yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

SDS is caused by a firmware bug on the eMMC. You either have the affected chip or you do not. This is all in post 1. The affected chip is VTU00M 0xf1. You cannot change this without a new motherboard. The app is not very clever. It has to identify you have VTU00m 0xf1 AND have an S3 before it says you have insane chip. Unfortunately the app is not great at recognising S3 (although recent updates it got better - hence the change from sane to insane).

You don't really need app to say sane or insane. You just need to know 0xf1 or not. If yes, insane.

Exynos memory exploit is something completely different and nothing to do with this thread. Its a security flaw. Nothing to do with phones dieing. It's about malicious apps being able to "attack" your device through a security hole. Different
[Galaxy S III General] kadopt:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Exynos bug and sds are unrelated. One was a critical flaw in the kernel that would allow code execution and the other is bad emmc writes management that damages the emmc nand flash. Check the change log of the app for the sane/insane stuff and you'll have your answer.
[Galaxy S III General] lukas3000:
thank you very much.Now iam much more c

lever:)
[Galaxy S III General] weezul:
Hello guys, my phone has recently started locking up at random intervals and taking a long time to access the internal memory, for example in the gallery, it will hang for a good 10 seconds before anything shows up.

my rom is NULL_

my android version is 4.1.2

my baseband is XXELLA

my build is XXEMA2

my kernel is Siyah 1.8.9+

according to the first post, I am safe on all of this. Yet I am still getting lock ups that have only started a few days ago. I flashed a different modem to try and improve my signal at home (XXELLA). This is still in the "safe" list however. I am on ClockWorkMod Touch Recovery. Is there something better I could be using?
[Galaxy S III General] sherlock5545:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Is CWM Touch Recovery safe to begin with? It shouldn't be, according to the OP.

Sent from my GT-I9300
[Galaxy S III General] kadopt:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

It's not, use philz recovery also flash a more recent rom like xxemb5.

The locking are due to the sds fix trying to save your device, when it locks let it be from 5 to 25 min and don't power it down.
[Galaxy S III General] weezul:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

i understand why it is locking up so i was on my third run through dfg after maybe 6 or 7 successful reawakenings, but then it locked up for over an hour so had to restart. now it is stuck on my lock screen, it unlocked for a micro second and i pressed my pin in but before i pressed ok, its frozen again.... i think iys not helping that the device is full and when it does wake up the device seems to be facing a que of work for the cpu. zzzzz its 1.30am and its my only alarm and there's a text i really need on there... it just jolted again... but not long enough to actually unlock... maybe im swimming in bad clusters or something? sorry, just talking to myself and rocking back and forth... :)
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Not entirely related to this thread but I dropped my phone last night and the screen's gone bonkers. Copying /sdcard to my laptop now, will format everything and flash stock and see if I can trick warranty at the service centre (this is primarily why I thought I'd post this).
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Haha now u deserve a very rude comment mate. :D:banghead:

CANT U READ THE TITLE OF THE THREAD ???

Hmm revenge is sweet......
[Galaxy S III General] Roadrunner100:
Interesting, screen cracked, or just internals jolted? Let us know your results.
[Galaxy S III General] samppl:
I had terrible performance issues with XXEMA2, so bad that I went back to XXELLA build. My battery lasted less than 1 day and one of the background apps was chewing the CPU at (what I assume was) 100% the entire time. The "awake" line in the battery monitor app was just solid, the phone never ever went to sleep. Even a factory reset didn't fix it. I flashed XXELLA back on with Odin and the phone was fine after that. Not sure if related or not but after XXEMA2 my external SD card was corrupted and nothing could write to it. You could READ it, but neither the phone or windows could WRITE to it. Did a scandisk on it in windows and that was fixed too.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
There was no visible damage, but this seems to be a common problem, because as soon as they turned the screen on and looked at it they said it's "broken" and that screens aren't under warranty anyway (apparently). They're charging me about $110 (USD), should be ready by evening.

On the other hand, they didn't notice anything - the "uberwipe" seems to have worked!
[Galaxy S III General] Roadrunner100:
Useful info - uberwipe.

So much for Samsung Solid State technology... I gather the screen was not even shattered?
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
what is the relation of uberwipe & screen cracking ??
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Haha, glad to be of use! And nope, screen looked perfectly ok from the outside (until it was switched on). I edited my post to include that info:
[Galaxy S III General] Roadrunner100:
Much obliged.

In a nutshell - innate comprehension skills, and successful deployment of concealment strategy.
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
ahhh I think i am on other planet.. lol :laugh:
[Galaxy S III General] gadaga:
I had many many freezes and reboots per day.

I just uninstalled Samsung apps update (to go back to initial version installed in the my XXELKB ROM): problem seems gone (for now...):laugh:

Edit: Oups... Sorry but I was to optimistic... Back in trouble...
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
All 4.1.2 ROMs will freeze until you get to MB2 or newer.
[Galaxy S III General] gegode:
so heres the condition of my friends S 3

~ S 3 GT-i9300 , indonesia , 16GB

~ NOT BOOTING

~ phone was stuck at the welcome screen (when it says SGS III GT-I9300)

~ CANT acces stock recovery mode

~ CAN acces download mode..

~ tried to flash the CWM .. end up with "FAIL" notification on odin , "there is no PIT partition"

anyone have best way to recover this s 3

any suggestion guys?

are this stage are "sudden death" already?
[Galaxy S III General] weezul:
ahh, thanks for the tip. I love the NULL rom unfortunately, because it's 240dpi, and now I can't go back. Not sure if I can dig out an older version!
[Galaxy S III General] Rob2222:
Yep. It's a case for warranty.

I call this state "half" sudden death. You can't fix it.

BR

Rob
[Galaxy S III General] emmanueldmc:
I just purchased a used galaxy s3, and has the chip VTU00M, I want leave with an official firmware so I want to know what is the latest official firmware for galaxy s3 to fix the bug and sudden death. Someone tell me which is the latest firmware? i need flash some other kernel or the stock firmware brings with a kernel safe?

If flashing by odin this firmware more the Philz kernel, will be safe of the bug right?
[Galaxy S III General] zyclops1:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Off topic, keep the thread clean. .. :p:p:p
[Galaxy S III General] Kjc99:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Latest official firmware is XXEMB5 it also has addressed the freezing issues with the sudden death patch you can flash with Odin and that's it... IF YOU ARE ROOTED make sure you also have a patched recovery such as Philz, but it sounds like your not So just flash latest and your good to go
[Galaxy S III General] kadopt:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Sds is when the device doesn't turn on anymore, but that may happened due to emmc data corruption. Send it for warranty, since according to your post they can't see if the device had custom software installed.
[Galaxy S III General] emmanueldmc:
Thanks my friend! but I was looking at the firmware in SamMobile but are too many, of Russia, Hucrania, Nordic etc ... and I have no idea what to download and install.

Can anyone tell me where I can download it (free of any operator)
[Galaxy S III General] fault123:
My phone was EXACTLY in the same position. Nothing could save it. I sent it to service, they changed MB under warranty, with no questions asked.
[Galaxy S III General] gegode:
well when not connect to charger/usb it cannot be turn on..

when connect,, it can be turn on

i already send it to services center... eta 3-5 days

i payed $130 since dont have warranty anymore lol
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

What country? Filter by country
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
i also have aquired a used s3, it never was rooted it has the original rom from samsung, am i safe regarding the suden death syndrome? or could i still become a victim of it?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Read post 1

Everyone please stop asking questions covered in post 1.
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
yes i know sorry for bothering but what i mean is, seen that i have the oficial lattest rom and a never rotted phone, since that i never experienced frezes or anything like that, am i really really safe or still in the risk of having a sds? that was my real question. sorry for the trouble. thanks.
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Risk can never be zero, much like software can never be 100% bug-free. But yes, with respect to SDS your risk is as minimised as can be.
[Galaxy S III General] mengtze:
Samsung will not support I9300

I have a dead SIII (I9300), suffering from Sudden death. Samsung USA will not support me as it is an international version, Samsung UK will also not support me since it is not EU based...... Have been back and forth between the two for two weeks now without any outlook on a resolution. So be warned and make the necessary upgrades when you can if you have an I9300.............. I am no longer purchasing Samsung products.
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
Even if you pay for the fix they wouldn´t support you? or are you talking about warranty support?
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
No they won't touch an international S3 in the USA. Hardware and design: totally different.
[Galaxy S III General] mengtze:
And in the UK they say it is not an EU device, so sorry..............

Be forewarned if you have an I9300
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

What does that mean? "Not an eu device?"
[Galaxy S III General] erikrh:
Hi, I have about 3 months with my i9300, I'm on the affected chip, stock rom (XELLA) and rooted with the latest version of CF-Auto-root, so you could say that I'm "safe", I have never suffered a freeze, FC's or anything weird until last week when I decided to put my phone to test and installed the app called Dummy File Generator to trigger a freeze but nothing happened (luckily?) I filled the emmc multiple and consecutive times and the phone never froze, so I was thinking that my phone is actually "sane" but a few days ago it started to behave really weird, I got a lot of FC's, in fact everything FC's, (facebook, whatsapp, sms, firefox, systemUI, system processes, etc.) and then sometimes the phone soft reboots itself in other occasions it just stays there displaying a frozen Desktop, I can turn on and off the screen and the softkeys react "normally" but the screen is just frozen (I suppose it's because the FC of systemUI process), afaik there's nothing specific that triggers this behavior, could this mean that my phone is about to suffer a SD? :crying:

thank you!
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Freezing is a side affect of the fix working, however I still can never rule out an SDS
[Galaxy S III General] mengtze:
My device was shipped to the USA..... hence it is not an EU device. Samsung support sucks so badly it is almost laughable....I bought it in the US, it was used in the US, but cannot be serviced in the US, nor the UK. I am in limbo. I should be able to send it to Samsung and they need to figure out where to service it; not the user.

Samsung is not taking ownership of the issue they know is a known defect and affects more than a fair share of devices.

---------- Post added at 02:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:55 PM ----------

My phone started slowing down and I had to reboot a few times. I thought it was an app I installed, uninstalled it and things improved slightly.... then one morning it was just sitting there with a blue led flashing. Would not wake up or reboot to recovery. I pulled the battery..... and the phone was dead.... Then my Samsung support saga started.
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
First of all, where did you bought it? if it is not european nor american it only can be asinan or african right?

I just don´t Understand how can they refuse to give you assistant, if they couldn´t do it at least they should show you what can you do, wich support should you contact etc,

regarding your phone´s hardware origins, but what can i say.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Oh I see. It currently resides outside of the EU.

Yep this is common buying things from other countries. Warranties don't cross boarders. I'd never buy a US device for this reason.

You'll either need who you bought it from to help or get chummy with a Brit you trust and get them to help
[Galaxy S III General] mengtze:
I have many friends in the UK (lived and worked there for 10 years). But Samsung UK and their service center cannot support me either.... EU designation. And they cannot tell me what that exactly means nor where I can send it to........ No one seems to know a solution. But they all know it is not theirs to resolve.

Okay, I do not want to hijack this thread. Just wanted to make you guys aware of potential I9300 support issues should you suffer SDS
[Galaxy S III General] vamp_lestat:
Please you are not hijacking anything, so even if you decide to pay for the fix they wouldn´t help at least to put you in the right track? for you to get it fixed up and working? that´s too bad. when you bought it where does it came from? from were does it shipped to you?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

What I mean is, can you not mail your handset to a friend and have them contact Samsung for you? As if it was their s3
[Galaxy S III General] boo85:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

I suggest you try to wipe your device and restore to factory default first. For all you know it might just be a software fault. Then try to run the DFG again, see what the performance is like.

With XELLA, we don't think your phone will fail, just suffer freezes.
[Galaxy S III General] emmanueldmc:
Then I can download any firmware SamMobile.com no matter the region, only to be I9300XXEMB5?? (which is the newest true)?
[Galaxy S III General] kadopt:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Yes, get it here, is a UK unbranded rom.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=25922191
[Galaxy S III General] pickandwhammy:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

That is just unbelievable. But if you're in the US can't you sue them for this behaviour and get a couple of million in the process? I don't mean to mock, I'm serious!
[Galaxy S III General] mengtze:
I don't want millions..........I want them to own up and fix their issue and support model..... I am going to go viral soon.......
[Galaxy S III General] bekzdl:
problem all of a sudden silence, the new versions also continue?
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

?
[Galaxy S III General] villacelt:
just received my s3 with a new a board back today. I took it back to a three shop on Saturday.I had heard stories of them being away for weeks before being fixed, maybe there is some sort of agreement in place with the networks at this stage
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Mine was back within a week from 3 UK. They don't send it to Samsung. They're an authorised service centre, so it was 3 themselves that repaired mine.
[Galaxy S III General] Rahulrao:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2200501

Finally CWM with sds fix released
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

I need to see the source for that
[Galaxy S III General] kikin3t:
Hi

I read the first post of this topic and also the last 20 pages just to be sure about this SDS and my problem.

My S3 has the affected chip (VTU00M, 0XF1), however, about 1 month ago I received the update from the carrier (4.1.2, XELLA, Kernet, etc) so I thought that "fixed" the problem. But this week the S3 started with this freeze and random rebooting problem.. every time it got freeze I forced to reboot (with the power button) because I needed the phone.. but then the problem became even worst and I decided (based in some info I found in the web) to do the "wipe data / factory reset" (yesterday).

At the beginning everything was ok.. no more rebooting or freezing.. but then today it started freezing again. However, this time I decided to wait just to see if it recovers itself from the freeze, and it did.. actually it happened 4 times today... and it seems (based of the info of this thread) that it is the way that the bug is fixed, right?

Now my question.... after this freeze/unfreeze process.. the main problem will be fixed? should I do something else? should I expect any other problem?

By the way.. everything in my S3 is stock.. yet.

Thanks for your help
[Galaxy S III General] saprer:
My opinion:

Use ur S3 stock and if you got warranty:

-> just install a version without the SDS fix (4.1.1 STOCK)

-> phone will be bricked

-> warranty so Samsung replace your MOBO and u can live happy

sorry but ur phone will always get that fking Freezes... i cant live with a m.phone that always crashed when i need it.So this is best solution
[Galaxy S III General] kadopt:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Have you tried xxemb5 ROM? It seems it has a different sds fix, less prone to freezes.
[Galaxy S III General] drakester09:
No.

kikin3t: Can you try XXEMB5 as kadopt suggested? It *should* alleviate those nasty freezes and fix SDS as well. :)

Good luck.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Agree. MB5 is the better solution
[Galaxy S III General] RagzDog:
i had listened that download mode has his kernel ... is real ??
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

I can't understand you.
[Galaxy S III General] kadopt:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

It may be possible but cannot be confirmed as there is no source code for the bootloader. Also it's only in rare occasions that you may need to use download mode.
[Galaxy S III General] QYOBZ:
scared to death

im using i9300 with stock xxemb2 rom... i have 50+ power remaining... when i woke up it battery gets drain.. i thought its a bug from the rom.. i recently check my emmc and it say i have an insane chip.. i am scared reading sds bug... now i flashed philz recovery and i flashed omega xxemb5, flashed perseus kernel.. am i safe now...?
[Galaxy S III General] sherlock5545:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Whatever you flash, the emmc bug is going to be reported on that app all the time. By flashing a safe kernel and recovery you prevent the bug from doing any harm, the actual firmware of them chip will not change, so even it it says you have the bug, it doesn't matter. Read the topic about it.

Sent from my GT-I9300
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

I have one confusion. This sudden death is due to faulty chip or firmware or chips firmware ? If this is only firmware that does intense read/write leading to dead emmc then the same firmware should do same harm to other chips too! Why only 16gb international model gets affected? :confused:
[Galaxy S III General] drakester09:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Different chip, different firmware would be my guess.
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

U r talking abt software firmware means rom/kernal or firmware of emmc chip itself??
[Galaxy S III General] drakester09:
Firmware of emmc chip itself.
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

Then one more question that how can it be fixed with a software update?? Or m I missing something here !
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

It's not fixed. The bug in the eMMC firmware remains. The bug cannot be removed.

The "fix" we are talking about here should more accurately be refered to as a "workaround".

The workaround is in the kernel. The workaround realises when the firmware bug is triggered on the eMMC and takes evasive action, thus preventing sds.

Unfortunately that evasive action results in freezes and sometimes a reboot.. Until better workaround in MB3 / MB5
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
That means this cant be fixed at all but only prevented for some time span. Still I think this can be fixed if sammy allow us or service centers to reflash the emmc firmware. It is possible I am saying this on the basis of - like we flash/upgrade the Motherboard BIOS of PC. also i ones upgraded firmware of my DVD writer & also my friends DSL modem.

So this is my theory.. Plz lighten up this... :cowboy:
[Galaxy S III General] drakester09:
What I understand about it is that there was a code bug in the firmware, the SDS patch overwrites the faulty code in-memory and it fixes that bug.

Getting more technical: it's a NULL pointer being dereferenced, what is supposedly causing the corruption. A function does not check if the return value is NULL and it attempts to dereference it afterwards, possibly crashing something and corrupting the firmware.

Here's a great explanation by Oranav: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=37026114&postcount=21

In general all his posts in the eMMC research are very informative.

The SDS fix in kernel does indeed fix the bug, but it is a transient in-memory patch, not a permanent one. It will have to be applied in-memory on every eMMC initialization, a permanent firmware upgrade is supposedly too risky to be upgraded on the field (and no one has risked trying it yet). http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=37592260&postcount=43

The freezes were a side-effect of the first, rushed implementation - which was more of a quick fix or workaround-ish fix. It has been improved in EMBx firmwares and it no longer triggers a freeze.

Hopefully it clears it up a bit, before people start worrying that the fix is a temporary measure, or the anti-Samsung crowd starts getting creative with the conspiracy theories.

I could be wrong though but this is what I gather from reading the eMMC SD research thread.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

In my field (IT) this is called a work around, not a fix.

Yes you're right, as long as you continue to use patched kernels, you're safe. It is not (and as yet, cannot be) fixed in the true sense of the word. Maybe I'm being too pedantic, but this resolution (sds patch) works around the bug which remains present. The patch prevents the bug doing the damage but the bug is still there

But no one should worry. The patch does the job its supposed to. Just don't flash things that don't include it.
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
Can't we upgrade the whole firmware of emmc ?? plz read my above reply also.
[Galaxy S III General] danarama:
Re: [Important] Sudden Death Fix - Are you covered?

No we can't at the moment. As drakester said, its too risky.

But why would we even need to?
[Galaxy S III General] RohanM:
If we manage to flash it totally & then upgrade to a fully fixed one the issue will get solved permanently. so no need to change pcb. also we can then flash any rom, recoveries like we do normally to other phones.