yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
What did i say ??? MUST BE SOFTWARE PROBLEM......

Now samsung understands it and comes with a fix soon.

hit thanks if you believed me earlier :D
[Galaxy S III General] nani67:
this is the link...

http://tweakers.net/nieuws/86386/samsung-komt-met-update-voor-probleem-defecte-galaxy-s-iiis.html

it says samsung is aware of the sudden death bug & is trying to fix it with an update...

but, any idea how this is possible on both samsung rom & custom rom
[Galaxy S III General] themoto:
samsung know about it

they will start a update to fix it.

http://www.samsunggalaxys3.net/3067/probleem-met-moederbord-galaxy-s3-update-is-onderweg/
[Galaxy S III General] sak500:
I was on 4.1.2 Rom when mine died. They gave me back with new main board but with 4.1.1.

Once i got mine back I installed Omega but I couldn't get wifi to work. Whatever way I tried. Recovered my own back up also didn't get wifi working. So used ODIN to flash one of the 4.1.2 EU releases and then my wifi started working. Dont know which MB they put in but the HW revision is 1.15.
[Galaxy S III General] Entropy512:
Which means that the guy who posted that is not as knowledgeable about the issue has he claims to be.

For someone to say this is the exact same problem as on S2 indicates they do not understand the problem - The eMMC wear leveller defect that affected the GS2 is VERY well understood and NOT involved here. Otherwise, the common theme would be people's devices dying on wipe.

No. There is currently no known way to trigger this flaw. If blackhats were using the exploit to damage devices, we'd have PILES of 2011 devices cratering right and left - Samsung put defective eMMC in millions of devices in 2011 and the method for triggering the defect is VERY well known. I9100, I777, N7000, etc - All of these would be cratering like crazy if blackhats wanted to use the exploit to destroy devices.

No. It has NOTHING to do with the exploit. See below and above.

On top of this - there are is a second known hardware defect (Superbrick) which could be combined with the exploit to crater GS2 devices. If blackhats were cratering GS3s with some unknown bug, why aren't they cratering GS2s?

My guess is it's an eMMC wear leveller bug. Some of them can't be easily patched and the only fix is a total firmware replacement of the eMMC internal firmware - which is an extremely dangerous process and hence is never done as a field update.

However some of them can be patched by just changing a few bytes of the eMMC firmware - https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/omap/+/3c57a612f12b069bbc863ec0c74a26850d76a9e8 for one example. This update might be a similar patch - we'll know when kernel source gets released for these updates.
[Galaxy S III General] TeeJayEss:
Well, if ELLA is supposed to prevent the 'sudden death', it's not helped my freezing problems, which I suspect are a build-up to a sudden death soon. Still freezing, either when I try to unlock it, or when it's asleep.
[Galaxy S III General] delsus:
Rooting voids warranty full stop, if you have a rooted phone Samsung is within their rights to refuse a warranty service, the only way you can do anything about it is to check the terms of the warranty if that doesn't mention modifying the system you could do something otherwise even problems not cause by rooting don't have to be covered.

It's nice to learn things, I'm just basing theories on my limited knowledge of how it could brick phones, let's hope the issue is fixed or will be fixed.
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
Maybe there is a way. Lock the power button for some hours. In a german board a user put his S3 upside down in a case which locked the power button for longer time. (happened 3-4 month ago).

This leads to the "half" sudden death. Boot stopped at samsung logo, recovery was not accessible, download-mode was accessible, but we were totally unable to flash something, cause odin was hanging at getting PIT or repartition operation failed.

At this point I thought that maybe to bootloader in this reset state wrote the flash dead for whatever reason.

At least I was really surprised that this stuck power button killed that S3.

With another message fom a service center here in the thread, that on some S3 the power-button internally stuck some times (Link), I thought, that this could be the cause.

At least it matches anyhow.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] Rockwell_:
If in download mode product name is blank and system status is custom Samsung will repair phone in warranty.
[Galaxy S III General] SavanTorian:
the FW fix should come QUICKLY! i dont want to come my phone broke up.... :rolleyes:
[Galaxy S III General] tel911:
My S3 (16GB blue) purchased June 2012 is still going strong eMMC Type VTU00M Date 04/2012 FwRev 0xf1

I have been using 4.1.2 for a couple of weeks, however today Kies anounced an upgrade although I dont know how big the file was it took a considerable time to download.

Still on 4.1.2 but Baseband has changed from XXELL4 to XXELLA and kernel has changed from3.0.31-566833 to 3.0.31-742798

dont know what it is about but I would assume that it is too early to be the patch mentioned previously.:confused:
[Galaxy S III General] GavinZac:
I think EU law states that "software customisation" is not a valid reason for them to refuse you repair or warranty.

http://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/flashingdevices.en.html
[Galaxy S III General] qnguyen88:
Galaxy S3 sudden death to be fixed by firmware update
[Galaxy S III General] leijonasisu:
Ok so. I got my phone back from repairs..

[*]As to what was fixed (if they even stated so)

The PCB had apparently been fried... their exact words 'fried' so it looks like it burned out whilst charging perhaps. (This totally contradicts that previous statement that this could be a global 'firmware' related bug)...

[*]What ROM/etc. that was put on my phone after it was fixed

Phone was restored to: 4.1.2 I9300XXELL4 [JZO54K.I9300XXELL4] (Screenshot here) My SGS3 is [WHITE]

[*]What parts of my phone were replaced/if it was completely replaced or just repaired

As above stated, PCB was fixed. (Piirikortti suomeksi) The 1 single dent I have in the top of my phone wasn't fixed. :( lol

[*]Anything else that may or may not have changed

Nothing else seems to have been changed except the ROM and the replaced part.

[*]How much it cost if anything, (at this stage I am 99.9% sure it'll be free)

Cost me nothing.. just had to wait ~13 days. My phone WAS rooted/custom firmware

BEFORE

dying. Was replaced on Warranty anyway.

Hope that this helps some other people.

Also, guys please keep the bull**** talk down to a minimum. This thread grows a lot with offtopic stuff. If your phone HASN'T died, then post elsewhere.. It was really hard for me to search through and find relevant posts..

Good luck to everyone else. I'm going to go straight back to AHDR 17.1
[Galaxy S III General] pkrstr:
Will my i9305 die too, or only the i9300 is afected?
[Galaxy S III General] Dean-xXx:
Only i9300.
[Galaxy S III General] Guardianofevil:
delete
[Galaxy S III General] leroytorner:
In today's SamMobile article, they say is a firm bug!!?????? In other words, sammy firm only have the bug?? If I use (no because my phone deaths on 12/27) aosp rom and custom kernel, bug not affect my device???
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
The bug is in the firmware of the eMMC chip itself, thats deeper than flashing a rom or kernel
[Galaxy S III General] clin81:
And if i downgrade fw to ics?
[Galaxy S III General] Isadora:
Makes no difference, mine was on ICS when it died.
[Galaxy S III General] clin81:
and i flash XELLA fw? it Changes the firmware of the eMMC chip?
[Galaxy S III General] jshashwat93:
Here's the a question. Can anyone with an idea about all this comment on whether the lags faced by user a little before sudden death will be gone too after samsungs firmware update for sudden death?
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
Don't think so. samsung did not official announce the sudden death fix.. they say they are working on it
[Galaxy S III General] chevli:
I tend to create a Nandroid backup of my stock rom so I can go back to it if needs be. Maybe you've done the same? Or you could do a nandroid backup of your current ROM (put on SD/PC) and flash stock but that would take like 2 hours of your day for a bit of stats.

---------- Post added at 07:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 PM ----------

I assume those that might have the bug & have a custom rom will have to flash the fix somehow or go back to unrooted stock to get the official update to fix the bug. Would be a bit of a pain in the bum.
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
Yes i think so, and i hope samsung will bring the update very soon :(
[Galaxy S III General] Dean-xXx:
Samsung said they're working on fix but the news were posted on 02/01/2013 and the ROM was released today 03/01/2013, and by the build date they were working for a while on this. What i think ... If they would want to fix the exploit would be just a normal update, but they change the bootloader too, so i guess this is the real deal. Anyway as DeadSOL said its much smoother, multi-tasking smoother so overall is a great update and it might be the one that will save our SGS3's from sudden death.
[Galaxy S III General] zadusimple:
Is it true that all 16gigs phone will die soon one day?

Sent from a better Galaxy designed for humans!
[Galaxy S III General] chevli:
I think samsung hopes that samsung releases an update very soon. Replacing motherboards isn't cheap for them and the users on XDA are surely only a subset of people this is happening to.
[Galaxy S III General] jonny68:
Freaked here, phone was fine, yesterday evening picked it up, black screen initially thought it was out of battery but last I seen it was on about 55% battery 2 hours previously, tried to charge it, nothing, tried numerous things nothing, brought it into repair shop today, guy said to give it a few minutes and he will try and charge the battery, nothing, had to go to 3 Ireland who suggested I go to fonemenders round the corner who will look to repay it, heard some bad things about them but ive no other option.

Have the phone since June and no problems but the first Galaxy S3 I got same thing after 2 hours so I'm seriously reconsidering if I'll ever get a Samsung phone again.

Rooted, Liquid Smooth ROM with Siyah, have about 80% backed up with will lose some photos /videos and downloads, chances are the phone will come back wiped., still under warranty from Samsung but hope they don't notice the custom Rom and rooted but my guess is they have to completely wipe it, if they come back and say it can't be fixed I'm expecting a new phone or they can shove their contract, this is the second galaxy S3 I've had now which has died, not ****ing good enough Samsung
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
http://phandroid.com/2013/01/02/samsung-galaxy-s3-firmware-fix/

http://www.androidauthority.com/gal...cted-official-samsung-firmware-update-143834/

Sent from either Nexus 4 or SGS3 using XDA premium.
[Galaxy S III General] bala_gamer:
not all of them, some specific batch has this issue.. depends on how lucky you are ;)
[Galaxy S III General] v4nelle:
Is there any death of 32gb models?
[Galaxy S III General] clin81:
someone has dead with cyanogen mod 9.1?
[Galaxy S III General] Nihalf:
Another one bites the dust I guess.

What happened : Phone was working six hours ago, is dead as a dodo now

Where phone was made : It's the international version, 16GB. I bought it in Dubai (as did my dad, brother and sister!)

Where battery was made: Standard stock battery, don't know where it was made. I tested my battery on my brother's phone, it has 60% charge. His battery also does not work in my phone. My charger charges both batteries when plugged into his phone.

What firmware you were running : Stock touchwiz, didn't even root the thing

Can you access download mode? : No

This HAD to happen when I'm travelling tomorrow. Great job Samsung.
[Galaxy S III General] shaarky:
And when did you bought it please?
[Galaxy S III General] sak500:
Strange, i was told it was motherboard issue and was replaced. Nothing to do with frying.
[Galaxy S III General] Nihalf:
I bought it soon after it came out - we all did. Second week of June, don't have my receipt with me to confirm exact date.
[Galaxy S III General] yahyoh:
its something bigger than Rom problem , so Rom make no difference if the device will die :(
[Galaxy S III General] fedort:
I don't have my receipt either... how can I still claim guarantee? (Not that my phone has died yet, but I'm scared it might happen)
[Galaxy S III General] houser789:
The Netherlands
[Galaxy S III General] clin81:
but Samsung says that will fix the issue with fw update.....or not?

there is no fw going to write to the NAND?
[Galaxy S III General] Nihalf:
I will be calling Samsung UK tomorrow, I will find out and post an update. It's pretty late, they're closed right now.
[Galaxy S III General] krivinash:
I' ve read both the articles.

I ve got one q:

What is the new fw update that will fix that bug?

I'm still on 4.1.1 and i'm expecting 4.1.2. over the ota.

Is 4.1.2. that update or we have to wait for another one?

What do you sugest me to do: stay on 4.1.1. which work great or update on 4.1.2.?

Thanks in advance!!!
[Galaxy S III General] yahyoh:
yep they said

and they probably will update the eMMC firmware ( maybe with the new bootloader ) :rolleyes:

edit : Samsung always ****ed up things with eMMC like there was bug in 4.0.4 update for GS2 and Gnote1 with wiping data with CWM in some situationcan will corrupt the eMMC and the device will become piece of brick until u change the main bored
[Galaxy S III General] clin81:
and the old firmware don't have an old bootloader? or cyanogen don't have a parallel bootloader?
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
Yes the current btu release (today)apparently has sudden death fix via the bootloader.

I recommend updating via pc odin as mobile odin won't fix the bootloader, Im already on samsung 4.1.2 release at christmas just downlaoding todays release.
[Galaxy S III General] chevli:
Nothing has beep reported so far and I hope not either.
[Galaxy S III General] yahyoh:
the bootloader already in the device and Rom will not change it , u have to use Odin to get the new bootloader

edit : ota or kies will probably update the bootloader too :rolleyes:
[Galaxy S III General] inteks:
that are only rumors! only thing that's committed is that the exploit is fixed!

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9300 mit Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
My phone didn't die, however for the 2nd time, I have this issue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo46OXWEcX0&feature=share&list=UU8lQQBUbqHNLkHxthkkmmJg

A whole thread for this issue exists here, since August. Nobody is talking about it. Please help spread awareness so Samsung fixes it: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1889354

I live in New York. I contacted Samsung US and they said they only repair American models (because the US models have different hardware). Samsung UK said that they can repair it in the UK or any EU country as long as it was coming from a UK/EU address (this was my issue). So I contacted the company I bought it from on Amazon.com, and they acted as middleman. It cost me $80 to ship via Fedex and the whole thing took me about a month to get my phone back. It was a hardware component failure (trust me, I tried

EVERYTHING

to get it work again). The repair center the company sent it to (Komsa) included a paper in the return package that said they replaced a part. I found a file in the /nvdata folder on my replacement that had IMEI writing history, and basically showed the IMEI was overwritten. So they replaced the entire motherboard and copied over my old IMEI.

This was September, and I got it back October. On New Years day (1/1/13), it started AGAIN. The company said Samsung doesn't issue replacements until after 3 repairs are done. I don't know what to do. I don't have any spare phones, and I don't want to pay another $80 to ship my phone and wait a month. Especially since the entire motherboard was replaced and it still happened again. I'm extremely angry because my phone is useless for phone calls.

Symptoms:

- On making a call, I get no audio going in or out. However both speakers are work fine, because the earpiece makes a beep sound to let me know call forwarding is active. The rear one works for everything. The call connects at first, but there's no sound. I know because the call timer starts counting up.

- Headphones in call don't work either, but they work fine for anything else.

- Sometimes I get sound for one call until I hang up, or it's very crackly and

useless (this was the first time it happened, but not right now [yet])

- While ringing when dialing out (or rather, when you WOULD be hearing ringing if it was working), sometimes it'll cut the call and say "OUT OF SERVICE AREA", and then I'll get the circle with the line through it where signal is supposed to be. Signal is back seconds later.

- Data and texting work fine.

Things I've tried:

- I was on Omega ROM 13.1 with Siyah 1.5.3, although I've read online people have this issue bone stock, unrooted.

- Flashed stock insecure kernel

- Flashed several different modems

- ODIN'd back to the ROM that came with the phone (was originally a real-SIM-unlocked, Vodafone UK i9300).

- Wiped everything possible

----------

Bought the phone in July 2012. Had it for about 6 months now. It had the first issue about 3 months in. Now again 3 months later. It's a white 16GB i9300 originally from Vodaphone UK, however I live in NYC and I use it on Straight Talk AT&T.
[Galaxy S III General] clin81:
so we can only wait for the new bootloader from Samsung .... :crying:
[Galaxy S III General] linas_ltu:
can you tell pls where we can download the latest firmware which apparently has a sudden death fix. Thnks.
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
http://www.sammobile.com/firmware/?page=3&model=GT-I9300&pcode=BTU&os=1&type=1#firmware

---------- Post added at 10:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 PM ----------

Hence why i put apparently only time will tell or samsung will push another update soon.
[Galaxy S III General] TeeJayEss:
I've been getting the lags, freezes, and crashes ever since Christmas, but XXELLA hasn't helped me, it's still doing it.
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
lets hope the mofos will bring a fix for this problem very quick and it did not damage our phones right now.

is any tehcnical user here on the forum that is able to explain to me in simple language:

If this wear levelling problem already damaged our phones and shortens the lifetimes even if samsung brings a fix today.

Or that this is not the case.. and why this is not the case.
[Galaxy S III General] jody2k:
Because simple: its broken or not broken...something like: "my memory is a little broken" doesnt happen.

So If your phone havnt died yet its fine
[Galaxy S III General] TeeJayEss:
Not quite - if the wear levelling algorithm is poor, and is wearing out sectors unevenly, they may be dying early, and perhaps they're not getting marked as bad, which is why we're occasionally getting crashes or freezes, and the system attempts to write/read from bad sectors.

It could be fixed by properly marking those sectors as bad, but they'll always be bad, so yes, permanent wear which can't be repaired through software.
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
this explanation doesn't help me.

Do you understand how this wear levelling works and how it can brick your device after 6 monthswork? please give me an proper explanation
[Galaxy S III General] masterex567:
As from my case, Samsung is trying their best to keep quite about it.

They are aware of the issue, and they know it's their fault. >.<

Firmware update might fix things. It's probably writing to /emmc.

All the best guys. :good:
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
Thanks, but does this mean that the device will brick once a time but later, or what does this mean. is the device lagging because of the bad sectors, and is there any tool that can check bad sectors or is there a read/write speed that is normal for a good working new s3 without bad sectors? please explain more about this i like to know :laugh:
[Galaxy S III General] jody2k:
Yes but its like a chain reaction: if one component or sector dies mostly the other ones will follow. Freezes and hookups are those signs of hardware failure.

As long if those symptoms doesnt apair you dont need to worry too much
[Galaxy S III General] TeeJayEss:
I realise that, but you said "its broken or not broken" - I was merely pointing out it's not quite as simple as that.

IF this is the problem (we're only speculating still), then theoretically Samsung could fix the wear problem, mark the bad sectors as bad properly, and the problem shouldn't return. Therefore, it's not either "broken or not broken".

People might lose a few bytes/kilobytes/megabytes of their memory, but they shouldn't notice.
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
is there a way to check the status of bad sectors or it is measurable in read write speed ? or am i wrong?

---------- Post added at 11:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:41 PM ----------

Oke and would this not happend if they had fixed it before the phone came out?
[Galaxy S III General] krivinash:
If i understand you, you have 2 updates?

One regular 4.1.2. and second was today with this fix for suddent death? How large is this second update?

I have stock phone. I dont use odin or kies.

I've been waiting for ota update. Will this work for my device, or should I do it with odin?
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
Can someone please explain... if it's a wear leveler, and thats a part of eMMC (as opposed to software-only wear leveling), how is it even possible to update it? Can one possibly update the eMMC microcode ?!
[Galaxy S III General] DJ Palmis:
Sorry, I not agree.

If something is wrong in wear levelling algorithm than our NAND flash has a "shorter life" than a brand new device.

But the right answer is: "it depends"..

It depends on the nature of is the "error": How many time it goes wrong? How many sectors are affected?

I (or We) don't have this information so I (We) can't speculate..
[Galaxy S III General] TeeJayEss:
Yes, I believe it is possible. There is a link, buried somewhere in this 176 page thread, with information on it.
[Galaxy S III General] DJ Palmis:
Yes, they (or we) can.
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
Assuming it is actually possible, and knowing you are likely to need exclusive eMMC access for something like that, i would assume the update process is going to be complicated (something like sending a RAM-based bootloader over from odin, that does the microcode update and reports back?). And, if they could screw up at wear leveling, that can totally screw up with this update... TBH, i'll likely think twice before running it :(

Anyway, how do we know it's a wear leveler? And i mean "know" as opposed to "assume". Don't start explaining about the symptoms, i am all familiar with what flash memories are, what's wear leveling, etc... I mean, is there really an official conclusion anywhere out there?
[Galaxy S III General] TeeJayEss:
Most microcode updates are done on bootup - if you watch a Linux startup process, you can see these checks happen.

No, it's still speculation.
[Galaxy S III General] DJ Palmis:
I not agree. It's like any firmware upgrade: It's dangerous.

Yes: I understand what you mean but every time there is an upgrade We can potentially brick a device (i.e.: electricity blackout, neutrins and so on).

No.
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
Not really. You rarely update the recovery, so, if you fail to update the firmware, you can still retry. You rarely (if ever) update the bootloader, and, if you screw the recovery up, you are more than likely to have the download mode available, and can recover with odin. Even if you screw up in a big way, you can still JTAG it.

But screw the eMMC microcode up, and the device is GONE. Up to the point hooking up JTAG may not be of any help.