[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] jkovacs89:
I’m new at this and haven’t posted before because I can usually find what I need by searching, but I have a problem that really has me stumped. I’ve searched and tried different things for a week with no success, so here goess...

Starting Point:

AT&T Galaxy S3 (d2att functioning perfectly)

Stock 4.3 I747UCUEMJB ROM, bootloader, & modem (from actual AT&T OTA)

Rooted with Towelroot

Custom recovery TWRP v2.7.1

Chainfire SuperSU v2.01

Stericson BusyBox v1.22.1

Minimal Changes from Stock:

Disabled Knox

Bloatware frozen with Titanium Backup Pro

What I did:

Made a full nandroid backup with TWRP and full backup with Titanium

I wanted to get the 4.4.2 OTA but kept getting the “installation interrupted” error

I read that I needed to return to absolute stock so I followed the instructions in the post http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2658486 using TWRP and the file link in the post.

Followed the instructions in the post with no error messages but it would not boot past the AT&T logo screen

So I decided to recover the nandroid backup, do some more reading, and try again another time

The Problem:

After recovering the nandroid backup it booted normally but I had no signal and got repeated errors from Evernote saying it could not create the database

Checked “About Device” and discovered Baseband = unknown

I did some searching and flashed the I747UCUEMJB modem I found in this post http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1831898 but Baseband was still unknown

Did some more searching and checked “About Device -> Status” to find both IMEI and IMEISV = unknown, Bluetooth MAC = unknown (everything else was correct)

I thought the nandroid backup contained EVERYTHING on the phone so I tried doing another recovery of my nandroid backup (I figured what the heck, who knows) with no change

Did some more searching and read about IMEI and EFS, and ways to backup IMEI, but I hadn’t seen or heard of that before so I didn’t have one. (I also discovered that TWRP for d2att does not backup the EFS partition, nor apparently wherever this illusive IMEI resides if not there)

I decided to check my Titanium backups and it seems the file system was corrupted, Titanium found the backup folder on my SD card but said it was inaccessible, and it couldn’t create a new backup folder anywhere else either ( making sure it had root privileges in SuperSU and it did)

I started poking around with Root Explorer, FX, and ES File Manager (all with root) and found they could see everything and create folders but they couldn’t copy, move or delete anything that existed prior to all this

Then I tried flashing the latest CM10 Stable for d2att and it failed with the error: assert failed: getprop("ro.bootloader") == "I747UCUFNE4"

Also tried latest CM11 Nightly and it failed with the same error

I was really confused because I knew (assumed) I was on I747UCEMJB bootloader from my nandroid backup, but after installing Root Checker I discovered I was, in fact, on the I747UCUFNE4 bootloader

Thinking “Ok, maybe my whole problem is a mismatch with running UCUEMJB ROM with UCUFNE4 bootloader),” I tried flashing the I747UCUEMJB - Oct 11, 2013 - boot_CWM_I747UCUEMJB.zip - 1.14 MB I found in this thread http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2321310 to fix the mismatch, but it fails with the error TWRP error, “You cannot flash from your current bootloader version. Current Version: I747UCUFNE4”

At several points I also tried doing a factory reset and flashing a different stock image with ODIN 3.07, but no luck. I also should mention I cleared cache and Dalvik before every flash and reset.

So, for whatever reason, my file system is corrupted, I have no idea how I got the I747UCUFNE4 bootloader (I know I had I747UCUEMJB because I have screen shots from before the nandroid backup), recovering from the nandroid backup did not recover the original UCUEMJB bootloader, I can’t flash back to the old bootloader, my IMEI is gone, and my file system is corrupted.

Given the level of functionality I can't say the phone is bricked, I’ve gone as far as I know how and I desperately need help. If anyone with knowledge has suggestions I’m open to just about anything at this point.

Thanks,

…Joe K.