yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
You can always try the original UVDLJC I linked that will work with latest nightlies. I used my own update.zip file that I posted here and my phone works fine now using the latest UVDMD5 full firmware (incl. radio).

Oh yeah -- both these update.zips contain the radio so if you don't want the MD5 or LJC radio, better update it to something else afterward.

You can check my work, read the META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script file. You can dd all those mmcblk0pX partitions to backup files, too. Maybe I'll make a firmware back up script while I'm at it.

There's nothing really scary about this -- you get these exact same files flashed to your phone in the same place if you use the UVDMD5 stuff in Odin, except you'll probably overwrite your recovery and system as well and spend extra time restoring it.

Steps for using it, in case this is unclear:

(1) Put this .zip file on the root of your sdcard.

(2) Reboot to recovery

(3) Choose .zip file from sdcard and select this file and flash it.

(4) Reboot and you're done. I didn't find any wiping of any kind necessary.

I'm running cm10.1-20130513-d2tmo with imoseyeon's leankernel 5.9 on my SGH-T999. Haven't upgraded to the newer nightly yet as nothing looked interesting enough in the changelog.

Oh and:

root@android:/ # getprop ro.bootloader
T999UVDMD5
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Misterjunky:
ok, thanks now I know I don't need it because I just am not a fan of the CM10/AOKP/AOSP roms.

Good luck with it.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
FWIW, I'm getting much better radio performance after switching to UVDMD5 modem. YMMV but I'm definitely getting better up/down and stronger signal indoor where I had terrible signal. But you you can just flash the modem separately from this .zip -- there's a thread in the d2tmo dev forum with the modems and their recovery flashable update.zip files.

The OP of said thread also undertook a project to allow people to post on some shared Google Map what modem they're using and their results, so you might want to look into what works best for your area too if you care about getting better signal or speed.

Cyanogen pushed the assert for newer bootloaders in the 5/14 nightly I believe as there were lots of people complaining about random crashes and supposedly much fewer reports on newer firmwares. I actually wasn't having this problem very much with LeanKernel, though it did seem to be happening like crazy at some point.

I actually didn't know about all the bootloader versions for our phones until today, it was interesting diving into all this stuff. I discovered at the beginning I was running with the same firmware the device had shipped with and if Cyanogen hadn't pushed for the newer bootloaders, I might have let things be. But since he pushed for it, I decided might as well have the latest stuff.

Cheers
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] itzsmokey:
Seen this after I flashed it.....it works perfect, I did a clean install just to have things fresh.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] razielpr:
I don't know if I have a newer bootloader or not but flashed cm 10.1 and it runned perfect how do I know if I have it.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] tdizzle404:
NM
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Aerowinder:
I thought about making one of these. The only reason I didn't is because I don't know how Odin is working.

If it is just using an equivalent to dd, then why do the filenames have different extensions? Why do they have extensions at all? WTB Odin source code.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
It is just DD which is what basically Odin would do anyway. The filenames are irrelevant. It's what data goes to which mmcblk0 partition. The file names are what they are as they are taken from the T999 UVDMD5 Odin .zip and for clarity. Why would I rename aboot.mbn to some random file name?

Just run heimdall print-pit some day and you can see how your eMMC is partitioned and what goes where. I could've flashed all these files with heimdall using the correct named partition identifiers rather than numeric identifiers, but I found it more convenient to make a flashable update.zip.

Update however you want, but as someone who doesn't use Windows and doesn't like screwing around with heimdall / Download Mode much, just dd'ing the files to the correct partitions was the most elegant solution I could find.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mondokat:
Nice work!

I don't know if you just copied the other one, but the comments in the script are great, it's easy to tell what's what. I may try to make one of these that doesn't flash the system bits, so the folks running CM10 that just want the latest nightly can just flash a zip and carry on instead of asking a billion questions. I think that means only including the aboot, rpm, tz, and modem pieces, right? The sbl ones aren't needed if you want to stay with CM.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
Thanks though I can't take credit for writing the script. I just extracted the UVDLJC firmware updater script written by another dev, substituted the UVDMD5 files in, updated the script with the new SHA1 sums, and re-zipped it, thus making a flashable UVDMD5 updater script.

It does not flash the system -- it just flashes aboot, rpm, tz, modem, and some sbl files. I run CM10.1 and was able to just flash this without killing any of my system stuff. Recovery, system, kernel, etc. are all preserved. You can make a backup (as anyone should anyway), but you shouldn't need to do any restore or even a cache wipe after flashing either UVDLJC or UVDMD5 updater since it's just bootloader, modem, and some other pieces unrelated to system/kernel.

In retrospect, it would've been trivial to extend the script to create backups of the current partitions on the phone. In fact, I'm pondering a "firmware flasher" script that gives one a menu of different firmwares and ability to backup/restore for fun. Then again, I've never touched these firmware bits until Cyanogen necessitated a newer bootloader in CM10.1.

Anyway, I modified this script for myself at first and I had spent the whole day trying to research the topic without too much info. I saw S3s from other carriers had update ZIPs and was frustrated at the lack of one for d2tmo. After testing it on myself successfully and realizing how safe it is, I decided to just release it so people can benefit from it by upgrading their firmware or ripping it apart and learning how it works and/or making it better.

On a side note, do you know what the SBL files are for? You say they're not needed for CM but I ended up updating them anyway (as this script does) and it didn't break anything with CM. I figured it was best practice to just update them, but I could be wrong. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated as I couldn't find much info.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] pyro43284:
Thanks for putting this together it has made a huge difference for me with the new radio I have gained 7 mb down and 3 mb up from this I'm running jovy stockoaroma rom right now :D:D:thumbup: great idea I was going to odin so I could update that now I don't have to...
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] djtheraven:
How can you check what bootloader you have?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mondokat:
Here's what I found:

http://tjworld.net/wiki/Android/HTC/Vision/BootProcess

SBL = Secondary Boot Loader

According to the article, the sbl is something like an efi bios, basically it turns on a bunch of hardware bits and then hands off to the next stage of booting. So I guess now we know. :silly: I'd think if you are updating the boot loader, you'd want to include the secondary bootloader as well. Probably your zip file is correct in that if you update any of those pieces, you should PROBABLY update all of them to the same revision, just in case.

Which means EXTRA thanks to you, for doing the work. Now when people say "why can't I flash the latest CM10?" we can just point to this thread and say "flash that first".

:highfive:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Android_Monsters:
Thanks op so much for this. Running the latest cm nightlies again
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
Just open up a shell either in your ROM or CWM Recovery (adb shell) and run:

$ getprop ro.bootloader

It should print out something like "T999UVDMD5"

I had T999UVALG1 before I upgraded the firmware.

EDIT: If you're going to do it in CWM Recovery, you might have to do it as root. Make sure to adb kill-server as root to kill any adb servers that may be running and a subsequent adb shell should grant you access.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Josh McGrath:
So you sent them back with a different rom on it? I think the guys who do the refurbishing either don't get paid enough to care or are too stupid to check to see if it's rooted

Sprint s3 …sold

T-Mobile s3 running wicked
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
First off, sorry to hear about the bricked phone. The explanation about different partition sizes makes most sense. I'd be interested to see a PIT dump from the ATT model to compare to my TMO model.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure they'd have a hard time enforcing that, at least in California. They'd have to prove that the customer BROKE the phone with the custom software (which they define as "custom software" -- so what about anything from Play Store?). Now some people could say the phone is broken -- it doesn't boot, etc. But on the other hand, it completely works, it's just in a bad software state.

In a no-boot condition like that + warranty, a company like Samsung isn't going to wait for your phone to arrive, inspect it in detail, and deny you because of a custom ROM, that sounds ridiculous. I'd think more likely they'd toss it in their to-refurb pile and send you one off the refurb'd pile.

Then again my only phone warranty experience was with the Android Dev Phone 1 and HTC repaired it for free. I didn't have a warranty (it was a gift from when I was working at Google) that I knew of and I had dropped it. I didn't tell them I dropped it, it should've been kinda obvious I did, but I guess it would've been hard to prove that the drop is what broke the phone.

Anyway, I got that phone back actually repaired instead of a refurb'd unit, but I think it's more likely because it was the original Dev Phone 1, not a mass consumer phone.

FWIW if I ever have trouble with a phone, I might just drop it and take the TMO $5 replacement warranty for it depending on what state it's in. There are some cases I'd rather just take a random draw on a refurb than repair.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] bosna110:
Isn't there a newer modem than the vmd5 or whatever the full name is?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
UVDMD5 for full, or MD5 for short. MD5 is kind of weird to call it because of the namespace collision with the hash-sum algorithm.

That's a good question. I don't keep track of this stuff as much as I should. If there is, I'll look tomorrow and package up a new updater.

I'm also trying to write an MDL updater for jfltetmo; I got my wife one and it's not as easy as the updater for the T999. I tried a modified T999 updater and it didn't take the writes, just failed quietly. I managed to flash it over a very tedious, manual process using heimdall and lots of hard reboots, but it wasn't pretty. I heard of some loki_flash program that bypasses the write protection on the ATT models, I may look at using that for the S4 models.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
MD5 is the latest, and unless we get lucky with some leaks again (which I doubt), it will probably remain so for another month or two, maybe longer.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] bosna110:
Reason why I ask is because I'm having signal penetration issues as wrong as that sounds Lol. I always keep using WiFi but why use WiFi when in paying for a data plan when I can't get damn data even in my living room with no obstructions to receiving not a single bar of data
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
Welcome to the club, I have the same problem but I run CM10.1 so I gave up wifi calling. Those Cel-Fi boosters seem to work nice, though not for data.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
There are lots of reasons to use WiFi over data.

1. It's faster

2. Uses less battery

3. More reliable

4. Leaves bandwidth open for those who need it and are not close to WiFi

5. You spent your money on your WiFi equipment and monthly service, don't you want your money's worth there too?

And consider, if you pay for cable/satellite tv, do you have to use.it as much as possible to feel that it's worth it?

Just because we used to be limited on our data plans, shouldn't mean that we should abuse the service now that they gave us what we wanted.

Anyway, if you are having issues, try the other modems. Just because it's the latest, doesn't make it the best for your area.

Sorry for the mini-rant! Not intended towards anyone personally.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Qverse:
Doc :good: Not a Rant at all .. Its a Great Point ! The use of WiFi is a important factor for me for all those reasons you mentioned :cool:
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] bosna110:
Cyanogen has added great features to the ROM but its not something I like. I could probably incest about 100 a month and get better signal thru another company.but lucky for me I'm in the contract for another year and 6 months :)
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
I've heard some say T-Mobile is not supplying them anymore, and others have told me they are, but why not call em up and see if they will send you a booster for your home? Especially if their coverage map shows you should get a good signal. I know that they would send them out for free for those type situations.

Also, try toggling airplane mode on then off again. This will reconnect you to the best available tower for your current location.

I would start with trying the other modems though. It is quite possible that there'd be no need to look into a new, $100 plan. Or the booster.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Josh McGrath:
Also do you have radiant barrier in your house? That stuff kills Cell signals

Sprint s3 …sold

T-Mobile s3 running wicked
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
JFYI, the signal boosters are labelled for single family homes only and have a strong recommendation to use a landline for 911. I'm guessing they were having FCC compliance issues. Maybe they'll give it out in special cases.

But, worth calling and see what they say. I'm curious myself. If they're not trying to drag you into contract extension or anything and it's free, sounds like a great deal.

The tech guy I spoke with on the phone said he'd check signal coverage in my area an potentially have to get back to me with "bad news" -- and he did come back to me with "bad news", saying if I wanted good coverage here I might as well go with another carrier! It's ridiculous because San Jose otherwise has great coverage. It's just this tiny area is screwed up. I'll get four bars of HSPA+ around the corner and it's so slow NetFlix won't play. A few blocks down and it's all gravy.

It's not so bad otherwise, else I'd probably have switched carriers. The LTE in San Jose and San Francisco is really nice on my wife's S4. Now the the S4 Active has been announced I really am seriously thinking about getting the S4 Active I537 (ATT) as it appears to do all the TMO frequencies. It seems to be all that the S4 should have been and wasn't.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Kyle Chen:
̶I̶ ̶f̶l̶a̶s̶h̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶y̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶c̶m̶1̶0̶.̶1̶.̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶?̶

Nevermind. Fixed the problem
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
You didn't reboot after flashing the bootloader did you? :silly: Glad it worked out.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] ssjgotengt:
i just called 2 nights ago, and as long as your account with T-Mobile meets certain criteria they will send you one... Im getting mine next week !(and it was free) :)

And to clarify this new modem increases signal reception ?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
Good to know. Thanks!

And the modem may or may not increase your signal. Different modems have different results depending mostly upon your location. You just have to refer to the map and/or try them all out to find whats best for you.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] ssjgotengt:
Dude call T-Mobile right now i just got my Cel-Fi a week early <3 this thing. Full bars EVERYWHERE in the house love it (3G and 4G).
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
So you are getting mobile data through it as well? I heard it would only help with voice calls.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
It's a *FULL* WCDMA / HSPA repeater. That means, yes, data. Not very fast -- I've been only able to get about 400Kbps vs. 13Mbps outside in a good spot, downlink. Of course, just HSPA not HSPA+. They do make LTE models incl. probably TMO LTE ones now directly from Cel-Fi (I'd check eBay)

Interesting that they are still offering them to "select customers" -- I wonder what the selection criteria is. I've been a customer with them since 2009, am under contract for another year, have always been in good standing...

When I called their customer service, I got the run-around, got bounced to tech support and they opened a ticket to check my area out and declared my area sucks and they won't be improving it anytime soon. It's interesting because in the area (radius of a few blocks), we get full HSPA+ signal (4 bars) but can't get Netflix to even open in this one spot on the street.

Anyway, their tech support guy said they don't support the Cel-Fis but I figured it was some kind of bull****. I don't think half the people at TMO know what's going on, if my past employment at Google has given me any insight into how large megalithic corporations work.

While the data isn't great, it IS useful. I had a Comcast service outage a few nights ago and it was nice to be able to switch off WiFi and still at least read my email and stuff, even though it was slow. It certainly seems reliable and calls work superb!

Normally I get 0-1 bars in my room. I only managed to get the repeater-receiver to pick up 2 bars by the kitchen window. I scanned the whole apartment and short of hanging it off the ceiling in some random spot to get 3 bars, that's the best I could do. But wow, amazing how much that got me. I get 3-4 bars of H signal in my room now.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] BuLLeT_PrOOf_wAlleTz:
How big is the file supposed to be?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
Shouldn't be very big at all. Maybe around 20-25mbps with modem I'm guessing. Maybe 1-2mbps without.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
20MB with modem or 1.3MB without. Doc was on it :)
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] tj gamino:
OK so I flashed this on my T999L like a straight idiot and now my phone won't boot or go into download or anything.. I can't believe I didn't catch that small detail.. I just got the phone yesterday at my local wal mart.. I did have a ROM already installed. And I didnot reset the counter thing(whatever its called). Should I try a something to fix it or should I just return it to wal mart and tell them it just stopped working?.. Will they eventually figure out its rooted and try to charge me is what I'm really asking.. Thanks
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
Some here have claimed that they exchanged without issues. Worst they will say is no. May as well try.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] slackerlack:
What do you suggest I do if I flashed the Canadian version on my US phone by mistake? It wont boot or do **** now.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Da Kine:
Pay around $80 (depending on how fast you want it fixed and back in your hands) for a JTAG repair.

http://mobiletechvideos.mybigcommerce.com/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-jtag-brick-repair/?fullSite=1
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] mnasledov:
Ouch sorry that happened. I'll add an additional warning for T999L devices. Generally if it doesn't explicitly list your model, you probably shouldn't be flashing it =\

You should just be able to take it back to them. Don't act like you know anything. "Uh, it just stopped working" -- play like a total consumer idiot who knows nothing. Can't hurt to try.

Do you have insurance on your device? I have full coverage on mine -- if I drop it and destroy it, they'll replace it for $5 right away. If I ever come to the situation that I need to replace my phone, I'm just going to drop it really hard and make sure it doesn't work. Easiest way.

It's not like they have a laboratory of people inspecting every single phone in detail and some guy going "A-ha! This guy returned his phone because he bricked it! Better go after him!" ... Nope. Once you've done the deal with them and get your replacement phone, the deal is done. Once you have receipt in hand for it, that's your *LEGAL CONTRACT* of ownership for that device.

Know your rights and don't let people trample on them.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] tj gamino:
Its cool bro. I took my bricked phone over there, played dumb and was able to get a fresh rig. I had no idea TMo had 2 different variants. Thought we all had the same thing. My fault for not doing the research before hand. But hey you live and you learn. I'm currently running stock but I am rooted. I'm just going to camp out and wait till somebody drops a ROM specifically for the T999L preferably TW with all the bells and whistles.. Either way my S3 is sooo much faster than anything I had before (OG Evo> E4GT :both rooted)..So ya I'm happy for now. But I know eventually I'm gonna need my flash fix. So please if anybody has something in the works for us T999L'ers we are at your mercy. God bless and happy flashing
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Aerowinder:
The current ones don't work? Are they breaking your LTE?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
You can flash T999 roms. Just don't mess with the firmware like what's in this thread.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] tj gamino:
Well what happened wasssss... I rooted via Odin no problem. Then I flashed CWM via Odin no problem. Downloaded a custom ROM I wanted to try (Wicked v10). Flashed it, it booted, waited 5-10 min rebooted and after about 15 min no data whatsoever. Started searching what could be the issue and came across this thread. I even read the OP that clearly said this only for the T999. Not knowing until after I flashed that I have a T999L. So ya I flashed and then winded up with a brand new state of the art paper weight:(.. Took my bricked phone back, played completely dumb. Told them it just stopped working after I charged it. And was able to get a new phone. All this within 24 hours of actually buying the darn thing. I've flashed countless Roms and mods and kernels in the past, but this was the first time I completely bricked a rig. So, now I just Dont want to go around flashing anything that's thrown out there. Just sitting tight till I know the coast is clear.. I have faith in the entire Android community that I will be running a custom ROM in no time. Most devs are totally cool and way smarter when it comes to getting things to work on different devices than I ever will be.

---------- Post added at 12:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 PM ----------

Sweet!!..what would be the correct step if I dont have working data?.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
You may have lost the imei.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] oreice:
i try to flash latest bootloader and all it does is give me another get prop error it doesn't make sense it doesn't even give me the chance to switch or anything what exactly is wrong with it?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] Aerowinder:
What is the error message?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] oreice:
assert failed getprop(ro.product.device') == d2tmo (repeats) error in sdcar/download/(file_name) status 7
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
And what model phone do you have? How did you ho about installing recovery?
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] DocHoliday77:
Did you see my reply? It looks like we submitted at the same time so you may have missed it.

I'm thinking you probably have the wrong version recovery for your model phone.
[T-Mobile, Samsung Galaxy SIII] oreice:
Is that fixable by flashing the right one?