yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Epic 4G General] Top Nurse:
I suggest that your developers contact Bonsai developers (or go to Bonsai tree) and put their heads together. Were already running new beta kernels without SOME of these uv codes.

Sent from Bonsai 7.0.3
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
if you were bricked by vision, or maybe even bonsai.. and you cant get a replacement.. it may not be a permanent brick. i have fully recovered mine. i narrowed it down to the SBL or the paramfs. what i did, was leave it with out a battery for about 20 mins. then leave it on the charger for an hour. then pull the battery press power 2x for about 10 secs each stick the batteyr in and hold 1 and power to get into DL mode. it may not work the first time. it didnt for me. just try a few times. when you get to dl mode, odin an older tarball that includes an sbl and paramfs. i used SPH-D700-EB13-8Gb-REL.tar.md5 and Odin3 v1.81 and check repartition, update bootloader, and autoreboot.

mine is back to normal, running great.

i ran this to check for bad blocks just to see.. but i only had 3..

cat /proc/L*/bmlinfo

so this is not an overheating or UV issue, or atleast wasnt for me like I was told multiple times due to my symptoms.. it was a FS problem like i suspected..
[Epic 4G General] robl45:
can you use the ec05 prerooted tar? or you need to use something else? so if i understand correctly, battery out, then charge, then pull battery out, push power for 10 secs, release, power again 10 secs, release and try to go to download mode? what about just booting to clockwork and flashing a different kernal?

and if it doesn't work the first time are you saying we should do all the steps again, pull battery, charge an hour again?
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
mine wouldnt go into clockwork at all.. only DL mode and occasionally a normal bootup.. but no EC05 tars dont come with an SBL or PARAMFS because afaik there was never an actual OTW update? EB13 is fine, DI18.. any official OTW update should be fine. after that you can put whatever you want on it. you just have to flash that SBL.bin and PARAMFS.rfs maybe only one of them, I wasnt gonna risk trying one at a time to figure out which it was. and the steps are not exact, just what worked for me, it wasnt always an hour. i did this probably 20 times trying to diagnose what was wrong. sometimes i thought the phone was just dead bricked and left it alone for hours and tried again and it would start doing it again with that pattern... for some getting a replacement is easier. not for me. i paid cash, no insurance, my phone isnt even on sprint.
[Epic 4G General] Quis89:
Sounds like all these new kernals are screwing peoples phones up. I rolled back to stock a while back and I'm glad I did.
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
oh dont get me wrong, i wont stay stock. in fact im on acs and vision 1.1 right now.. looking at the source of 1.2 to see what might corrupt sbl or param.. but it may be a little much for me, we will see..
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Didnt work here..:/..when you did it were you charging from pc or outlet?
[Epic 4G General] robl45:
didn't work, new phonebe here monday.
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
Guess I should have mentioned it never worked charging from usb.. only ac
[Epic 4G General] robl45:
yea, go back to it, I'm sure sprint needs another return :)

Mine was great too until it didn't wake up.
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
the rom doesnt have anything to do with it.. its only the kernel.. SRF is fine..
[Epic 4G General] burgerpimp07:
The issue has nothing to do with the ROM, it was the visionkernel. They're working on a fix.

You can use the default twilight kernel or genocide with SFR.
[Epic 4G General] deano0714:
I hate how a lot of people are blaming Thomas... You took the chance... My phone bricked and I'm pissed but at myself not him, that's a great kernel the kinks just need to be worked out.
[Epic 4G General] Bluerai:
Yeah, they give us all the warnings.. Nobody forced us to flash these things..

I'm just happy that I could get a new phone.. Things could have been worse
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
if people want newer and better things than what sprint or samsung can give us.. than you put your phone on the line. point blank. this should be understood even logging into xda. we are pushing the limits of our phones and unlocking their potential, and it could go potentially wrong. more often than not its less than a gamble, but you should always be prepared. thats what hacking is all about.
[Epic 4G General] robl45:
I don't think anyone is blaming Thomas, but as I said in the other thread, when people are bricking their phones over and over and certain people are claiming its user error,thats when it goes over the top.
[Epic 4G General] flyers2114:
Umm yes someone was.....you! You posted it in his thread....thomas is a great developer......if you cannot handle the risk involved in flashing...then dont flash...but dont blame the cook....mine bricked also...**** happens...big deal...my fault for taking the risk...everyone has disclaimers all over xda....which in essence means your risk....so next time dont be so quick to blame him or anyone else...you are a grown man and make decisions on your own....
[Epic 4G General] jct522:
Chris you are a freaking genius....i dont know how you guys come up with this stuff but it actually worked! My phone was totally dead, wouldn't do anything. I tried your trick and sure enough it got into DL mode. Installed the EB13 tar and its running like normal. So thank you X1000.
[Epic 4G General] thomasskull666:
Much appreciated, I certainly wasn't trying to brick some peeps phones. It is upsetting that this happened and I assure you all that it will NOT happen again in the future. With that being said, thank you all for your support and helping others with their issues, it means a lot to me to see people being so generous. Keep the suggestions and comments coming, and don't hesitate to pm me or find me on IRC, #epic or #acs-users on irc.fossnet.info if you have anything you want to talk about outside of the public forums.
[Epic 4G General] abhaxus:
I agree on the hating the devs that do all this work for us. We all take the chance to run this software and it sucks when things don't work out, but I have overall been thrilled with the support of the community for this phone esp post EB13 and EC05

Also, doing the OTW EB13 has got my phone back to normal. Phone wakes up from sleep on battery just fine, at least for the last 15 minutes.

GL on visionkernel 1.3... 1.2 was fast as hell too bad it was buggy.
[Epic 4G General] stir fry a lot:
Chances make champions and if it weren't for devs taking these chances we'd be stuck with the crap that Samsung puts out and calls Epic. It is in no way your fault and people need to understand that this did go through beta tester's hands before being released. In fact I remember you mentioning three or four days before it was released that you were waiting on a few more testers to get back to you to ensure that it was ok to put out. I don't think you stalled in removing the link as most of the time these things can be attributed to something that happened on the user's end. Hope life gives you some leeway and affords you a little free time for both kernals [sic] and some time for yourself. My phone is back to chugging happily along with 1.1 @ 1.4ghz (35% w/ 12 hours of moderate use) so no rush on my end.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Note that this is essentially what tanimn advised you all to do many pages back. Pull and wait. ;) But thanks for the tip, chris41g.

Anyone with bricked devices who cannot get a replacement, and for whom this method did not work, please contact an ACS member ASAP! We need your device!
[Epic 4G General] JohnCorleone:
There are just so many variables going on with Voltage Control, Pimp my CPU, No Frills CPU, undervolting, skipping states,etc. I beta tested both of thomas' vision kernels and Rodderiks Genocide 1 running them all at 1.4 but primarily stuck with SetCPU and no undervolting. I am running 1.4 still at this moment and would be honored to beta test kernels and/or ROMs in the future. There are very few items produced in the world that work perfectly on the first attempt especially when its common knowledge that our phones can't even handle the same extremes. Some phones can only handle 1.2 but can undervolt like crazy, mine is great with SetCPU On Demand at 1400 all day but can't go near any serious undervolt. Sympathies to those who are bricked but you will be back to the goodness before you know it.
[Epic 4G General] zvonkorp:
I called Sprint and said it froze during an automated update and requested an advance exchange. New phone will be here wednesday, I'm using a flip phone for the time being. I was worried about my warranty sticker... then i found out when i asked samsung that it's not a warranty sticker.
[Epic 4G General] chris41g:
Oh yes, getting into DL mode was stated by tanimn and vocal and a lot of others, the main point I was getting across was to use a tar with sbl and update the bootloader.. not to use the ec05 tars floating around as they are fs, modem recovery and kernel only..
[Epic 4G General] rsperko:
I have done this no less than a dozen times with no luck. I do not know if mine is in a different state or if i only have 250 milliseconds after putting in the battery to press the 1-Pwr and I am not making it, but it is still a brick with no DL.

When plugged in, it does feel slightly warmer toward the top of the phone, which gives me some hope. My phone is capable of producing slight warmth, yay :)

It is doing no good sitting in the drawer, so I am probably willing to send it to someone for learning. I will PM you.
[Epic 4G General] scoobmd:
I've been a member for a some time and lurk but just wanted to say that I totally appreciate what the developers do and we all take a risk running bleeding edge programs that push the limits of our phones.

With that said, I never had problems with Vision 1.2 but went back to 1.1 and actaully had a weird lock up that required a nand restore today... strange indeed:confused:
[Epic 4G General] cbpagent72:
Mine bricked as well using this kernel, I mean completely bricked. Sprint store could not wake it up and they gave me refurb.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
ok that confirms it..something abut "powering off" / "reboot" from the menu is the cause...

so here are alternative shutdown methods for those willing to try:

1) uv your phone till it freezes then pull out battery (I did this before and it worked a few times lol)

2) pull out battery

3) vol up+vol down+camera+power button
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
RAM voltage is reset when you have a different kernel.

Can you folks get into Download Mode? If not, try removing the battery for at least 15 minutes but up to two hours, then plugging it back in and trying to boot again. Also try booting to Download Mode while connected to power.

This should not be about RAM UV - a member of the kernel team will likely respond shortly with more information.

We're sorry for the inconvenience and any troubled possibly caused, and we will give this matter our highest priority!
[Epic 4G General] djbacon06:
Y'all are scaring the bajesus out of me right now. I've had no such problems with SRF and Vision 1.2... I hope it is not "just a matter of time"
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Please note that the ROM has absolutely nothing to do with it. Thanks.

EDIT: And to anyone with issues, while your battery is out, hold the power button for a minute or two, then retry booting to Download Mode.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
The phone does not turn on..or charge when plugging in..complete brick atm..I was actually trying the waiting few minutes then putting battery in now...if that fails I'm gonna try draining the battery and see if that works..

So far people who are bricking are bricking by using the menu's power off/reboot..so I would avoid that if possible...

I dont think its a matter of time thing..I think it might have to do with how the phone powers off regularly...
[Epic 4G General] rjmjr69:
Pull battery Hold power for a minute..... Let power go. Put battery back in.

Open keyboard. Press and hold the Number 1 one key. As you press power.

This will bring you to DOWNLOAD MODE where you can odin back to working phone.

These people affected happen to have a theme installed by any chance? Or any power options?
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Be sure to follow the suggestion I just posted above.
[Epic 4G General] gabe2gg:
this lol, I love this kernel since I was able to steam slacker for 4 hours 45 min with only 30% battery.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
didn't work for me..no theme installed...

Tried it, no worky :(
[Epic 4G General] hussmanne:
Thanks for the response K0nane, love your and your team's work, no hard feelings. Unfortunately I've tried the steps you mentioned (noticed this around lunchtime today, battery out for a few hours). No download mode. Pulled the SD card, pulled the battery, tried while plugged into charger etc.

No download = no ODIN = Sprint store!
[Epic 4G General] hussmanne:
I did have a theme installed.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
To both of you, leave the battery out for two hours or more, then try again. If it still doesn't work, leave it to charge and try again.
[Epic 4G General] fhurricane:
tried what you suggested, can't put my phone into download mode.
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
10-10-10char
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
Yeah thats what I was trying to do..will get back to doing it...

But I have a feeling its a complete brick, not that I am giving up hope...

though as I said, it happened to 3 people who used power off/reboot via menu..so there is definitely a pattern here to the cause..

Edit: I rebooted before due to freezes via pulling out the battery before and there were no issues powering on...this is first time I used power off via menu with this kernel....
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
This all sounds extremely familiar.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I think its best to tell people not to power off/reboot their phones via menu just in case in the mean time...just in case...

what happened? is it something to do with the bonsai thing? (didnt read on it)
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
That's what he's referring to, yes.
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
We should probably be looking at the commonalities between the beta bonsai kernel and the vision kernel.
[Epic 4G General] tanimn:
Hey guys. I hope I can clear some things up here.

There is a SLIM chance that the ram undervolting could lead to these symptoms, but I would hope that the first dozen times your phone freezes up you would look into it before things got to the point of unsteady ram causing massive filesystem corruption (which this appears to be for all intents and purposes.) These symptoms are more likely to appear as a cumulative effect of undervolting the cpu too far.

If you can't get into download mode, unplug your phone and pull your battery. Now here's the really hard part: WALK AWAY. Go get a cup of coffee, take a shower, play with your kids, whatever... Do not touch your phone for at LEAST 15 minutes, and sometimes overnight.

If, after sitting overnight (presuming 15 minutes wasn't good enough), you install your battery, hold down 1 on the keyboard and press and hold the power button and nothing lights up, THEN worry can be justified.

In regards to the battery light: charging the phone while "powered off" still requires your phone to turn on, which it can't do if it can't mount /system.

This type of filesystem corruption can rarely be solved by restoring a backup or reflashing a rom because the corruption affects not just the files, but the indexes for those files and the tables for the partitions. Only via overwriting these errors with clean data are things put back to right, which is where odin comes in. Make it through the really hard part mentioned above, and you will probably find your phone is recoverable.

For those that are still staring at a dark screen, pm me your specific circumstances and I will try to help get you back running if possible.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I just did a quick read and it seems same thing..people shutting off phone and it doesn't turn back on :/
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Thanks, tanimn. Quoting this entire post so you all will definitely read it.

EDIT:

The same symptoms is not the same cause. Night sweats can be hormones, sleep apnea, or cancer.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
Try resetting the hard ware.

1) remove battery door

2) look below camera on the left side. You should see a little hole.

3) using a ball point pen or bent paper clip insert the tip into that hole.

4) press and hold for 10 seconds.

5) boot into download

6) odin to ec05
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Holy **** in a box, Mystery - I never knew that existed!

Everyone try this immediately! If you have no results, do EXACTLY as tanimn said.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
I've recovered from 3 total bricks using this method ;)
[Epic 4G General] Overstew:
Wow thanks for the heads up, I'll revert back to v1.1. :)
[Epic 4G General] thedevilslettucemd:
I do have insurance. I went today and both the tech and rep told me the policy changed and they don't fix cracked screens at all anymore. I would have gladly paid 35 bucks to have the screen fixed even with insurance. Was that a lie or can someone
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
Why haven't you posted about this before now? :eek:
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
See my post above - try Mystery's magic trick, then if that fails, do exactly as tanimn said.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
I never seen a need to. Go ahead and flame me :(
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
True but its still a hint to where to start looking...
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
I'm just surprised you hadn't, if it works! It could be the difference between "almost unbrickable" and "brick THIS, *****!".
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
Right below it
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
To my knowledge, no one running the bonsai beta with an alternate kernel bricked. Only those running the kernel that came with the ROM. You even said yourself that it had to be something in the kernel.
[Epic 4G General] Overstew:
Shouldn't 1.2 be pulled from the kernel thread? :o

The twilight zone kernel had constant freezes on me, Vision never did. Would Twilight zone be bricking devices too due to the RAM corruption?
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
1.2's link will be removed when Tom returns.

Twilight Zone will absolutely not cause any issues except for the well-known, harmless freezing in 1.1.0. And note that "RAM corruption" is far from the cause. (Think a little about why that's absurd given how RAM works, by the way.) We will let you know as soon as we determine the cause.
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
ok pin thing didnt work..as i said 15min waiting didnt work that was first thing i tried...I will try the overnight thing..then if that fails try the panic thing...lol

That said I never knew we had a reset button >.>
[Epic 4G General] herbthehammer:
I'm not involved with this at all but I'm surprised nobody has said this fixed anything (the super secret reset button).
[Epic 4G General] tanimn:
I don't recall actually releasing 1.1.1 yet, so unless you are playing with the rc, the short answer is no.
[Epic 4G General] Overstew:
I just reverted to v1.1 in Vision Kernel and as soon as it turned back on, my phone froze. :O
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
I don't think anyone even knew about it - I sure didn't, and I do everything with my device! I imagine several are trying it right now.

If you're concerned, simply do the normal wipe procedure.
[Epic 4G General] tanimn:
A single lockup on booting a new kernel is not uncommon. If it locks a second time, then something might be up.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
I'll create a new thread about in a, little bit. I just got out the shower
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I wish i could try it but my phone don't worky :( lol...did you try it? does the secret button work?
[Epic 4G General] k0nane:
I don't have a device right now, and if I did, it wouldn't be bricked. ;) And the point is to try it specifically if you have a wonked device. Mystery will explain in his new thread.
[Epic 4G General] MysteryEmotionz:
I've recovered from 3 total bricks. I can't tell you it will work 100% of the time. It probally depends on what caused the brick in the first place
[Epic 4G General] mattallica76:
I'm pretty sure we don't know what it is. We've been running all kinds of tests and have little to show.
[Epic 4G General] djbacon06:
that's the whole point of the hardware reset, if your phone doesn't work, lol. Give it a try, what do you have to lose? :)
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I tried it it didnt work the reset button :/..but its good to know there is one..I have a thing for reset buttons lol..
[Epic 4G General] nubecoder:
That's a good thing, since it was released... publicly. ;]

And if you are implying that Team Bonsai has found a definite cause and isn't sharing it...

Not really sure where you are getting that from, sorry. All I have heard is lots of theory and speculation (including my own).

Display (screen) and RAM under-volting both come to mind, but there are probably many, many other similarities as well.

gzub had the problem running his kernel (which is the basis of the newer Bonsai kernel), and the Bonsai 4.0.1 Rom. Also, Tortel had mentioned he had this problem while running his own version of TWZ (I made sure to confirm this with him twice). Those things combined is enough for me to believe it is a problem in the kernel.

Awesome tip!! If this works, that would be wonderful!

I now remember seeing that little button when disassembling my phone, never knew what it did though. You can bet I will remember it in the future, thanks.

=]
[Epic 4G General] herbthehammer:
From what little I know about resetting crap and computers and stuff, I will offer what I was told. The holding the power button while the battery is gone is draining any residual power in the phone. I might try holding the reset button longer but it might not matter. Hitting reset without the battery in might be another process of elimination. I suppose if you wanted overkill you could get a wide rubber band and wrap it around the phone where the power button is so it depresses the button and leave it that way for an hour. Next try overnight. I think anything past thirty seconds is redundant.

Try this if you're bored sometime. If you have a laptop or tower computer, unplug the battery or unplug the power supply from the back of the pc. Once there's no juice getting to it, push the power button on the computer. The light's on the case might flash for less than a second. That's you draining any stored electricity in the capacitors of the computer. Once that's done then it's pretty safe to say that you won't get zapped by touching any inside components. This is especially true with old tube tv sets or monitors. Those, if touched, will knock you on your ass because there's a lot of stored energy still in the circuit. My grandpa told me about that when I was a kid because he had his own RCA repair shop.

You don't want to screw around with tube amplifiers or big power supplies either cause they will zap you good!
[Epic 4G General] gTen:
I said it because I tried it already and didnt work..was just interested in its existence and if it actually worked.. particularly how hard it has to be pressed sicne Its definitely not as obvious when pressed as the TP2 was
[Epic 4G General] heathmcabee:
Dude WTF, if this is true, and I kind of doubt it for some reason, then you should have let this cat out the bag when you first noticed it. I pressed the **** out of this button off and on and got no results. Can't say it does anything on my end.\

Edit: The button doesn't feel like those old hard reset buttons like we had on the old Windows smart phones.. QX6700
[Epic 4G General] thomasskull666:
Hey everyone, just letting you know I am currently looking into the issue and I will post in the thread with updates.