What can brick an unrooted Nexus 7?

[Torsten Uhlmann]

Hi,

today after a restart my 2 week old Nexus 7 won't boot past the shiny X symbol.
I tried a hard reset and ended up with a screen that just showed the 3 control symbols at the bottom as well as the battery symbol alternating with the time at the top bar.

I finally got it to work again by freshly installing the Nexus 7 image via: How to Hard Reset a Bricked Nexus 7 With Your PC - TheUnlockrTheUnlockr

Now, I didn't root the device and didn't do anything hackish. So I wonder, is that a common problem of the Nexus 7, does it happen to other Android devices- without messing with the system?

My confidence in the Nexus is somewhat shaken right now as this came not as a result of pushing the wrong buttons.

Can installed applications like Locale or SwiftKey 4 beta do this to the device? I don't think so. Anyway, I'm pretty new to Android so I'm sure you know tons more than I do.

I just want to circumvent such a situation in the future.

Thanks,
Torsten.

 

[wunderbar]

It could have just been a bad image out of the factory that eventually just broke. It's really hard to say exactly what it was that screwed it up. It is rare, but remember these devices are essentially fully functioning computers. Sometimes things go sideways. Heck there's an iPad 2 sitting on my desk at work right now, I had to restore it from backup once as I picked it up and went to turn it on and it had cratered. stuff happens.

 

[Torsten Uhlmann]

Thanks for your reply!

 

[kurosenpai]

My old iPhone 3Gs did the same thing. Suddenly stuck at the apple logo.so did my old xperia x8, rooted and working perfectly then suddenly a few Weeks later stuck at Sony logo. Guess stuff happens.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[zkSharks]

My confidence in the Nexus is somewhat shaken right now as this came not as a result of pushing the wrong buttons.

Can installed applications like Locale or SwiftKey 4 beta do this to the device? I don't think so. Anyway, I'm pretty new to Android so I'm sure you know tons more than I do.

I just want to circumvent such a situation in the future.

Thanks,
Torsten.

It's highly unlikely that any applications you installed caused the problem, it's more likely that it just 'happened'. As it has been said in previous replies, these things do just 'happen', on occasion. The good news is that you're unlikely to experience it again (or, at the least, again soon). If you do encounter the problem again, however, it may well be a defect with the device. Hardware problems (charging circuits, main board, etc.) can all cause strange behavior such as what you've described, as well as states similar to the infamous 'sleep of death'. If something goes wrong, reset to stock and get in touch with Google to see what you can arrange. Don't let it shake your confidence in the Nexus 7 per se; technology is (unfortunately) far from perfect.

There's one fact that should bring you some solace and build that confidence back up: having a Nexus device makes it very, very easy to unlock/lock, root/unroot, and back up/reset these devices, as you've already experienced. Fixing any issues with a Nexus device is almost always a simple endeavour in which you learn a bit more about the device along the way.



It looks like you're relatively new to AC as well, so welcome. It's a great place to be