yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] steelsalty:
Lost IEMI on AT&T Galaxy S3

I did lose my IEMI when I flashed the Kayan ROM.(Not saying there is anything wrong with the ROM..I probably did something stupid) No connectivity at all. Checked my IEMI it was gone. Followed People army guide and had to add the NV file as it was missing. Now I atleast have Edge but no 4g connectivity or 3g. Just wanted to post here as it wont let me post it in the Developer section yet. Thanks People army and everyone else involved in this project. :o
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Has anyone who has restored their IMEI, but are still having connection problems tried doing a full Odin restore to see if that helps?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] steelsalty:
Will try

I will try this next ! Keeping Fingers crossed.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
Did you ever install the AT&T OTA before doing this? i.e. was your radio updated to SV 05?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] adobro:
Restored Data With SGS3 QCN Generator and QPST

Hey all, I was trying to post in the dev forums, but I'm relatively new here, so it won't let me post. Anyways, I felt I should post here because, like some people on these forums, I lost my IMEI after flashing and I figure I may as well tell you my experience to help anybody out. I am on a Rogers version of the Galaxy S III (i747M). Like others, when I lost my IMEI, I was stuck on Edge and not getting any 3G signal.

Once I realized, I lost my IMEI I flashed back to Stock using the steps here .

I used the IMEI injection method mentioned here (first post near bottom).

Reading the forums, it mentioned that once your IMEI is injected you should start getting 3G/4G signals again. Unfortunately, this was not the case (I noticed a lot of people were having this problem too). I kept reading and on the the same forum (which instructed how to inject IMEI) there was a way to restore "4G services" (3rd post down).

I thought I may as well try it at this point, since I'm not getting data and I'm pretty desperate to getting this thing going again. I followed the instructions as per the post and after a manual reboot voila! My data connection was restored. I was getting 3G signal again. Now I'm scared to flash another ROM.

NOTE: Here is some information on what I did after I realized I lost my IMEI:

I was originally on a CM9 nightly and I wanted to flash ParanoidAndroid ROM. Once I flashed that it worked fine, however, my email apps were crashing. I read somewhere on the forum that you need to be on CM10 and then you need to dirty flash ParanoidAndroid on top of CM10. I did this and that's when things got wonky. I lost my IMEI and was not getting any 3G data.

Hopefully this helps somebody, anybody! Because it was a pain in the ass getting this to work again! I'm gonna make sure to thank the devs!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zuoyou:
It's not just AT&T , a couple T-MOBILE users are experiencing the same
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ingenious247:
I wonder if anyone on T-Mobile has lost their IMEI since flashing after the recent stock update to T999UVALH2

I just decided to root my phone and mess around after receiving the update as it removed universal search. Since it had several nice (albeit minor) improvements, I Odin'd back to a rooted stock "pre-update" version, used OTA root keeper, allowed the OTA update again, restored root and then restored universal search.

Flashed CWM recovery after all was said and done, but CWM recovery won't stick now as the new update overwrites recovery if it finds anything other than stock recovery. So now if I want to use CWM recovery I have to flash it everytime through ROM Manager and then use ROM Manager to boot into recovery. Once I reboot after that, it again rewrites stock recovery.

No loss of IMEI though (yet)

I wonder if Sammy addressed it in the update.. but I could just be lucky so far
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] typedink:
Hello all, just a few questions. I've read about 20 pages as I cannot get through 85! LOL. I'm a bit confused. This is my first non Tmo Android phone and non HTC phone so sort of double new experiences for me.

Trying to sort out these few things from reading this thread.

1) The counter thing, you lose warranty if you just root? Or if you flash? As I would like to root but I'm liking the stock rom a lot so don't plan on flashing anything, I just want root in order to use some root apps I am used to and such. So what makes the counter move to lose warranty? Rooting, or flashing.

2) Is there a method to unroot without AT&T knowing you rooted in case I need a warranty exchange.

3) The big topic in here, the IMEI, does this get messed up just rooting, or if you flash another rom?

4) You can root but not need to flash another rom correct? You can just root and leave it as is?

Thanks! I'll try and read more in here but just way too many pages to get through.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Gabik123:
I had this problem but peoplearmy's system fixed me right up!

used Geek's method to backup NV tho just in case...i have backups everywhere now!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ReplicantDroid:
I have lost my IMEI on v05. I was able to reinject it, but can only connect to Edge (2G). Peoplearmy's tool does not succeed in generating a QCN - possibly due to being v05 vs v02?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] HTC-187:
Is anyone else still having issues with lost IMEIs or not being able to get 3G/4G? or is this an official fix?

Also, just to add:

I had basically this exact thing happen to me. I flashed the root 66 stock Tar using ODIN. then i Tried to perform the OTA update and keep root. didn't work. So then I just used ODIN to flash the newer root 66 (which was basically the OTA with root). after that I decided to install Rom Manager and flash CWM and that went just fine. I did a Nandroid backup of my current ROM, cleared everyting, then flashed CM10 (CM-10-20120901-nightly-d2tmo). That was working fine, and overnight my phone batter died (I believe that it should have had enough battery to make it through the night). After charging my phone up a bit and turning it back on, I noticed I wasn't getting a signal. I check my phone info and my IMEI was definately gone (or changed, I can't remember 100%. I freaked out). I had already used the NV backup tool and tried to get into the qualcomm setting to restore my IMEI, however I coudn't access this on CM10. So I flashed back my original ROM, and BOOM!!! my IMEI was there... WTF?. I haven't tried anything since, but find this to be odd considering everything I read in this thread (yes, I read all 80 pages).

I have a SGH-T999 FYI
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] irl9000:
Wow, so this thread has been quiet for 3 weeks. Does mean that PeoplesArmy has saved everyoneslife?

Or that the issue is stabilized???? I couldn't imagine a Sammy so sensitive to a flash job. And I would expect alot more instances still occurring.

Is it safe to go back in the water?

Thanks

Edit- I do see PeoplesArmy thread has been visited as recently as the 30th. But still........
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] xgp0006:
nope.....the guy whom mentioned the QCN issue.....hit the nail on the head i think. I re-injected my IMEI BUT i still am just stuck on EDGE...everything i have done has been completed successfully.....

my issue happened due to a ODEXing failure on FrostyJB rom....so now with IMEI injected....i need the next step....i been wondering if i copied another Tmobile Galaxy S2 or 3 EFS or IMEI folder then RE-Injected my backup IMEI over that?

OR like someone said would just ODIN fix everything? I have a good backup so i suppose im going to give it shot.....
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] gigaza:
hey folks just posting because I successfully injected my girlfriend's IMEI without a backup and got 4g back as if nothing was the matter. AT&T SGS3 here.

The whole process took me about four hours of trial and error, but it all worked out in the end, and peoplearmy's method works fine if you take each step carefully.

Here's what happened to me with her phone:

Flashed insecure boot for root, CWM, and busybox (all-in-one) by SGS3 Toolkit, did a nandroid.

Flashed MIUI, didn't like it.

Flashed AOKP jellybean.

Lost her IMEI during one of those steps. I realized after installing AOKP that she wasn't getting data, or at least it appeared to be stuck on "E" 95% of the time. Whenever she would reboot her phone, she would get 4g for a couple minutes before it would vanish. Her IMEI in About Phone > Status read as "0" at this time. ..restoring it to the first nandroid didn't restore her IMEI.

I tried unsuccessfully for awhile trying to get her phone into DIAG mode or whatever with the AOKP rom, but I couldn't get the scripts to execute properly in terminal emulator or perhaps I was doing it entirely wrong. Whatever the case, I restored the phone back to my first nandroid of the stock-rooted rom so I could use the stock dialer. Seemed like dialing *#7284# in the stock dialer was much easier, LOL.

Anyway, I put the phone into RMNET + DM + MODEM mode just fine. I made a backup of my QCN with QPSD and then opened the RF_NV_Manager. I searched for item number 550, but the key did NOT exist on her phone. Following instructions, I added the item. The nine boxes had no values.

Okay, so the thread peoplearmy started has "The IMEI is also listed in a special order so you must follow this guide to ensure your IMEI is correct." but there IS NO GUIDE or LINK as of yesterday other than the quoted text so this is the part that took me FOREVER to figure out. Lol. I tried writing random numbers and ****, and they would get her 4g LTE access for about 15 minutes before it would stop working again... eventually I figured out you need to reverse the numbers every two digits starting from the end, and add "a" to the last one.

not sure if posting her IMEI is a good idea so I'll do an example (your IMEI number is written underneath your battery). It's easier to do bottom to top in my opinion.

657091051094276

which is easier read as

6 57 09 10 51 09 42 76

should be input into the nine boxes as:

(first box is always 8)

8

6a

75

90

1 (the 01 will make the zero vanish so don't worry. this threw me off at first.)

15

90

24

67

I don't have any clue as to what the original post or guide said about putting your numbers in properly, but this worked for me. It wrote successfully with RF_NV_Manager to her phone and I rebooted it. AND 4G WORKED!!! And her IMEI number in Settings > About phone > Status matched exactly to what was written under the battery!!

And uh, I didn't use the SGS3 Data Restorer App at all. I don't really understand what its purpose is, but perhaps others have used it to great success.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] bumsoil:
no matter what i do i cant get 4g, all i can get is edge...... i restored my imei, but i cant get 4g..............
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lyriquidperfection:
I have a tool I made that lets you write IMEI direct to the device, converts it to hex and allows to write it to a qcn file.

It also backs up and restores the full range of NV items in CDMA Workshop format.

As for fixing data issues, I believe this is due to missing EVDO data and/or missing PRL.

I am currently working on this also.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] clninja:
Just lost my imei flashing a kernel.....

Just gonna do a warranty exchange.... easier to go back to stock and do warranty exchange than all of this.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Jsouthernindiana:
Re: (GOOGLE DOCS SPREADSHEET)ATT & Tmo IMEI thread/ Report issues & info here!

Have the same issue going on. What do I need to do for a warranty exchange? Got it over the phone from att about 4 months ago. Its rooted obviously with cm.10.1 ROM. I don't have any backups saved or anything from when it wasn't rooted. Can I just unroot and then do a factory restore? I am hoping not to have to hook it up to a computer (no access to one at the moment).
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] minnick:
Re: (GOOGLE DOCS SPREADSHEET)ATT & Tmo IMEI thread/ Report issues & info here!

Ty sir, saving this post in case I lose my IMEI

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] caspersfi:
Good morning guys. Well yesterday afternoon I lost my IMEI without a backup. I think my problem may be more related to my laptop or AbobeXI.

When I am at the stop where I'm in RF NV Item Manager and I need to hit Settings then Comport, I don't have a Settings tab up top to hit. I have File, Edit, View, and Window but there isn't a Settings tab.

I've tried un installing and re installing Adobe Reader and QPST from the OP but still missing the Settings tab.

I guess this problem is more related to my laptop and Adobe software then anything else. I've searched thru this thread and read most of it but haven't seen this issue.

I feel ignorant because this has to be something simple but I'm just stuck.

TIA
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] caspersfi:
Tough to read this but this is what I'm talking about.

Settings tab just isn't there.

Disregard please.

I got it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] John Redcorn:
I saw this thread in the vzw s3 forum:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1852255

Does the "reboot nvbackup" command work successfully on our att ones? backs up all the imei info to the built-in backup locations?

They have a second step there, flashing a zip that runs a script and backs up all that same info on /sdcard/synergy... it's said right there in the thread that wont work for tmobile + att phones, is there anything like that for ours?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] frankdogg:
While I agree it would create a lot of attempted returns, it doesn't mean these carriers aren't trying new avenues to detect the ways we love to circumvent their rules. Developers here have always figured out ways to cover the tracks of us flashing addicts, but if they learn to track flashes through an imei that we can't fix...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
More And more people now ...what are we gonna do!! Maybe we should put all development on hold? Samsung won't service these phones if we lose imei I'm sure?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
flashed cwm, su, then flashed back to stock in odin earlier this evening and everything is still good on my end
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
I'm on rooted stock from the no trip root method and mine has a 01 at the end
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
I'm completely stock and it ends with 5
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
No slashes here using cwm since launch day on tmo 3 wk ago . Running CM10
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Narcistic:
Have you flashed anything previously?

May just be the imeisiv that's in settings mine matches it
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] frankdogg:
It's those last two number that have me curious. I never would have thought twice about it until they changed after a few flashes. I never applied the ota either.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
I just went back to stock cause I was afraid of the alarm not going off tomorrow before going to work, I came from cm10 and since cm9 has been a release I been flashi;g everyday, I check mine IMEI and is the same in all my roms that I have flashed
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
Maybe it keeps track of how many times you flash and then wipes the IMEI? Maybe you're tripping some kind of internal counter, like the flash counter?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jerrygooch:
I just did the *#06# and I didn't see a /## I'm on tasks aokp. So some of you see this and others don't? Wtf is up with our imei's

sent from the next best thing
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
T-Mobile

Clockwork mod tmo compatible right after the sprint hacked one.

Flashed new clockwork via from manager that was specifically for my phone then installed Romans aosp. Did a fresh install. Booted up had no service. Nandroid restore did not work. Odin flash to stock does not work.

Conclusions

The efs file does not contain imei files any more. They are encrypted elsewhere. I'm almost 100 percent sure cwm was the reason. The partitioning of the internal and ext SD cards was messed up. I believe when I did a super wipe that cwm may have wiped the partition containing the encrypted imei info.

I rooted, adb installed cwm touch and installed several roms today with no problem. I believe that the only way to not lose it is if you don't modify the mounts. Because I remember I fooled around with those before I flashed aokp.

I am no expert but these are my observations and experiences. Ill upload pics of the old phone if you want me to
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
please follow the link in the op guys, this was never intended to be a replacement thread for it! All pertinent info will be found there! I recommend for all random discussion this thread is finr, but if you really want to learn the facts, report an issue, or learn what is truly believed to be happening, then follow the link in the op!!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] KillaHurtz:
Being hispanic ?

Most hispanics are citizens and some stretching back to places in the country before the USA was even formed. You need to check your racist ass remarks.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Alot of your theories are great guys & that's why I posted this thread. If everyone would follow the link in the op then you'll find a ton of organized minds trying to get to the bottom of this. I just wanted to contribute by passing the word and getting everyone on the same page(litteraly). If you follow the link, then you'll see what's been ruled out already. There's a much better chance of some of the brilliant ppl here on XDA solving this issue if your all in one thread. That's what xda is right, organized thoughts of educated ppl? I'm fairly new to XDA & I was just doing my part by posting a link, I would like to see everyone commenting in the same thread because it will probably be most productive. :-)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Oh wow, this thread is nuts lol, I don't think anyone was racist... That was an oddly painted joke? :-\
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ingenious247:
and what if this does lead back to CWM? hopefully no one blames anyone for it...

Sent from the current Heavy Weight champ GALAXY SIII
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
Makes you wonder why AT$T allowed an unlocked boot loader in the first place. They are just as bad as Verizon.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
It has more to do with the fact that Arizona's "you must carry your passport and ID with you at all times" law is in itself racist. He wasn't being racist, although I think a better example could've been used.

It's already been established that the IMEI is encrypted for the i9300 if you look at the thread for EFS Backup Pro. But the way it works is it creates, I believe, an image of all the blocks in the EFS partition. It's like not being able to read Chinese, but you can still copy all of the characters without knowing what they mean regardless. I think the reason EFS Backup Pro doesn't work for you guys is because Samsung and/or the carriers moved where the IMEI is stored, possibly because of the different SoC? In other words there's probably a different mount point. I saw some logcat stuff from the EFS Backup Pro thread where someone with an i747 tried doing a backup, but adb couldn't mount "/efs".

That being said, I think it's really sad carriers have this power over OEM's. I have my i9300 running on Straight Talk AT&T, and I have none of these problems. What's more sad is that it's us, the geeks, who hype over this phone. Not the average person who doesn't know anything about computers or technology. So if we complain, our screaming falls on deaf ears because at the end of the day, while we may be the ones that carriers look to for which phones to sell, it's the average person who doesn't know anything about computers that buy the carrier versions.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Android_Monsters:
No one loses their imei from flashing
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
This isn't limited to the Galaxy S III. It happens on older Samsung devices.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jgalan14:
Yup I agree I had the galaxy nexus gsm and seem to be a problem as well :(
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mastibeta:
Shot in the dark, but I know previous devices would lose imei when permissions for the file got corrupted...that may be what's happening...losing read rights.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I may have been here at XDA for less than a year, but rule number one is ITS NOT ANYONES FAULT! YOU CHOSE TO DO IT! And according to some, if it kills your mama, screws your girlfriend the right way, or causes you wife to divorce ya.... It's still not their fault, lol! Just saying, there's disclaimers all over the place! :-)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
AMEN to this comment, because almost all of us with a carrier version have it because one our (many, lol) lines were due for an upgrade. If we don't have an upgrade, then the carrier version never even gets a glance from usB-) It's all good though, this phone for the most part is one of the best carrier versions that I didn't feel I was necessarily" settling " for because of the upgrade price...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Milk Tea:
You need to learn to read. I said "looking Hispanic and your U.S. passport was destroyed". In case you have no reading comprehension I am clearly talking about U.S. citizens and never implied anyone wasn't. (Non-U.S. citizens don't have U.S. passports now, do they?)

I'm more offended that a moderator censored my post, but you quoted it so it's still here to prove I wasn't out of line. The entire point of my post was to prove it's a huge deal and it obviously worked too well on you.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] :
A passport isn't the same as a green card.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jjlean:
Lol nice
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
I'm wondering if using the sprint clockwork mod causes problems. Especially because sprint/Verizon phones don't use imei numbers they use esn numbers. Might be written in different places. Just throwing theories out.

Also, when I used to Bork my imei on my captivate, I believe I traced it back to flashing a stock rom via Odin.

Ultimately we need a way to back up and restore efs, because as we've seen it is possible to delete it, and could happen again.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Aridon:
Never mind
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I honestly believe twrp is the answer, it doesn't wipe near as many partitions as cwm I don't believe. I have it installed, I've done a wipe with it, and restored a backup. If you read my previous post about testing it, that's going to have to be tomorrow evening that i'll start flashing my way through the Tmo roms. I had a family emergency tonight & things just took a strange turn, so I was unable to give this any attention earlier in the evening. But now it's insomnia kicking in, with an over active brain to boot:-(