Question S21 Ultra 5g .. failed update I think and battery issue

[Rom]

Hey Everyone,

I need some help please.

I think I had a failed update. My phone kept getting super hot and then cutting out. Battery would then die at random parts.

I could still reboot my phone with Volume Down and Power. It said I charged it up to 100% before final death.

Then it rebooted less regularly. When it worked I copied as much of as I could as recent backups have not worked for photos and videos. System I have a copy from this month.

I do not get any charging information at all.

I tried wiping the cache partition. This happened. But no better.

Now suddenly I am in a situation that occasionally if I leave the phone alone.. on a laptop charge not a wall outlet... I can reboot it from black screen to Android Recovery. It will not boot past this. I see the One UI screen briefly and messages received on Android Recovery is:

Reboot recovery casue is [Unknown]#

Previous has said Previous Installation Failed at the top

Then at the bottom something about [Failed_during_update] or similar.

I don't mind factory resetting it and I have a new battery and charging port ready to fit. I am happy doing this.

Big question is... What the heck can I do to get the phone readable so I can get those photos and videos on.. As I know a factory reset will wipe it (if not already) and I cannot seem to communicate with the laptop in Android Recovery.. unless I don't know what I am doing as all those recovery apps seem to need a working booted Android phone.

Please help me.. Just want to save my data at this point. Then happy to reset.. restore store .. fit new charging port and battery as I suspect it may be goosed.

Really many thanks in advance to reading and trying to help.

Conclusion.. cannot get into One Ui / Android. I think an update failed a few days ago as I had overheating issues with black screen since then.

I tried Loading from Sd or ADB etc.. but I imagine there is not an image there if that is what it is supposed to do.

Many thanks everyone,

Hoping I have not lost that stuff.. .. So want to give it a crack first.

Thank you

R

 

[Rom]

Just to clarify.. I can only occasionally try to reboot it now after some time left on a laptop cable charge.. Have tried other sources etc.. It is an occasional thing I can do.. but looks like no OS to boot or totally garbaged. Always get taken to Android Recovery.

Thanks

R

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Sorry, but it sure sounds like a major hardware failure. You could try booting into Safe Mode, but I doubt that will work either: https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062983/

 

[Rom]

Nope.. getting nothing from it this morning.. Going to replace battery and charging port to see if I get anything..

Any ideas on the booting to android recovery each time?

Also any ideas on a product (happy to pay) that will work at Android Recovery stage?

Thanks

R

 

[B. Diddy]

I guess the firmware might be completely corrupt, in which case you'd have to try flashing a fresh copy. @mustang7757 knows more about that than I do.

 

[mustang7757]

At this point your only option to save the photos is using Odin and Frija to flash the stock firmware, there are steps I would have to go over to try and preserve this but nothing 100 percent, you do have a pretty good chance to recover

 

[Rom]

Hey guys... New battery and charging port replaced.. Phone in same state..
Odd thing is ... With cable in .. It will not restart (volume down and power).. cable out.. I can restart it now.

Final status is

Previous Installation Failed. (Red text at top).

Bottom Reboot Recovery Cause is [UNKNOWN]#
Reason is [update_in_progress]

This is what I got before.. just could not recall exact text.

still see One Ui screen with exclamation mark for a brief second before I get into Android Recovery.

I understand that this is not 100% and every change I will blitz the thing.. but at this point.. If a hard reset works.. that will blitz the thing..

So please let me know what to do.. And I will give it a crack.

Many thanks in advance guys

R

 

[Rom]

Please let me know what to do to TRY and get these photos and videos.

Much appreciated.

Happy to hard reset once I have done that.

Thanks guys

R

 

[mustang7757]

Download Odin and Frija latest version to your PC and extract, once you get that far let me know, also make sure you can get the phone in download mode

 

[Rom]

Hi. I have downloaded Odin and Frija apps and updated with Samsung drivers and have done .net etc..

Good to go. Never done this before so please name all steps.

I can get phone in Android Recovery mode which I understand is Download mode?

Please see photo for the options I have.

Many thanks in advance for your help

R

 

[Rom]

Actually.. Volume Up and Volume Down with cable plugged in will not start the phone into download mode.

Is there another way on samsung s21 ultra 5g? I will keep googling.

Thanks

R

 

[Rom]

ok odd.. I tried to get into Reboot to Bootloader ... All ok WITHOUT cable.
With cable.. the phone restarts

 

[Rom]

OK.. So I got into download mode ... Then it started booting.. now I am back into my phone wildly.. Cannot explain this. I have plugged in to another USB port and now backing up my videos again... Don't know how long this will last.

But phone.. IS HOT AS FUDGE when charging. Never felt it as hot as this until the weird update error last week.

 

[Rom]

Right ok. All media backed up. And I took an up to date backup using Google One of apps etc...

Phone is really odd when powering off or restarting.. Just does not like it.. Have to leave it for minutes ... Before it will try to turn back on again.

It does not register charge when powered off. Do not get a charge light.

It does charge when booted up.

Cannot rely on this as a phone.

And it is frying an egg hot since the failed update.

I have tried to update to 6.0 .. But it fails each time.. Could be because the phone really does not like being powered off.

Please let me know what I can do.

If Google One backup is reliable I am fine to hardware reset to factory defaults and restore from Google.

But I wonder if it is more hardware related. Battery and charging port replaced.

Please let me know any steps to improve the phone.

Many thanks in advance

R

 

[mustang7757]

Ok so you downloaded Odin and Frija and extracted the files?
Did you download the firmware from Frija?

 

[B. Diddy]

Considering how hot the phone gets and some of the other oddities, I'd be a little concerned about a faulty battery. Does the phone seem swollen at all? You can try the spin test, where you place the phone (without a case) on a smooth tabletop and see if it can spin easily. If it does, then that suggests the battery is swollen and bulging the back of the phone outwards. This test isn't as helpful on phones that have a camera bump, but if the bulge is prominent enough, it could still be detected.

If the battery is swollen, it's a potential fire risk -- so if that's the case, I'd stop trying to do anything with it and look into disposing of it safely.

 

[Rom]

No the original battery was not swollen and I replaced it as I was having real charging issues since the failed updated over a week ago.

Both batteries look good. I changed the charging port too as it was a little battered.

Thanks

R

 

[Rom]

Also really struggles to power on with the power/data cable in. I have just unplugged it again. Left it a few minutes and now powers on unplugged.. Really odd.. It did this pre and post battery and port replacement.

Urgghhh and now it died again after booting to the keypad screen...


R

 

[B. Diddy]

Could be an issue with the power IC on the motherboard.

 

[Rom]

Well phone sort of semi works.. Gets hot as fudge when plugged in very quickly.

I am trying to factory reset.. (I copied all my data now and did a system backup) However, everytime the phone shuts down.. just dies.

Trying to get into the Android Recovery.. but with cable plugged in phone will not boot still.

Another interesting fact is that if I have put the cable in .. I must 30 seconds to a minute before trying to start the phone. then dies if I do it too quickly. Seems very bad to me hardware I suppose?

**** I just cannot get into Android Recovery.. I got a message when restarting once saying your data may be corrupt.. I said try again and now it boots into Android.. I want to factory reset it now incase it is corrupt but I cannot do that from Android and phone will not boot with cable in it.

Any ideas?

Many thanks in advance

R