yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] djskarpia:
I'm currently onto omega v35 with latest Perseus kernel and Normal CWM ...I'm I safe? I can't understand what custom recoveries does...I need also to replace CWM with Philz custom cwm to be safe from SD? Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Its a question rather than a statement. Was Phil saying that recovery and sboot have the LLA kernel or simply the same kernel as each other? If the kernel is "safe" then is the sboot?

All questions hopefully we can answer here sometime
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
When you boot into recovery, if no fix - you're at more risk.
[Galaxy S III General] mjb:
I think you're confusing sboot with boot.img. sboot is the bootloader, which is largely irrelevant - boot.img is the image used to flash the boot partition, which contains the kernel and initrd for your phone for day to day use. recovery.img contains a kernel and very cut down initrd with the bits required to provide recovery functionality.

I think Phil was saying that boot.img and recovery.img contain the same kernel - two copies, but both the same.

sboot (the bootloader) is responsible for picking which of these get booted when you hold down the right key combination during power on.
[Galaxy S III General] Phil3759:
That's exactly what I meant. bootloader is another story and not related to kernel
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Phone doesn't sleep when on charge. There is a USB_CD_WAKELOCK or something similar in Kernel WakeLocks that prevents the device sleeping. I think it was mentioned in this thread already, but if not - the device is more "active" (by that I mean awake) when on charge.
[Galaxy S III General] Oranav:
Download mode is implemented in sboot.

Sounds reasonable. The question is whether the MMC device is being suspended or not...
[Galaxy S III General] odoto:
I read that the kernel applies the fix for the eMMC firmware only if the firmware got a specific date, which means it is possible that there are VTU00M/Rev: fx1 chips around with a different, probably non-SDS-prone firmware. But as I understand we can't verify that so far, because existing tools like "eMMC check" don't tell us the firmware date (the date given is the production date, as stated in the OP and every 10. post after that^^).

So I was wondering if we can figure out a way to read the firmware date to be able to tell if a chip with the doomed revision is dangerous or not. This would certainly put the minds of some S3 owners at ease...

I thought about it and two things came to mind:

1. reading eMMC metadata as root

on a linux system you can normally read a huge amount of metadata about your hardware's firmware, given you got root privileges. since the existing apps to check the eMMC revision are non-root, it might be worse a try to obtain more information on a root shell.

2. modify kernel to report on eMMC firmware date

I'm no kernel developer, but when it is possible to check the firmware date in the kernel, it should also be possible to report the kernel date (or just report the result of the check). The only question is how to report? I'm pretty sure you can't just output to screen or write to a file within a kernel module. But just logging the result as a warning or error to read it via dmesg after boot seems like an idea.

To clarify: the idea is to create such a kernel just for diagnostic use, not for everyday use...

So what do you guys think? Bull**** or worse a try?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Yeah this I dont know. I have a tasker task that runs a logcat whilst on charge so I have logs if anyone knows what to look for. I've got 7 hours worth ;)

Although it's probably in need of a kmsg which I've not setup yet
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
I thought entropy said it wasn't possible?

Another thing... why only apply the workaround on affected chips? Well only if the workaround has inefficiencies else where (I.e the code is less than ideal).
[Galaxy S III General] odoto:
Where did he say that? But yeah, I guess option one is likely to fail... but I don't see why the second idea shouldn't work, but maybe I'm missing something here. I know my way around userspace programming, but as I said I'm not a kernel developer ;)
[Galaxy S III General] g3ar:
what is difference between XXELL/1/2/4/5/6/a/c
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
In what respect?

Samsung don't release change logs.

Basically,

XX = the majority (but not all of) europe (and some other countries) code.

E = Well whatever... Not sure what this represents

L = 2012 (So newer releases will be M for 2013)

L = December (So newer releases will be A for January)

1-9, A-Z = revision number

But the changes are not always known
[Galaxy S III General] Oranav:
Yes, they only patch eMMC chips with F/W date 2012/04/13. It may indicate that other chips are okay.

This date resides in the moviNAND Smart Report page, and it can't be read using normal MMC commands - but only by special vendor-specific moviNAND commands. So option 1 is a no-go here.

Option 2 is very possible and pretty much easy to implement. You can even export it via sysfs or implement a new IOCTL for this.

I don't have much time now, but I will probably have next week. If no one does this until then, I'll do it.
[Galaxy S III General] guerouig:
hi guys, I must confess I've read most of the pages till headaches; a bit confused i must say. so a noobie question if i may :

having flashed ELLA through mobile odin, do I have the ELLA Kernel and bootloader and all the ELLA gear with it or does it inject its own kernel and whatever???
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Every ROM includes a Kernel. A ROM cannot function without one so if you flashed the stock (official) ELLA ROM, you also flashed the Kernel and Recovery, so you're safe. You will also have the bootloader as ELLA comes with one, although thats not really relevant here.
[Galaxy S III General] MIKEMON:
Reported that bootloder LLA is not important??: Good:
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
From Post 1.
[Galaxy S III General] guerouig:
thx a lot friend. one last thing I've read so many people complaining about being unable to reset counter to zero anymore. AFAIC I triangled away, flashed ELLA (mobile odin), kept my root (superuser and all), flashed cm10.1, and then back to ELLA and this is what I get right now:

custom binary download : no

current binary : samsung official

system status : official

I'm really a beginner and even a newcomer to android, so if I unroot with such status do you think i can still claim warranty if necessary??
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Yep. All looks fine
[Galaxy S III General] FinGerS o FuDgE:
Just to clear up a couple of noob questions:

I've done the eMMc Check and I do have the VTU00M 0XF1 chip.

I use Paranoid Android 2.54 which is based on 4.1.2 and Siyah Kernel 1.7rc3+ with Omega v35 as a 2nd rom. I take it this wouldn't be classed as 'Safe' then?

So my best option would be to download another kernel mentioned in the 1st post? Do any of the kernels posted have dual boot and are suitable for PA & Omega?

Apolgies for the noobish questions. Just been getting all this modding and rooting :p
[Galaxy S III General] fjfcb:
Hey guys, quick question here, i know that if i root my phone that will void my warranty, but, and if i flash a OFFICIAL Samsung Update like XELLA with odin to prevent SDS on my Brazilian GS3 (here the last update is still 4.1.1) , will that void my warranty too? and also, will that increase any counter like flash counter or unnoficial status??

Thanks!
[Galaxy S III General] zeziv5150:
From other brazilian fellow here: No, if you flash a official rom through Odin the counter won't change. But you have to check the device status on 'settings', because if you root it, it'll show as "modified" and you lose you warranty. So two things can make you lose it:

1- counter (custom rom)

2- status (root)
[Galaxy S III General] fjfcb:
Hey man, nice to see another brazilian here :D

So, my counter is 0 (i reseted with triangle away) and my status is (normal), i flashed stock brazilian firm 'cause i was afraid of SDS (i want to have my warranty if my phone dies :p)...

If i flash XELLA official firmware and do not root it, will that void my warranty? (since it changes phone CSC, etc...)

thanks!
[Galaxy S III General] sohail667:
How check i am safe or not

i am using persues kernel 31.2 with XXELKC OFFICIAL Turkbey rom?
[Galaxy S III General] guerouig:
even then there is a way out (based on my own experience); if you read my post, everything is back to normal, just as new. ( with kies, OTA an all)
[Galaxy S III General] mjb:
Oh, good point. So, we'll need an updated sboot at some point, or it'll be a risky endeavour to upgrade the OS via non-OTA means.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Guys, please stop asking "am I safe?".

All the answers are in post 1...

Read what you need:

And compare what you have against the the list of things with the fix
[Galaxy S III General] Treeki:
What's the safest way to root at the moment? I currently have the latest Perseus kernel, the stock recovery from XXELLC, and the bootloader from the XXDLJ4 OTA update (I installed XXELLC through Heimdall and didn't know how to apply the bootloader that way). I don't think the bootloader matters, but I figured I'd state it just in case.

Would it be a good idea to root using CF-auto-root, then install PhilZ-Touch to replace the old stock recovery that CF-auto-root installs?

I doubt my phone is SD-prone at the moment because it's only a month and a half old, so I don't think there would be any issues with it but I still want to check with someone more knowledgeable than I am...
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
CF root will work fine.
[Galaxy S III General] Scarface1991:
You say you have the latest Perseus Kernel installed? Well actually this already should give you root. Install the Root Checker from Playstore and check if you have root or simply go into S-Tweaks which should come with the Perseus Kernel and the app should ask you for root permissions when you start it.

About the Recovery, you can just download the odin version of PhilZ Touch recovery and then flash it through odin if you say you have the Stock Samsung recovery installed right now.
[Galaxy S III General] Treeki:
Thanks for the answer! I did get STweaks automatically installed, but when I start it up it says "No root access, or timeout". None of the other root apps I have installed work. I tried installing SuperSU from the Play Store but it tells me it can't be installed as I don't already have su. Guess it's time to grab CF-auto-root... Will get Philz Touch later too :D
[Galaxy S III General] boo85:
stock 4.1.1 and peruses kernel enough?

hello!

I have been looking around for an ans to this question by havent seen any ans to my question. sorry if it has been asked before.

i am running stock 4.1.1 firmware (rooted) at the moment. waiting for singapore's 4.1.2 actually. Currently i have just installed peruses kernel which i know as the SD fix. Is this sufficient or the recovery has to be updated too? in other words can i just use everything stock 4.1.1 and an updated kernel to "prevent" SD?

Thanks!
[Galaxy S III General] Scarface1991:
PhilZ recovery is the only custom recovery so far which has the SDS fix included, so yes you need to upgrade the recovery if you want to be as safe as possible.

Reason for this is that recovery uses a kernel of it`s own.
[Galaxy S III General] boo85:
Thanks for your quick reply!

I understand. I know what CWM can do, but what if I don't use the recovery mode? For day to day functions of just using the phone, would have an unfixed recovery be fine?

This brings me to another separate question, how does one access the stock recovery? Is it considered the download mode?

Thanks again!
[Galaxy S III General] jin1992:
When u just flashed ur phone with a stock rom and no root and u try to access recovery via the same way u access Cwm, u will end up in android stock recovery, a way to achieve this with root is using cf auto root as it doesn't install Cwm for u when u root.
[Galaxy S III General] Scarface1991:
If you have the latest Perseus Kernel installed then it should be safe to use your phone. Only if you would go into CWM Recovery it would be potentially dangerous because there is no fix for the SDS yet.

No, the stock Recovery is present if you have an official Samsung Firmware installed without any Recovery modifications. After you flash CWM recovery, Stock Recovery becomes CWM Recovery. Download mode and Recovery are 2 different things.
[Galaxy S III General] GerManiac:
there is a recovery with the fix. philz recovery, it is also mentioned in the OP
[Galaxy S III General] Scarface1991:
Yes I know, it was just a reply for this question:
[Galaxy S III General] boo85:
Thanks again for the info!

Then out of curiosity, how does one access stock recovery? I remember when I used a custom recovery on my previous phone, you had to press a key during boot up to go into recovery, is it the same for s3 stock recovery?
[Galaxy S III General] GerManiac:
Then I misunderstood you, cause you wrote its potentially dangerous to go into recovery. that's why I thought you were not aware of philz recovery.

cheers.
[Galaxy S III General] mjb:
Yes. Same key combination to enter stock recovery as custom recovery. It's the bootloader that does that (starts recovery or download based on key combinations)
[Galaxy S III General] KPlax:
Assuming that the information of the first post is correct , if i have a XXELL4 rROM i will be safe in theory ?

My s3 have the chip revision of the candidates to fail, but the date is 6 /2012.
[Galaxy S III General] andrewfung888:
So download mode is safe or not? We use download mode and odin to flash tar files.

Thanks
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
If its stock, unmodified, yes. Hence it being in the "safe" list

The date has got nothing to do with anything
[Galaxy S III General] washpota:
With 18 people already having reported SDS while on XELLA and XELL4, are we still confident that samsung has fixed it?
[Galaxy S III General] Scarface1991:
They have voted but not a single one of them have reported in detail what happened, maybe they all just had ROMs that were XXELLA based but had Siyah kernel installed. Happened here before, so it's a clear possibility. This poll is no evidence for me.
[Galaxy S III General] rabarkar:
We really need to know the specific circunstances of those SDS. As far as I understand, the SDS is a wearing problem, meaning that maybe the damage was already done before they move to the "safe" ROMs.

But we are just guessing...
[Galaxy S III General] invinciblecc:
So i will flash the xellc but on odin guide it was written to xe is code for other country not india india is dd right so am I flashing firmware for some other country in my handset right??

Would it cause my product name to disappear which i mentioned above????

Or is it for the international version where to download for my device and how to flash

And now I got you so one is recovery kernel other is android kernel

So phills recovery fixes the recovery kernel and Perseus Kernel us the actual android kernel

Or Maybe stock xxelc fixes, fixes both abt which u r not sure so what would be easier flashing an entire firmware via odin

Or flashing separate phills recovery and Perseus Kernel

Btw does Perseus Kernel have swap support

How do I flash any kernel the Android one not the recovery one

Is it also a flashable zip in cwm or something else also can i flash Perseus kernel and phills recovery both and still be on my present firmware ddlj1

Are the kernels also region based

And lastly again asking what about the country code xx xe and for india it is dd

Thanks for reading
[Galaxy S III General] invinciblecc:
Can I flash separate phills recovery and Perseus Kernel while I am on stock ddlj1 please tell I know how to flash recovery but how to flash kernels I don't know so please tell

Also Perseus kernel supports stock roms right i am on stock jelly Bean India
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Flash kernels via recovery (zip) or ODIN (tar - goes into PDA).

Don't know about Perseus compatibility as I've never used stock. Check their first post?
[Galaxy S III General] gadgetcraze:
So from what we know so far, if I have a rooted phone with Perseus latest kernel and PhilZ recovery i should be "apparently" protected. Right?
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
From further unnecessary eMMC wear, yes. Whatever wear has happened while you were not on both these kernels can't be undone.
[Galaxy S III General] tiktakt0w:
Poll results

For all of those who voted on the poll, can you please report your exact configuration before the SDS happened (ROM, Kernel, Recovery, MODS, etc..)

This will be beneficial to us all as the poll is almost next to useless, albeit without any information. :)
[Galaxy S III General] gadgetcraze:
Does that impact the longevity of the device? I mean isn't the sudden death thing a one time event or is it a series of events culminating in the sudden death of the phone?
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Read up.
[Galaxy S III General] invinciblecc:
Bro can i flash it any if the kernels notified in this thread to my phone to be safe from sds on my gt19300 Indian international version running stock jellybean 4.1.1. And phills recovery details in screen shot please reply only if u r sure I wouldn't have to flash a ROM right i can stay on stock jb 4.1.1. Right and i can flash it via phills recovery??.?????????? Also yanks kernel says it supports ddlj1 both odexed and deodexed

This ddlj1 is baseband version or build no please tell me if yanks 3.0 kernel supports my device see from image
[Galaxy S III General] brainimpact:
The poll is pointless b/c no way of verifying if the voters are genuine, also by reading other threads some are dishonest making out they had SDS on LLA/4 fully stock but by searching history I found some been flashing other kernels and mods but I will not name and shame b/c its unfair to get them abuse.

Some SDS ppl are trying to scare people and make out they did nothing to contribute to getting SDS which is not the truth, nobody likes to admit they are maybe fault and so lie.

I have a feeling majority of cases of LLA SDS will of given false info.
[Galaxy S III General] xanthrax:
I said it before, it is pointless
[Galaxy S III General] invinciblecc:
I flashed yanks kernel and phills recovery now i am supposedly safe right
[Galaxy S III General] jfsyl:
Hello.

I have the rom omega 36

I have the kernel alpha 31

I have the phils recovery

I have the first suddently reboot of my s3.

The start of the end ?
[Galaxy S III General] washpota:
As far as I understand, flash memory does not have moving parts. There is nothing to cause physical wear. What other wear is possible?
[Galaxy S III General] qavro:
all memories have a limited number of cycles of read/write
[Galaxy S III General] washpota:
...that gets over in six months?
[Galaxy S III General] AILD:
My phone reboots randomly 3 times. I really hope that fix working.
[Galaxy S III General] qavro:
no. but we have no idea how many times a piece of code tries to write in a wrong address block and continues to do so indefinitely because it can't. imagine thousands of tryings per second...maybe that is the workaround with that "fix".

call me skeptical but i am still not "buying" this fix story.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Yes the poll is useless.without detail.

The poll question is at max characters too. I wanted to request further detail without embedding it into the OP.

I take all the results as false unless backed up.
[Galaxy S III General] guerouig:
Don't worry when suddden death is about, it will not give you advance notice. if you have the latest philz recovery then it has sds fix, but it is not enough, you need a kernel and a rom to have the sds fix too
[Galaxy S III General] suspktu:
Hello. I read this thread and i couldn't find the answer to one question (possibly it is somewhere but I missed it): From what sources do we know that only the 16GB eMMC with firmware VTU00M and revision 0xf1 are affected by the SDS because from what I am seeing those eMMC with the that specific firmware and revision are the most common and possibly 70% - 80% of the s3 sold in Europe have those specifications.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Hi.

From the Samsung Update 7 Source release.

Example (Actually taken from CM change log)

+ if (!strncmp(host->card->cid.prod_name, "[COLOR="Red"][B]VTU00M[/B][/COLOR]", 6) &&
1658
+ (host->card->cid.prod_rev == [COLOR="red"][B]0xf1[/B][/COLOR]) &&
1659
+ (mmc_start_movi_smart(host->card) == 0x2))
1660
+ host->card->movi_ops = 0x2;
1661
+
1662
+ if (host->card->movi_ops == 0x2) {
1663
+ err = mmc_start_movi_operation(host->card);
1664
+ if (err) {
1665
+ pr_warning("%s: movi operation is failed\n",
1666
+ mmc_hostname(host));
1667
+ goto remove_card;
1668
+ }
1669
+ }
1670
+
[Galaxy S III General] suspktu:
Ok. But can we be sure that the hypothetical (because we don't really know for sure) fix present in update 7 it will solve the SDS bug. In other words, how can we associate the update 7 with the SDS bug (only because we know the bug is caused by a eMMC malfunction)? Thanks. Sorry if these are noob questions.
[Galaxy S III General] dredmann:
When you say never rooted does that mean never at all or unrooted and reset with triangle away?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
The bug is not caused by malfunction. The result is malfunction caused by bad code in the emmc firmware. The kernel fixes present a work around however we are not certain it works fully
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
When people root, recovery is replaced with one deemed "unsafe". Also rooted users flash roms and kernels that are "unsafe". So by "never rooted" I mean never rooted. But this would also cover someone who has used official releases to return to stock
[Galaxy S III General] dredmann:
you mean like flashing via samfirmware an older version then it updating via OTA?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
I don't understand the question. Why flash an older version?
[Galaxy S III General] suspktu:
From what i undestood the eMMC wear caused by this bad code that you mention it cannot be undone so it's a matter of time until the SDS occurs even if the fix is good and working. Am I right?
[Galaxy S III General] farrukh494:
I am rooted through the exynos abuse app and CWM installed. Will my phone be safe if I install the XXELLA 4.1.2 firmware from sammobile and will i be able to root again using exynos abuse? I do not want to flash a custom rom and kernel. Will the stock rom work for me? Please reply
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
From post 1

So if the fix works, it will prevent further excessive wear, meaning it depends how far past "the point of no return" any given emmc is
[Galaxy S III General] jarule08_2008:
Hi plz if i install fixed kernel and recovery i will safe or i need rom too ? Answer
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
I don't know anything about the exynos app.

You need either 100% stock setup from 4.1.2, or if rooted - philz recovery. If you re root after an update to official LKC if you leave the kernel alone, you're fine.

However if you wish to be rooted, custom kernel is best anyway. What's your aversion to this?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Answer in post 1
[Galaxy S III General] jarule08_2008:
I know sorry i no understand good english just tell me yes or no .thx for help
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Read "recap" section. The English is basic.
[Galaxy S III General] suspktu:
From what u are saying I conclude that the only important thing right now is to be sure that the counter in download mode remains zero, flash official roms and stock recoveries because u never know when it will happen and u will need the warranty. Good job Samsung :(
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
As long as your flash counter stays at 0, there's no harm being rooted.

I was rooted when my sds happened.

Use the phone as you like. Just use the "safe" things and 0 custom binary. If it dies, fine - get it fixed
[Galaxy S III General] dredmann:
good point, so I know for sure the OTA updates work and therefore definitely not modified