a red triangle. after about 3 minutes, it rebooted itself. I thought it was kind of odd, so i swapped my battery for my extra battery i carry in my pocket. (i am ocd as hell about having power, not to mention the lapdock serves as my portable charging system.) I booted into recovery, wiped the cache and wiped dalvik, and rebooted. It kinda worked. However, the battery i had in my pocket that should've had 90-100% registered 17%. at this point, i should have given up until i got home, charged my batteries again, and investigated further. I kept trying to figure it out. Eventually, i gave up due to more power. As far as my recovery, I had installed safestrap 3.11 a few days back. I had been using 3.05 up until then. I considered this may have been the problem, uninstalled safestrap 3.11, reinstalled 3.5, and left it alone till I got home. Once I charged the phone, it seemed ok. After a bit, i pulled it out of my pocket and saw it boot looping. Frustrated, I sat down at the computer I do my flashing on, loaded up rsd lite 5.7 (win xp) loaded up my .246 fxz and flashed it. After setting it up and letting it settle, i rooted using razors edge. 10 min. later, the bootlooping started again. Frustrated, I ref lashed (fxz again) this time it failed because my battery was too low. (40%) I swapped batteries and tried again with a fresh one. It flashed fine and seemed to be fine until I installed safestrap 3.11 again. (i do not think that is the problem. Hash knows his stuff.) I created slot 1 (3gb), installed eclipse and rebooted to set it up. Got through installing my backup folder of .apk files (i copy them out of data/app) then it started bootlooping again.
Since then I have fxz'd several times. The most recent time, it worked for 5 hours on eclipse and safestrap. My battery hit 15% and the bootlooping commenced. I swapped to my other battery (90%) and it still boot looped. I am thinking perhaps the batteries are hosed because it still bootlooped when i didn't root and didn't install safestrap.
the only pattern was battery discharge. I would wipe battery stats, but there isn't a feature to do that in safestrap.
Every single time, though, the data icons would turn to that red triangle, then bootlooping was eminent. The question I have at this point is What does fxz not wipe? IS there anything fxz can't wipe? and if so, how can I fix this.
I tried to set up HOB on my computer to no avail. while i have been a hardcore flasher since og droid (insisting on rooting with adb commands instead of one click methods on it), I am at a loss. To the best of my understanding, fxz wipes your entire phone and replaces it with the factory image. If this is wrong, can i reflash the ics baseband, the kernel, etc? or am i just out of luck? in case i didn't say official .246 no kernel tweaks. thanks if anyone can help.

[jp1044]

What red triangle are we talking about?

[kitcostantino]

not the recovery one, the signal icon at the top of the status bar. it's a triangle and has red where signal should be. When it did operate without bootlooping, the signal icon did the same thing on power down just before it turned off. 4g LTE disappears, then the triangle gets a red mark/color, and the phone powers off. The difference is the fact that the phone doesn't get data, it just stays in that state as if it were powering down. If it didn't boot loop, i would say the sim is probably dead, but it wouldn't , in my own theory, boot loop. I have tried wiping cache, internal sd, removing my sd, wiping sd-ext (which seemed to work the longest of everything i tried. I am really thinking it boils down to one of a few possibilities: A) the zip that the animation changer app flashed was a viral hack (unlikely)
the sim is fried or the kernel has been corrupted
C) there is software that fxz does not reprogram, that is vital to the operation of data
and the integrity of the phone that I need a different solution for.
D) the batteries are hosed
OR E) a combination of some/all of the above.

EDIT: i should mention i tried *#*#4636#*#* to no avail. oddly enough, it looked like the radio was turned off.
on another note, it is hilarious that people sell this code on ebay as an "UNLOCK" for the bionic. learn to google for
the "secret unlock code droid bionic" geniuses.

EDIT 2: the only place where I saw someone with the same scenario, their sim card was bad. (droidforums.net). SO, as a test, i just fxz'd without the sim in the phone. It prompted me to power down, insert the sim, and reboot. Did it and everything was perfect again. Then I rooted using razr's edge. Immediately, the signal triangle had the red mark. went through all the reboots, then no data. (i had the sim in when i rooted) gonna try to redownload the files. Maybe that was the whole problem. (though i did do it twice on a win 7 machine and my trusty old WinXP flashing machine.) if anyone has any thoughts, let me know. might try to root it on the mac.

[jp1044]

not the recovery one, the signal icon at the top of the status bar. it's a triangle and has red where signal should be. When it did operate without bootlooping, the signal icon did the same thing on power down just before it turned off. 4g LTE disappears, then the triangle gets a red mark/color, and the phone powers off. The difference is the fact that the phone doesn't get data, it just stays in that state as if it were powering down. If it didn't boot loop, i would say the sim is probably f*&%#@, but it wouldn't , in my own theory, boot loop. I have tried wiping cache, internal sd, removing my sd, wiping sd-ext (which seemed to work the longest of everything i tried. I am really thinking it boils down to one of a few possibilities: A) the zip that the animation changer app flashed was a viral hack (unlikely)
the sim is fried or the kernel has been corrupted
C) there is software that fxz does not reprogram, that is vital to the operation of data
and the integrity of the phone that I need a different solution for.
D) the batteries are f$@$%d.
OR E) a combination of some/all of the above.

EDIT: i should mention i tried *#*#4636#*#* to no avail. oddly enough, it looked like the radio was turned off.
on another note, it is hilarious that people sell this code on ebay as an "UNLOCK" for the bionic. learn to google for
the "secret unlock code droid bionic" geniuses.

EDIT 2: the only place where I saw someone with the same scenario, their sim card was bad. (droidforums.net). SO, as a test, i just fxz'd without the sim in the phone. It prompted me to power down, insert the sim, and reboot. Did it and everything was perfect again. Then I rooted using razr's edge. Immediately, the signal triangle had the red mark. went through all the reboots, then no data. (i had the sim in when i rooted) gonna try to redownload the files. Maybe that was the whole problem. (though i did do it twice on a win 7 machine and my trusty old WinXP flashing machine.) if anyone has any thoughts, let me know. might try to root it on the mac.

OK try fxzing again without the sim. This time, on the welcome screen, touch the four corners of the screen in a clockwise motion. Start with the W in welcome and then press above the buttons at the bottom. This will get you passed the sim card requirement. We can see if your sim card is the issue

-Team LiteSpeed- Sent from my FlyingJelly device

[kitcostantino]

well, i did fxz w/o the sim, and i just figured out i can stop it by powering down, removing and then immediately replacing the sim carefully. rebooted and data works again. i am fairly confident tht either the sim is bad or the sim tray is bad. hoping it is the former. time to go to the verizon store and get a new sim. i really hope the sauderjoint is not bad and the board is not broken. (my only other theory. thank you man.

[jp1044]

well, i did fxz w/o the sim, and i just figured out i can stop it by powering down, removing and then immediately replacing the sim carefully. rebooted and data works again. i am fairly confident tht either the sim is bad or the sim tray is bad. hoping it is the former. time to go to the verizon store and get a new sim. i really hope the sauderjoint is not bad and the board is not broken. (my only other theory. thank you man.

Yeah I would say its probably your sim, especially if it happened very suddenly.

-Team LiteSpeed- Sent from my FlyingJelly device

[kitcostantino]

okay. so i used my phone on 4g and wifi (a ton of wifi, then 4g) and received a phone call. as soon as i hung up, the phone froze and lost the signal (blanked out data signal with the red fill again). i tried my trick of powering down removing the cards/replacing them and powering up. no luck. I just switched to my unsafe side, wiped everything, and tried the four corner trick. it is not working, but the phone does not tell me it needs a sim as it does normally. I am at a loss. Is there a way to flash just the radio? Shouldn't the phone work on wifi if it doesn't register that it needs a sim? i am so tempted to go put my old flip phone on my acct as a new line, upgrade it to a rzrmaxxhd, then swap it to this line to keep my unlimited data....ugh. I love my bionic though. Hope someone has an idea or a fix. thanks guys.

[kitcostantino]

double post, here i come... I just got back from the verizon store. I am lucky in having a cool sales rep that i usually deal with. He replaced my sim card, and the phone still rebooted just like it had been doing. the imei is still missing on *#*#4636#*#* > I am lucky because i am getting a replacement bionic for $0. Insurance has always been a pain, but somehow, I guess either the insurance I got during open enrollment last march when i bought my bionic off craigslist was worthwhile. Gotta wait until tuesday to get it, but at least I will have another bionic and not waste a lap dock, hd dock, battery charger and 2 batteries. Granted, I still would like a fix, but at this point, I am grateful. So my question remains unanswered as to whether or not there are bits of software that are not flashed in an fez. I really want to know, but either way, i can still save my upgrading a flip for the x phone when it comes out.

[Brutus06]

HoB has a radio repair utility, you might want to read up on that.

[jp1044]

It could just be a failing chip set too. Electronics fail, but glad you got a replacement!

-Team LiteSpeed- Sent from my FlyingJelly device

[kitcostantino]

even though i am getting another bionic in a few days, i still can't give up on fixing this. I have figured out something else that may be pertinent.
the battery charge shows 100% when it is not. or shows less than what it is depending on which of my two batteries i use. For example, if i charge one of the two (we'll call them a and A until green light in my external battery charger (motorola) then put it in the phone, it will still need to charge. If i power the phone off, it can charge to 100%. after that point, it will register correctly on the rom i am on. However, once I boot into another rom slot, the battery charge amount will differ. Also, safestrap seems to always be off on determining how much battery I have. Lets say i pull battery a and put in battery b (both motorola as well) Safestrap will register battery A's charge as if it can't refresh. (safestrap 3.5) Also, as perhaps a point of interest, battery A registered 100% in the phone, powered off connected to the charger. Right now, however, it is in the charger charging away. Battery B is charging in the phone. I really think this whole thing could possibly be battery related. My theory is this...when the phone is operational, as it powers off, the same exact thing that keeps happening to the 4G icon (triangle, red mark) is a normal state. The problem with this is it is getting to that state when it thinks the battery is charged. So perhaps the battery is registering it has power when it does not or whatever trigger cuts power to the radio as you turn it off is doing the same thing. either way, i wish i had an extra unused battery to test because I am almost willing to bet the phone would magically work right again. I wish i could wipe battery stats in recovery as i can't trust charging to 100% to be accurate. Can anyone school me on battery stats, battery life, or any partition i am not wiping when I fez? thanks.

[jp1044]

You could try wiping battery stats using an app from the play store, but if you're phone doesn't work that could be a problem. Different ROMS are going to register your battery differently depending on how full or healthy your battery was when you flashed. As for safe strap, it will take a minute or two for the battery level to register correctly. I'd say the safe strap one would be the most accurate but that's just a guess.

-Team LiteSpeed- Sent from my FlyingJelly device

[kitcostantino]

well, i think the batteries are functioning a little better. i deleted batstats.bin from /data/system then charged batteries fully before plugging up the phone and letting it get to 100% while powered off. unrelated to the battery (i presume) the phone started rebooting again. i couldn't get it to stop so i kept digging each 60 sec or so it would stay on without rebooting. I finally noticed what i shouldn't have missed in the first place. normally, my baseband displays. normally my imei displays. When this issue happens, the baseband, much like the imdi, says Unknown... I really am wishing i could flash just the radio. not like i am gonna turn down the new(er) bionic, but i feel like there are more people that have and will have this problem and giving up doesn't help us progress any further.

[kitcostantino]

HoB has a radio repair utility, you might want to read up on that.

man, seriously, if i could make sense of the set up instructions, i know hob is a great tool. I folllowed them and got an error in the command-style window saying the fxz wasn't in the right directory. thing is, i had the fxz in that directory. I don't see another option to reflash the radio as of yet. Aside from the HOB faq, is there any where you know of that has directions that are clear?

[kitcostantino]

Can't edit posts from my bionic go figure.triple post time..so sleep mode fixes it. I don't understand at all, but there's my fix until Tuesday. Sleep mode kills the WiFi and all connections and power, but I dont understand why the built in toggles on stock or eclipse will not do the same thing. I put it in sleep mode, leave it alone for a min or two and voila connections work, it knows my imei, it knows my baseband and all is golden. At least it has worked the last 3 times. Battery is down to 68% if that is the culprit. Confused, but iam glad to have a workaround.

[jp1044]

That is very strange...I guess it'll work for.now though

-Team LiteSpeed- Sent from my FlyingJelly device

[kitcostantino]

so i guess i spoke too soon. 5 min after i made that post it stopped fixing with sleep mode. in fact i havent gotten it back up again. the signs/symptoms are becoming more obvious, i just dont know what they mean..
-safestrap hanfs on power off or reboot. normally, pressing either button makes a 2 sec delay as the phone reboots. in this glitch/error, it has taken as long as 15-20 sec after the [reboot] System or Power Down buttons.
-data is non-existant but wifi works until reboot
-phone hangs in airplane mode
-data signal indicator is translucent with a red mark
-phone does not act differently with or without sim (i.e.-no message saying card isnt present)
-baseband, phone number, and imei unknown
-reboot process does not stop until phone is powered down or battery is pulled.
-airplane mode hangs on even when it shows off in settings menu. furthermore, it flat out dissappears from power button menu sometimes
-fxz repairs for varying time. its worked as long as 2-3 hours and as little aa 2-3 minuites.
-root, no root, apps or no apps installed, safestrap, and no safestrap make no difference.
the reboots still occur.
-my battery theory should be exhausted as i deleted batstats.bin , installed 100% battery, and discharged to 15%. (deleted on stock and safestrap slot roms)

[kitcostantino]

so i guess i spoke too soon. 5 min after i made that post it stopped fixing with sleep mode. in fact i havent gotten it back up again. the signs/symptoms are becoming more obvious, i just dont know what they mean..
-safestrap hanfs on power off or reboot. normally, pressing either button makes a 2 sec delay as the phone reboots. in this glitch/error, it has taken as long as 15-20 sec after the [reboot] System or Power Down buttons.
-data is non-existant but wifi works until reboot
-phone hangs in airplane mode
-data signal indicator is translucent with a red mark
-phone does not act differently with or without sim (i.e.-no message saying card isnt present)
-baseband, phone number, and imei unknown
-reboot process does not stop until phone is powered down or battery is pulled.
-airplane mode hangs on even when it shows off in settings menu. furthermore, it flat out dissappears from power button menu sometimes
-fxz repairs for varying time. its worked as long as 2-3 hours and as little aa 2-3 minuites.
-root, no root, apps or no apps installed, safestrap, and no safestrap make no difference.
the reboots still occur.
-my battery theory should be exhausted as i deleted batstats.bin , installed 100% battery, and discharged to 15%. (deleted on stock and safestrap slot roms)
i am really confused, but honestly, the only fix i see that MIGHT work is reflashing the radio and even that is unlikely to fix this. thank you guys for the help.

[jp1044]

It definitely seems like a radio issue that an fxz should fix. I have an idea but I want to try it myself before I post it.

-Team LiteSpeed- Sent from my FlyingJelly device

[kitcostantino]

well, i gave up on it as my "certified like new" replacement came a day early. flashing the baseband is the only thing i can see that would change anything, but i feel like the sim slot itself is just kinda effed. granted, the new phone's sim slot was tight whereas the old bionic's slot was loose. Maybe the slot was bad, but i still suspect the radio itself was bad. It is possible the kernel itself was erased or something, but not from anything I did. Actually, i lean more towards the kernel baseband considering how intertwined the two are. I didn't ever try to kexec or anything. I don't think at the level that i was at adjusting the kernel would have been possible anyway. funny thing is, though, when i updated to ics ota on the new phone with my sd card in, the phone seemed to do the same thing. gonna dig on it and see if there is something i should be weary of.

EDIT: yeah, it just takes a few minuites to set it up. HOWEVER, for whatever reason, i couldn't root the new phone. it reacted like usb debugging didn't work. i tried to manually start adb, but this bionic never was recognized as an adb device.

Edit 2: one phrase: moto device helper...fixed my failed root attempts. In fact, i almost tbink that is why my fxzs on the other one didnt work. Either way
the new one is great. Thank you all for your help.