[Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus] VisualOddity:
OMG! It's Alive!!!

As I said before, since I can't give back to the community as a Dev, my attempt at doing so is by extensive trial and error in hopes of finding a method that might resolve this issue and give a more clear path to resolution for all the others experiencing this problem.

Well, I think I have found that method... Here's what I did:

The things I am going to list were tried in different orders, different batches, and also individually. It seemed that no matter what I did, flashing the Firmware would either A) Cause recovery to give a message about deleting files and and whatnot, then go into the "#Manual Mode# Updating Application..." screen, or B) It would just go back to the same boot loop. So, I started realizing that something in one of the folders (I think /system) was causing an issue, so I looked for a way to fix that. However, no matter what I did, I still had to reflash the ROM, and the issue was perpetuated. So...

Here is what I did to resolve this and get may GT7Plus back up and running. It seems overkill I think, but with any of these steps missing or in a different order, it didn't work and the issue persisted. And trust me, I tried almost every combination of pushes and orders. It sucked. However, persistence paid off, so here we go...

#1: First I pushed Clockwork Mod Recovery (CWM) via Odin. Later, when I'm not falling asleep (been up 32 hours and am delirious), I'll find the link and post it. This gave me a recovery I could get into.

#2: I loaded that recovery and and deleted EVERYTHING. I wiped, I cleared ALL caches, I formatted all parts it would let me format, etc. Basically anything it would let me delete, format or unmounted... I did.

Now, pay attention.

#3: Next I used Odin to flash the stock firmware, which I found had to be the oldest of the TMo FW's for my T869. This flash includes a recovery and kills CWM. Once this was finished, I let it reboot.

#4: When it rebooted from pushing the FW, I quickly sent it to Download mode again **BEFORE** it could try to load the OS, and before it could load the stark recovery and start adding/deleting stuff. Now, back in DL mode, I pushed the CWM tar via Odn and it rebooted.

#5: Again, I sent it to DL mode before it could load anything and possibly mess up the fix. Now that I had the firmware and the recovery in place, I loaded Heildall to push the files that I thought it might need.

#6: Via Heimdall, I manually pushed the files/components that I thought might make a difference; cache.img, boot.bin, modem.bin and param.lfs.

#7: Reboot. After following the steps above, it came up to an odd looking Android screen, the the splash screen. 5-10 minutes later, it continued on into Android! Yay!

I'm pretty sure that what really fixed this was both the order of the flashed, and my deliberate move to NOT let it go anywhere past Download Mode thought the use of Heimdall at the end of the cycle.

The odd thing? Despite a week of pushing firmwares, all the wipes of the OS and the formatting of basically every part of that SD card, once it finally booted in Android, all my apps and my Go Launcher layout were still untouched.

Either way, it's up and working for now, so I *REALLY* hope other people here with similar issues can learn from my setbacks, and my successes. Also, please, if anyone uses my methods, let me know what happens! :cool:

And seriously, thanks a ton to Viper and everyone else that helped me with ideas, advice, tutorials on things and links to software and firmware! Much, MUCH appreciated, and why I love it here so much! :D

(should I make a separate post that can be stickied with my brick-fix method for all those currently having this issue? Maybe also share w/ the 7.7 guys since they seem to have this issue a lot as well?)

*** Pardon typos and anything that doesn't make sense. Again, I'm super delirious and falling asleep. I just wanted to get this posted for those that it might (I hope) help with this issue...