yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Milk Tea:
kite edit: That was cute - let's keep that kind of talk to ourselves, eh?

more bluntly, a phone without an IMEI won't get served a signal by AT&T, as posted earlier by someone else if you had read the topic. And what's a phone without a data OR voice connection.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] erikiksaz:
No, Samsung phones from way back have had a history of corruption of the EFS partition/file/whatever.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] niezek:
This happened to me with my captivate a few years ago the only way to fix it was to send it to Samsung for a factory firmware reflash.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
I'm going to hold off doing anything with this phone until we know what causes it or at least have a verified way to get it back.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Will of fire:
A user replied in my thread about jellybean that he flashed the jb gapps and lost his imei. Maybe it depends what recovery you have?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
NO a nandroid restore has been proven unsuccessful, and I don't want to scare anyone, I want ppl to be informed! I myself have chosen not to flash anything else until more is discovered, but that's just my choice & I'm not as advanced as many users here on XDA.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I've been to at least a half dozen hacker sites trying to locate ppl with the issue, and I've not yet discovered a sprint, or Verizon phone suffering from this issue, only gsm models . But, I can't promise it won't happen, but I would assume it doesn't affect you.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
So I used root explorer to make a copy of the efs folder and put it on my extsdcard. Is this something I can use if I need to if I lose my imei?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
Damn dude the sucks , I seen you around specially on cm threads, I remebr cause of the real Madrid logo
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] strikeoutss:
Just an fyi. I lost imei on a launch day tmo branded Sg3 after rooting. Not everyone who has had this happen has had it happen in the same manner. I've been a member of this forum since I had my HTC wizard and rarely post. Suffice it to say I've learned to read instructions carefully and not need to post asking a bunch of silly questions. I think it is a bit premature to blanket label everyone who has had this imei problem as someone who flashed the wrong whatever. The issue is we don't have a clue as to where the nv_data.bin file is to back it up on these. I have no intentions of scaring anyone away from rooting or Rom flashing either, however I will echo the op and say read the post and get educated on atleast understanding the risks and fails other people have had.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] :
Wonder if it matters if its a 32gb or 16 gb that's losing the imei?

I know there's not many 32 gb out there though.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] dvize:
So basically, you can lose imei from rooting and not just flashing a rom. I think I read early on that a lot of users were using Oden tars for different branded phones (That had wrong paths/mounts), before there was actually development being done for their version of the phone. Of course, they would probably have lost IMEI immediately as in your case instead of when flashing CM.

Could it be rooting without tripping the flash counter ?

Just throwing ideas out there for you all.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] id_twin:
Are you two typing 'SU' before entering the commands? I'm on CM10 and was able to back up my IMEI without any issues.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drksilenc:
the first release of cm10 wasnt rooted.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mt3g:
What I'm reading more and more is its possibly the fact people are using the wrong recovery, the "hacked version" for sprint not for t-mobile. Can anyone elaborate or confirm that they were on a different recovery then the proper ones, in which I don't even know is the proper one lol...

SGS III on T-Mobile
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
I was on the hacked version of the Sprint. Then flashed the appropriate version via Rom manager. But that version wouldn't allow me to restore back ups or create nandroids. So I messed with the mounts and then flashed aokp. Then I was stuck on edge. Then I bought cwmtr and tried to restore a back up. By then I was already ****ed. The efs file was fully intact though. Btw I'm T-Mobile
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
This is an interesting point. Can someone who lost their imei report if they tripped the counter? I rooted and applied clockwork recovery and triped my counter but my imei is still fine thank God however I have not flashed roms yet because of this issue.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
It does seem like the serial number is in the same file/location as the imei, as I'm assuming everyone with a missing imei also has a 0'd out serial number. I've rooted , installed sprint flavor of cwm, flashed stock deodexed rom, flashed new kernel, changed cwm to AT&T flavor, flashed back to stock, applied user created update, all without loosing imei. It does seem like it has something to do with either custom roms, busy box, or some combination that wipes it out.

It seems like this has been happening for a while now (wiping imei) since even the Captivate was out, and I'm unaware of a solution. I'm thinking finding a solution might be a moot point, but being able to restore that stupid file is the key...once we find it.

I'm now starting to watch the Verizon forum, as they have locked bootloaders and are putting more memory level work on resolving. I'm hoping they stumble on the imei location.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
I did trip my counter when I rooted.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] cwalker0906:
Has anyone lost imei he got their phone on launch day. This whole epidemic seems to be recent so I was just curious maybe a bad batch you know under the rush
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
Chainfire updated his Triangle away app, search for it and it will clear your counter.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] XpediencY:
Like cwalker asked... preorder phones vs post launch day phones?

I believe I am the only one that this happened to so far... but a weird thing that happened with my phone after rooted with clockwork was that I completely lost LTE signal over the weekend and it never came back. It would only use HSPA and oscillate with no signal every no and then. Flashing back to original stock didn't fix it either. I exchanged it yesterday for a new one and now LTE is back. I haven't flashed anything since.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
We still haven't seen a person who lost IMEI that has been using the CWM for d2att have we ? Seems everyone that's lost it used the Sprint one or some other version but not the one specifically for the att phone ? Please let me know because I've read every page and don't see this.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Markdental:
Agree about the people using the wrong recovery.

Check out the Tmobile Development threads with the ROMS built there. There are over 500 replies in a lot of those threads and I pulled a search and not one on imei loss.

This could mean it was the original launch day hardware or it was before people were using the jacked up Sprint recoveries on their Tmobile phones.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
ive rooted twice using the sprint recovery and still have my imei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Anyone?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] unleashed12:
Nope, currently it appears as restoring the efs does not restore your imei, thats the whole issue people are trying to figure out, what causes it and ultimately how to restore it. though you should always have your efs backed up anyway, its good in practice :good:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Markdental:
Maybe it's original hardware then...Is there a way we can figure out serial numbers of those that have jacked up IMEI, and those that have not?

We have to figure this thing out...Or at least figure out how to backup/restore it if it is lost.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
its unsettling to say the least. i was under the impression that the sprint/tmobile variants had the same recovery partition block and this is why we were able to root using the sprint method. if thats the case, i find it unlikely just flashing recovery would cause this to happen. i am admittedly a n00b when it comes to samsung phones, so there may be more to that than im aware
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Curious, any confirmed people using TWRP and losing there imei?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
I Odin root no trip tar and then after a boot Odin cwm touch directly and then flash CM10 ...lost imei nothing to do with sprint recovery!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Markdental:
Yeah, but it happened on a new phone, right, not launch day...

Maybe we can get a database of Serial numbers of borked IMEI and compare them to those that flash correctly. Maybe there is a correlation.

I mean, look in TMobile development. at least 2 ROM thread with 100's of replies, NONE of which have had IMEI problems. Maybe it's the ROM?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] es7241:
Question do you by any chance know the imeisv on the phone that lost the imei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] cwalker0906:
Did you reboot between flashing touch recovery and cm10?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
Which CWM touch did you use. I think it might be using Odin to flash CWM. A lot of people used adb and that seems to be safer.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] id_twin:
Untrue. I've used ADB, Terminal Emulator, and Odin to flash different recoveries on my phone without any issues. I've flashed CWM three separate times, all different versions, and had TWRP on my phone for about a week, IMEI for me is still alive and kicking.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
Well then by what logic it must be CM10 because that's the only thing left the poster above me did before losing IMEI.

All I know is there is no such thing as random in computers unless you program them to be random. So there is a pattern we just haven't figured it out yet. :D
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fireboypr:
+1
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wildcard30:
I have installed CWM through ODIN and ADB I have used both the team epic CWM and the Touch CWM then back to team epic CWM v4 which I am currently using I have been flashing between 3 roms AOKP, Ultimatum and DietICS and still have my IMEI intact. Doesn't mean I am not concerned about this issue though. I read another post today from someone who had flashed from CM10 and lost their IMEI on Rogers.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Curious, any confirmed people using TWRP (and never had CWM on their phone) and losing there imei?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
yes I did reboot and im really thinking the difference in things I did between these two phones was that I did not flash a based stock rom and install busybox on the 2nd(lost imei) phone ...sending it in to samsung today for warranty repair thanks to chainfire for triangle away! they give you 2nd day air ups each way so hopefully wont take more than a week. will i still flash when i get it back.. yes maybe this time i will install a 1. stock based rom and 2. busybox before going into cwm touch again and flashing cm10, other theory is 3. hardware based differences of some sort.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
FWIW, I dd'd the first sprint cwm-recovery-lte-sgs3-v5.img to partition 18 (from the no-counter-trip root method), but used it only to do an initial nandroid backup and didn't actually flash anything with it before dd'ing the official d2att CWM touch 5.8.4.7, which I *DID* successfully use to do another nandroid backup (but no restore), and to flash a few small mods, but no full ROMs yet.

Just another datapoint (for whoever's keeping score).

EDIT: And I haven't lost my IMEI (forgot to mention)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lyriquidperfection:
Has anyone tried reflashing a stock firmware through odin and using a pit file to repartition to see if it reinstates imei.

Worth a go as ive not seen anyone else suggest it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Markdental:
The only threads in TMobile that have had people lose their IMEI are CM9 and CM10 and the ROM Deodeox by ProTekk. I did a full search in development.

Maybe it is a ROM thing?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
Have you installed Busybox? I'm going to assume no.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
My imei was fine after rooting using the no trip root Odin. After that I installed cwm touch via Odin. I feel like if coming from stock root and installing this in order to flash a different ROM you should install recovery using adb only if coming from a stock ROM. Did anyone have similar track?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
Quick question, why do those same one or two people write "d2att" instead of "AT&T version"? I don't get what "d2att" means.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MyronJ906:
Doesn't TitaniumBackup use BusyBox/come with a version of it? If so, then yes. I have BusyBox but have not gone out of my way to install it.

I forgot to mention I have been Titanium Backup restoring apps + data (not system apps or data) from my AT&T One X after every wipe. I have also updated the backups before every wipe so I have a mixture of market apps originally installed/updated on One X and S3. Sounds like a recipe for disaster right?

All running fine

Edit: just checked Titanium. Busy box 1.18.4
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drksilenc:
i dont think tb needs a seperate full install of it anymore.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
It's the label/build version of CM9 and CM10 for AT&T Galaxy S3 devices. So you'd download the CM9 or CM10 d2att version for our AT&T phones.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MyronJ906:
It doesn't. I edited my post. Titanium does have it included at 1.18.4 but I haven't gone out of my way to install or update busybox any other way
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
I was thinking TB used to install it, and just checked it does to some extent (1.18.4) for me as well. It sounds like people with IMEI issues are downloading BusyBox separately (outside of TB), which is I guess what I'm asking. Did anyone loose IMEI without installing BusyBox app (not including TB)? More curious speculation as of now.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Igotsanevo4g:
We're really just shooting in the dark we need:

1. A expert developer to research it through his knowledge. (Or wizardry)

2. Standardize rooting method and recovery use until we can, through process of elimination, determine what is causing it.

My .02 cents.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
I installed busybox through the app store, then uninstalled it. On stock rom.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lyriquidperfection:
Here is one way to standardise rooting, install an insecure kernel then use my Samsung Quick Root application:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=14754431
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Igotsanevo4g:
Has anyone lost IMEI by using your method only? Others have lost simply by rooting, not even flashing anything yet.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lyriquidperfection:
Not been mentioned by anyone which is why I thought it was worth posting.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Igotsanevo4g:
That's a good sign, in hoping for some insight on using your method to root and then using TWRP recovery. Seems those two things haven't been responsible for any imei loss.

Then again, maybe its in the rom? Update binary? Doubt it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
I had my phone on release day and rooted and did clockwork recovery via Odin. I did download and install busy box from play store. I also have rom manager and have flashed through rom manager latest recovery updates for AT& T and still have my imei thank God. However I have not flashed any roms yet because of this thread.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Android_Monsters:
And that's the problem. It's safe to flash. A couple of people who want to know where the imei is stored are fxxcking it up for everybody. There are 2 reasons to want to know where the file is. I like stealing phones, too and I suck at flashing.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
I think the people who have lost their IMEI numbers would disagree with you. But feel free to flash away.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ingenious247:
That crossed my mind as well. Hope that's not what's going on here...

Sent from the current Heavy Weight champ GALAXY SIII
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Android_Monsters:
Show me how many people
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] djkinetic:
Personally I haven't experienced this issue and I pray to God that I don't have to, but I've always went back to stock with root when needed by installing the Stock Odin Tar from http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1739426 then I flash CWM with adb. I've used Sprint CWM, official CWM/CWM Touch, right now running 5.8.4.5 since it has External SD support...I've flashed ROMs from my external and internal SD, done backups and restored backups from my external SD, Flashed CM9 AOKP CM10 DietICS Kyan Rom all without issue, the one time I had a data issue was on AOKP before Task put in the default PTA APN for ATT...Without any official work from Samsung its gonna be pretty hard to pinpoint what the issue is since theres so many different variables at work...GL to you guys, I hope you find a solution soon.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
I've personally lost mine on my Captivate (not on this phone yet), and if you look at this thread and the one in the AT&T Android Developer forum you'll see a list of people. Apparently you haven't read the threads and just posted, or overlooked the reported cases. It's definitely possible to wipe it out by just simply flashing something.

Since you do seem pretty darn certain it's not possible, flash away and prove everyone wrong. I'd rather the numerous threads be bogus so I can safely flash CM10 (which I'm dying to do). I personally don't care if I loose my IMEI, but want to be able to restore it like I did on my Captivate.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Android_Monsters:
I read the threads
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Android_Monsters:
whoops I flashed super wipe on a phone it wasn't intended for?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mt3g:
Never read anyone report that. Have read plenty from those have experience, and some how screwed up the imei...

T-Mobile SGS III
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
Definitely a possibility. Especially since the AT&T phone is "similar" to the Tmobile phone and the Verizon Phone and the Sprint phone. Could be that's what's causing the problem. Most people are claiming they are flashing supported ROM's though. They could be lying, they could have walked through a gigantic magnet, anything is possible still (thus the thread). If you search, you'll see loosing the IMEI isn't new. It's happened on the Captivate, Galaxy S2, and now this one. If you've never lost your IMEI before, I could see how you might blame stupidity.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
what is the cause(s) for losing the imei on these devices? if we had a common denominator across past devices, it could be a good starting point for determining what is going on here
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] freakboy13:
I wouldn't call it stupidity I would say its user error. 9x out ten it usually is.

It doesn't mean your stupid. Like forgetting to turn usb debugging, or disabling fastboot, or even Dl a corrupted file... yes these are considered user error, its not about fault.

Computers are computers are computers...even when they are a mobile device. A computer only does what you tell it to even when you inadvertently do so. Like people who mass-click links or commands when the computer is not responding.

I rooted my phone via Odin. The non trip method, yet my phone says modified. I don't know if it was supposed to or not...and this is user error. I did not read fully, why, and that's most people's problems: not reading fully, skipping steps.

I guessed the basis of my point is why isn't it happening to everyone...

Somehow somewhere there must be some kind of variable causing this.

If you take the imei off your box, you can't put it back manually ?

There has to be a work around for this.

Think I'm gonna hold of on the recovery flashing ....:o
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
It's probably busybox. There's a service on the stock rom that periodically scans for "bad" things like /system/bin/busybox, then flags it modified. Uninstalling busybox and waiting for another rescan (or rebooting) will return the status to normal.

Because the variables are... variable. :) It'll eventually get narrowed down.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] modest_mandroid:
Never owned an S2, but it basically boiled down to corruption of the /efs partition on the Captivate. This could happen for a variety of reasons - bad rom flash that dicked around with a partition it wasn't supposed to (CM9 touches /efs, to my recollection), faulty sim-unlock (sim-unlocking also required modifying the contents of /efs), etc. Fortunately, fixing the problem was as simple as backing up a working /efs and restoring it in the event of a problem. That doesn't appear to be an option with the GS3.

I'm a bit out of the loop as far as technical details go with this new phone - having kids does that to a guy :/ Since, from what little I've read, it appears that backing up/restoring /efs does not restore the correct IMEI, I would assume that it's either being read from somewhere else or that the contents of /efs are being restored from a different location on boot. I would assume that flashing roms that only modify the /system partition are fairly safe. As a general safety rule, I don't flash any roms that include their own bootloaders, their own /efs, or anything else that isn't necessary, and you shouldn't either. You can easily check yourself what the rom package includes by extracting the zip archive, looking at the files it includes and reading the edify script that tells the phone what to flash.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fireboypr:
Why would someone want this to say official or unmodified or whatever? If its for warranty you can just triangle away, then flash stock and it will say official... Also you should not have root anyways if you're going to warranty so you should flash stock anyways..
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
I only had a Captivate, not GS2 (but saw people complain about the same for those phones). I didn't put a lot of troubleshooting into the issue once I realized I could just copy back my nvdata file if it went missing. I want to say it was when I flashed a custom rom, then stupidly went back to stock (usually a custom already rooted version via a one-click odin), and at that point in time it was messed up.