yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
I'm also an EE with quite a bit of experience (10 years since college graduation too), and I can tell that you have zero experience with eMMC since you're talking about I2C. I admit I didn't have much eMMC experience until a few months ago, but since you're trying to talk about eMMC and spouting BS about I2C, it's pretty obvious that you are making random speculation with no specific knowledge of the issue.

NOWHERE in the eMMC interface is I2C used. Some MMC/SD devices can use a basic "fallback" mode where they present a SPI interface, but I believe many eMMC chips don't support this, and I can tell you without a doubt, this is not used in any way by our phones.

I suggest that you read the JEDEC eMMC standard - see http://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/results/taxonomy:2940 . Specifically read the sections governing erase commands.

Secure erase is known to trigger internal bugs in the wear leveller of the chip itself. It is suspected due to reports of damage in stock recovery that non-secure erase/trim can also do damage, however Samsung is certain it won't. I don't think we'll ever know for sure until Samsung releases the update they're planning which will block secure erase but permit non-secure erase.

And there is no "regular slow method" of erase... When MMC_CAP_ERASE is not used, the device simply never erases cells unless it must do so in order to complete a write operation. In this case, the complete system behaves similar to an old-school magnetic disk - if you delete a file or format a partition, the references to content are removed but the content itself remains. On magnetic media, this isn't a problem for performance as it takes the same time to rewrite a previously written sector as one that is blank. With flash, memory can only be written one block at a time - if you want to modify just part of a block, you must read it, modify it, erase the underlying memory, and rewrite the modified data. Most modern flash chips have an internal wear leveler such that a logical block is mapped to different physical blocks (so that if one logical location is written to over and over again, it will get written to multiple physical locations, so one particular block doesn't have too many write cycles.) So the memory is just not erased - yes, having the media full leads to slow write performance over time, but there is no "slow erase" involved.

In kernels where MMC_CAP_ERASE is disabled, the flash is treated in the same manner as legacy magnetic media (don't explicitly erase the chip when deleting/formatting) - this is not optimal as it eventually leads to slower write performance (but the performance degradation will "level off" once all cells on the flash memory are used), but it's also perfectly safe.

BTW, the difference between secure erase and nonsecure erase is whether the erase command deletes ALL copies of the data (see above at the wear leveller - it is possible that when writing to a block, the underlying wear leveller will read one physical block, modify it per the write command, then write it to a free block elsewhere.) ior just the current copy.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
Never mentioned I2C its used inside the chip.. It's a Standart to communicate /send commands between processor and peripherals.. I'd be kind from you all to completely read the whole post before spitting your usual You ARE Wrong.. As I said I was making a picture for average user and the processor DOES Indeed talk to every peripherals connected in the bus via I2C unless someone invented a better serial serial hardware protocol to communicate 2 hardware pieces... Gosh

And once again I'm trying to put things simple.. No matter if I can understand what your saying in the end it's a hardware problem and most people can picture what's wrong and General how's everything conected

By the way being polite its a virtue not everyone have.. And being humble makes us better humans I'm not in anyways being rude to anyone here but seems like you can not stop yourself from being such a horrendous person
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
I2C used for every peripheral on the CPU? You've got to be kidding me, it's suited only to low-bandwidth peripherals like sensors. Read the datasheet of any modern mobile CPU - there are a pile of interfaces including, but not limited to, USB Host, MIPI DSI, MIPI CSI, UARTs, and SPI. I2C is used in our devices, but not for ANYTHING related to storage interfaces in any way, shape, or form.

It's pretty clear you're lying about being an EE with 10 years of experience if you think a 400 kilobit/second bus like I2C is capable of supporting storage that typically transfers tens of megabytes/second of data. People who misrepresent themselves like you clearly are do not deserve politeness.

eMMC/MMC/SD uses a dedicated interface designed specifically for storage devices like this. Again - read the JEDEC standard, since it explicitly describes this interface. It describes MMC command 38 (used for all forms of erase) in detail, and how it is supposed to work and be used.

The problem, at its simplest, boils down to our chips not being JEDEC compliant and not properly handling secure erase/trim properly if they are treated as a JEDEC compliant chip. Not only do they implement the command improperly, they suffer permanent damage as a result. This is not new information, and has been known for over two months.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] friedje:
If you look at the g-note schematics, the memory is connected to the cpu using a normal parallel data and address bus, they are not communicating over I²C.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6856/gnotemem.jpg

(c) Samsung Electronics
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
RAM is connected in this way I think, the flash memory is connected via an MMC/SD interface implemented by a dedicated storage controller in the CPU. (One of at least 3-4 such interfaces - One for internal eMMC, one for external SD, and one SDIO interface for wifi)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] @denny:
Msedek... I think you should leave it there bud... Your picking a fight with the wrong dude. Entropy512 clearly knows what he's talking about... No offense but your making yourself look adolescent
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
I can quote wiki (parts you didnt) too..

Come on dude.. this its not a knowledge war.. you know more things than me in certain fields and i know more than you in others.. any day ill swap everything i know with everything i ignore.. thi its about making things simple for average user

I ² C bus is a serial communications. Its name comes from the Inter-Integrated Circuit (Inter-Integrated Circuit). The 1.0 version dates from 1992 and version 2.1 in 2000, its designer is Philips. Speed ​​is of 100Kbits per second in standard mode, it also allows speeds of 3.4 Mbit / s. A bus is widely used in industry, mainly to communicate microntroladores and peripherals in embedded (Embedded Systems) and generalizing more integrated circuits to communicate with each other that normally reside in the same printed circuit
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
It does not matter if connected I2C or parallel or WIFI or optic fiber.. thats not the point.. average user does not need this kind of detail.. but seems like some ppl needs to feed their all mighty status or w/e xD...

Im not a phone designer i was talking from my generaly knoledge of circuits.. I am a PLC designer and I develop and build PLC for the OIL industry in my country and the quality of my design allows the safety of thousands people and the correct way of controlling industrial process
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] oka1:
From the Moderator

To all in the thread, please do not make the intellectual disagreements personal. It does not further the discourse. I commend all of you for having a more insightful engagement. But, when discussing design and or engineering remember to stay in the "third party voice" This....... will lower the personal tension when discussing more complicated matters

Post Respectfully....... Adhere to XDA Rules and enjoy the forum and its diversity

~~ oka1
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] friedje:
You are right, me bad, i had zoomed too much in the pdf :)

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/7862/oopse.jpg

would be more like it :cowboy:

(c) Samsung electronics
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
I'm quite familiar with I2C - familiar enough to know that it would never be used as a storage interface (with the exception of small EEPROMs to hold configuration data for a microcontroller). Without any doubt - NOT used for anything related to our device's storage interface.

Yes, some proprietary nonstandard I2C extensions reach into the single-digit megabytes - but this is still nowhere close enough to deliver the kind of performance our storage devices deliver.

Yet you insist that it is somehow relevant to this discussion and keep talking about it even though it is not in any way, shape, or form relevant to eMMC defects.

You can talk about your background all you want, but the evidence is clear:

You have not read the JEDEC eMMC standard

You have not read the datasheet/TRM for our CPU or any mobile CPU for that matter

You have not read the source code for any recovery/update-binary involved in this situation

You have not studied the source code of the kernel MMC drivers at all

You have not researched any of the previous information regarding this issue, since you're just randomly combining buzzwords together that aren't even relevant to the issue

You claim you're trying to "simplify" things for users - but putting out blatantly false information that is in no way relevant to the issue and claiming that it is relevant (such as blathering on about interface standards that aren't relevant) does NOT simplify things in any way at all.

If you want to simplify:

Secure erase is extremely bad due to a storage chip defect

Nonsecure erase is questionable due to a storage chip defect

Not erasing at all is unambiguously safe
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
Aite... that said and cleared, it does not change the fact (no matter the way the flash memory chip its connected to the processor) the emmc chip builded into our device(n7000) its faulty cand cant handle cap_erase commands.. in that order of ideas this should serve as a reference to debate samsungs statements(thanks to you) that stock recovery/os/kernel its safe for wipes.. wiping from any configuration of recoveries/cap_erase anbled kernels/os can lead to a brick no matter what(no matter if rooted or not, no matter if stock recovery or not) so either samsung replaces our hardware with non faulty chips or disables the cap_erase from their kernels.. :)

This its your opinion and your point of view.. not mine and or others.... we are all different and we all have our own opinions and points of views.. putting your opinion on the table its OK but that does not instantly makes it a unarguable Truth.. thats life.. If you are used to people to not go against anything you say(here or in real life) well that does not mean i will do or i will follow.. we have to tolerate others and others opinions and points of views.. as we are not alone in the world
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] Entropy512:
So? How is this new? How is this "samsung feeding us bull****"? It's all stuff we already knew.

Well other than the comments about stock recovery - we know that stock recovery issues nonsecure erase (which Samsung believes is safe) and unmodified CWM (or any other recovery based from AOSP ext4_utils) issues secure erase, and hence is dangerous. So your claim that wiping from "any configuration" "can brick no matter what" right now does not have sufficient evidence backing it up. We've seen claims of damage from stock recovery which makes me distrust it but too few, and until we can get a hard example of it, Samsung's position is that the chips have no issue with nonsecure erase (which is what stock recovery issues). I readily admit that we don't have enough evidence to give to Samsung regarding potential damage from nonsecure erase - I'm convinced enough based on past reports that there is some degree of danger which is why I won't even issue nonsecure erase in anything I create until there's more evidence that those reports of damage from stock recovery were false - but I don't have enough to convince their management that there is a problem with nonsecure erase.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] friedje:
Amen (bis)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
THe new here its the little sketch i made for average users.. and honestly tell me something if you see the emmc chip as a blackbox wich you can only send commandsa nd it will perform tasks based on the commands you send..

1. If you send an unknown command it wont do anything.

2. If you send any valid command (no matter how the command manages to get to the chip) it MUST just performs the task.. now if performing the task burns the hardware it means the chip its faulty because theres shouldnt be a way that sending a simple command via software to a hardware it breaks..

Try wiping from any possible way any other device like a Gnex or Gtab.. they simply wont brick and i have done any kind of horrible stuff to those devices(own both)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nfribeiro:
Despite all the effort of Entropy512 and others, let's face it... this will never ends!!!
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] :
Thank you to those that trying hard to stand up for the rest of us, you know who you are.

I found it very difficult to believe Samsung Electronics, the biggest (and one of the richest) Electronic company in the world, has failed to address this bug and I also believe there is a cover up. Everyone wants to see the source code of GNote but it appears that Samsung is not keen on releasing it and has constantly updated the source code to further delay the release. There was absolutely no valid reasons for Samsung to release 4.0.3 first then 4.0.4. The time between releases of ICS versions was way too short to go through all the tests processes manufacturers made us to believe that are in place.

In my opinion Samsung buying time to complete the initial 12 months warranty then every month passes less GNotes are covered by the warranty which is in Samsung's benefit. I bought my GNote two months ago for the screen size but because it is too big I'm still using my old phone (Motorola Atrix) as I cannot put GNote in my Jeans' pockets. I really couldn't afford the GNote but I bought it as I no longer could stand using a small screen size (eyes problems) for the long periods I use my phone. I'm now very disappointed with Samsung.

What thing I learned about mobile platforms (iOS, WP, RIM, and Android) since Dec 2010, £1200 later, and watching the industry very closely is that Android users are much easier to be ripped off than the users of any other platforms. Hate me as much as you like, truth always hurts. Someone said in this thread that we should be grateful for having a device like GNote in the first place. Why should we? The Army of Android users paid for every technological advancements since 2007 and this is the manufacturers whom should be grateful for being in such 'privileged' positions now.

If Samsung can ripp me off from my hard earned cash then I hope they lose to Apple (the current court battle) and be ashamed and made to pay billions of dollars.

I'm sorry going off the topics, I'm very passionate about technologies but can't stand how badly corporates treat their only source of income [consumers] all the time.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] friedje:
Actually overhere in europe the warranty is 24 months by law.

And europe is a big market

Why do you say that android users are easy to rip off ?

Smart ppl know what they are buying, and why.

Others sleep in front of a store just to be sure to be the 1st to get ripped off.

Finally, when Samsung designed these phones, this issue didn't exist.

It has only revealed itself when 'hackers' installed custom recovery on

ICS kernels. You can not blame Samsung for that.

You can blame them the slowliness for addressing the issue, but hey it's a big

company and those are commonly sluggish.

To end this post, I don't know your morphology, but I do know about 12 ppl in my surrounding who own a note, and guess what, they all manage to fit their note into their jeans pockets, even with a flip case..
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
I don't consider your opinion off topic.. It's how you feel and what you think about issues, specially this one and that's exactly the point of OP
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] SealsNavie:
No one is forced to spend the kind of money Samsung charge a Galaxy Note, its a luxury and excitable thing we all want and we get drawn towards it, only you are to blame for falling to such pitfalls, there are cheap options in buying mobile phones.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] PoisonWolf:
Out of curiosity...if someone is willing to "sacrifice" their Note....to show that the phone can brick running a COMPLETELY stock phone....and record the entire event on video and post it to Youtube.....

Would this make Samsung take it more seriously?

The problem with getting the emmc bug to trigger is that the phone should be filled...and when you're stock....filling up the phone storage is a PITA since you got to manually down apps, etc. Lol.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] nandihno:
is true no one is forcing anyone to buy..but if you buy something that is expensive...at least you have expectations that their software will not brick the device that you had paid .

the higher the price the higher the expectations.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] :
I carry three spare batteries for my GNote and used to carry four but now only one for my Motorola Atrix. I use smartphones as my primary device for daily use and for a long hours each day. I don't use my devices for playing games, just you know. I did mention why I bought GNote which was for the screen size since my eyes hurting looking at smaller screen size. I've been a power user of Android devices for a while now. I have used Android long enough to know after flashing a ROM or upgrading it a factory reset is a must. Many issues would never occur that way. One example is the accounts that would correctly show up under the Accounts list, without the factory reset it never worked. With the bug in place Samsung causing many unpredictable issues for people and that is a fact.

I must add that the bug in the GNote is not the only disappointing thing -- the screen quality (banding) is totally unacceptable for such an expensive device that once again Samsung is totally ignoring.

I, in fact, blame people like you [unpaid employees] for companies getting away with product issues. You should be supportive of me purchasing expensive products so YOUR favourite manufacturer [Samsung] can justify developing ROMs with latest Android version so you can use them too. Blaming consumers like that is just so counter productive.

---------- Post added at 03:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:00 AM ----------

Thank you.

---------- Post added at 03:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:04 AM ----------

The business model of Android allows not only Google but also the manufacturers and carries do whatever they like to Android users. On top of that a closer inspection/analysis would reveal the cost of ownership of Android based devices are higher than other platforms. You heard this first in here, mark my words.

As for the kernel comment... My guess is that the problem has always been there. The GB team took care of it because they were aware of the hardware issues (speculation) but the ICS team weren't well informed. We don't know if the same team worked on both Android versions, at least I don't.

I've been happy with the speed Samsung has managed to provide updates, the quality of the updates is another matter. I found 4.0.4 very unstable after one hour of heavy use and new problems were introduced.

I can fit GNote in my Jeans also but I won't be able to sit down or walk comfortably, GNote considerably heavier than Atrix in pocket. I always have a backpack so I put it in one of the pockets. As soon as I get indoors I swap the Sim Card and start using GNote.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] bongski55:
So we can all debate all day and all night but what is the REMEDY aside from using non stock, considered "safe" ROMS?
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] senectus:
this has been a fun and informative read, thanks guys.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forthe:
If its a hardware bug then Samsung should accept it and redesign /recall it. I am afraid to use anything on this device after reading about emmc bug. In fact because of it, our device has become less enjoyable. I am on stock ics 4.0.3, and don't know what to do if I sell it, not sure that even a factory data reset is safe just to wipe my account.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] kriskras:
Flash a safe kernal and factory reset is not a problem!
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] friedje:
You must be indoors a lot of time if you are able to empty 3 g-note batteries while not using it outside... If you use another phone for calling and need a big screen, why not opt for a wifi only 7" device and tether it to your phone ???

It won't fit in your jeans either, but since you use a backpack anyway.

FYI In the Kernel there is no problem, it hasn't always been there and it isn't there right now. There is a problem in the Emmc chip firmware. Maybe it has always been there, or not we don't know because it was never triggered before.

At least it is no longer there now because in the new version of the chip they fixed it ! Too bad so many of us have the old chip fitted.

Oh yes the business model of some other manufacturer allows this manufacturer and carriers to do whatever they want to the other platform users, and i guess the cost of ownership of other phones is close to that of an android phone.

For all the rest, whining is free, and no I prefer supporting Samsung over a whiner every day :)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] indiandroid:
Sadly though all this e_mmc thing will lead to the flight of Talented Developers to Galaxy Note 2 when launched and will leave us in Doldrums :(

Bye bye Samsung....Hello Nexus :)
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] forthe:
Wasn't it the task of Samsung

to provide us safe kernel/

device which can be used

normally. Why we should be

burdened to fix it. what

percent of galaxy note owners

are on xda or are aware of

this bug. Factory data reset is

a common process when we.

hand our device to other

users. We do it many times

when we switch our phone.

Alas, can't do that on this

wonderful device without

flashing a "safe" kernel which

samsung failed to provide in

first place.
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] msedek:
I know what you mean.. I own a gnex and a galaxy tab 10.1 and I flash to those things anything that gets published on xda and wipe/format or any kind of things without fear but flashing something in the note its stressful and shouldn't be...

Even deleting large files could trigger the bug and that's ridiculous.. Just to be more "safe" flash a custom kernel Notecore its really good.. Flash it via odin then use triangle away and that's it because it turned out that even the cwm.zip used to root could brick your device lol
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] rraaka:
http://xdaforums.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=9397

does that not speak volumes ?

arent those guys on stock visiting xda ? arent they aware of the potential so-called danger of being on stock kernel ?

i believe only recently Kingdroid with his spectacular v7 + overtook Stock.

please dont bully them into silence, those who present the other angle in any discussion by calling them BS and troll

let them speak
[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] abhijit038:
I can surely do that. If you insist, I can wipe 100 times. I know the results would be same- I won't get bricked. I have just wiped and updated to latest stock ROM for my country. Henceforth, every time I wipe I'd pm you the link of the recorded video.