yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] swa2k4:
Everyone can read my previous posts on this and I am going to advise people NOT to flash cwm touch via Odin tar because I have had two phones now mine is working fine been on CM10 for 3 days installed cwm touch via adb. The other one yesterday sadly cwm touch was installed via Odin tar and after CM10 installed lost imei. You can check my signature I have owned and rooted almost every phone experience with Odin and cwm and both Samsung DL mode and HTC bootloaders.

I'm not saying this is the only cause but it was a cause on a brand new phone that is now headed to Samsung for repair!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mobilehavoc:
I think using DD is safest way because you are literally piping data from one location to another. DD is a Unix system binary and used in Unix environments including desktops and servers. So I agree using DD is safe as long as you know what you're doing.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
Good point, stupidity was a little overkill.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
youre the 3rd person ive seen who lost their imei that mentioned cm10. not saying thats whats causing all this, but just an observation
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] SiNJiN76:
Maybe a Poll should be made...that way we can kind of keep track of How many people this has affected so far. Along with the recovery they used. Version number as well. And How long they've been using that recovery before the zap.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] modest_mandroid:
Just putting this out there because I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread yet and because I've seen people mentioning mps_code.dat:

/efs/imei/mps_code.dat doesn't contain anything useful. Issuing 'cat /ets/imei/mps_code.dat' outputs 'ATTapp_18'. The IMEI is stored somewhere else.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I have an off topic question for you. I know busy box performs a number of Linux commands and background processes, but why do we install it. I always install it, I'm not so much interested in all its functions because I know there are many, but the hy do we install it as soon as we root? I more or less do it blindly out of habit & I'm rather unclear on what it needs to be there for.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] modest_mandroid:
Some like it because it provides a lot of the functionality you typically get with bash on a full linux machine. There are also a few useful apps that require it to run properly, like Titanium Backup.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] zmore:
We install it because quite a few root apps require, or just work more simply, when the extra powerful tools are there, so they don't have to reinvent the wheel in java.

That reason aside, *I* install it mainly because I use the adb shell all the time and can't live without many common utils like find, grep, wc, less, etc.

edit: and md5sum, sha256sum, head, tail, vi, and others... (type "busybox" for a full list of supported utils)
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
YES! This is what I just signed on to request! I've been very, very busy, as well as very very sick so I have not had time to check the status of these threads. I think a poll would at least give ppl an idea of how many this has affected and then they can decide if they are willing to flash anything. I'm curious of what the total count is, I know there are quite a few, but in the big picture is it really all that man? I'm beginning to wonder if this is just a very small percentage? Either way we need to know why, and how to restore it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I wasn't even aware it was required for adb, shows how much I know, lol. That's reason enough to make it necessary Imo.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I appreciate the info... Like I've stated many times, I've been rooting & modding for a long time on alot of devices but I'm far from an advanced user. I just read thoroughly and follow directions. I never realized so many things I use are dependant on BB. When I picked up my first Android phone was the first time I'd ever had any real experience with anything Linux related. It was love at first use, lol.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Markdental:
Everyone, please go here and post your information so we can try and get a handle on this thing and begin eliminating possibilities:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1783990
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
I hate to have yet another IMEI thread. Can we add a poll to this one and continue using this one?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] th3g1z:
Agreed we already have a plethora of IMEI threads. Let's get a Google spreadsheet or something similar going that everyone can post their info to rather than multiple scrambled threads.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] SiNJiN76:
Yeah...and you forgot the Poll. :silly:

Also, I think if it was really that widespread...there would have been news about it in one of the gadget sites, no?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
I started a spreadsheet to track these problems:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Arzp20hXNPi4dFg3UUozS2FQaERYNVJRVm1hWmJYQ3c

Please anyone, feel free to mod it however you would like. I haven't lost my IMEI, and just want to help in whatever way I can to insure that I don't.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] :
Is this happening to people who have rooted using the method that doesnt trip the flash counter AND people that rooted the old fashion way?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
@androholic

PLEASE ADD THIS TO YOUR FIRST POST

everyone post your info here
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Markdental:
I don't know that there is an appropriate way to gauge this with a poll. It need more info than a simple predetermined answer
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
Hi,

Just wanted to fill you guys in on what I'm working on.

So far I have built a custom rom that enables Diagnostic serial port on T-mobile SGS3

I have Extracted the 16 digit password from the modem

I have Connected to Qualcomm Service tools such as CDMA workshop and QPST/QXDM

I have READ the IMEI with these tools.

I have achieved a full NV dump of the phone.

The only thing left is to achieve WRITE of IMEI and your problems will be solved.

I do not have the issue on my device but decided to put some time into this to see if I could get it done. I am still working on it now.

Is there an official bounty for this solution or no?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] rault18:
Damn and I've been flashing like no other.. I feel like a porn star from the late 70s thT just heard about aids for the first time
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
This is great news. Thank you for all your hard work. This will save a lot of people
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] SiNJiN76:
Bwahahahahahaha!!!! :laugh::good:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] th3g1z:
I am not aware of an official bounty but some have mentioned donations for success. Given that you have made more progress than most have yet I would recommend to either a) outline here how to make an NV dump with the software and either post said custom ROM/explain what to modify for someone else to replicate the process or b) get in touch with someone with lost IMEI tmo device and try to work with that person directly for an nv dump and compare yours to theirs and possibly modify theirs and attempt to restore it.

The NV dump from your phone.. Are you able to gain access to a device to test writing (preferably one with the IMEI issue) and modify theirs if you are able to input their IMEI from their box or whatever and see if it is successful, thank you for your efforts. I believe you are on the right track.

Using any of the the software can you determine where the IMEI is stored?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
I got a tmo device with most imei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
I dont actually need a device with corrupt IMEI. With this solution (if i get it done) I should be able to write any IMEI that I choose, not just restore original.

Although there is one thing that I stumbled across where you can "SYNC EFS" internally. This option might help recover a corrupt IMEI.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] th3g1z:
Hmm very interesting findings good job my friend. You might have just fixed a lot of people's issues. Thank you for investigating and following up with your findings. I would recommend at this point to have someone with the issue attempt your method if successful on their device then open a new thread and outline the solution with steps and a donation link. I would personally test it but I do not have the issue and mine is att. Only fear is the legality of changing IMEI numbers.. I am all for the solution however let's think about the repercussions as well. If you want join me on freenode #fiximei
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] fireboypr:
Hahhahahha good one made me rolfcopter so bad hahha

Good job man keep up the good work!!! I don't need it but it will help a lot of people, also I hope that you get really good donations too. Good luck!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] djnoicatse:
I wonder if this is specific only to the US variants. Unless I missed it, I don't remember seeing any Canadian users losing their IMEI when flashing CWM through Odin or flashing a custom rom.

I'm on Rogers using the 32gb pebble blue and I flashed cwm through Odin. I've also tried Diet rom and aokp.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
Your concerns are good ones as you are right. CLONING of IMEI/MEID is in fact illegal. But, repairing them to their original state is not. It is on the user whether or not they use the tools available to do honest legal work or not. I'm still working on this and will keep you guys posted. If I get it done I guess I will start a new thread. Will the person with the tmo gs3 with lost imei please PM me, I would like try try the sync efs option on your phone.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] pinoymutt:
There are some folks in the other thread (ATT) that have mentioned they have lost their IMEI on a i747M as well (can't remember if it was Bell or Rogers, but definitely a Canadian model).
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] MacTheRipperr:
Pm'd
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] pinoymutt:
Someone just mentioned your request in the ATT thread as well, so hopefully someone with an ATT phone and a junked IMEI may also PM you.

Just curious, in your findings with the IMEI -- any clues as to how IMEI's could be getting borked?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] th3g1z:
I agree it's up to the user just don't want to see anything bad come about of the solution to you. And I'm glad you are on the right path. If I can be of any assistance or you need additional help I am here. Feel free to PM me or whatever. But yes, please someone with a missing IMEI on tmo please PM GeeK once confirmed we can apply this to att/Rogers as well. If you want I can get an ATT phone to test your method on tomorrow morning as well.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] David Dee:
I have so far come across 2 rogers users that have lost imei.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
No.

Act now, think later.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Yes, there are 3 or 4 of these threads now & it makes things very fragmented in my opinion. The other thread in Att development section has alot of useful info, but if it could be moved to general, we could probably kill off all of these other threads & only post in one?

I'm only interested in finding a restore method before a fully functional jellybean build drops. I'm starting to believe the imei just randomly gets corrupted & there's really no way to avoid it? I'm also starting to see that in the big picture it may be a very miniscule percentage that have been effected...( 3-5% maybe??? ) I read so many posts about it happening, but there are so many more ppl in this thread that have had no issues....
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ergibson83:
Bawhahahaha ....that was awesome :good:
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] HHF2:
Has anyone tried *2767*3855# ?

It is a factory reset code that someone posted in another thread. This will wipe all data! Not sure if it will help or not but supposed to reset the sim? You will have to reactivate your phone! It puts everything back to the way it was when it came out of the box.

If you want to see the original thread it is the Verizon development under CM9 thread.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
I've added the Google Doc Spreadsheet link to the OP & changed the thread title to let ppl know where to report their information, hopefully this will help. Big thanks to Lordmorphous for putting the document together, as I'm sure it will be very useful..
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] androholic:
Hey, great job Bro! Thank you so much! (I'm out of thanks) I look forward to you completing your ROM, and getting to the bottom of this! You may want to add a donate button.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jthrasher47:
+1 add donate button
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
I see we have 33 entries in the spreadsheet with only one of these being a lost imei. Is there anything else anyone would like to keep track of in the spreadsheet or did I pretty much cover it?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
I'll make donation button once I put something out that you guys can use. :p
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Artimus009:
Lost mine just now...

First att blue release (day 1)

Did the normal original root...

Flashed every rom availible for att version....

Went to cm10 (official)from aokp back to cm10(official) to stock rooted rom in sticky...thats when i Lost my imei.

I am pissed.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] sabre31:
So going back to stock rooted rom is what broke it? Did you flash stock rooted rom through Odin or recovery?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Artimus009:
Recovery...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
Does anyone know if cm9/cm10 uses a different partition structure? I remember it did on my captivate which always required me to use Odin to stock so I could repartition. That's when I tended to loose my imei.

When returning from cm/aokp, is everyone just reflashing via cwm? Any better luck using Odin?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
Can you please post your info in the sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0Arzp20hXNPi4dFg3UUozS2FQaERYNVJRVm1hWmJYQ3chttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...VJRVm1hWmJYQ3c

Might help to have more than 1 lost IMEI report ;) .

Thanks!
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
Anytime I've returned to stock from the cm/aokp builds, I have either used a nandroid backup or odin. I've never flashed a stock rom with CWM and I still have my IMEI.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
So sounds like partition isn't an issue.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kssxs:
Not surprising since 'Odin' is a Samsung utility. Makes sense it's not going to bork something as important as the IMEI.

Maybe that's the way to flash new ROM's going forward, using 'Odin' (if that's even possible, otherwise, I'm talking out of my butt), and then use the 'TriangleAway' to remove the traces of flashing, if necessary.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] johnhazelwood:
Odin isn't optimal because it increments your counter (even though we can reset it now).
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
My guess is that the updater script in CM9-10 is not playing well with some of our devices.

Specifically, I think it's this:

Could be wrong, but that's my guess right now.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] brfield:
Why would it be that? That doesn't touch the EFS data containing the IMEI as far as I can tell.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] es7241:
Sure, but it touches the modem/radio
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] erikiksaz:
At this point I thought we didn't even know where the EFS data was contained? Would it be safe to rule that out?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] edmondt:
I just lost my imei from flashing an updated modem:

modem_CWM_I747UCLG1.zip

Now I have no cell phone...
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] lordmorphous:
Can you post a link to where you got that from. I would like to look at the files.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] justice26:
Check this site out for the firmware

http://www.sammobile.com/
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
I would also like to look through that.

Ok guys, I made a tool to enable the hidden menu so that you can enable DIAG mode. This is not even an option by default on our devices.

So far I have been able to connect to the phone and read the IMEI via PST but have not gotten it to write successfully yet.

THREAD HERE
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] woody1:
I appreciate all the work you're doing on this, but I have big concerns about the fact that you're planning to put out a tool that will allow people to change IMEIs. To me, that's kind of like putting alligators in the sewers to get rid of rats. You will fix the IMEI problem for a small number of people, but you will encourage people to steal phones. Possibly, many more people will get their phones stolen than will get their IMEI fixed.

Also, if you put out an app that will help the thieves steal phones, you will bring down the wrath of the carriers on those of us who just want to root our phones, and install custom ROMs. This is the kind of thing that causes carriers to lock their bootloaders.

So, please think about designing your utility so that people can backup and restore their IMEI from a backup, but not change it to some arbitrary one. That would help to avoid the cloning/stealing of phones.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
There are tons of tools to spoof ESN's on phones for Verizon and Sprint. This would basically be the same thing. I for one would like to think that this board isn't littered with thieves looking to rob someone as soon as the newest tool comes out. I know that is a trustworthy attitude, but I guess I want to trust people sometimes.

Also, if you don't report the IMEI stolen it won't be blocked anyway. - Then you could just use it on another carrier if you stole it.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Product F(RED):
As handy as that type of tool would be (for legitimate purposes), I have to agree with you. There will be unforeseen consequences.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mastergrillo:
So the recent ones are:

Going back to stock zipped rom using recovery and someone flashing a updated modem, lets compare both scripts and see whats common and does the stock zipped rom flash a modem also.

I would do this but im at work

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] SiNJiN76:
Ooh... Something going wrong flashing a modem is bad. But there are reports of people losing the imei after flashing CM.

Sent from my SGH-T999
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] drothenberger:
The zip with the LG1 modem is here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1768826

I put it together from the OTA. I've personally flashed both the LEM and LG1 modems several times (as well as everything else in the OP) without losing my IMEI. I used CWM Touch v5.8.4.5.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] taclm55:
Not sure if you guys saw this, but looks like edmondt was able to restore imei with a stock rogers.tar:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29067352&postcount=506
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] mrmako777:
looks like its happened on verizon now too after flashing cm9...http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=29069102#post29069102
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] wavrunrx:
@edmondt

can you complete your information on the google docs spreadsheet ? the more info you have there the more helpful it is.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] buvk:
has anyone tried restoring a complete dd backup after losing imei?
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] <:GeeK:>:
Guys, I'm not making any tool to change IMEI. I simply enabled DIAG mode so that you can connect to the tools that are already out there. They are called 'Phone Service Tools" and they do many many things and some of them do include the option to repair meid/imei. These tools are nothing new and are used by professionals like myself on a daily basis. In fact, some of the main ones "QPST/QXDM" are made the the chipset manufacturer themselves (Qualcomm).
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] stevessvt:
Maybe we should all invest in to one of these...

http://www.cellcorner.com/xshp/unlock-phone-codes/nspro-samsung-box.html
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] woody1:
What would make you think that only people posting on this board would have access to such an app? Once it's created, it would go everywhere. And do you imagine that only nice people read these posts? Thieves and crackers would never think to browse here?

And why wouldn't someone whose phone was stolen report it to their carrier? Wouldn't they want to do that to prevent somebody from pretending to be them, running up charges on their account, etc.?

Once again, making fraud easy is not to the benefit of legitimate phone users. Such a tool should be carefully designed for backup and restore only.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Planswalker89:
Added my info to the spreadsheet, though IMEI is still intact.

I think we can confirm by now that rooting through the no-trip method isn't causing this...

I think what we all should try and do is whenever we flash anything, whenever we can without bricking, reboot our phones out of recovery and check if our IMEI's are still there. The more times we check when doing a flash, the easier it'll be to pinpoint where the IMEI gets borked, if it happens.

Still scared to flash stuff though... :( Hopefully we'll be able to restore IMEI's soon.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] thacounty:
The above post explains it really well.

The thieves around here are not crackers. The ones that steal phones where I'm from have no idea what phone they are stealing usually.

Sometimes phones are used for a while before they are reported stolen, you say hmm, where's my phone and it's been lost for a while. Some people just call to get a new sim card because then there won't be any new charges and go on about thier business.

Fraud is already easy. It is much easier to steal a GS3 and use it on another carrier than it is to get the IMEI back on this version. Backup and restore will not help anyone who didn't backup. Some people didn't back up certain partitions because they were unaware that this could happen to them. We need something that fixes the problem.

Not sure why you are so intent on proving me wrong.
[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] ElBeaner:
I can't update the spreadsheet(blocked for me at work)

But I did notice something today.

Yesterday, this was on my status info that I posted here

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=29018111&postcount=376

I flashed the UCLG1 update from the general section today, and then flahsed the WnamLite Rom and now that info shows

IMEI SV: 05