yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ecliptical:
Understand that, but it does simplify matters to where there is less room for error...user error by formating the wrong things, etc....just wondering if anyone who flashed through rom manager lost IMEI
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
If someone is accidentally formatting partitions they should not be messing around with this...cwm gives u 10 do not flash options everytime you press something. I hope the random imei erase issue gets resolved. Been fine for me since launch day 3 weeks ago.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ecliptical:
Agreed...would be helpful if we could narrow it down, I'd bet it's not so random after all..
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] frankdogg:
Just to add to this discussion, I wanted to share something I've observed. The other day I decided to check my imei using *#06* just to check. At the end of my imei number I had a /02 at the end which usually just represents a software revision number. Today I flashed CM10 to check it out, then when I was done playing, I flashed a cwm backup from earlier. Now my imei ends in /05. I'm really not sure if that means anything, but it got me curious about why it changed. Just food for thought.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] cashyftw:
Who exactly lost there imei? What did they do?

Sent from my Aokp Galaxy s3! (:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] frankdogg:
Several people have reported losing they're imei. My conspiracy theory way of thinking leads me to believe that the reason the nv_data.bin file is mia has to do with the carrier's new way of preventing unauthorized firmware so they can protect they're precious tethering packages and network control.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
I just think that would be dumb for carriers to do this they will get crap load of returns and Samsung would need to process the exchanges and lots of them.

By the way one user in this thread reports losing imei after flashing the CM10 using rom manager so it may be rom manager but not sure.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1778278
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
I still think it has to do with any type of "flashing" using a non stock recovery. There is a possibility that on our phones these recoveries might corrupt where IMEI is stored. We've yet to hear of a single person losing IMEI who has just used Odin and no non stock recovery.

Remember having root has a ton of advantages but also lots of risk along with it.

With great power....:D
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
Probably smocking lol jk

Anyways i like twrp better I haven't flash it cause I heard people losing IMEI, I'm on CWM and flash like crazy haven't loose anything yet *knock on wood*
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Sorry to hear that.

Go to this thread and run the script for backup if you lost it from Cygwin.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1753833

If you didn't lose it you just need to connect and use adb with the # dd if=/sdcard/nameofimage.img of=/dev/block/nameofpartition - commands

I think that is a serious problem we all have! Mine gets so upset when I fire up the PC and connect the phone.

---------- Post added at 03:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

I think you are reading this backwards, no one on TWRP has lost IMEI, the only IMEI's lost were on CWM.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
His wasn't imei related read replies is known cm10 bug he had...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
This very well may be the culprit. All superwipe's I have seen wipe the EFS partition.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
I wonder how many more people used a superwipe. No one mentioned it on the spreadsheet.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
it very likely could have. if we can compare what blocks are wiped with superwipe with the parition layout for our phones, maybe we can find a discrepancy that will lead us to where the imei is stored? just a thought...anyways, heres the script and the paritions it formats

updater script

superwipe.sh

wipe.sh
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Looks like it wipes partition 24, 25, and 26. If it is a partition that we should be looking at, one of these might be it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jellydroid13:
I just bought a tmo S3 off of ebay and i want to know the best way to prevent this. I have been reading to use twrp. Is it safe to root? And if i back up my efs partition using dd and then corrupt my imei can i just restore the whole efs partition?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
i didnt
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
There is no way to prevent it that we know of. Using TWRP is the only recovery that hasn't had a wiped IMEI yet. EFS has been confirmed to not actually recover the IMEI. There is something else that needs to be backed up and restored if it is possible. This may need to be backed up and restored along with the EFS, but the EFS alone does not fix the issue.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] DudeWatsThat:
No you just revert back to stock uclg1 witch was the OTA that brought sv05.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
Unfortunately it may just be that not many use twrp and that it just became officially supported we don't have the examples of it happening.. Again this is only happening to a very small % of people. The large majority are flashing like mad without problems.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Exactly. Which is why I included yet. I don't think it is the recovery, but I have seen CWM mess some stuff up in the original android on sprint days.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
what commands di i use to push to my phone>? cygwin backup
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Guys, 0 imei restore failed using the EFS backup method on the Verizon forum.

See here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1791291&page=14

Also note how K-Exec recovery + AOSP build was the cause.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
Are you willing to go one partition at a time and reboot to see if we can find out which works and which doesn't matter? If you want to go all at once PM the person who made the script and see if he'll make one for the reverse.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jellydroid13:
Ok well if it is just to a small percentage i guess i will take my chances.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
eeznutz1977@deeznutz1977-PC ~

$ ./backup-block-devices.txt

./backup-block-devices.txt: line 63: adb: command not found

./backup-block-devices.txt: line 73: adb: command not found

deeznutz1977@deeznutz1977-PC ~

adb command not found or n deeznutz1977@deeznutz1977-PC ~

$ /backup-block-devices.txt

-bash: /backup-block-devices.txt: No such file or directory

---------- Post added at 06:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:06 PM ----------

yup i believe some phones are "just prone " Im Flashing stuff my replacement, actually the same things i flashed when my last one broke, and it s fine no problems:confused:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
Make sure adb is in your path.

Try starting a cmd window first. (Go to Start Menu, click Run, type in "cmd" and press Enter.) Then try to run "adb" in that window. If that doesn't work, fix it. Make sure adb is installed, then add the directory containing adb to your Window's PATH.

Once you fix it, close your Cygwin window (type "exit") and start a new one. Try running the "adb" command. It should find it and then the script should work.

(I hope someone makes an easy-to-use application for this sometime soon. I really didn't write that script expecting wide-spread use by people not familiar with Cygwin and Linux.)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
deez, i wrote a howto

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29233449&postcount=729
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
I use T-Mobile. I use the no trip method. This is my second device after losing imei.

I have flashed all the stock roms from red and numerous kernels no issue on this device. Currently on red free gs3 release 4 use adama003
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I think it's pretty common for everyone's old lady to get a little miffed whenever their doing anything that doesn't involve alot of talking! God forbid a little bit of silence right? My Wife would probably much rather I sit at the dining room table, gazing across it at her, and discuss how much brighter the house would look if we switched to white drapes, and telling me how my cigar smoke will ruin these "imaginary" drapes! Thank God we only have to figure out this imei issue, and not them huh?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fireboypr:
I posted before the other user's answer. No way for me to know at that time.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
LOL! +1 here. You get a thanks for the good laugh!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
A LOL and an 'Amen' to that, brother ;) .
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Well, you get a thanks because I don't have to pay for them!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Ratchet556:
Does anyone know if there is a way for the Canadian users to go from 02 to 05?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Andrew_han:
+1!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
Canadian users are on SV 01 actually. There hasn't been an ota for us, so you would have to flash the updated ATT modem to go to 05, which I would not recommend as it could brick your phone.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
I have imeisv 05 and I finally flashed cm10 and had my imei. I then restored stock backup and still had imei. I had my phone since release day. I did apply the att ota which brought me from imeisv 02 to 05. I used twrp to create a backup and apply cm10 and restore the stock backup with no issues.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
One at a time sounds great. Yea adb push them back. Once you have the adb shell use the if= of= may have to ask someone who knows how to do this better than I do
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] rakhov:
I have ran drothenberger's script in Cigwin with what I think is successful results. I get this message though: mount: can't find /sdcard in /etc/fstab. It continued on and made a bunch of backup "images" on my desktop. Do I need to change something in the script? Did it do what it was supposed to do?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
yes thats fine :good:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] rakhov:
Ok, flashed over to AOKP first, then tested CM10 preview. Both work, and I still have an IMEI. One thing I am noticing is that the radio reception/power varies greatly. I will go from no bars to 2-3 when loading a page, then it will drop back off. I am guessing this is more of a aosp issue though...anyone else experience this? Maybe it's just due to the different radio monitor apps between aosp/stock?

---------- Post added at 06:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:30 PM ----------

Also, what's the status of flashing back to stock rooted from Odin coming from aokp/cm10? Has anyone tried doing this yet?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
ive noticed task & koon's aokp build is quite buggy...

its not just you.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
ok Im in the process of pushing back the backd up files to the imeiless phone edit i made it to mmcblk0p7.img phone wont boot odin here i come lol
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Thank you very much for performing this testing & reporting the results! I'm sure it's getting a bit tedious, but it will help the community here advance in the imei issue. Hopefully this will be figured out soon and we can delete this thread & add a "How to restore your imei after losing it" thread:)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
So the replacement phone came in and what is awesome is that I had a 16GB and they gave me a 32GB back!! awesome!! So within minutes I rooted via Odin with root66 no trip tar and then rebooted with IMEI intact! then to ROM manager installed CWM and then simply flashed CM9 this time. This is the 4th Galaxy S III, I have done now and I tried different things on different ones. The one that lost IMEI I installed CWM through ODIN. that was the PROBLEM in my opinion. This time on my sisters phone today Friday installed CWM through ROM manager just as I had on my girlfriend's phone. IMEI intact! one differentiation I made on their phones was that on my girlfirends phone on Tuesday I installed a stock based redrum ROM first before installed CM10, but this time I went straight to CM9 after installing CWM through ROM manager, my conclusions are that the stock based rom is not needed and just the way you flash CWM makes all the difference.

DO ROM Manager or ADB as I had successfully on my own phone.

Good luck all!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
That can't be the problem, because that's how I flashed CWM to mine. T-Mo by the way.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
Exactly... Again people forget this is only happening to a very small number of people and most are having no issues...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Threezees:
I've been following this thread. Luckily, I haven't had any IMEI problems. I've only flashed the stock rooted kernel using ODIN as I am perfectly happy with the stock setup, only needed root. I'm certainly not a developer so this may just be a stupid question. I came to the SGSIII from the Samsung Captivate and flashed everything under the sun on that phone. I lost my IMEI on that phone flashing ParanoidAndroid 1.5 (actually, I didn't lose it, it simply changed into a generic number but was still without service/data). I was able to copy the EFS backup I had and change the permissions and it went back to normal. However, with that phone, flashing a kernel or modem (or a ROM which was bundled with either/or) through CWM recovery with the device plugged into a charger could cause a no service on reboot. This could very well have nothing to do with the IMEI problems on this phone but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case. If it's no help, just disregard. Thanks to everyone that's actively working on this issue. Those of us without any development experience owe you all a great deal of respect.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jellydroid13:
Interesting. We should add that to the spreadsheet to see if people had there phones charging when they flashed.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I've installed CWM via odin twice on the same device, and my buddy did it once on my pc all with no issues? Two of the installs were via the new odin, one of them via the old odin because my buddy was watching a zedomax video &he stated that he didn't care for the new version & that he prefers the epic 4g touch version and it still worked fine. I've also installed the Tmo cwm via rom manager, and the touch version via rom manager, both with no issues. I've installed twrp on my phone via terminal emulator on both my phone & my buddies phone. My phone is the Tmo variant & my buddy's is the sprint variant. He flashed a tw based rom via cwm, but I don't recall which one, but I've only flashed a rom via twrp. Neither of us have flashed AOKP or cm yet though. I personally don't think odin is the issue, or at least if it is, we didn't experience the issue with it. Just food for thought...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I don't see why that couldn't be a possibility, as we've ruled out most of the likely issue. Don't worry about whether or not your input or thoughts are "stupid", any personal experience is relevant & all community members are hypothesizing regardless of their level of experience, so your input is much appreciated :).

Has anyone who lost their IMEI been plugged to their charger while flashing? Also, I know many ppl who have flashed CM or AOKP have lost their IMEI, and am I mistaken in assuming these are the only roms that include a kernel, as the rest are stock based & don't include a kernel do they? I'm unsure on this, so if anyone knows please chime in. This is a shot in the dark, but perhaps other Samsung devices that have had this similar problem also have a related cause? I've never had this issue on any of my other Samsung devices.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
I don't think this would cause a problem. Think about it for a sec... as soon as you've plugged your phone into your computer to transfer files, or use adb, etc, you're technically charging the phone. The connection via USB to the PC charges the phone, and considering the number of flashes being done by people on an hour by hour basis, if this was causing the issue, there would be WAY more reports of corrupt IMEI's.

At least it looks like Samsung quietly fixed the problem with SV5, but we still need to know what file and where it is to back it up, if it's even possible (could be in the radio itself, unreachable).

BTW: I just did a quick calculation, based on the sheet, and it turns out that of all of the reports we have in there (111 total right now), 17% (19 out 111) have lost their IMEI. That's almost 1 out of every 5 that have reported. I don't know if I'd say that almost 20% is a small number... Just want to make sure you're all aware.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mburke178:
i really don't see the point in trying to find out how we lose imei anymore. If you look at the spread sheet and read all the threads from each carrier forum, there is no rhyme or reason. People say it is because CWM, but there's ass loads that have no problem with imei after flashing CMW through any flashing process. Then there are the it's CM9 CM10 or AOKP doing it. Re read the threads there is an ass load of people using all mentioned roms without issues.

People say the IMEISV 05 was an update to fix this issue. Honestly think about this for a minute. I know we all hope that this is true, but really what are the chances Out of everybody from all US carriers on XDA there have been 17 confirmed cases of lost imei.That percentage is completely crap to samsung at&t sprint tmob or whoever you have. I agree there were changes made we aren't 100% sure of what they were, but to say that it fixes the issue without evidence is retarded in my mind. Why push an update to fix a problem 17 users have had out of how many people using this phone.

I've said it before and i will repeat myself now, we need to focus on backup and restore and quit worrying about what everybody did to their phones in what order. Unless you are a noob, which is becoming more frequent on XDA as android gains popularity, we all know the risks involved in flashing and hopefully read up before we start. That being said the same topic is being covered in every carrier thread, but cluttered with the same redundant theories every few pages.

There are how to back ups in each forum that are pretty much the same practice. Back up each partition and hope for the best if you get bent over. The only person out of every thread i have read that actually has a backup of a working imei that lost it then tried to restore each partition individually was david-dee, but he hasn't posted the outcome.

I say if every1 reads they know the backup procedure, no need to repost it. We don't need to know what everybody did to their phones and still have IMEI in tact, isn't that why we have the spread sheet?

THE ONLY THING WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT AND FOCUS ON IS WHERE IS THE IMEI INFO STORED. Sorry to be a caps douche, but this thread is getting harder to follow every day. Hell there's even people asking about how to get circle mods on ROMs.

Let's keep this thread as a hunt for IMEI and use the spread sheet to track info.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
GUYS, MAJOR DEVELOPMENT:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29436336&postcount=1053

Please PM Peoplearmy if you have a lost IMEI!!!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fabzbear:
I think the count of people losing their imei has lessened also because there are still people who haven't or have stopped flashing or rooted but stayed with stock.

Yes there are a few who have gone on and started flashing but I'm almost sure there are some who is holding off until there's a good fix/solution.

So out of that sum of people (though it might be small) there still could be a fraction of them who might lose their imei.

Still the two main effort should be...imo...a good backup in case one does lose it and the location.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] woody1:
What does that 20% represent? The fact that 20% of the people who are following this thread had the problem is not surprising, since people who have had the problem are much more likely to follow the thread than people who haven't. Do you think that 20% of all people who have flashed a rom have lost their IMEI?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I did that calculation a few days ago & came up with a very similar number. The problem I had with it was that probably everyone who has lost their IMEI has been to the thread & left their info in hopes of finding a solution, but I'm willing to bet there are alot of users who have had no issues that either aren't aware of the issue or just don't care to take the time to report their data. I'm thinking that percentage is probably much lower, but that doesn't make it a less serious problem in my book?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
I have never lost my imei. I do have a backup of all partitions, but have never tried to restore anything.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Agreed, it is more then likely random. Well said.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] s1mpd1ddy:
wanted to update the spreadsheet, but can't find the person to PM

basically, I just flashed my first ROM today using TWRP. IMEI is still intact. SV 5... the rom (tuchmi s3x) brought me back to UCALG (originally on UCALEM). I didn't wipe anything in TWRP per the dev's instructions. Seems to be fine here. The rom also included Faux123's latest kernel.... I'm still within a week of my return period, so I'm going to be messing around a bit, hopefully I don't lose IMEI
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
To those of you not following the other thread, Peoplearmy has found a method that has restored 2 imei's so far. Make sure you do an NV backup. Detailed instructions are in this thread: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1801997

Let's hope this is it, looks very promising.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
Confirmed working by me :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
If the fix worked for you please post in his thread for the masses to see... Also to help confirm and identify hoe many this has worked for
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
I already did :)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lumbu:
That is fantastic news. The only thing I'm (sligjtly) worried about is flashing back a stock rom to make the backup, but since we have a way to insert the IMEI on a non-backed up corrupted phone I'm not too worried.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] deeznutz1977:
:) Trust me there s no worries i didnt have my imei backed and i wuz able to "inject"
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Superguy:
Just curious ... are you able to SIM unlock with this process too? Just wondering as SIM unlock on the Captivate was tied to NV_data.