[Captivate Android Development] RootTheMachine:
Work in progress... More to come later

Things to try first after getting the error (try not to press "reset phone"):

-Reboot

-Reboot w/o external SD

-Reboot recovery, factory reset, reboot

-Flash CM7

-Flash to stock

Things we know so far:

-The error can result in loss of access to the internal SD card and /data, no matter what is done to the phone.

-The error happens when the Android system cannot mount /data, therefore assuming it is encrypted and throwing the error. We don't know exactly why it results in the data lockout.

-Pressing "Reset Phone" may or may not affect this

-This error is happening across a wide range of devices and ICS ROMs, not limited to the Galaxy S series

-Sometimes, the lockout can be avoided

-The error can happen when the phone is first booted, or may be on the screen when pulled out of your pocket (most common). Often, a user finds the phone stuck on the bootanimation, but it is very dark. A reboot will then bring up the error.

-Data can be recovered, but currently only in isolated cases without repeatable results.

-Data recovery seems to be random

-Users who get this have had battery issues in some cases. Investigation underway... I don't think this is important

-Users who got a random fix seem to be using Glitch kernel... may or may not be important... Kernel may play a role

-Removing/switching external sd can trigger EU again

Possible causes:

-MTP not unmounting properly (strong arguments for and against this)

-Hardware

-eMMC firmware bug, or similar issue

Possible solutions (after losing access to sdcard and /data):

-Glitch kernel flash Link

ROM: Slim 3.0

Kernel: Semaphore 1.0 scbm

Before the error: Phone was OC'd

Solution: 1-2 months after recieving the error, the user flashed an extracted boot.img of Glitch kernel from Doc's ROM. A week later, all of the original files showed up in recovery. The user rebooted and saw "android is upgrading" and all files from /data and /sdcard were back in their original place, but applications and wifi were having issues. User wiped data and all went back to normal. Since it wasn't an immediate result, it's unclear whether the kernel flash is directly related.

Other: User had external sd fix applied on 32GB sd

-Battery Death

ROM: Infinitum 2.2

Kernel: Glitch B6

Before the Error: User flashed Infinitum, and got the error. They pressed "reset phone" and lost access to their data.

Solution: The battery died, and phone was dead for 8-12 hours. Upon turning on the phone, user saw both sd cards and could access /data.

Other: User had external sd fix applied

eMMC Bug (on other devices):

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/hard-brick-bug-on-galaxy-s-ii-and-note-leaked-ics-kernels/

and http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1644364&page=1

Based on this^ (if it is indeed the cause (which it isn't...)):

-A bug in eMMC firmware causes it to corrupt and fail, usually unrecoverable by any means

-The data partition fails because it is the most accessed

-Certain kernel setups can trigger/prevent this

-Caused by wiping data (or perhaps large operations)

-This explains losing /data, but not the sdcard. Perhaps triggered by the synthetic encryption?

-While parts of the eMMC are gone, it is possible to resize the partitions around the bad area. Works on Galaxy Note, may work for us. Not a solution, but a temporary fix.

-This entire theory could be made invalid by the differences between Galaxy S and the phones in those threads.

From my data so far: There really doesn't seem to be any kind of pattern (I could be overlooking something)

^Don't rely on this theory. Our devices are different, and are facing a slightly different issue. Our issue also involves non-Samsung devices, while the above issue is because of Samsung software. I am still collecting data from users on this because it's possible that there is some kind of remote connection.

Well it seems we don't have the same issue. But the similarity of the outcome of these issues could still mean we have a similar issue where hardware ends up failing.

Incident threads:

-[Guide] Encryption Unsuccessful - Reset Android [ICS Issue]

-Encryption Unsuccessful - Fixed

Resources:

-Notes on the implementation of encryption in Android

-Cyanogen's Post

-eMMC Corruption bug discussion