[Redmi Note 9 Questions & Answers] Ofelya:
Heyo, I am quite into a mess right now. I had issues with my phone about 2 days ago.

It first started with being unable to flash Magisk due to me having a password and therefore TWRP encrypting datas. So it couldn't flash itself, alone, with simple root power. I had to flash it again and again through recovery and it only stayed for the time being (a reboot, and its gone.)

My point was to hide an app from the root, not to root it though. My actual root was more than fine and I was real happy with it since all those years using it. But I tried to play a game and it just crashed, cause of root. And on emulators, it crashes cause emulators. Tried to mod it to NOP all the crashing functions, to no avail. (they had functions named "force crash" and so on, the game was running and loading even downloading assets sometimes if you were lucky, you could even run into a server, but it crashed quickly anyway, like, until loading a library that would detect something off and would decide nope, crashing out cuz emulator/root/whatever)

So I figured I could try Magisk or even Delta/Kitsune and denylist or some actual modules maybe.

What happened is : I decided to make Magisk permanent.

I wrongly flashed my boot img with a magisk patched img that did not work even tho it was made for Merlin and correct version (I even tried two version, actually) I was lucky to have a restore from 2022. It broke my stuff though, once I loaded the phone back, fine, all my apps were gone from app launcher. They still were there on the drawer tho, but the phone launcher got reset. Idk if my games got reset too and if I had to reload every accounts and settings though. Felt like it just smashed my entire cache data. But that's okay, as long as my apps were still there. 500ish apps to reinstall I was like, k no thanks.

It actually went wild AFTER though.

TWRP, after doing a flash of the boot img and vbmeta myself with the one same version I had used back then in the days when I first rooted my phone (had even a txt file with the actual and exact ROM to look for., and I had saved the zip file in case of issues.) cause I had lost my root at some point for no reasons, hence why I then decided to really go into Magisk for 100%. I was about to actually stop my attempt, but losing root and being unable to reroot it even with the TWRP "root" button, welp..

But that broke it somehow? The thingy shown me errors on TWRP and couldn't boot anymore, bootloop or just stuck in splash screen MIUI being shown with adb fully working somehow? But TWRP was giving me "/data/data operation not permitted" like a hundred of times before I even tried to decrypt. Before and after actually.

And then everything I done, every restore I done, just gave me that error again, as long as it concerned Boot partition, i'd get it.

Seen some tuts about going gingko-whatever TWRP. So I flashed it. Phone went gone. Recovery gone. No more splash screen just endless bootloop after showing Redmi it would insta re-reboot endlessly (it has been over a day looping now..)

Recovery shown a black screen then went back into looping, and, when trying with fastboot to actually go into recovery manually, said that it couldn't find recovery or something among those lines. Like, basically, it is like I flashed an empty file into recovery at this point..

And fastboot, let's talk about that, the thing NEVER WORKED. I flashed without thinking about it but yeah, everytime I had put my phone in fastboot, it would not work. It would sure boot into it and all sthat stuff fine, with the logo and so. But no computer with every drivers you can think of, official non official none or Google + Xiaomi one, nothing. Undetected from fastboot devices.

Then after few reboots and few attempts to go into recovery, that was the fastboot that was now gone.

Pressing the button to go into fastboot would now just boot normally and loop it out. Am confused. It's like something corrupted that partition too. At first I could boot, then locked into a splash screen due to /data/data error, tried to fix it by re-flashing my TWRP with the gingko, this time no more recovery no more splash screen with adb, just looping. I could still fastboot, but after a few fastboot that did not work anyway (I was at this point, trying to actually erase userdata and maybe factory reset entirely and then reflash again with the proper version and just save the phone at all cost even if that means a full blown reset which would be awful..)

So at this point am wondering what I can do. If software-wise I can't do whack, what can I do physically? Replacing the data piece of the phone would do it I guess but i'd lose everything. Unless there is a way to actually write and read and maybe reflash TWRP from the outside? Am entirely clueless, I had bricked many phones in the past and never had been that far. And always managed to unbrick no matter how hard. But that time, it's like it killed itself slowly but surely. Flashing with TWRP at some point never done whack. I could flash something hundred of times, like, Magisk, it would never work. (it did work but after 5 times or so, it did not anymore, like, it was not flashing anymore. I was confused. Same when I tried to just reflash root like I done in 2020. Did not work, yet the installer says everything fine with the new boot.img and stuff being put on, yet it did not work)

Sorry for the long post but this is my secondary phone which contains very important datas and pictures/memories as well. I just tried to mod a game I really love cause they were going crazy with pay2climb in solo PvE if you were not spending hundreds at least, you could not go up anymore.. So I felt like modding it just to make it fair not even willing to PvE cheat, but idk why, the app was not starting. Prolly root. Hence the path that led me down killing the phone. Just wanted to have fun on a game cause am f2p I cannot play anymore. And being IRL sick, I cannot play much games. This was kinda the only one I could and that I loved enough to run all day. And do nearly an hour of ads per day lmao.

At this point I was about to maybe packload some stuffs like a weapon of 100 bucks, which would be 50ish depending on some sellers, but instead, I feel like i'd have to either spend it on a new Merlin/Note 9 or a piece off it. I can save 100 bucks right now which is its price but yah...

Here's what I had noted in an txt file : merlin_global_images_V12.5.2.0.RJOMIXM_20211016.0000.00_11.0_global_59dc915a0d

And never made any single update on that phone since it was running well, I did not need to update it. So yeah. I did check the version anyway on the said phone before doing anything obviously, hence why I tried two versions, cause one did not match. But both version had the same boot img and vbmeta for some reasons uhm.

Is the phone basically dead and having to have some hardware replaced or can I do something still? The gingko I downloaded was from there and was quoted to fix the issue on a Merlin, but am sure it was incompatible, just didn't think about the non working fastboot, rip.