[Sony Cross-Device General] Toledo_JAB:
My first soft-brick archive

post #1

Well I am no longer a soft-brick VIRGIN.

Never do a hard-reset when booting up and on the Sony screen, for stock kernel.

I was having some issues receiving both texts & calls. I was in the process of flashing just the baseband from .68i firmware when I thought I was holding the volume down button and plugged in USB. Well I must not have had the button pressed and it started to boot. Being the impatient person I am I attempted a hard-reset while it was starting to boot. Well the hard reset worked but now I have NO response from my phone at all.

The phone had over half the battery left. I am currently plugged in and waiting for something to happen. About every hour or so I switch from PC to wall charger.

The soft-brick demon attacked about 6:00 EST FEB-3. After 5 hours the soft-brick monster still has a choke hold on my ION. I am currently doing weapons upgrade for the next round of battle. I will slay this soft-brick beast.

I will update as I progress.

p.s. Luckily I got the micro-sim card to sit properly in my X10 without an adapter, as I don't have one and need the phone tomorrow for work

EDIT: I am going to try something new. I am going to place a rubber band around the phone to hold the volume down button in. Then I will leave flashtool asking for phone in flashmode. I will leave it like this till morning. I am hoping once the battery dies I will catch a loop and already have the button and flashtool ready. I might just get lucky and wake up with a restored phone

Well it's morning and still no joy

@Ganesh I guess since I cannot unlock bootloader and I am still less then a year, I should be able to go through Sony. But I will best the beast.

From my Xperia X10. Because my Ion is a soft brick

EDIT: 24 hours and still nothing has happened at all since fatal event.

EDIT: 47 hours and still nothing. have been trying both PC & wall. battery still not dead. researching into ardalaan's method of battery unplug. I think this correlates with what Ganesh posted about his service visit.

I would also like to report that my Xperia X10, running CMX10's CM10 Jelly Bean ROM, is filling in nicely for my ION. However it is making me long for a bootloader unlocked ION

Its OK I still got faith, that my Ion will come back​

post #2

After 51 hours finally have red led while on wall charger

attempting to flash now...

EDIT: plugged into PC, with flashtool ready, holding volume down still just solid red led, no charging icon yet. put rubber band on volume down and left plugged into PC with Flashtool waiting.

back to the MICHIGAN vs ohio basketball game. GO BLUE

EDIT: no joy with the first flash attempt. I think barttery was to low. Back on the wall charger with red led still on.
​

post #3

Alright guys and girls here we go.

After more charging I successfully flashed just the kernel. I turned phone on and it froze at SONY screen. Then the battery died and went back to just red led. HOWEVER ten minutes after the flash the phone booted into offline charging mode. Currently plugged into wall with red led. When I press the power button I get the offline charging icon of a red battery. I will wait till battery charges over 50% to attempt another stock.ftf flash.

I think by flashing just the kernel it was faster for flashtool to complete with minimum battery life available. As the kernel controls the offline-charging, the balance of the rom can come later. I think this could help others that have flashtool freeze before done.

After a hard fought 54+ hours, I execute a devastating attack/flash upon my enemy. The soft-brick monster, lay writhing in pain in a pool of blood on the floor, still clenching my Ion in it's claws. I now sit back exhausted, to regain my strength/battery and prepare to deliver the death blow/flash to the beast.
​

post #4

Well I recovered my Ion.

Now for some reason I cannot flash any baseband when using win xp. I can flash basebands from ubuntu though. It took me a few hours to figure this out. Tried reboot, older version and every stock ftf I have, ics & gb. I can flash all other parts of the stock ftf. Baseband freezes flashtool up at processing the data and I have to close flashtool.

Not sure why win xp wont work, but since linux worked I dont care :D

I got some good tips to add to OP.

Flashing just the kernel requires less battery charge to flash and fixes offline charging.

Also unplugging the battery after back pieces are removed should eliminate the waiting for battery to die, if you can handle taking phone apart. Battery unplug should save a lot of time in both discharge and charging. If battery is full if will take days to discharge. But if you unplug it should reset and keep the charge for flashing.

Well now on to my wifes captivate glide. It keeps shutting down when data is turned on. Time to learn about odin and Samsung ;)

Sent from my X10a​

EDIT

My soft-brick summary

My phone was acting up in calls so I started flashing the baseband. when plugging in USB I missed holding the volume down button and it started to boot. I STUPIDLY did a HARD-RESET during boot. The hard reset worked but now I have NO response from my phone at all.

The phone had over 50% battery left.

I then plugged into a wall charger. Then I read through this recovery thread, while waiting for something to happen.

I then tried something new. I placed a rubber band around the phone to hold the volume down button in. Then I made flashtool ask for the phone in flashmode and plugged in the phone. I left it like that overnight.

After 18 hours I gave up on the rubber band trick and just plugged into a wall charger.

After 51 hours I finally have the red led while using a wall charger.

I quickly setup flashtool for flashmode. I connected phone in flashmode (green led) and flashtool started but failed as the battery died.

I tried the rubber band trick a few times but same fail as battery dies.

So 2 hours after the first red led, I went back on the wall charger and the red led is still on.

After 1 hour on the charger I tried to flash again.

I read in the OP that the kernel controls the charging. Knowing the battery dies fast, I flashed only the kernel. It only takes seconds to flash a kernel.

The flash was successful.

I unplugged USB and pressed the power button until 1 vibration, to end flashmode and boot the phone. If you don't end flashmode the phone will still give a green led when plugged in, but it will not charge until the battery dies and the phone resets.

During the first boot after flash the phone froze up at the SONY boot screen. As the battery was very still very low, I went back to on the charger with the SONY screen still showing.

The battery died and went to red led.

HOWEVER after ten minutes, the phone booted into offline charging mode (the battery icon screen with the red led)

I left it plugged into charger untill battery over 50%. A quick press of the power button brings back the icon battery.

Finally I was able to flash the full stock.ftf and recover my phone.