[Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] VideoSavant:
Very Strange Issues with My Nexus 7

OK, I'm dealing with some serious strangeness here. As background, I'm no Android expert, but I have successfully rooted and installed dozens of ROMs on a half a dozen different Android devices. I currently have only Nexus devices, include the original Nexus 7 I'm writing about here, as well as the Nexus 7 2013 and a Nexus 5. I actually bought the new Nexus 7 because of the problem I was having with my old N7, but also because I wanted the bigger storage capacity and the Qi charging option.

Anyway, my Nexus 7 2012 problems started when my USB port broke. Not sure how it broke, as there wasn't a specific incident that caused it to break -- I think it just wore out from a lot of use (I am torn as to whether I hate USB or HDMI more). When the USB port broke, I was rooted but I was running the most current stock version of 4.2.x. When 4.3 was released, I made a major mistake, as I allowed it to update, which trashed my TWRP recovery and root. The main problem with the loss of root is that I was no longer able to run Lagfix, so over the next couple of weeks the tablet became unusable due to constant lag. I eventually wiped the device and started fresh and that allowed me to use the tablet more or less usefully. But after a month or so, lags started to happen again.

Probably a month later, I started getting "looping behavior." Note that I don't think these "loops" are boot loops, as the N7 boots normally and begins loading up home screens, begins receiving notifications, etc. After 2 to 5 minutes, the N7 freezes and then it reboots, and repeats the sequence I just described...forever. While I have limited ability to do much in the short time before the tablet reboots, I have tried changing settings, uninstalling apps, turning off Wi-Fi, even doing a complete reset. But when it boots back up, whatever changes I made previously did not stay.

So, even though I have the new N7, I wanted to try to salvage my older one, so this week I had the USB port replaced. I figured that once the port was functional again, I could use the Nexus Root Toolkit to reflash and start fresh using the Toolkit option to work directly from the bootloader (I'm using the Flash Stock + Unroot option).

When I go through this process, the Toolkit offers to download and install 4.4.2, which would be fantastic. It goes through the process and apart from an early message about the bootloader write process failing, the next message "rebooting bootloader" results in an "OK" message. The Toolkit process continues, downloading 4.4.2, installing it, etc. and then when the N7 reboots, I'm right back where I started, with 4.3 loading and with exactly the same "looping" behavior I described above,

The only thing I can see that might be causing the problem is that I'm not rooted, so maybe even the bootloader option is a non-starter. Is it possible that it's attempting to write files but can't overwrite without root access. If that is the case, how do I get around this obstacle?

I'm also attaching as a text file a screen capture of the log screen that runs when I try to fix this via the Toolkits "Flash Stock + Unroot" option.

Any and all suggestions or workarounds would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Additional Info: The problem with my tablet not allowing any changes seems to be the main obstacle to making any progress in making it useful again. I just tried a Safe Boot, which seemed to work OK (Safe Boot watermark in bottom left of the screen). So, I did a Factory Data Reset while in Safe Mode and that seemed to complete successfully, as it finished that process and powered the tablet down (rather than the looping). However, when I reboot, the first time I get the Android on his back with the red triangle; when I reboot again, the tablet boots up into my pre-Data Reset configuration, and returns to the looping behavior. I've searched all over to try to find someone who had similar behavior, but either it hasn't happened or I'm not keying in on search terms that work for finding that sort of post/into.