yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
I've just flashed the XXELLA bootloader (just the bootloader, not the entire ROM) with odin (took the tar file from the link a few posts ago). Not sure if it fixes the sudden death or not, but what it surely does now is spotting the custom ROM on the device, incrementing the counters i've previously reset with triangle-away.

Consider yourself warned.
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
If the fix is actually in this update ( not officially confirmed) then yes it will, personally I prefer Odin to kies.

Sent from SGS3 or Nexus 4 using XDA premium.
[Galaxy S III General] zigson:
So have Samsung found a way to refuse repair on future sudden death phones which have custom ROMs? We install the new software and protect them from liability?
[Galaxy S III General] PjotrFias:
No, this came with the JB updates. JB bootloader detects custom recovery and changes counter to 1.
[Galaxy S III General] InfX:
Yes, but until now there was no reason to update the bootloader, none whatsoever. Now it is claimed to fix the potential "sudden death", so there is, seemingly, a perfectly valid reason to flash it.
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
Deleted.....wrong I thread
[Galaxy S III General] iArmghan:
heard triangle away doesn't work with the new Boot loader... can i revert back to old boot loader if i want to ?
[Galaxy S III General] PjotrFias:
Yes you can. But you will loose the alleged sudden death fix. But I doubt it's in this leak anyway.
[Galaxy S III General] dimi22:
Is there anyone who looked inside the rom or can confirm that the latest rom includes the wear levelling update and ao the sudden death fix?
[Galaxy S III General] Dr.Love:
- Don''t need to back to old bootloader. Flash another rom (such as CM10.1) and use Triangle Away again you will see it do work.
[Galaxy S III General] nfribeiro:
My device was manufactured on the 9/11. Hope it won't fall as the towers.

This is very annoying... came from the Note because it was not safe and now the same issue, or worst.
[Galaxy S III General] iridaki:
It's not a leak, the firmware has been released in UK.

iR¡D@k!* ? from i9300 via Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] STELIOSFAN:
But it's an actual conflict (brainstorming indeed) between posts.

I mean, on one hand we have the new official bootloader & FW and on the other hand we have Samsung stating that they are working on the fix.....

If they are working on the fix, then for sure the fix isn't included in the XXELLA.
[Galaxy S III General] vadonka:
No its not work, Triangle Away not working with the new bootloader, and if you flash the new bootloader with odin the flash counter incremented and say the system status is custom. Maybe this bootloader fix something (im almost sure it is not the sudden death) but you will loose the warrantly and this will be a problem if the phone will die in the future!

...except Chainfire update the Triangle Away app :)
[Galaxy S III General] iridaki:
I too find information inadequate, we can't know if this is the firmware that fixes the sudden death issue. BUT I did flash the new bootloader, because even if there is a just slight chance that it fixes the issue, it's better to have it sooner rather than later.

And the red exclamation mark is not a big deal, should someone need to claim warranty, they can revert to older stock firmware and that's it.

iR¡D@k!* ? from i9300 via Tapatalk 2
[Galaxy S III General] linas_ltu:
Yours situation is really messed up. I see that consumer rights are not as good as it should be in the US. However, many retailers in Lithuania try to mess with you all the time, don't want to accept the good etc. I'm gonna spend some time and make a legal draft to show them that everyone who bought a good in EU can return it in any EU country.
[Galaxy S III General] yahyoh:
i noticed most of people reporting the phone get dead after charging :confused:

is the main bored getting fried because of over charging or somthing
[Galaxy S III General] obarr:
My S3 has suddenly died. I have it booked in for repair but really would prefer to wipe all data before sending away for security reasons. I can't access recovery mode, but can access download mode, however I am unable to flash new firmware due to PIT partition problem. Is there anyother way to do this?

Thx
[Galaxy S III General] torex:
Well, my S3 that died on Christmas eve is beyond repair acording with the technical service, so they are going to give me a new one in the coming days... Anyway the phone company lend me a Nokia N9 until next week, so I think I'm good.

As I reported previously, my S3 died overnight while charging, it was a blue one, ANTEL branded, with android 4.04.
[Galaxy S III General] whitebait:
Nope, I had the same issue. Sent it to Samsung and they replaced the mainboard.
[Galaxy S III General] obarr:
Thought so! Bloody nightmare. Cheers matey!
[Galaxy S III General] pRo_lama:
And what about this - http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_adm...n_death_issue_fix_is_on_the_way-news-5278.php
[Galaxy S III General] ramb:
But did they charged you? Is your phone rooted?
[Galaxy S III General] DonHuan:
If it is "sudden death" there is no way to know if it was rooted or not. At least Samsung just replaces the mainboard without any charges.
[Galaxy S III General] vadonka:
anybody have a bootloader odin file older than the newest XXELLA?
[Galaxy S III General] Dr.Love:
You can try by this method and if it works just thank me and help me confirm its right:

- When my S3 is at rom WanamLite v5.3 XXELLA. I flash new bootloader via Odin. Checked with adb shell to sure new boot loader has been flashed successfully.

- After that I use Triangle Away v2.4 and reset counter. Back phone to Download mode. Counter is 1. It doesn''t work.

- I flash rom Super Nexus v2.0 Build 1 (its base AOSP JB v4.2.1).

- I install Triangle again and reset counter with it. Back phone to download mode again. Counter is 0. It does work 100%.

Now I''m sure that : Triangle Away can reset counter with new bootloader but you have to flash a AOSP JB 4.2.x rom first (In my case I have tried with Super Nexus and newest version of Resurrection remix rom). Perhaps because Triangle Away support AOSP JB 4.2.1 better than Sammy JB 4.1.2 rom.

Edited: Sorry, I have not tested enough. Counter status auto incre 1 after every reboot. You are right ! I'm wrong.
[Galaxy S III General] ramb:
But my S3 did not die 100% the phone still can be started and just cannot boot. And still can Access download mode.
[Galaxy S III General] vadonka:
Referring to Chainfire post in the TA topic the new bootloader working like when sense a custom kernel/recovery auto increment the flash counter to 1 after every boot. but i try this anyway
[Galaxy S III General] MrEdgar:
I got the sudden death just before christmas. International version, 5 months old, happened overnight and couldn't access download mode or achieve anything else. Took it in for repairs, took them 2 weeks and 1 day (I get that because it's christmas and newyears) but it would seem they didn't have a new motherboard and had to order one. From what I've been able to gather the motherboard has been replaced and I will get the same phone back, have yet to pick it up.

The thing that bothers me is that they seem to have put a vodafone specific update on it. Though I have vodafone for a carrier, I want it as vanilla as possible.. one other thing is that it fried my sd-card, I have a new card but I hope my phone will now handle it, as it is the same card.

Will let you know what I find.
[Galaxy S III General] demirisdemir:
Can someone tell me how to flash lattest bootloader with pc odin?

I downloaded zip,and inside it there are two files sboot.bin and tz.img,ao,how do I flaash this?
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
Watch this .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Tga_yKywc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Sent from nexus 4 or SGS3 using xda premium.
[Galaxy S III General] Dr.Love:
Sorry ! You''re right. A custom kernel/recovery auto increment the flash counter to 1 after every boot. I have not test enough. I''m wrong, really sorry for that.
[Galaxy S III General] ironnius:
Samsung acknowledge issue - Possible fix on way.

Hi,

A colleague's S3 died this week, really hoping mine isn't next.

Thought you guys might like a look at this article I came across.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone...-s3-randomly-died-a-fix-is-on-its-way-1122356
[Galaxy S III General] vadonka:
Okay im tested in many ways.

If you flash the new XXELLA bootloader then your flash counter always set to 1 when detect custom kernel/recovery, even if you have just root access. The only workaround that use the chainfire Triangle Away app and enable the auto reset at boot option. This will always reset the flash counter after the boot and if your phone will die but the bootloader mode still working the system status will be official with zero counter.

In that case no matter what rom you used, just that rom/kernel support the chainfire app.
[Galaxy S III General] fylim:
That is a crap answer by the sc. You might as well ask them which software caused this then coz you might reinstall the same software. The fact is that they prob dunno why.
[Galaxy S III General] demirisdemir:
I understand that,but I'm now rooted,cwm on board etc,full wipe and install let say WanamLite 5.3 (that is based on XXELLA),when I've done that,phone succesfully booted,everything is fine,but now I'm still on older bootloader than XXELLA,so,I've downloaded bootloadet to my PC,and I did get two files sboot.bin and tz.img,my question is,where do I put those two files in PC Odin in order to flash/update the bootloader?
[Galaxy S III General] ramb:
Yup. That's what they told me as well. They said rooted phone will caused the hardware to fail. So they want to void my warranty and I have to bear the cost of replacing the motherboard which is RM 667.20.
[Galaxy S III General] Motogp1:
Ah I see sorry though you were doing a full install , someone in one of the three threads talking about this has extracted the bootloader files only that you can install with odin. ill see if I can find it. .

Sent from nexus 4 or SGS3 using xda premium.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
This whole ordeal makes me wanna say f*ck it and just buy a new phone...I already had my motherboard replaced for a separate issue, which I had to pay to ship the phone to Europe and wait a month, and now the same issue came back (no call audio, but earpiece and everything else works). Doesn't matter what ROM, Radio, or Kernel you flash; once it happens you're done. The issue is the Note 2 is too expensive and IMO that's the only worthwhile phone replacing the i9300 with right now. I'm a college student. I shouldn't have to choose between buying another phone and paying and waiting for a 2nd repair for the same exact issue. They even told me it was component failure on the motherboard. The first time my issue happened it was 3 months old. Now it has a new board and it's 3 months old and happening again. There's a thread as big as this one for my issue. I'm just waiting for my phone to DIE completely now...

We seriously need to raise awareness of this; we need to get this on Engadget and The Verge and other sites, not just Android sites that only we read. This is a HUGE quality control issue, since the Galaxy S2. And it's not fair to any of us. I paid $575 for my S3 in July, and that was after trading in textbooks to Amazon to reduce the price from $675. This is not how a major company should treat this. Who cares where I live; the phone came from Europe, Samsung should pay for everything if it's a widespread issue. They sold over 30 Million Galaxy S3's, they can afford it. This is not how a $500+ device should behave. HTC replaced my friend's international One X for the signal issue for free, even though it was from the UK, and he lives here in the US. Samsung just doesn't want to pay up.

So let's put up a fight. If we can make this a known issue and affect their sales, they'll be forced to take action. I'm serious.
[Galaxy S III General] aghazi:
I updated the bootloader on my cm10.1 and everything is fine. I mean cm 10.1 is working as before. You should get tar file for new bootloader. There is a link few pages back. Put it in pc odin under PDA and flash it keeping your s3 in download mode.
[Galaxy S III General] pigglett:
Well it's on 1 site so its a start

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone...-s3-randomly-died-a-fix-is-on-its-way-1122356
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
Except that's not true; if your S3 is dead, it's dead lol. I fail to see how an update is going to revive a dead S3. Anyways, my problem is different. Hopefully this update fixes it, but it's a different issue (read above).
[Galaxy S III General] Nees3:
Did anyone ,that still got into download mode, got also into recovery mode? because if you have CWM, then they know you were rooted.

Or is that also broken then?
[Galaxy S III General] nunomax:
Just my finding:

Triangle away works ok on ELLA and download mode shows official and 0 count, but as soon you enter on recovery will start show on download mode 1 count
[Galaxy S III General] Alf0903:
I think it would be better to have it fixed, and then upgrade its firmware, that's because you have to remember that the sudden death seems to be an accumulative result of charging cycles, what I mean is that the MoBo and some chips pn it seems to accumulate damage as time goes by, and if tou update the FW without the MoBo being replaced your phone will be some how affected on its hardware.

Well that's is just an idea.
[Galaxy S III General] shaarky:
@nunomax,I confirm
[Galaxy S III General] vadonka:
if you can enter the recovery (CWM or TWRP) you can flash the stock recovery from the CWM or even with the odin. it means the recovery partition not failed.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
Here's what we should do:

Go to http://theverge.com, and in the top right, click "TIP US". Describe that the Galaxy S3 is having multiple hardware issues, such as no audio during phone calls (please mention this one) and that they also die completely.

Go to http://engadget.com, and do the same. Go to as many tech news sites as you can and do it.

They'll post about it if they get a ton of tips about it. They'll also post anything to throw gas on the Apple vs Samsung war.

BE SURE TO LINK TO THIS THREAD AND THIS OTHER THREAD WITH THE CALL AUDIO ISSUE (it's happened to me TWICE with 2 separate motherboards). It's been happening to people since like July or August:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1826167

Link to any Google threads you can find. The hardware starts to fail even if the phone doesn't. This is really bad guys.

Please do this with me; this is how you get attention from the media and get things fixed.
[Galaxy S III General] Raugote:
I know you've already must have tried this, but when audio from calls is a concern is because the modem, there is an awesome thread about that (including flashable zip files) with all the modems from most of the countries, i used to have call problems like yours, but then i installed Colombian modem, and the issue was gone. also, it would be very helpful to find out all the sympthoms of SDS, if every other users had radio problems like yours before sudden death appeared, but the main cause, of this is a eMMC damage due to overnight charge, maybe because some software malfunction during long charging perios

My case, first batch (MP 1.100) and working flawlessly until now, got it since june 30th, but never let it charge overnight due to high processor consumption when charging
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I was using my phone on the same modem, ROM, and kernel for a month. It happened again on New Year. The repair center I shipped it to told me it was hardware component failure. I tried flashing everything possible to fix it. Modem, ROM, kernel, tar, etc. Nothing does it. I'll experiment more when I'm home but for now it seems like a hardware issue.
[Galaxy S III General] ilMartiniano:
Hi I would like to bring to your attention my case (to know if it is a case of sudden death)

Today suddenly the phone is locked, so I rebooted. I start sticking a notice that I had to restore because the encryption was compromised (I never had the memory encrypted) so I did the restore but then I stuck on recovery mode with error messages "failed to mount / data" I then tried to reset via odin. The phone will recognize me but I do not recognize any. Pit.

The phone now I remain in constant power (with the "Samsung Galaxy S i9300 III)
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
Sounds like the eMMC (internal memory) chip may have failed or corrupted, which is just as bad as the phone not powering on at all. You'll probably need to take it in for motherboard replacement.
[Galaxy S III General] ilMartiniano:
so I had this luck? There is nothing I can do? (as well as to bring it into service)
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I'm guessing it's that since you said a PIT file won't work. This is such BS though; Samsung really thinks they can fix a failing memory chip magically through a software patch?
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
Maybe the memory chip isn't failing.

Maybe the hardware is getting damaged by a software bug (f.e. to much/fast/wrong writes). And then you can fix it easily with a debugged software.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] jonny68:
Anyone in Ireland on 3 or any network whose phone died who sent it back to fonemenders?

Left mine in yesterday evening probably won't get it back until next week, they'd better fix it or I want a new phone given the extent of this problem
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
That's how I feel. Whether you paid a subsidized price or bought it all out, we deserve a real solution. That's why I'm saying we need to really make this issue go public.
[Galaxy S III General] msbmsb:
I'd posted this here before, but given the newer information, I'd like to see whether my case qualifies as being this same problem, or something new.

This is for a US T-Mobile T999 16GB SGS3, purchased on July 6, died on Nov 16, so about 130 days time.

What happened:

Just prior to the Jelly Bean OTA:

1. All the sensors stopped working - gyro, proximity, etc. They all stopped working. They wouldn't come back on a restart either. I was getting ready to try a factory reset when the Jelly Bean OTA came.

After updating to Jelly Bean:

2. Updated to Jelly Bean, sensors started working again, but the phone would randomly restart sometimes, in my pocket, or just sitting there on the table.

3. Then one day, about 45 minutes after making a call and not using the phone again, I noticed that the phone was dead. I plugged it in thinking something had drained the battery.

4. When trying to power it up, it would vibrate once, sometimes twice but the screen stayed black.

5. I tried taking the battery out for a while, replaced it and turned it on - it started booting up, but at the samsung splash, rebooted again and then went black from then on.

6. Became totally hardbricked. Couldn't get into download mode, couldn't factory reset, nothing at all. No vibrate, nothing. I fully charged the battery in a separate charger to make sure, and nothing. It was totally dead and unresponsive. I tried two separate Samsung batteries with the same result. So I went to T-Mobile to request a warranty replacement.

7. On receiving the warranty replacement SG3 about a week later, I tried turning on the original once more, as a test. To my surprise, after several days of being powered off, it came back up and seemed to be working fine. It ran normally for a day and a half, at which point it then began to reboot. It would either reboot immediately on the first screen unlock, or it would reboot while booting up.

8. I took the opportunity to factory reset. When trying to reinitialize the phone as a test, it would reboot on the very first initialization screen, where you enter your gmail account info and then went back to being unresponsive.

9. At that point I returned original unit, this was in November, before I knew of this thread, so I don't have any hardware info on that faulty unit

What ROM/Firmware:

Stock USA T-Mobile T999 16GB, android 4.1.1

Was this the same sudden death problem, or possibly something entirely different?
[Galaxy S III General] Blue_Nexus:
Parts issue ?

Hi Folks,

I checked the service tracking link today to see the status of my phone -

Update Date	Status	Pending Reason	Comments

21-12-2012	Assigned to Service Center

21-12-2012	Acknowledge(ASC)

28-12-2012	Acknowledge(ASC)	ACKNOWLEDGED (ASC)

31-12-2012	Engineer Assigned	ENGINEER ASSIGNED

03-01-2013	Pending	Not possessed parts by Eng'r	PENDING

Does anyone know for sure what "Not possessed parts by Eng'r" actually means ?

It seems to suggest that Samsung UK do not have parts readily available, I'll phone tomorrow and check on what that status means.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
They're waiting for whatever parts the engineer needs but doesn't have. That looks like the same thing that happened when mine went for repair in Germany (I live in NYC).
[Galaxy S III General] nfribeiro:
I came from a Galaxy Note (eMMc hardbrick risk) and now this sudden death issue. :what:

WTF
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I know. Isn't it great? /s

F*cking Samsung. I loved them until this. It shouldn't matter WHERE you bought your phone. They should fix it in the nearest possible repair center, and on their own dime, because we don't deserve to pay for something that is clearly their fault.
[Galaxy S III General] Yellow_Racing:
I hope the Note2 doesn't have these issues ..! I just ordered one

Wow, dropped my phone off at service centre yesterday at lunch time and just received an sms saying phone ready for collection...

Good work Alltech Adelaide...
[Galaxy S III General] Blue_Nexus:
Thankyou

Thank you.

I'm really not clear on how a firmware update can fix or prevent a hardware problem though, especially given the variety of permutations of this problem and how it manifests itself both at the time the phone shuts down, and in the resulting symptoms afterwards (i.e. total death, access to recovery etc.)

Surely if a firmware update could fix the problem it would be in samsungs best interest to be very specific about what the issue is and exactly how the firmware update resolves it. Anything I have read is without any real detail, sketchy at best, opinion at worst.

The fact that Samsung are replacing hardware would seem to rule out any possibility of a software (or firmware problem) after all even if a dead phone (cannot access recovery or bootloader) was returned to samsung, an emmc or Nand that is not physically damaged should be flashable in the factory at the PCB level.

The replacing of H/W components would suggest that the emmc / NAND is physically damaged and cannot be the result of firmware. (H/W should be governed by electronics imposed limits to prevent overvoltage etc.)

A possible counter argument here is that it is cheaper to replace the whole board than to flash at PCB level.

To be honest, like most people here I don't really understand the gubbins of a mobile phone, I do however understand good customer service, and good product quality, What would be ideal is some clarity from Samsung themselves as to the scale and nature of the problem. Communication would go a long way to ease concerns.
[Galaxy S III General] jonny68:
Fu#k me that was quick, dropped mine off yesterday evening not expecting to get it back for a while yet :/