[Motorola Droid RAZR] Ohmster:
Oh gosh, 2¢, now I see that you really have done all that was suggested or at least as far as you are willing to go, details below. I know for sure this always works for me, I get a good running cm11 system and everything works well, is fast, and if the user takes steps to improve the system by eliminating all non-essential apps, services, auto-updates, and then Greenify the hell out of everything everything, it should stay working well, responsive, and fast.

I will admit that having a working, expensive smart phone and wiping everything off it so that it cannot possibly work again, and then reinstalling the roms, rooting, recovery is a scary process until you finally get to see the device boot to a fully working state again. That "unsure period of time" is unsettling and scary. I would avoid that scenario at all costs, until it happened to me and I had no choice. I decided to use ClockworkMod ROM Manager on my Droid Razr because that is all I ever used previously and had paid for the Touch Version of this app. I found some mysterious "Black Edition" that was stated to work on Razr phones, but did not bother to read the followup comments before downloading and using this wonderful black edition cwm rom manager. It installed well, all seemed perfect, until, I rebooted. All I got was stuck in an "Encryption Error" loop that there was no way out of. Rebooting and even the offered "Factory Reset" would not restore the phone, it was now bricked and so was everything on it. I used Matt's Utility to get a working, rooted rom back on the phone and spent 2 days putting all my stuff back. I then saw this "Black Edition" was updated, tried it again, same thing, start from scratch, all over again and another 2 days putting everything back. So, I effectively completely ruined the phone, restored it from zero, and put everything back, TWICE, All within a 1 week period!

The Greenify donation pack, $2.99 recommended to put some system services to sleep and allow some apps to wake when they receive a push such as an incoming text message, mail, etc. Titanium Backup Pro $6.58 "must have" app.

But your issues are not covered even by the exhaustive efforts I have made, listed for you, and that you carried out. You have "crap" for a signal, period. Now this really is a horse of a different color. I am running out of ideas and really do not want to put you through hours and hours of "ideas that might work" anymore, unless I am really sure. It is time to STOP doing things and just rest and

review what we do know

.

Your system setup is unusual, very unusual. You run cm11 as stock and then run JB in a rom slot. This "unorthodox setup" you have really does not sit well with me. Being an electronic tech for over 30 years has taught me that when the hair on the back of my neck stands up, I need pay attention and focus in on the issue. And right now, my neck hair is at full mast. Most people like myself have the original, rooted, Verizon blur rom installed right where it was when I got the phone, in my stock slot. I didn't "put it there", it was there before Safe Strap and Safe Strap is what assigned it to stock since it was the only running rom on the device. BTW, if one installs Matt's Utility to get a stock rom, that rom really is the stock Verizon blur rom and is up to date for the device.

Since your stock rom is in a rom slot, it cannot be the one that came with the phone. Where in the world did you get this "stock rom" and is it the original Verizon blur rom? How did you get cm11 installed as stock and is your stock a real Verizon stock and how did you install it in a slot?

A blur rom is the original manufacturer's rom with all of the apps and framework to support the additional features such as motocast, any Motorola aps and sevices, any Verizon apps and services, blur roms are the stock rom that comes with the phone with all the bloat that Motorola and Verizon include with the phone. A rom without blur would be much like cm11, all the things you need to run the phone, install and use apps and services, but NO Motorola, Verizon, or provider apps and services. Some people like the blur, but none of it is essential. Typical blur apps like Verizon contact and phone backup ties you to Verizon as a customer. You change providers and everything you backed up is now off limits and cannot be restored.

Again, I feel really sorry that you wiped and reinstalled clean 4 times, but something here does not add up or make sense.

Their is no way you could have completely wiped that phone and installed cm11 totally clean and adjusted the slot partition sizes. You "did an end run around the start from scratch" by installing cm11 to stock and then installing a JB rom in a slot. This might be blocking our efforts to get this install clean and give cm11 a chance.

From what I understand, you are no way going to wipe the entire phone because the JB you have, "works so good", meaning you are not likely to delete or mess with it in any way. I get it, you don't want to lose the little you have left.

This is going to hamper your/our efforts.

Well, there are 2 options for you and I seriously doubt you will like option #2 or be willing to try it.

Leave the phone alone and just stick with whatever stock you have that works so well.

Do the total wipe, use Brian's updated Matt's Utility to restore the original, up to date stock Jellybean rom, root it, and install SS 3.73. Then install cm11 on a freshly created rom slot 1.

2¢ I really don't blame you for being tired of all this and just wanting to give up. A $50/Mo savings for keeping that phone is something I can really relate to. Again, because of medical issues and my central air broke and I fixed it once and for all, again this month I cannot pay all the bills. You need a rest, take a break, and let all this clear out of your head right now.

But to really have a shot at fixing this, you will eventually have to pick option #2. I *know* this works and everyone that has done it has never reported problems. They give thanks and praise for the help that finally got them a good working phone. If they do not do the maintenance afterwards, the phone performance will degenerate over time. Will it really fix your signal issues? I really don't know, you are the only one with this issue and you have a particularly and substantially different setup on your phone with regards to the installed roms. This would be a test case, I see no way as a 30+ year electronic technician that one rom can work well and another has signal issues. Hardware is hardware. It is not like "your internal antenna is broken but only on cm11". It is your last hope of trying to get this fixed. Once you have rested and get curious again, maybe you would want to try it. Maybe not. Your choice but I have done the "from scratch to Matt's to Safe Strap to cm10 and cm11" several times and never, not once, has it given me problems. Not in stock or in CyanogenMod roms.

When you are ready to deal with this I can assure you of a few things. The total and complete wipe of the phone cannot hurt you since you already lost your pds folder. A replacement folder has been uploaded by me with instructions on how to change the WiFi MAC to your previous address. Not likely to help much anyway. Matt's Utility is not difficult to use at all. The ONLY thing you must do first is install good Motorola drivers on your Windows PC so that the sideload in AP Fastboot via USB will work. You go from a totally blank phone with no OS, Safe Strap, or anything else on it to a phone with a bonafide stock Jellybean Operating System. Once the phone reboots after installing and setting up the radio files, you use the same utility that you have open and running with USB to phone to root this OS, and finally, in the same utility, you install Safe Strap 3.73. Now when you reboot, you see the SS boot screen (Not activated) and boot right to stock.

Tap the SS option at the boot menu and then tap slot 1 to create the slot. Reduce DATA partition to 2Gb. Flash known good cm11 and fresh pa-gapps. Setup wizard, kill the auto-updates, check it out, back it up in Safe Strap. Next comes the maintenance; TiBu to freeze and uninstall all unnecessary apps, Greenify everything, and I am getting ready to post a How To guide on the entire process because I learned a lot more stuff on how to make the phone work fast and be responsive. I am getting tired of writing mini how to guides for every newbie that has an issue so I will write one, comprehensive guide from A-Z that will cover it all. I save the link to post and give it out when people have serious issues.

Take a break, 2¢. Save this post as a bookmark, text file, or to a pdf file so you can come back and read it later when you really get rested and fed up. I should have the guide done by then. That "ever-so-nice" stock rom in a rom slot and not in stock where it belongs is holding you up from ever clearing everything and getting a fresh start. And even that is not guaranteed to fix things, but honestly, I cannot think of a single other thing that you can possibly do. Good luck 2¢. Relax a while and come back when ready. ;)

---------- Post added at 03:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 PM ----------

[MENTION=5711114]Bobcus Leper[/MENTION]

Installing CM11 on a the Stock Slot

I need to finish up my details on this reply to save for reference and when I get ready to do it. I see where you wiped everything you could in Safe Strap. Internal storage failed. I actually did wipe the internal storage in Safe Strap, but to do it, I had to connect phone to PC with USB cable connected, then tap the Mount button in SS to "Mount USB storage" and then mount internal storage. This opens up the 8GB internal storage partition to a Windows Explorer window. From within Windows, you can then "format" this partition and for sure, it will be wiped. Not important for my question.

So what you did was wipe, while Stock Slot Activated:

Android Secure

Cache

Dalvik

Data

System

After wiping you did a Factory Reset. Where did you get this option? Since you effectively destroyed the stock OS, where did this choice come from? During boot up, a special combination of buttons to hold while power up, or some other way?

Alright, this part I am not clear on. HOW did you do this? When Stock is set to "Active" in Boot Options, the Install and Wipe buttons are RED, but the still appear to work. So you simply flashed cm11 and pa-gapps while Stock was activated so it would be installed to the stock slot? Yeah, I just checked in Safe Strap and it does appear one could do this.

So, where did you get the Factory Reset option once you wiped out the stock partition?

Thanks, this will really clear things up for me so I can file it in my cm11 reference library. :)

Safe Strap has no "Install" button present while Stock is set to "Active" in Boot Options. You could not have flashed cm11 in Safe Strap as a stock rom in the Stock