[Galaxy S6 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Trystan34:
Dear XDA Community,

I think my phone is soft-bricked (again). When powering on the device I see the Galaxy S6 logo and then straight after it shuts off (not a boot loop).

Goal: Fix phone via Odin without tripping Samsung KNOX or voiding warranty in any way

[Before] My phone came with Lollipop 5.0.2. I rooted it with Ping-Pong-Root.

[Current] Stock Lollipop 5.1.1

Everything has been perfect until yesterday. A friend of mine enabled KNOX Security and pressed reboot when prompted. The phone was stuck in a boot loop which was fixed by a factory reset via android recovery mode.

Once I had done the factory reset and everything was working, I decided to update my device to the latest firmware Lollipop 5.1.1. I enabled debugging mode. Yesterday I was trying to figure out if I could somehow back up data with adb when it was soft-bricked but the device was not recognized with the abd tool only Odin.

Today I noticed the phone was rebooting randomly. I read a post that said to try "wipe cache partition" which in hindsight I should have just done. Yesterday the option to "apply update from ADB" kept saying "Update from ADB is disabled". Me being inquisitive, I tried the option "apply update from ADB" (with no usb attached) thinking that if it worked this time, I could just cancel it by powering off the device. I was WRONG! This is what led to my current issue.

I have tried wipe data/factory reset like I did yesterday to fix the boot loop to no avail.

Current Status:

ODIN MODE

Product name: SM-G920F

Current Binary: Samsung Official

System Status: Official

Reactivation Lock: OFF

Secure Download: ENABLED

KNOX warranty void 0 (0x0000)

RP SWREV: B:2 K:2 S:2

In the android recovery menu it says at the bottom: " dm-verification failed... "

I have researched into flashing stock firmware. I have already tried Smart Switch with no luck. Once entering in the correct Model name and S / N number I get the error message: “Unable to find the serial number, model name, or IMEI on the server. Please check and try again.”

I have two other options:

Flashing stock firmware via Odin

Taking it back to my local store and sending it in for repairs

My main concern is hard-bricking the device and voiding the warranty.

I have read that flashing stock firmware through Odin will not void the warranty, can anyone please confirm this? I need to be 100% sure.

If I were to flash via Odin, the next obstacle I face is choosing the correct firmware.

I have some screenshots of my “About Device” page from when I was still on 5.0.2.

On the screenshot, it has Baseband version: G920IDVU1AOD1 .

There is a version with: G920IDVU2DOI2 . I assume I should get that one.

My current rom has the official Spark boot loader image, if I were to flash any of those roms, would I lose it?

Can Samsung see a firmware flash counter?

Medium case scenario:

Assuming that flashing via Odin does not trip KNOX, I flash one of the roms and it does not work. Will Samsung refuse to fix the phone if there was a firmware flash count of eg 2?

Worst case scenario:

The flash is successful but hard-bricks the device. KNOX also may be tripped.

Thank you in advance for your support!