[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S8+ Questions & Answers] LimeChip:
T-Mobile S8+ [G955U] -- Factory reset resulted in complete wipe & no longer boots up.

I have a Samsung galaxy S8 plus (T-Mobile) [SM-G955U]

Current Firmware:

G955USQU4CRE9

I'm using windows 7 to attempt to repair my phone.

My problem is as follows...

A few weeks ago my phone started giving me the dreaded:

"Unauthorized actions have been detected..."

error code and sending my phone to restart.

This has happened to me in the past on other phones so i thought, ok. restart and it should be fine. However, this kept happening... the next day and on the 3rd day it happened about 3 times in a row. At this point I was cautious and backed up all my files, turned on USB debugging and shut off my wifi & data.

I then proceeded to do a factory reset from the settings. Once it restarted I got a weird error stating something like no such recovery file could be found. When I saw this I knew I messed up because I didn't first take a backup of my system & recovery...

I got a hold of T-Mobile who walked me through their reset steps, none of which worked. They had me contact Samsung and I did but to no avail. Simply stated they mentioned they could fix it if I had warranty, if not I would have to pay for repair.

Either way I sent all information to Samsung and they have not gotten back to me even though they mentioned we'd hear back in 48 hours. (it's been about a week) I've tried to reach out since then but I haven't had a lot of time to sit on the phone with their elevator music...

Ever since then I've tried everything from Samsung Smart Switch to re-flashing through Odin with no luck.

I've tried all of the reset options...

Hard reset

Soft reset

Wipe cache (recovery mode)

Wipe and factory reset (recovery mode)

Simulated battery pull

etc., etc., etc.

Nothing works. Odin flashes correctly (i get "PASS") and the phone turns off but does not turn back on.

I've tried several tricks to get it to turn back on but it won't go past the boot screen (Samsung Galaxy S8+ screen)

I've flashed, re-flashed, wiped, reset, etc.

Now smartswitch doesn't even work on it because it does not recognize the device...

When i connect my phone now it just shows up as the qualcomm chip. I get "Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008" under devices...

ADB only works when it's in download mode or recovery mode but it doesn't recognize the device either...

Another problem is the increased time it takes to get into the boot menus (download or recovery).

Sometimes when I haven't touched my phone for a whole day I can get into download mode within 10 seconds or less but the more I try it and especially if I successfully flash stock software, the next time booting into recovery or download mode can take up to 5 minutes (holding the button combination). Recovery mode is worse.. even after 24 hours without touching the phone it will come up maybe in 3 minutes but has taken as long as 7 minutes... my fingers are in pain.

Essentially, even after successfully flashing my phone will not boot. and when i hold vol_down + power i can sometimes get the boot screen but it won't go past that.

Also, None of the above boot options work if my phone isn't connected to power--these options only work when it's plugged in. If my phone is not plugged in it will not vibrate, light up, boot up, or do anything other than behave as a paperweight.

I believed it may have been a charging issue so i left it plugged in overnight and even went to download mode and plugged it in for a few hours but that doesn't affect it at all. Even if i'm in download or recovery mode it'll turn off right when i unplug the device.

I'm trying to get it to the best buy that's approved for samsung repair but when I called they said they wouldn't repair it anyways because i didn't buy it there... -_-

Please let me know if I need to provide any other information. I'm trying to get an image of the recovery screen so you can see the error it gives me... Something about no file found. This is increasingly difficult though because some times it takes too long to get into these modes and I leave it alone and come back to it later.

Has this happened to anyone else? Can someone provide some sort of advice or a method to fix this?

thanks in advance.