[LeEco Le 2 Questions & Answers] joebah:
Hi - I'm not sure if I am having the same problem as b1gb1ng has - but I'll describe what I am experiencing as best as I can...

After using my Le S3 X626 for a week with no problems at all, I decided to install TWRP. So the first thing I did was follow the instruction on this website getdroidtips.com to unlock the bootloader via my Windows 10 64bit PC with the ADB.exe and fastboot.exe tool. I followed all the instructions carefully, my batteries were well above 80%, and I got to the part where I issued the command "fastboot reboot" on my Dos prompt. The phone rebooted and everything seemed perfectly normal. So far, so good... The next thing I did was used the same ADB.exe and fastboot.exe tool to flash a TWRP file that I downloaded from another website. I issued the command: "fastboot flash recovery twrp.img" and THAT'S when the problem began - the screen of my le S3 x626 just went pitch black this time around instead of showing the Chinese characters!

I disconnected my Le S3 x626 from my PC, tried turning the phone's power on (no response), tried holding the Vol+ and/or Vol- buttons and the power button (no response). The phone was completely unresponsive. No light came on at all. I connected my Le S3 x626 back to the PC's USB port, and the red light on the phone came on (as if it's charging) but my PC kept connecting and disconnecting to the Le S3 x626 over and over again (before this incident, the PC would recognize my Le S3 X626 right after I connect to USB port). I tried to reboot the bootloader again via Dos Prompt - but instead I get the error message "error: device '(null)' not found. Which I guess makes sense because my PC was no longer able to connect to the Le S3 x626 anymore...

<< 1st EDIT - Dec 26 2017>>

<<2nd EDIT - Jan 5 2018>>

<<3rd EDIT - Jan 11 2018>>

<<4th EDIT - Jan 27 2018>>

<<5th EDIT - Jan 30 2018>>

So after more than a month of tinkering with the phone, I was able to unbrick the phone. It seems like a lot people are able to solve in one or two days so my slow progress was likely due to a combination of 1) there being many different version of the solution on the web which confuses more than helps and 2) my inability to follow instructions properly and 3) not having a lot of time on my hand. Anyway, I have summarized my experience in solving this problem as well all the errors due to my screwing up the process - so hopefully this will be a useful guide for everyone who bricked their X626!

Which solution to use

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The solution that worked for me was based on advice from alberto-a-l and Catani who pointed me to http://tickernel.org/how-to-unbrick-le-x626-red-light/ which apparently was taken from an article written by os_man... So I guess thanks to all three of you???

What we're all about to accomplish

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In case you're interested in the technical details of what we're about to do, here's the quick low down: according to kanewilliam, the Tickernel website solution tells us that we need to first flash the le eco x620 firmware as well as boot and recovery into our bricked x626 phone, and for that we need to download a bunch of files from various websites. Once we have all the necessary files and we have successfully flashed the x620 firmware/boot/recovery via spflash tools, the phone will successfully boot but the screen will be mirrored making it unusable. However, that's okay, because after that we can then boot the mirrored phone in fastboot mode, relock the bootloader, and then flash the phone with a new ROM via dos commands, and after that we will have the phone back up and working again (albeit all the original info would have been deleted). Big thanks to kanewilliam for clarifying the big picture for us!

Part 1 - setting up

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First you need to download and unzip four files/folders - "LeEco_x620_SP_Rom.androidbrick", "x620_flash_tool_androidbrick", "Windows+10_MTK+VCOM+USB+Preloader+Drivers" and "乐视S3_X626". You need all of them for this solution to work. The links are on http://tickernel.org/how-to-unbrick-le-x626-red-light/ page. These files are like 2.3GB combined and you need to click all sorts of ad stuff to download so this will take a while...

Since a lot of people had problems downloading the files from the tickernel website - I've included the steps on what you need to do to get the files downloaded. There are two ways of doing this:

Method A - via Tickernel links

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1. Firstly, you need to find the link first! You could navigate through the website by clicking on the word "steps" which will then take you to a second page where you have to scroll all the way to bottom, or you can just use these links that I copied from the page:

Download :*

Firmware for unbrick:*http://idsly.com/0dN

SP Flash Tool :*http://idsly.com/Xfppfu

Driver :*http://idsly.com/d3t5

Download without ads:

Firmware for unbrick:*https://cnhv.co/teyy

SP Flash Tool:*https://cnhv.co/tezc

Driver:*https://cnhv.co/tf1i

2. Pick either with ads or without ads. If you choose download without ads, they will make you do some mining for them first (proof of work) and once done they'll let you download. If you choose download with ads, there won't be any mining (apparently) but you have to view a few ads before they let you download

3. If you choose with ads (which was what I did), you will first be taken to the IDSLY page where you need to do some fun ad clicking activities. First, scroll down slightly and click on the green "visit link" button once, and tell your browser to allow pop up if prompted.

4. A new page will open up along with an ad pop up. The new page will say "your link is almost ready"... yeah right! You can close the pop up but DO NOT close the new page. Now scroll down the “your link is almost ready" page and click the blue "get link" button.

5. More pop-up windows show up, and some of them have the potential to be NSFW (not safe for work) so be sure to do this at home! You can close the pop-up windows but don't ever close the main page or you'll have to start all over again! However, you may be taken back to the original IDSLY page that you were directed to in (3). Don't be disheartened, this is normal... they like to mess with you!

6. Repeat the steps 3-5 again, and again, and again. By the third or fourth time it'll no longer loop you back to the IDSLY page and you'll just be stuck with "your link is almost ready" page instead. This is a good sign. Keep clicking on the blue "Get Link button" and close all the virusy pop ups as they show up.

7. After may be a few more times of clicking blue "Get Link" button and closing a dozen virusy pop up ads, you'll finally get the browser prompt (legit this time) asking you to download the file - "What do you want to do with .LeEco_x620_SP_Rom.androidbrick.7z". Click “save” to download the file and now you're done with one file!

8. Now do the same for the other two files... yeah, this process takes a while!

Method B - Gizmodo links & mediafire

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Based on the responses I got in this thread, there are some people who don't like method A as you need to 1) go through a ton of clicking just to get to the final download URL for each file, and 2) along the way there are lot of those spam/adware sites that pop up on your browser. Personally I think these pop ups are pretty harmless as long as you don't download or install anything outside of the zip files you need (like flashplayerx.exe!), but understandably some people don't want to deal with the hassle. Thankfully, adaa1262 has informed us that you can get most of the files from gizmodo at https://www.gizmochina.com/2016/12/20/leeco-le-2-x620-x620-pro-x625-pro-rescue-guide-video/, although you may have to follow their instructions since their file naming convention is different from the Tickernel files that I downloaded and used.

Regardless, you would still need to get the S3_X626 file which gizmodo doesn't seem to provide a link to. If you want to bypass the tickernel link method, here's the direct mediafire link for S3_X626:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cmkqb7...h7/S3_X626.rar

Note - apparently the author of the Tickernel website changed the URL, probably because too many people were getting the file directly instead of going through the advertising loop.... or either that mediafire has a policy of randomizing the URL labels.... So anyway it looks like the only way to get the S3_X626.rar file is via the Tickernel website for now, unless someone is generous enough to host it on an ad free server!

Note that when unzipping 乐视S3_X626.rar, I got a bunch of warnings from Windows Defender about virus/Trojans etc. - so just ignore them.

Part 2.1 Installing the MediaTek drivers

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First you need to get Windows into unsigned mode. The instruction below is fairly straightforward and taken from Dell website.

1. Click the Start menu and select Settings.

2. Click Update and Security.

3. Click on Recovery.

4. Click Restart now under Advanced Startup.

5. Click Troubleshoot.

6. Click Advanced options.

7. Click Startup Settings.

8. Click on Restart.

9. On the Startup Settings screen press 7 or F7 to disable driver signature enforcement.

Once you've disabled signed driver enforcement, you can try to restore the drivers - so here are the next steps:

10) If you haven't done so, go to device manager and connect the x626 to the PC's USB

11) Sometimes, you have to wait for a minute or two for the PC to recognize the phone. If this doesn't work, unplug, try holding the power button and Vol - for 15 seconds then let go, it 'wakes' up the phone somehow, then connect it back in. You might need to do this a few times.

12) If you get it to work, it will try to install a generic USB driver. Wait for the generic USB driver to show up under "Ports (COM & LPT)" (along with the USB connect chime sound), then click on "update driver"

13) Select "browse my computer for driver software"

14) Select "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer"

15) Select "Have Disk..."

16) Select "Browse", then find the Windows+10_MTK+VCOM+USB+Preloader+Drivers inf file that you saved earlier and click on the appropriate version (x64 for me)

17) Now you will have the option to replace the generic driver with the new drivers. I personally selected "MediaTek DA USB VCOM" driver.

Note that luckyrai had success with the preloader driver instead of the DA USB VCOM driver. So you could try those drivers instead if you're stuck later on

Part 2.2 fixing USB connect and disconnect

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This was the most difficult part for me (and I guess a lot of people) - but here's how I resolved it:

Note that both luckyrai and blueasteroid stated that steps 1-5 below is not be necessary in their experience

1) After the MTK driver installation is completed, take out the phone

2) Keeping the device manager windows opened, plug the phone back in again

3) After this, disconnect the x626 from the PC's USB port and reconnect again. The PC will most likely try to switch to another COM Port and reinstall another generic USB driver. If it does that, repeat step 5 and overwrite the new generic driver and COM port with the MediaTek DA USB VCOM driver . Keep doing this until you end up with a situation where you have the PC cycling between 2-3 COM ports in the connect/disconnect loop but at least they will be showing MediaTek DA USB VCOM every time.

4) Now reassign all these COM ports (right click, properties, Port setting, advanced) to a single designated port (like, say "3").

5) If you follow this instruction, the phone will still connect and disconnect from the USB, but each time it does so the phone will always connect to the same COM port and using the same driver - this will make it easier to flash though success is not guaranteed every time

Part 3 - SP Flash Tool

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This part is supposed to be easy but I screwed this one royally by not following instructions and ended up wasting a lot of time.

1) The first thing you are supposed to do is open one of the downloaded folders "x620_flash_tool_androidbrick", then double click on flash_tool.exe to open the SP Flash Tool.

2) press Ctl Al S and it will expand the fields to include Authentication File .

3) fill each fields like this by navigating to each specific file in each specific folders:

Download Agent : \..\..\x620_flash_tool_androidbrick\secureboot\DA_ BL_HIGH.bin

Scatter-Loading File: \..\..\LeEco_x620_SP_Rom.androidbrick\MT6797_Andro id_scatter.txt

Authentication File: \..\..\x620_flash_tool_androidbrick\secureboot\aut h_sv5_letv.auth

Note the "Certification File" field you leave blank.

Now it is paramount that you select the EXACT file in the EXACT folder. If you did this right, then the download rows should be populated and the tick boxes all ticked, and the "location" column is filled up with the location of all the .bin files. If you did not follow the instruction properly (like I did), what ends up happening is even though the "Name" column is filled up, the Location column will be mostly empty and the tick boxes unticked except "preloader" row and this will give you errors later on when you try to download (more on that in a bit)

4) Untick recovery (second row) and boot (eleventh row).

5) Then plug in the X626. At first I held down the Vol - button but it turned out that if you did this right, you don't need to press any button at all! When the USB connect sound chimes immediately click "Download". If you did this wrong, you will get the error message “BROM ERROR : S_COM_PORT_OPEN_FAIL (0x3F5)". In that case, unplug phone, hold down power and Vol - button for 15 seconds, then try again. If you did it right, it will start to flash.

Note that blueasteriod confirmed that holding the Vol - button the entire time is absolutely necessary for him as it somehow ensures that the device stays connected despite the COM port switching issue, so basically the same opinion as alberto-a-l and Catani, so I guess you can try the Vol - button option if the flashing continues to fail

6) However, depending on whether you did step (3) right, the flashing process could die within 10 seconds and give you the error "BROM ERROR: STATUS_OPEN_FILE_ERR (0xC001000E)". If you see this error then you screwed up step 3 (like I did many times) - go back and make sure you selected the right file I the right folder and the relevant boxes are ticked.

7) If you did step 3 right, then the SP Flash Tool window would go from red (Downloading DA 100%) to purple (Download Bootloader 100%), then goes to yellow as it download each of the .bin files to the phone. The process could take about 10 mins. Again, at first I thought you need to hold down the Vol - button but turned out if you did it right you won't need to.

8) So that's the hard part. Now the easy part - press Control Alt V, go to "Window" in the menu bar of SP Flash Tool and click on "Write Memory". The write memory tab will magically appear next to memory test tab. Again, you need do exactly as the instruction says - select boot-verified.img in the downloaded folder LeEco_x620_SP_Rom.androidbrick, and type "0xf900000" on the Begin Address field. Connect the X626 to USB but this time hold the Vol - button while doing so. Click "Write Memory" and the writing should work (Green okay sign). If you didn't do this right, you will get a slightly different error (something like VFY_FAIL).

9) Repeat the process but choose recovery_stock_works _after_brick.img in the folder LeEco_x620_SP_Rom.androidbrick for the file path, and change the Begin Address field to 0x8000. Again, connect the phone and hold down Vol +, and click "Write Memory"

Now, I skipped the DA_BR.bin part although it didn't seem to cause a problem. Anyway, I tried to power on my phone - initially and the red light started flashing and the battery icon appears on the screen - which means I need to charge my phone first since the battery has been depleted after a month of trying to fix the phone. So I charged it up for 20 mins, tried again and this time the phone booted! However, the screen will like its mirrored (just like the instructions said), and you won't be able to do much but at least I was able to boot into the home screen. Yay!

Part 5 - Running .bat files in S3 X626 folders

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1) Boot the phone in fastboot mode per instruction (Vol -, Power), and the familiar black screen with Chinese characters showed up on the phone. Plug in the phone back into USB. By now the PC fully recognizes the X626! So no more annoying connect/disconnect problem.

2) Run the file 开机oem解锁-音量下+开机键_读取Devices.bat. The Dos prompt would then show that is doing a bunch of stuff (I guess it's unlocking the bootloader?) and then a text file "Devices.txt" is generated in the folder..

3) Run the file 刷机.bat. You will get an error on the dos prompt. So what you need to do is change the folder name from "乐视S3_X626" to "S3_X626" by removing all the Chinese characters. Run the file again and the dos prompt will through some sort of flashing process which will take about 10 mins.

4) Unplugged the phone and hold down the power button for a while to reboot. You may need to do this several times as I found that I was stuck in the bootloader screen.

5) Now the phone would reboot normally and the "EUI" logo showed up. What happened to me was it froze. So I rebooted the phone again, and this time the EUI logo showed up and it started to initialize all the default apps (I think 15 of them). That took about 10 mins. So be sure that your battery is fully charged when you do this!

6) You are then taken to the setup screen, put in the Sim Card and connect to Wifi - skipped the finger print set up stuff and you will be back to the home screen.

7) You'll note that EUI is version 5.9.020S (I was on 5.8 earlier), with baseband, IMEI and everything all in place.