yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[ZenFone 2 General] Kona67:
You are in trouble. The solution is restart in bootloader and fastboot erase cache. We don't have bootloader. Wiping cache in stock recovery is very very long. Be patient.
[ZenFone 2 General] aguiamaster:
https://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20121106-01.en.html

Enviado do meu iPhone usando o Tapatalk
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Too bad I'm in Canada. I should look up the law here actually...
[ZenFone 2 General] aguiamaster:
In Europe asus cannot make you loose your waranty

Enviado do meu iPhone usando o Tapatalk

---------- Post added at 11:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:38 PM ----------

Will take to my lawyer, but i believe asus cannot do that demands if its in Europe, so they will need to change the warnings, and samsung too

Enviado do meu iPhone usando o Tapatalk
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
I guess being in the states I'm screwed lol
[ZenFone 2 General] :
I don't know...they provide a tool they say voids the warranty, but the tool didn't do what it was supposed to. One could say they should be on the hook to either get your device back to the state it was prior to running the tool and still in warranty, or get your device to an unlocked state with a void warranty.

Hopefully ASUS_Khang gets a solution. It might be too little too late for me, but you guys might still get lucky.
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
One can only hope. I wish you luck
[ZenFone 2 General] creison:
Agree with you.

Your device no longer gets in recovery mode?
[ZenFone 2 General] :
After getting a RAW image and using the asus flash tool I now have working fastboot and it appears as though I have a working recovery. I had to absolutely MASH the button in the asus flash tool while it's booting to fastboot for it to do anything. It was likely a timing thing and had to be timed just right. So right now it looks like I have working fastboot, working recovery, an unlocked bootloader and my phone is working again...

Attempting to flash a new recovery fails with a permission denied error, which makes me think the bootloader isn't truly unlocked.

Either way, my phone works again, so I'm pretty damn happy.
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
No 5 second reboot?
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Nope.

I can't use fastboot for anything though, I get permission denied no matter what...

But, it's better than the phone not booting at all, like it was half an hour ago!
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
How about a simple fastboot reboot command
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Yes, that does work. Like I say, fastboot appears to work, it just gives permission denied errors for any command that writes something to the system.

---------- Post added at 06:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------

Soooooooo I decided to get adventurous....

Even though fastboot said "permission denied" when I attempted to flash TWRP, I booted to recover and low and behold it was actually TWRP! So, I copied the latest CM12 nightly and gapps over and wiped then installed them. It's currently booting.

Looks like I managed to get an unlocked bootloader after all. After installing CM and the GAPPS in TWRP everything appears to be working as expected. No going back now!
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
Congrats. I pmd you
[ZenFone 2 General] creison:
Congrats man.

What flash tool did u use, the 2.0.1 ?

Did your boot screen changed to white or it unlocked and still with black screen?

---------- Post added at 10:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------

Please tell us what u done to get with TWRP its all i want :)
[ZenFone 2 General] ASUS_Khang:
Lol, pics or it didn't happen. :)
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
I cant click fast enough i guess, i get a firmware mismatch (the raw image is older than current firmware) that pops up a box, which I believe is stopping me from flashing.
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Here's my about phone screen right now. I think maybe I just got incredibly lucky!
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
Awesome, at least one of us found the light.
[ZenFone 2 General] Guelo_tweaks:
Congratulations!
[ZenFone 2 General] :
If anyone else wants to ignore [MENTION=6922370]ASUS_Khang[/MENTION] and potentially ruin your phone, pop over to the "unbricking research" thread and find the post that contains the links to the raw image file and the asus flash tool.

Then attempt to get your phone to the bootloader without rebooting by holding volume up and power, keep holding volume up until the bootloader flashes once. You should be left with an error about being unable to mount partition or similar.

Once it's in that state try using the asus flash tool.

All at your own risk, and all if you don't want to wait for asus to come back with any sort of solution. I would recommend waiting but since I broke things by trying to wipe the cache I really had nothing to lose.
[ZenFone 2 General] Kona67:
Not working for me: Flash image failure (FAILED (data transfer failure (Unknown error))) :(
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Try rebooting to the bootloader and see if it's still rebooting automatically... Mine was saying something similar but it worked. Like I've said though, pretty sure I just got incredibly lucky.
[ZenFone 2 General] Treklof:
@ Al Iraki

Quote:

after reboot to bootloader press volume up and it will show your serial number

Other informations blocked by Asus

Thank you. Got it. So everyone has the same missing values for secure boot etc.?
[ZenFone 2 General] aguiamaster:
Yes, but in Europe ASUS can't do this, and they will know that, i payed for the phone, so legally it's mine, especially when they give us the bootloader app unlock

Enviado do meu ASUS_Z00AD através de Tapatalk
[ZenFone 2 General] Rattraps123:
[MENTION=4057119]m3t4lw01f[/MENTION] Can you post a link to the unlock thread you used, and a link to the tool you used ? Thanks ~ Travis
[ZenFone 2 General] :
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=3162848

There's a lot of info in that thread. Neat the end there's a post with the asus flash tool and a raw image. Best of luck.
[ZenFone 2 General] Kona67:
Not working. You are lucky :)
[ZenFone 2 General] roguetr:
Oh guys ... I feel for all of you. I saw the announce for the official unlock 4 days ago, applied it and all worked fine. Flashed twrp, backed up my stock and installed CM 12.1 nightly 20151020 ... which runs awesome, better than the stock bloat ... with only some very minor issues. My stock had been rooted, I'd stripped zenUI apps and I had a pattern for my lock screen. Not one error and no problems. The only thing I did different was to try the unofficial method first on an unsupported (newest) stock rom (created the Asuskey entry). I'm guessing though that they fixed the unlock method by the time I tried.

Good luck to anyone still having issues. If you can get it sorted ... a leaner, cleaner and meaner Z00A is just over the horizon :) ... minus google play drm ... oh noes I can't play Shaun the Sheep and Pacific Rim (the only shows I have in my library).
[ZenFone 2 General] Onyx VI:
So you flashed twrp with unlocked stock recovery.

---------- Post added at 07:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:13 AM ----------

Which firmware version were you running before you flashed the raw. And did you have to wipe anything flashing it?

---------- Post added at 07:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------

Guys apparently I've been successful is stopping the reboot in 5 secs in fastboot. I rebooted it into it the first time and it kinda reboot after 5 secs I tried again but this time I kept holding the volume up. And it said result failed to mount necessary partition.
[ZenFone 2 General] hoybobbah:
Hello,

I just bought a ZE551ML 64GB, which is a CN version (got scammed).

4G doesnt works here, in France.

Is there a way to have proprer 4G if I flash the firmware to WW and unlock the bootloader ? In other terms, can we modify LTE Bands from HW ?

Thanks very much in advance,

Best regards
[ZenFone 2 General] kanagawaben:
This post shouldn't really be on this thread, as it has nothing to do with this topic. But anyway, the answer to your question is unfortunately no. You are stuck with 3G only I'm afraid.
[ZenFone 2 General] samijam:
I can do this too, but fastboot won't work when this message is there for me. Will it work for you?
[ZenFone 2 General] Onyx VI:
Lol I have no computer to test it out with. Currently waiting for a family member to ship down my computer. I moved.
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
I just managed to get the same error, and I still have 5 second reboot...
[ZenFone 2 General] bradlaue:
Foolishly tried this despite the warnings - fails to unlock the bootloader, recovery reboots after 5 seconds - same as others have encountered.

Do we know whether the unlock app phones in the phone's newly blacklisted status BEFORE or AFTER the unlocking process succeeds?
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
It looks like when you you push to unlock device, it flags us, probably before reboot, as our serial numbers are flagged
[ZenFone 2 General] Guelo_tweaks:
Yeah, I'm convinced that's exactly what this app was designed to do instead of actually unlocking anything. That's why ASUS_Khanger was all like, "pictures or it didn't happen.", instead of being excited for the community and asking him to reproduce the steps he took so his "team" could automate the process for the lucky ones who haven't already broken their phone's with their bogus app.
[ZenFone 2 General] ASUS_Khang:
Since day 1, I've been nothing but supportive of this community. When I say "pics or it didn't happen", that means I'm being sarcastic and am truly happy for him. Didnt I even add a " lol"? I believe I even thanked the post with his success!

Why are you making me out to be some scumbag?
[ZenFone 2 General] troy5890:
Chill Guelo, I'm pretty sure he's doing the best he can to help out in this process. All anyone ask for is for him to try his best
[ZenFone 2 General] Level99:
Its nice to hear some success stories! So there must be some kind of common threat with all of us that have had trouble.
[ZenFone 2 General] roguetr:
Don't stress, plenty of people can see you're making an effort. You can't please everyone.

I used the tool and didn't have even a hint of a problem, so the tool works, the fact you are helping the people having an issue in a public forum is commendable ... even to the point of replicating the issue with your own phone!

I'm sure there are some people quite appreciative of your participation.
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
I appreciate what you're trying to do for us bro.
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Yeah seriously dude. You're cool in my books. Some people just have a hate on for some reason and since you happen to work for them you're the focus of their anger.

I rather seriously doubt asus or any other company would knowingly destroy customer's devices. That's pure insanity.
[ZenFone 2 General] YayILikePie:
I, for one, certainly appreciate your help and dedication to us fellow Zenfone users. Here's hoping the development team comes up with a quick fix. No company would deliberately put out software to cripple their own product. That's just silly.
[ZenFone 2 General] ASUS_Khang:
Hi everyone,

There has been some progress made. Keep in mind, my bootloader is still broken - and I keep getting "unlock successful..reboot in 5 seconds" in the bootloader menu.

- Redownloaded the unlock tool and installed it

- Disabled the lockscreen

- Launched the unlock tool

- It unlocked successfully and rebooted with white splash screen

BUT this is what I am currently experiencing:

- Still have to use ADB to get into recovery because vol up + Power doesn't seem to do anything...

- Once I am in recovery, I see a log + the option "apply update from SD card" is missing (this is what I had seen previously as well)

- I can reboot bootloader, but I get the unlock successful + reboot in 5 seconds remains

- If I press up on the volume, I can suspend the action, if I press down, then it cycles through the bootloader options

HQ is aware of what I am going through and they are still trying some things to fix...Let me know what you guys are still experiencing!

UPDATE: While pressing up multiple times while the phone was rebooting into the bootloader, I get a RESULT: FAIL (cannot mount the necessary partition) And the fastboot is stable...I can run fastboot commands!
[ZenFone 2 General] Rattraps123:
Still have the problems, But I have a working phone, just waiting for an official fix so I don't brick this phone. Thx for your help [MENTION=6922370]ASUS_Khang[/MENTION] ~ Travis
[ZenFone 2 General] creison:
Same here:\
[ZenFone 2 General] AL_IRAQI:
Use Unofficial method to unlock your bootloader its better and you won't lose your ota
[ZenFone 2 General] ASUS_Khang:
This is true, but hopefully we'll get the official fix too :)
[ZenFone 2 General] Rodepo:
People who really believe that are out of their minds. It would generate so much bad press for Asus that they'd get into serious trouble immediately. It would be an international scandal.
[ZenFone 2 General] :
If you've already attempted the official and are stuck like the folks in this thread, the unofficial method won't work. You need a working fastboot, and the state the unlock tool leaves it in isn't what I'd call "working".

Through some miracle I managed to recover mine using the asus flash tool and a raw image. Since I had completely broken my phone's ability to boot screwing around with fastboot in its broken state, I had very little to lose at that point. I still get errors when attempting to do things via fastboot, but I did manage to get CM12 installed.

Now, if you HAVEN'T attempted the official unlock, by all means go for the unofficial. I would wholeheartedly agree that's the way to go until we get an update from ASUS.
[ZenFone 2 General] AL_IRAQI:
i unlocked my bootloader with unofficial method after 1 hour from purchasing the device :p
[ZenFone 2 General] :
This is exactly what I experienced as well. When I got it to this point I attempted to do the unofficial unlock method, but fastboot actually crashed on my PC when attempting one of the commands. (Can't remember which). Then I decided to attempt to format the cache (fastboot format cache) and got an error message about unknown partition or something, so I did a fastboot erase cache and got a permission denied error.

From there the phone would no longer boot. It went straight to a dead android with the word error underneath and flashed. Couldn't enter recovery, couldn't boot to the OS. Could still get in to fastboot using the method above though. Then I used the asus flash tool and a raw image I found in the "unbricking research" thread and by some miracle (I still have no idea how!) it recovered to the point of being able to boot again. I'm not even sure _what_ I did to be honest. I just pressed the hell out of the start button in the asus flash tool as my device was booting to fastboot.

After I did that, it seemed to clear out that pending command from fastboot and from there I could flash TWRP and install CM. Fastboot still told me it failed to write the recovery (permission denied error) but upon booting to recovery it was indeed TWRP and not stock anymore.

Right now any command I do in fastboot appears to fail with a permission denied error, and I have no way to tell if it actually worked or not (just like fastboot flash recovery twrp.img had a failed status, but still actually flashed it).

Since I have a working TWRP and can flash custom roms, I'm not too concerned about it, but if someone has any ideas what is going on I'm all ears.
[ZenFone 2 General] Level99:
Okay. Okay. *hyperventilating*

I flashed a custom recovery successfully. Let me repeat that, I flashed TWRP successfully on my device.

Here is the exact series of steps I used. It may or may not work, and I still need to test flashing back to stock recovery before all rejoicing can be done, but it's definitely worth investigating:

I did the key combo to bootloader once. Spam pressed Vol Up when bootloader loaded, ended up at the typical "RESULT:FAIL" screen. Tried a couple of times to boot directly from a sent image, to no avail. Wanted to get into recovery (it had been about 5 minutes since I started, I also switched USB ports in between that time), so I pressed Volume Down. The screen went black, but the device did not do anything. No reboot, no recovery. I wanted to see if Fastboot was still working though, so I issued fastboot reboot while the screen was dark. Nothing happened, so I tried it again. It reported successful after 5 seconds but still, nothing moved.

*this is probably the important bit*

I did a hard power off. Power on bootloader keycombo while the USB was still plugged in, and I had entered "fastboot reboot" immediately once the white bootloader screen came up. The screen still showed the faux serial BUT instead of the reboot in 5 seconds message, I now had "continue the fastboot process".

Spam pressed volume up to get the actual serial, and the same message now shows up every time. I can't directly boot any images yet BUT I took my chances and tried to flash the recovery. Instead of getting a failure error, it went much faster and said successful. I went into Recovery and, lo and behold, TWRP logo greets me.

Not sure if anyone wants to try to replicate this with the busted bootloader, I'm going to continue my tinkering though!
[ZenFone 2 General] creison:
Is the TWRP working ?

Did u flash a Custom Rom yet?

LoL looks like you guys are going to release the fix for this b4 Asus :))

I dont know if i have balls to try it atleast not b4 i get the steps u done very well :))

Congrats man !!
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
Alright!, so i didnt get the same result in the same order................ I followed your steps, issued some commands with the screen off.. tried to push twrp with screen off, no good, rebooted finally (that kicked my ass for some time) rebooted into OS, rebooted to bootloader and i had the continue the fastboot process, flashed twrp. staring at it now..
[ZenFone 2 General] Level99:
Haven't tried that yet. I can confirm that TWRP flashed Super Su zip without issue, so now I have root. I was able to flash the WW 97 recovery.img file for stock recovery, and stock recovery came back just fine. And again, can confirm that the fastboot works consistently now with flashing TWRP recovery, since I just got that back again.

Here is a set of steps I think condenses what I did enough for some other brave soul to replicate. I don't think it is super-dangerous, since none of these steps flashes anything (just two direct send boots and two fastboot reboot commands).

ONLY DO THIS IF YOU'VE USED THE OFFICIAL ASUS BOOTLOADER UNLOCK TOOL AND ARE STUCK WITH THE REBOOT 5 SECONDS/RESULT: FAIL ISSUE>

1. From a cold boot, turn on your device using Power on + Vol Up. When it vibrates release the power button.

2. As soon as the white bootloader screen flashes a second time, press Volume up a few times until the screen blacks out and you have the RESULT: FAIL message about partition unable to be mounted or whatever. Plug your device into the usb port of your machine.

3. Grab the TWRP image (This link is for Z00A

only

, so if you need a different one, go grab it wherever you need to) https://dl.twrp.me/Z00A/ .

4. Run the following command with the TWRP you just got:

fastboot boot [whatever your TWRP image filename is.img]

You should see it say FAILED (data transfer failure (unknown error))

Run the exact same command again. After the second time, it should say FAILED (command write failed (unknown error))

5. Run the following command to "try" to reboot the device:

fastboot reboot

If your device actually reboots, stop here because it is different from what I experienced.

If its the same as me, it should say rebooting... finished. total time. [some amount of time]. However, your device should be stuck still in the bootloader or the screen should be blank with nothing happening.

6. Type in this line but do NOT hit enter yet:

fastboot reboot

Unplug the phone and power it down.

7. While holding volume up, plug in the USB cable and press enter for the fastboot command immediately.

8. Once the bootloader loads then, you should see blue text that says "continue the fastboot process". You should be able to flash the custom recovery now.

I don't recall if I had to spampress volume up at the end or not to get it working right, but I don't think so.

---------- Post added at 02:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:01 PM ----------

YES!!! Hopefully this works for other people as well!
[ZenFone 2 General] creison:
Alright man :)) thanks for the guide!

---------- Post added at 04:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 PM ----------

Weird guys i dont have the same problem i was having anymore, now it boots and i get the blue fastboot waiting line for like 3 seconds and it comes out with fail mounting partition red line.

I made a video that shows whats going on here.

https://youtu.be/Wil5LsMRHzY

Seems my phone still locked as it boots the black screen and now i dont have the 5 sec unlock boot fail msg anymore.
[ZenFone 2 General] DeathStolas:
CM12 successfully installed !!
[ZenFone 2 General] Level99:
That RESULT: FAIL is the line I referenced in my guide. That needs to be on the screen before you try booting from the pushed recoveries. You're still on track, I think!

I can't watch the youtube, but is your ASUS boot logo white or black? If its black, wipe your cache and try doing the official unlock app again. If it's white, you're good.
[ZenFone 2 General] creison:
It is black, what cache u talking about to wipe out?:))
[ZenFone 2 General] sTIMulat3:
For some reason step number 6 doesn't work for me (running Windows).
[ZenFone 2 General] Level99:
If its black you never had unlocked bootloader in the firstplace. I'd say wait until ASUS officially addresses it or go the unofficial method.

In what capacity is it not working? Specifically, it is supposed to be entered and then your machine should say "waiting for device" while the boot finishes. It's supposed to be entered the instant fastboot becomes available. In the even that it just flat-out fails, keep trying to put it in all up through the bootloader. I know its hard to do with just two hands, but that's all I can think of otherwise to try and replicate the conditions from my experience.
[ZenFone 2 General] sTIMulat3:
While my device is plugged into the computer, holding power + volume up doesn't reboot it into the bootloader, but when it is unplugged it does.

It looks like it's an issue with the Asus USB drivers for Windows.
[ZenFone 2 General] Level99:
Okay, try this then:

After you issues those commands to the fastboot (the reboot commands that don't actually reboot), unplug the device. Get the fastboot reboot command typed out but don't submit it yet. Hold power + vol up until the device reboots, then press enter on the keyboard when the device vibrates. Immediately after that, plug the device into the computer.

If that works, I'll modify my guide.
[ZenFone 2 General] :
Or, power it right down and while holding volume up plug in the USB cable. This will also send you to the bootloader.

---------- Post added at 01:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 PM ----------

@Level99, very nice work. Seems you found a simpler solution than I did that didn't involve almost completely bricking the phone. After reading through what you've written, it seems to me that it's the quick reboot before the pending unlock command gets executed that brings it out of purgatory. I could be wrong though.

Am I reading it right though that no matter what command you try and issue in fastboot you get a permission denied error? It still seems to flash recovery ok, but I've found larger images (like system) will fail completely. There are a few threads that have people with the same issue, but no solutions dating back to much earlier this year so I'm thinking that error is unrelated to the bootloader unlocking and it's maybe something to do with it being an Intel chip.

Either way, very nice work on putting a guide together that seems to be working for people. Hopefully [MENTION=6922370]ASUS_Khang[/MENTION] can take this info to HQ and have them work through an official fix.