yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
Well, I understand its the firmware 0xf1 that matters. But if you've noticed, the emmc brickbug app reports varying dates for the chips with the same firmware.

I've seen chips with a date of 04/12. Mine shows 05/12. I've seen devices with firmware dated, 07/12.

The chips with the new firmware 0xf7 started appearing in 12/2012 from what the app shows.

---------- Post added at 09:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 PM ----------

This thread has some details regarding significant research done on the patch and how it works.

It is mentioned that the patch is only applied if the firmware revision date matches 13-04-2012.

There is also the sourcecode of the patch for reference.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2096045

Because if 30 million devices with the same chip had to die, it would be news.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Patch activates if firmware is released 13/04/2012. i.e firmware is 0xf1.

Obviously there are varying dates of manufacture. They didn't make all the chips in 1 day. They made chips with this firmware for months.

SDS is caused when the wear levelling hits a sector it can't deal with. Now apparently it can take a massive amount of writes before you hit this problem. Without a fix, its estimated it can take 6 months of use before hitting this bug.

Now, since 4.1.2, everyone who was going to hit this bug and receive a catastrophic failure, is protected. So many chips that were going fail now will not fail. Every time someone one on 4.1.2 says "omg my phone freezes" is lucky because if they were on 4.1.1, they'd need a new motherboard.

Not everyone will hit this amount of writes before upgrading to safe versions. Not everyone will use their phone enough to hit this amount of writes in the life of their phone.

I hope this helps...
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
That was quick. But I guess the patch then, only protects the chip from dying. Right?

Dont you feel the affected devices would still have to go through freezes, sometimes for a long duration of time which renders the device unusable untill it unfreezes or a battery pullout? What is the overall point of the fix then, if its affecting the usability? Better than that would be a replaced motherboard right?

Or are the freezes going to gradually reduce to becoming non-existent like some threads say? If so, could you explain how and why?
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
You're still more than welcome to take it to your carrier and repair center to say that it freezes excessively and see if they replace the board. This patch is so the average Joe has no reason to ship their phone in and have their board replaced (it costs Samsung and repair centers $$$). Now they can just complain about freezing because they think that's just how Android is. Us techies know what the issue is and can ask to have it replaced.
[Galaxy S III General] ivan4o5:
If your phone starts freezing like hell you can downgrade your firmware and hope that your phone will die ...
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
The fix stops the excessive writing to the bad area of the eMMC (that kills it). Unfortunately their fix has side affects - freezing.

They updated the fix in update 8 sources. I'm not sure which ROM specifically but I would expect MBx... the newer fix freezes much less (if at all).

But to answer your question, a software freeze is definitely better than a hardware failure
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
Just out of curiosity, which chip does your phone have?? If it is the affected one, have you been experiencing the freezes?

My phone has the affected chip and I'm running stock unrooted XXEMA2 at present and I dont experience any freezes as of yet.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Yes I have affected 0xf1. I was one of teh first people to suffer SDS back in November 2012 and had a motherboard replacement.

Since January this year, I have been running Safe kernels for 4.1.2 and i did indeed suffer freezes. However, since upgrading to 4.2.1 Leak from Samsung, I have not had any freezes. I went straight from MR2 (which did freeze for me) to MB3
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
So does the patch protect the chip from further damage or does it only protect from death?

What I mean to say is even with the patch applied, does an affected chip still reach that breaking point? I'm talking about devices with fewer write cycles that dont experience the freezes yet. Are they going to reach this state at some point or does the patch protect from further rapid wear?

From what you say, the newer builds either exclude writing to the damaged sector or maybe fixes corrupted sectors by rewriting over them, hence getting rid of the freezes. Am I right?
[Galaxy S III General] p4r4z1t45:
8 months old SGS3 with VTU00M fwrev 0xf1. Started freezing a month ago, but no more than few times in a week. Up to date I was patient and thought that new FW will fix this bullsh*t. Now I'm on XXELLA and it's completely unusable, being frozen most of the time.

The interesting part is that I went to a service center and they re-flashed the phone and said it's fine ;] worked for half of the day and started freezing again. I'm just disappointed that I'll have to spare so much of my time for this sucksung experience.
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
There is a thread in this form where 2 phones have experienced SDS running on the 4.2.1 leak. Does this mean that the leaks dont have the patch?

Samsung has a history of doing this. Samsung enabled MMC CAP ERASE on a later build of the Galaxy SII ROM which made the device which was initially safe, vulnerable. Previously only the Note triggered the bug even though both devices had the affected chip.

So maybe, the 4.2.1 build may not have the death-prevention patch afterall. Here is a link to that thread for your reference.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2168461

Even though only 2 devices have been reported here, we cant take that lightly if this is actually the case.
[Galaxy S III General] nm8:
question is how long did he have the phone, and when did he start using a "safe" rom/kernel/recovery ? Because damage may have started before the patch and it just got worse as time went by... just like on hard disk drives, they wear out with time...
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Since Samsung has told us nothing about the bug at all, all we can do is guess.

We don't know if death is instant or accumulative. If it is accumulative, we can only imagine SDS won't work for everyone. If it is instant, it still might not prevent it for everyone. A fix can still be a fix if it is only 99.9% successful.

We simply do not know
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
Anyways, I have reported the freezes which render the device in a "coma" for a long time or until battery pull to GSMArena. Hope they are able to get something out of Samsung atleast this time. Because if the patch is only to prevent the devices from dying, its more or less like a patient in a coma given ventilator support. Samsung wants these affected devices to last until their warranty period expires and then get this off their head like they usually do. They wouldn't ofcourse change the board unless the device is dead. They would blame some software each time you go with a freezing device.
[Galaxy S III General] Donna591:
this is happening a lot to people... I hope Samsung do something about this!!
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
If you insist and play the victim (which you honestly are), you can get your phone repaired or replaced. It's all about how you talk to people. You can make up a white lie, such as, "I require this phone for business. I'm unable to pick up calls half the time because the phone constantly freezes. It almost cost me a client once because I couldn't respond to his call." You're the one paying the carrier. You're the one who paid for the phone. Demand recourse. It's your right. They can do something and they will if you push hard enough. You're not asking for anything out of the ordinary; just for someone to do their damn job for you.

I've had my old carrier (Sprint) replace an entire month's bill ($150 for 4 lines) because of slow data for a few months. I've had them upgrade me twice in one year. I've had them let me out of my contract that same year with no ETF. I'm no one special. In fact I'm just a college (university if you're European) kid. Know what you want and don't stop until you get it. If you get the wrong person, hang up and try again. Call back until you get someone who'll help. If someone claims they'll do something for you, ask for a "reference/note number." People will tell you what you want to shut you up. If you go on online chat, save a PDF if you can, and save the chat number or ID if you can too.
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
In ur whole 8 months when did u flashed a so called safe rom that has a fix ??

also for how long u r on unsafe rom ??
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Samsung isn't going to say anything and there's not much point hoping they will either. Samsung have already fixed the freezing issue. It's just that not many people are on the latest releases yet.

It's either a case of being patient and waiting for an update or do what Product F(RED) suggests

---------- Post added at 04:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 PM ----------

You'll have to wait for the MB2/MB5 updates or newer that address this freezing
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
Though you are right about the talking doing wonders, warranty policies vary from place to place. My device is running XXEMA2 and I haven't experienced any freezes till now.

Maybe its because, the Note was my primary device and I havent used this much for the past 6months. Ofcourse, the phone was kept for charging once in two days or so which would spike the I/O activity. Else, it was used for the occasional music or photos.

Well, the point is, here, if I take the phone for warranty, they will insist on checking the phone for the problems I mentioned before proceeding to repair. So I can't just demand a motherboard swap for a new emmc chip. Ofcourse unless they are familiar with the problem and swapping the board is their first choice.
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
i, i have a sgs3 the one with the insane chip, i am using everything from samsung, my phone is not rooted and it never was, runing lattest software from samsung, i have a question, may i still become a victim of the insane chip sudden death?
[Galaxy S III General] Styngray:
Another Victim

OK. So i got this GS3 about 4 months ago. Last night i turned the screen off after checking my messages and setting an alarm and this morning when i woke up i found it not responding to anything. The screen is off and no matter what key i press, put it on charging or connect it to PC, it wont turn on. After about 2 hours of searching the internet and reading forums im pretty sure now that im facing the Sudden Death issue. :(

Kindly tell me a way to resurect it if i can without going to Samsung or anywhere else coz i know they will take alot of time replacing/repairing it. The phone is rooted but still in warranty period. Also i live in Pakistan and might end up having no warranty whatsoever and have to pay to have it repaired.

It is a 3 (UK) 16GB model running JB 4.1.

Please help me. Thanks.
[Galaxy S III General] satishp:
Which ROM were you on? I assume you were on ICS or the pre 4.1.2 builds. This means your device didn't have the patch to avoid the issue.

Now, if you have warranty in your country, they will either change the PCB or replace the device for you. But, considering you saying that it is a U.K device, you may have to send it to U.K for service, which is going to cost time if you have all the purchase invoice and other documentation regarding warranty. Money wouldn't be an issue as it wouldn't even cost you one fourth of the money you would have to pay to get the board replaced without warranty.

---------- Post added at 10:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 AM ----------

First make sure that your device has the VTU00M emmc with firmware revision 0xf1 using the emmc brickbug app from the Play Store.

If it does, make sure you are on the latest 4.1.2 update which has the patch, starting from XELLA. If you do, then you are safe.

Are you experiencing any device freezes by the way?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Starting from XXELKC
[Galaxy S III General] Akhil John:
Hi guys.. I'm sending my phone away to Samsung for the third time ( with SDS,) On the previous two occasions that I send it for repair, I got it send back to me just the way it was. My phones been dead for over a month now.

The below link will take you to my thread regarding this issue. That might give you guys an understanding of what happened with it so far.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=39468636#post39468636

Would be nice if you guys could give me any sort of advice or suggestions regarding this matter. Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
There's really not anything else to say. Keep trying.
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
Regarding the freezes i haven´t experiencing any frezze so far, and yes mine has the insane chip, when i arrive home latter i will see the nº of the compilation to see if i have the patched one. if i have the patched one, the one with the suposed fix, am i really safe? thanks in advance for the time spent. thks
[Galaxy S III General] NeatWolf:
I brought my SDS affected devide (International unbranded Samsung i9300 bought 7 months ago) to the local Samsung repair center, and they said that the phone warranty could be expired since they've found a "System Status: Custom".

They said they would send it to Samsung (Rome) so that I could have an official answer or repair.

Since I'm in the european union I pointed out this directive: hXXp://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31999L0044:EN:NOT

...and will probably resort to the local Consumer Defence Association in case something goes wrong.

Afterall, they sold me the device with a fallace kernel that is renowed to potentially brick the device, and even if I registered at the samsung site they haven't sent me any info about how important was to update my device.

I will have some more info in 2 weeks
[Galaxy S III General] HassanM:
As long as uve updated to XXELLA or later ver u should be fine...... Make sure that uve done that...
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
XXELKC
[Galaxy S III General] mrm43:
Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] scottcwhite:
***update***

So depressing. Spoke again today to Samsung UK and Anovo. Still have gotten nowhere. Still being told no one will fix the phone and they just want to return it to me at my expense after they had me spend 125 to ship it to them. And being in the US there really isn't much I can do. Guess I'll have it shipped back and throw it in the trash.
[Galaxy S III General] OmarBizreh:
In Syria we don't get updates from Samsung, so I'm using updates from Sammobile, and I'm using this one:

GT-I9300	Russia	2013 March	4.1.2	PDA:I9300XXEMB5	CSC: I9300OXEEMC1

I suppose since it's date is March, it should be the one I should install on my device :confused:

By the way the kernel build date was Feb 25 (if that helps :) ) but now I'm using my kernel based on Update9 from Samsung.
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
I suggest you donate it to a developer who can try to find a fix instead of throwing it out. If not, you can at least sell the screen/entire front half of the phone for $1XX (the screen is expensive).
[Galaxy S III General] nani67:
phone freezes and doesn't respond

Hi all,,

i am using stock 4.1.2 indian firmware on my s3 and for the last 20 days my phone is freezing..

it happens anytime, when using chrome, google play, music player, or just unlocking the screen.

it hangs for more than 20 minutes,..

initially if i had to use the phone immediately, i used to keep holding the power button for 30 sec and it used to restart, or remove the battery n restart it.

but finally it had come to a stage that my phone used to freeze twice or thrice every day,

so i had taken it to samsung care on 23/3/13 and explained them the problem.they said its only a software issue and updated the firmware and said everything will be alright.

but again the same thing started repeating and this time even worse... phone wouldn't reboot even if i keep pressing the power button,

so, decided to wait till it starts responding, but it used to take 30min for the phone to be back... but it freezes again in the next 12hrs...

again took it to samsung care on 26/3/13 and explained them all that happened..

now they have taken the phone for observation and when i called them in the evening they said it is a motherboard issue and it will take 4-5 days.

my question is,, did samsung really fix the sudden death issue.

if so, are these freezes the result of the fix working in background.

and do i need to live with these freezes for the rest of the time i have this S3....
[Galaxy S III General] owl74:
Dont know the answer to your question, but when you get your phone back, could you please run emmc brickbug checker from google play and tell us what is the chip number, like 0xf1 or something. Thanks a lot
[Galaxy S III General] al2ping:
How to apply the fix?

Hello guys,

Since the phone has gone to a dead state, how do you boot it to the download mode and flash the latest firmware by Odin?:confused:
[Galaxy S III General] Product F(RED):
If you have SDS, nothing you flash will work because the flashing process will always fail.
[Galaxy S III General] nani67:
i am waiting for the phone to be back..

i will keep updating...
[Galaxy S III General] BLEK0TA:
So we could made new shortcut name - SRS - sudden restart syndrome which is product od firmware protecting from SDS.. Samsaung is my first and last phone. Maybe solution came from Kim chong un.. and nevermore Samsung made this ****..

For me is only one salvation from htc. One.
[Galaxy S III General] androidfanboi:
awesome this just happened to me, tried pressing power button to turn screen on, there was a faint blue light from the LED that kept blinking but the phone didnt respond at all. pulled the battery and the phone has been dead ever since!!! mine was a 16gb release model. off to samsung i go
[Galaxy S III General] artesea:
Or just walk in to the place of purchase and demand they fix it. Every network and major retailer have their own repair service which the shop should be able to arrange. Vodafone had mine back to me in 4 working days.
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
How old ur phone is? For ho many months u were on below 4.1.2? When did u flash 4.1.2? It appears that ur phone was damaged enough that it started showing symptoms.
[Galaxy S III General] scottcwhite:
Hope you don't live in the US
[Galaxy S III General] nailrik:
S3 back for christmas

Got my S3 back this morning, no further explanation from the Samsung lady what the problem really was (the technician guy yet in office). The receipt says 'no power, acc data lost', solution 'replace PBA'. I asked the lady what the PBA is, she said not sure perhaps something with the 'machine' :confused: (lol).

When I tried to power on it, still no screen activity but then I checked it's because no power left (yes, the service not including help us customer charging). So currently on charging, all back to stock rom (ICS 4.0.4), tonight I'm going to update to 4.1.2 via kies but won't root it first. I'll give it 2 weeks observation time, anything suspicious I'll report it right away.
[Galaxy S III General] marvi0:
How long was it away for please.?
[Galaxy S III General] nailrik:
16 days 'died', 12 days in samsung service center.
[Galaxy S III General] marvi0:
Cheers that's me without my phone for Christmas. Did they upgrade it I think others had theirs upgraded from 16gig to 32,and clever technique by Samsung by Samsung in having us send phones to repair centres that way we can't complain directly.
[Galaxy S III General] randombrick:
Just found this thread. Thought I might as well post my sudden-death experience.

What happened: This was in the first week of November. The phone was fully charged just before bedtime. Phone left on the bedside table (was on vacation in a remote area so no WiFi or Mobile signal). Next morning the phone wouldn't come on. I thought it might be a depleted battery so put the phone on charge for a couple of hours with no luch. No battery icon either. Anyway sent it back to the retailer for repairs. Came back with a "main PBA replaced" description.

What ROM/Firmware: Omega (stock JellyBean) v23 something (also PA on dual boot)

What kernel: Siyah (v1.7RC3?)

OC or UV: No UV. Can't remember if I had OC enabled.

Where phone was made: Don't know

Where battery was made: Korea.

The phone was bought in the first week of release in Australia.
[Galaxy S III General] offgrey:
I'm going to hazard a guess here that PBA means planar board assembly aka, the motherboard.
[Galaxy S III General] sefuwl:
I leave my phone on overnight every night, I hope this is not contributing to the issue.

P.S my S3 is in the service center now.
[Galaxy S III General] alankstiyo:
there is a chance for this, mine was charged every night, didnt trust android to leave it and dont have any other alarm to wake up
[Galaxy S III General] nailrik:
Google it a bit, PBA : Printed Board Assembly. Yep, the geek name for motherboard in cellphone I think.
[Galaxy S III General] Criminal23:
The Prob is not charging in first time.

My sudden death mode come in midday between 13:00 and 16:30.

At 13:00 I wrote a msg to my girl friend - everything's fine.

At 16:30 I put my S3 off my pocket, try to turn display on - dead.

So its not especially charging

Criminal23

EDIT: It's a time bomb :what:
[Galaxy S III General] kortelainen:
Today I got message from service center that my phone has been fixed. Probably I have to wait couple of days before snail mail get's it delivered to my dealer (only 220km but finnish postal service is laggy at christmas times). Hopefully they will include full report of what parts has been replaced.
[Galaxy S III General] Glebun:
Guys, if it has happened to you - TRY A NEW CHARGER.

I've just woken up to a really hot phone, which wouldn't turn on at all.

No charging light, no download mode, nothing. It was plugged in during the night. So after plugging it into a new charger - it finally came alive!

God, was I relieved. The battery was at 0
[Galaxy S III General] dreadn0rt:
Sudden Death

I've suffered with this, notification light was on, tried swiping the screen nothing, tried the power nothing, charging nothing, remove and replace battery nothing

What happened:

What ROM/Firmware: stock JB

What kernel: Stock

OC or UV:no idea

Where phone was made: no idea

Where battery was made: no idea
[Galaxy S III General] lucky_user:
What ROM/Firmware: Omega v33 Jelly Bean

What kernel: stock or what ever came with Omega

OC or UV: NO

Where phone was made: No idea

Where battery was made: Samsung Stock made in China

When it was bought: mid June in Germany Vodafone

I was using the Phone withe Fire Fox no Charger plugged in when it suddenly switched of and never came back on Battery was at aprox 80%

Tried everything so fare with no success
[Galaxy S III General] Angelus1984:
This is why I'm using charger from HTC HD2. It is true that with original charger phone gets hot, but with HTC charger, it stays normal.
[Galaxy S III General] Guardianofevil:
so you guys are sugesting that charger with is added to the phone may be the problem? Can someone tell me if you were charging your S3 for past 6 months, did it always heating up so much? what i'm saying is that maybe this is not a hardware fail. Maybe that chargers with samsung was adding to s3 were F*** up and they slowly damaged your phones during the charging. over the last 6 months