[Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] roverrhubarb:
Note 4 Stuck in Boot Loop - Help

I have a Note 4 SM-N910F, never been rooted, stock rom upgraded to 5.1.1 back in October, working fine until yesterday when it got stuck in a Boot loop.

Not sure what caused it but before it got stuck I was messing around with Google Photos which was running a bit slow.

Also I put it on the Qi Charger just before the loop started. It has an aftermarket Fone charger stuck to the battery. I’ve had this and the Qi Charger for 6mths with no problems before now.

It gets to the Samsung page waits a couple of seconds then boots again.

Here’s what I’ve tried - unsuccessfully - to fix the boot loop:

1: recovery mode.

I can get the little recovery text to appear in the top left but after a few seconds it boots again.

2: volume down, home

This gets me to the screen with up/down for continue/cancel.

This is the _only_ screen I can get to stay up without rebooting. It sits there waiting for input.

- Cancel, causes restart, of course, but back into the bootloop

3: Mashing on power button. Banging it, wiggling it, blowing on it.

I read somewhere this could cause a boot loop, but I doubt it is my case because

a. I’ve never had problems with the power button before

b: When I take out the battery and put it back in, it does NOT turn on. If I do the same holding the power button, it powers into the boot loop. So if the button were jammed on I would expect it to never remain off with the battery in.

3: flashing stock rom

I’m not 100% sure what build I had before. I know it was stock 5.1.1 OTA, and I’m pretty sure it was unlocked (my wife bought the phone and i inserted my old sim, but she may have bought it from my carrier and can’t remember)

So anyway I tried all three versions of TPH (unlocked) 5.1.1 from Sammobile.

Installed Odin 3.10.7 and flashed them.

It reboots to recovery but immediately boot loops again.

I doubt its to do with the version of the rom anyway since the symptoms are identical after flashing. Only now the boot loop always shows the little ‘recovery booting...’ text in the top left.

Here’s what I have NOT tried but am thinking about:

A: Re-partition option in Odin

B: Nand Erase All option in Odin

C: Buying a new battery.

On A/B: as far as I can tell what I have done so far should have left the data intact. I’m prepared to wipe all my data if it fixes my phone (no lectures about backups please!) and I’m tempted to do one of these on the off chance that the problem is caused by data or the “disk" problems.

But I don’t want to brick it. Can someone recommend how likely these are to help

And what they actually do?

(Please refrain from responses I see elsewhere like “this will brick your phone if you don’t know what you’re doing”. I don’t know what I’m doing, thats why I’m asking - just the facts please)

On C: the battery seems ok in that the power is solid even after not being plugged in for a long time, but since it was on the Qi Charger with that aftermarket thing stuck to it when it happened, I’m suspicious. Can any one say if this is a likely cause?

If so, it might be worth waiting till I get a new batter before doing A or B (can I wait days for Amazon!?)

[UPDATE] Got a new (genuine) battery at a local electronics store. No dice. Same problem, so it's not the battery. Shall I go ahead and re-partition.

[UPDATE] Got a PIT file from another forum, and flashed again with re-partition checked and PIT loaded. same results.

Is Nand-rease worth trying?

The phone is still under warranty so maybe I can return it.

But in that case I want to erase what's on it first.

thanks for any help

rhubarb