yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] becosemsaida:
WOW, just what i have to say to this thread.

Ok, i read alot about brick (soft/hard) and ofcourse it's a topic with big interest for all note owners.

After doing some consulting i found out that 99% of the people rooted their device. Ok, don't attack me just yet.

I had an other android phone, carrier locked, and after rooting it i had to send it to be repaired, a friend of mine had the same device, same carrier, tried to root and had the same problem. Since we still had guarantee we played it dumb and they had to replace the motherboard. Never got to know what happened though.

All i want to say with this is i still can't figure out what exactly does the root process. Ok, it opens "doors" for us to get priviliges to do what we want with our devices but does it change something in the MMC access?? Maybe it gets crazy in the unrooting process ?? I don't know.

All i see is that there is not a single person coming forward with stock and updates with kies,

I'm on German LPY and did wipe my device several times just to check (still have guarantee) and so far no problems. I also read the thread about other samsung devices and eMMC problems and i don't think samsung is taking the risk to release the same error twice. Just my 2C and i hope that i'm very, very , very wrong......
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
Only GNex prototypes had the bug. GNexes had no software fix - they just replaced the flash chips with ones that had bugfixed firmware.

We already know the kernel workaround for this - remove MMC_CAP_ERASE like I9100 Update4 did.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] opsakas:
So there is this "at least one" stock firmware brickup, right?

For me, et seems, that there is only one and even that was when the user installed the LPY over rooted GB with Abyss kernel.

Why do you do custom kernels and why do you root?

To get certain improvements, right? Usually in perfomance of the device.

So I truly think the problem lies somewhere there.

Something that stays in memory and ENABLES something that should not be enabled.

The corrective action should be comb all the custom kernels and root processes and find out what is common there.

And even if it is not the programs that are inserted with the root, there may be functions that are enabled with the root - functions that should not be enabled.

I truly do not believe that the brick would be caused by fully stock firmware since otherwise there would be "at least two" examples of it and both would have no connection what so ever with root.

I am not active programmer anymore but the topic reminds me things that I've seen often (when was active).
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] musashiro:
You asked for recovery Resource???
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
LOL :D

requested "post the file /cache/recovery/last_log after a full wipe" :)

Not a bad idea to ask for the recovery source though :P
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] musashiro:
Lol.. your post is ambiguous in every sense.. hahaha..

Hoping we get some "real" news soon...
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
Nope. We know exactly why the problem occurs and exactly what is required to trigger it. It has NOTHING to do with the device's history - of the 3 components involved, one is a fundamental aspect of the device's hardware (the flash chip itself, as there is no way to change its firmware currently), one is the kernel itself, and the final is the recovery binary, which is packaged in the initramfs of the kernel.

We've confirmed 2 of the 3 required conditions exist in Samsung's kernels without any doubt, the only thing remaining is to confirm that their stock recovery is affected (which I'll be doing later this week).
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] praetorius:
humor me.... i did not know that painting decals on your car is kinda explosive. root is INTERNAL MODIFICATION, much more like a turbocharger. wallpaper is external modification, so is decal. unless you put a lot of pink flower stickers on the dashboard of your car too? i have yet to hear somebody brick their phone just because they put a cute image of their pregnant cat as the lockscreen image, or spray painted the back cover of their galaxy Note.

the reaction i see when people act dumb on this forum is hilarious at best, and insulting most of the time. i guess newbies get treated like this everywhere, in whatever forum you go. and the assumption goes that because somebody joined recently = newbie = no knowledge/dumb.

so yeah, i'll just keep mum on what i know and silently tinker with my phone whenever i have the time.

btw, i have posted on one of the threads here somewhere that what many may consider as a 'bug' may actually be a 'feature' by the samsung devs to prevent people from modifying anything on the firmware in an unauthorized manner, ie, wiping through CWM, doing nandroid restores because wiping via phone menu, or via stock recovery on UNMODIFIED FIRMWARE has not produced any symptoms of this 'superbug'.

what are the chances those who got an untouched galaxy note do a factory reset? i'd hazard a guess of 1%. multiply that number by the number of galaxy notes sold, has any brick been reported, be it on a blog, a review, a youtube post.... ANYWHERE AT ALL? we all can search high and low on several search engines and find no result. if we can, then we can point the samsung devs to that specific post.

otherwise all these rooted, modified, tainted galaxy notes in one way or another does not qualify samsung's idea of covering the results of any errors their firmware may have.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] niko26:
eMMC Bug with ICS + Samsung Note

Hey guys, sorry to interrupt you... I have been reading a lot of threads to gather some information about the issue I am having, and it seems like it has to do with the eMMC issue+ICS+Wipe. My device has not been bricked yet, but it's acting weird and I suspect some issues with some of the blocks.

This is what I did:

1. Upgrade from GB to ICS using Mobile Odin. I have backed up everything using CWM, Titanium Backup and a tool named BackupEverything (to recover text messages/sms, bookmarks, call log). Before upgrading I wiped everything from within CWM.

2. Downgrade to GB again, wiping the device from within CWM and using CWMs backup. I had to do this because this stupid tool BackupEverything did not correctly backup my bookmarks, texts and calllog.

3. Upgrade back to ICS, wiping the device from Within CWM and using CWMs backup.

Everything has been working so far. However, just recently I wanted to backup my device again, but the backup process always aborts at some point (nearly towards the end of the /system partition), and the device boots.

My questions:

1. Could it be that the eMMC bug affected me?

2. I read that this bug ONLY happens if you wipe your device in ICS directly, or in CWM, but ONLY if CWM 5.5+ later has been used because it really tries to null the blocks, whereas older version just mark the partitions clean (kind of soft format)

3. If the eMMC bug affects me...

a. can I easily fix this afterwards? Is there any hope for it?

b. if not... then I'd like Samsung to repair this device, because the fuc*ed up. But I have to clean the device completely (incl. removing CWM+root), and brick it in such a way that they have to replace the device.

Basically I am trying to gather some more definite statements about the cause. For a novice like me it is incredibly frustrating reading so many posts (I literally spent hours!) and contradicting statements.

Thanks for your time, and of course any help is appreciated! :)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Alexanderbooth:
Well thats great news thanks for all your effort :-D
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] chasmodo:
Go to Q&A forum and post your question there. This is not the place to do it.

Have you even bothered to read what this thread is about?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] niko26:
Yes, I don't think I am completely off topic. But I am fairly new to this forum and I apologize if this was the wrong thread. I will post in the Q&A area.

Also, please remember, there is so many misinformation in the other areas - I was looking someone who knew about this topic :-(
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] becosemsaida:
Ok, now i'm confused.. If the devs here know how to replicate and know where the error is why doesn't samsung?? Does samsung know what root is?? Does samsung release a "new" software update knowing it has a brickbug (because bugs they all have) ??

Still trying to read and learn from you all since it has been a while i used android.

So as far as i understand: Devs here found where and when it bricks (give or take a wipe)---- Samsung denies......

Devs know where the problem lies and have a solution (maybe) ---- Samsung doesn't give a ....

Devs maybe help samsung ---- Maybe it's time for me to flash something better???

And i thought that apple was hard to understand. Android was mented to be opensource and in my opinion it means everything should be available.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] RochiWizz:
Sorry but I have to say this.

1. Don't complain about any problems or damages caused by use of leaked ROMs or anything based on those they are used at your OWN risk. They are LEAKS and have never been intended for public use.

2. Sorry to say this but also rooting our phones means we get unrestricted access to ALL parts phone. Meaning that commands designed too be performed by a restricted user can have unforseen consequences.

Ok now flame away :D
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] GocaS6:
Man you've missed a whole country, leaks, what leaks? It is a OFFICIAL ROM :D
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] RochiWizz:
Yes but there are also a fair few posts in this thread complaining about leaked ones.....
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
Obviously you understand nothing about Samsung's recovery implementation.

It doesn't matter WHAT is in system - Stock recovery is within the initramfs (part of the kernel binary), and doing a factory reset in stock recovery does not do ANYTHING to /system except attempt to wipe it - you can have anything you want in /system, it doesn't matter.

At least 2-3 people have encountered this issue after flashing stock firmware using Odin.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] andreww88:
Okay, thanks, goodbye. We are well aware of all of this you just said. :mad:
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
If you don't have anything useful or contructive and came here to troll or complain, get the fck out.

Everybody else, Please don't feed the trolls.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] praetorius:
enlighten an uneducated one: is pc odin an OFFICIAL method of flashing?

of course, anybody can put anything anywhere once the device is rooted. and there goes the problem. it could as SIMPLE as the system checking for files, or permissions which are not supposed to be there in the first place. even byte size matters, maybe?

but then again, im a noob who simply wishes to be educated on all these complex kernel-firmware stuff.

If, then, else = brick?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] M3TALLICA:
May be it's not the official method but Odin does exactly the same thing Kies is supposed to do. (which it fails most of the time). Root has nothing to do with PC Odin.

I read somewhere a samsung dev admitted that HQ was aware of this bug. Let's wait for official response.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] chasmodo:
Read this thread if you really want to get up to speed.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] eeyunopper:
I have no knowledge with regards to software development, so please excuse my ignorance. Could this problem be linked to the binary count/yellow triangle "feature" in any way? It seems all the models affected; SGSII, ET4G and Note all have this...
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
unlikelly, but valid question. But I'd add the jig method that involves flashing some garbage...

Anyone knows if there is a chance that all affected persons used the jig before?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] chasmodo:
I never did, and got bricked anyway.

Anyway, I know of at least 5-10 Note users who got bricked within days of purchasing the phone.

I very much doubt any one of them has had a chance to learn what a jig does, let alone use it.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
Thanks for the clarification. JIG and triangle discarted.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] FerretAD:
Just to reiterate what chasmodo said, I also never used a JIG and had a 'Superbrick', it was as dead as a Dodo.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] mod2000:
Just for the record:

I had never installed custom ROM or CWM. I had N7000OXALPY installed with ODIN and yesterday I installed with odin:

1. Non-wipe version GB

2. Wipe version of GB

3. N7000OXXLP5 - ICS Polish version.

Then in ICS I did 2 wipes: in settings and in recovery (couldn't resist). My phone is alive and for me everything is OK.

I hope this information is somehow helpful.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] mfractal:
No... It isn't....

Sent from my CM9 powered Galaxy Note
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
No. Why do users insist on constantly flailing around asking "could it be this? could it be that?" when the EXACT nature of the bug is now known and our knowledge of it is backed up by technical information from a Google engineer. (Google found this issue and had Samsung fix it for them during GNex development)

It's not at all. Your next wipe might be your last - it's already been stated (and confirmed by a kernel developer from Google) that this problem is intermittent and does not always occur. Often the eMMC handles ERASE properly - but when it doesn't, say goodbye to it as there is currently no way to repair it.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] mod2000:
OK, but I don't mind worrying about consquences. If samsung continues to roll out firmwares with this kernel, it's theirs decision. Users shouldn't even care and know about something like MMC_CAP_ERASE and now we have got forum full of experts of this kind of brick. Wiping comes as documented feature of the official firmware and galaxy note is very expensive smartphone and such situation shouldn't even occur. I don't give s..t, it's samsung's decision if they want to have services full of our phones.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] chasmodo:
It's always encouraging to see a man with a firm stand.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nandihno:
The reality is if this bug is truly reproducible under stock settings than is to samsungs best interest to get it fix assuming that there are a number of users with this issue

Then again how many ordinary ppl who buy the note

1) know about their os version and if they do out of those how many go to the trouble of wiping their data

If the numbers are so small that it affect only 1% of the note users I doubt that Samsung will care

Plus with the note not being their darling anymore it becomes less likely they will do something about it

So I am not having my hopes up that much that we will get a fix
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] beestee:
I think this is the biggest hurdle with getting an official fix. I had no problems even with all of my apps and rooting on GB moving to stock LPY without wiping when it first came out. It was the best experience I have had on my note yet.

Anyone in ordinary circumstances moving from stock GB to stock LPY that is none the wiser would have no reason to wipe, even if their device was giving them issues they most likely believe it is just a buggy update and will patiently wait until Samsung provides another and then just update again, and again, and again without ever wiping until they decide to sell the device. On the small percentage chance that it ever did brick, they would not turn here, they would simply turn it in for replacement/repair.

By the time it would become a big issue for the majoirity, the device will be outdated and out of warranty and no longer Samsungs responsibility. It is not nice to think that our stellar devices are in fact disposable, but that is sadly the nature of mobile technology today.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] eeyunopper:
Apologies...
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] mfractal:
@Entropy512 : were you able to find out why GB kernels with MMC_CAP_ERASE enabled do not brick?

Sent from my CM9 powered Galaxy Note
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] cymax:
Its maybe a bit off topic but..

How many ordinary ppl buy this beast? :)

Every experienced user buy this kind of toy and wants to get as much for the price that he payed.... Samsung maybe have a new horse in the race but that doesnt mean that they should abandon the (not that old) one :). Cuz in that case... would you buy another expensive toy from Samsung if you know that they dont care what happens to you as an user after you give them your money? They should play the honest game to us and be a little more open minded. They know that we put root and different roms on our hardware and they still sell the phones to us :) So if there is a bug in all this they should say that loud.... Like " Yes we dont allow you to put other roms so we put a lock" if someone is man enough (challenge) try to avoid it :). That is more fair to us then..."we dont know about that and we cant reproduce it"

Only my toughts,

Best regards
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] jgaviota:
Ok, just one thing, and I don't know if you can get this file without rooting (maybe with adb?):

could you please post your complete

/cache/recovery/last_log

file? I really want to have a look at that file from a stock ICS phone that was successfully wiped.

Thanks!

---------- Post added at 09:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 AM ----------

The thing Entropy is that it's still not confirmed that stock ICS is suceptible, the only way would be to have a safe kernel that logs mmc_erase and see if it gets called from a wipe in those two scenarios.

---------- Post added at 09:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 AM ----------

Yes, he was.

GB kernels don't call mmc_erase from recovery when wiping or formating. It was latter introduced as a security messure in ICS, so that the data was actually wiped and not only marked as not used.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] straycat:
English is not my mother language but I can clearly understand the phrase:

"...Samsung fixed the firmware in released GNex devices. However they continue shipping known defective MAG4FA/VYL00M fwrev 0x19 in Exynos devices."

Do you??

Samsung is selling us damaged hardware. PERIOD!
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] vijai2011:
Sorry to go to off topic.But I really want to something.

Ok I understand GB kernel has MMC_CAP_ERASE but it is disabled so its safe.ICS has this enabled to increase security.Ri8?If the MMC_CAP_ERASE is activated in ICS,why doesnt it cause bricking all the time,But instead it gets triggered randomly?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] jgaviota:
GB does not call mmc_erase when wiping a partition.

Yes

Because THAT is the definition of an intermittent bug, one that happens sometimes.

The problem is an intermittent bug on the emmc firmware when calling mmc_erase
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] KSauzeRK:
Did I miss something ? AFAIR, I thought there's still an unknown important thing, which is why does it sometimes brick and sometimes not.

A - there's some kind of randomness in there, at some level (why not)

B - there's something else, and I guess there a lot of elements could get in context for the bug to happen.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but this point is still unclear. Now if we know other elements of the context necessary for the bug to happen, we may eliminate one of those and be safe, but to me there's still a possibility we are not aware of one of the elements necessary to reproduce the bug. Or is it proven it's really random ?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] vijai2011:
Ok I'm ready to brick my phone by ICS and find out what causes it.But for that I need official samsung support(If possible) and support from members like entrophy,ncoder snd others who can guide me to make the brick in a usefull manner.

Ok guys lets get it rolling for the cause of XDA.....I will sacrifice my device...(Oh cant imagine how I'm goin to live without my note :'( )Will I be able to claim warranty after my device gets bricked???
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] MR.change:
i you have a warranty then sure you can have it replaced ,just make sure of the following:

1. you don't have a triangle or flash count .

2. you are running stock non rooted official ICS ROM.

3.wipe from stock recovery ,and d factory resets till your note dies.

happy bricking :) and thank you for your sacrifice.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] vijai2011:
Yeah I know that there must be no counter and triangle.Anyway thanks for the answer.And yeah thanks for the wishes...:).Anything for XDA :)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] becosemsaida:
If you have a stock note, no root, ics through kies..... i think with the help of the "bosses" it might be possible to get samsung's support. BUT if your device is rooted and already had some other roms installed it might be a bit tricky.

If it will solve the problem once and for all: go for it !! But get first confirmation that they (samsung) will give you a new device.

I support you all the way.

becosemsaida
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
That's covered in the main discussion thread on this. We now know there are three things that are ALL needed for this to happen:

1) A recovery (can be the recovery itself OR it can be the update-binary in a ZIP you flash!) that performs ERASE commands in addition to formatting. (GB recoveries and update-binaries don't do this, ICS ones do)

2) A kernel that allows those ERASE attempts to actually go through. (Disabling MMC_CAP_ERASE prevents this.)

3) Buggy eMMC firmware

Basically:

In Gingerbread, condition 1 was not met (However, this isn't guaranteed - if a Gingerbread ROM developer happens to accidentally grab an ICS update-binary in his installation ZIP, this COULD brick!)

In I9100 ICS releases, condition 2 was not met due to MMC_CAP_ERASE being removed

Condition 3 is true for nearly every GT-I9100, SGH-I777, SPH-D710, and GT-N7000 ever sold.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] mfractal:
thank you!

That's i think what happened with the infamous angelom kernel.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] thomas_d_j:
This one might have been what you were looking for - but unfortunately no diagnostic follow-up:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1892458&ux=61886
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
As mentioned before, you are fully covered if you used standard flashing methods for official stock ROM. No triangle.

If you had to root your device to make this test, or use cwm, use a jig, then better don't risk it.

If you are ok, then do it. this sacrifice will be hugely appreciated. Will once and for all prove if there is indeed a problem in the stock ROM.

@Entropy: could you please give instructions to document the test to Samsung?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
He didn't mentioned nothing about recovery factory reset. He got bricked while upgrading to Ics using kies.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
We don't need to find out what causes it. We know what causes it.

The only remaining thing to do is verify that XXLPY stock recovery attempts to issue ERASE commands, which I can do safely by instrumenting a "neutered" kernel that prints out a message if mmc_erase() is called. (We've confirmed that Samsung has the other two components needed for bricking in place.) - I just haven't had the time this week. Maybe this weekend.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nCoder:
Just for clarification: are you saying that you will be able to provide evidence that stock ROM has a problem by modifying the kernel?

should i close the channel with Samsung developers?, because until now they were not able to reproduce the problem using stock ROM and the test cases we provided.

If we don't provide more test scenarios, or any kind of evidence, then, what's the point of complaining? We just admit the fact that Samsung ROM is working fine after all?

I also remind you that AFAIK until now we haven't found a single example of any "virgin" phone affected by this bug?