CM12.1 gives issues, so I go back to stock rooted 5.0 BOG1 from my Nandroid backup. What happens?

[Dark Penguin]

A couple of days ago I finally took the plunge and flashed CM12.1 on my S5. I didn't have a custom recovery yet, so before proceeding I flashed the Philz CWM-based custom recovery; everything went fine with that step. Next, I ran the Nandroid backup and directed it to my 32G external SD card. This brought down the available space on that card down to less than 5G, so copied the folder for that backup over to my PC, and deleted it from the SD card. The Nandroid backup process ran smoothly and didn't throw any errors.

I flashed the CM12.1 ROM following the instructions provided here on the XDA forums; it was a clean flash with everything wiped. This process also appeared to run correctly, and when it was complete the phone booted automatically into CM12.1, apparently with all the correct animations and cyan-based color theme which is characteristic. There were no error messages of any kind, so I thought I was golden.

However, on using the phone for a day, I found that mobile data wasn't working, and Bluetooth audio was working only very inadequately. After looking around online, I didn't find any easy solution to these issues, and decided to go back to my earlier rooted stock ROM. Just in case, though, I did another Nandroid backup proceeding as described above, and likewise I also moved this folder to my PC. After all moves between the phone and the PC, I have been verifying that the folder sizes match.

I copied the backup from the stock ROM back onto the external SD card, went into custom recovery, and flashed, and this is when the real problems began. For one thing, it hung on the Samsung logo, and I eventually pulled the battery; this has worked for me in the past on first-time boots into a new ROM. After that, the phone booted, but I got continual pop-up error messages mainly about various GAPP-related processes stopping, rendering the phone unusable. This is where it stands now.

ETA: I just re-attempted the stock ROM flash, this time making sure to do the Factory Reset/Wipe Data step, which then asks you to confirm that you intend to flash a new ROM. According to the screen display, this step does all of the various wipes and formats that you would normally do by hand when setting up a flash. The steps ran successfully with the final result message that I could now go ahead and flash. Having done that, I'm now watching my phone reboot, but it still seems to be stuck in the boot loop. I'd leave it running for a few minutes while I go out on an errand, but I'm afraid it will overheat, so I just pulled the battery, again.

At this point, is there anything else I can try before I do a full factory reset?

 

[Dark Penguin]

ETA: In the end, I gave up and did a factory reset, still using the Philz custom recovery. The result turned out to be a pleasant surprise, because instead of a true factory reset I got my prior rooted state back. So, still no NASCAR or other Sprint bloatware. And that's a win as far as I'm concerned.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

 

[ironass]

ETA: In the end, I gave up and did a factory reset, still using the Philz custom recovery. The result turned out to be a pleasant surprise, because instead of a true factory reset I got my prior rooted state back. So, still no NASCAR or other Sprint bloatware. And that's a win as far as I'm concerned.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

Hi Dark Penguin!

Sorry to hear that you are having some problems. Here are a few tips that may help...

1. PhilZ abandoned his work on a custom recovery quite awhile ago and it may not be compatible with the latest Lollipop releases.

2. TWRP custom recovery is now regarded as the go-to recovery and the .tar file can be downloaded and flashed via Odin. twrp-2.8.7.0-klte.img.tar

3. As far as I remember, PhilZ and TWRP nandroid backups are not readily compatible and cannot be restored by each other.

4. A Factory data reset will not restore stock or previous firmware. Only wipe data, etc; from your existing firmware.

5. The CM12.1 ROM you linked to in post #1 is an unofficial, older release for the CDMA, G900P, (which is no longer supported), by albinoman887 and perhaps it might be better to use the official CM12.1 ROM build that is specifically for the Samsung Galaxy S5 CDMA phone, G900P, which can be found, here.

Hope that helps!

 

[Dark Penguin]

Hi ironasss, thanks as always for your informative reply.

I'm intrigued by what you said in #4 above. Does that mean that, even if I didn't have any custom recovery, and rebooted to stock recovery, I would have been taken back to my rooted 5.0 BOG1 configuration?

Sadly, this all may be moot now. Since I was last here, my phone did run well for a few hours and then went into a random restart. I didn't actually see it happen, but when I picked it up later I saw that it was stuck on the Samsung logo, apparently in a boot loop. A couple of times later it did a spontaneous restart; meanwhile, I ran SD Maid to clean up what I could. With SD Maid I only do the safe cleans--i.e. apps, system, corpses and so on, without deleting anything manually.

Earlier this evening I found I could no longer get into recovery because the Reactivation Lock is tripped, but I could still boot the phone, albeit with random freezes and restarts. Now the Reactivation Lock is blocking any reboot, and Kies doesn't recognize it.

I knew and expected that warranty service would be refused on a customized device, but now it seems they packed in a silver bullet to brick our devices as well.

 

[ironass]

Oh, dear! You do seem to be in a pickle Dark Penguin.

Hopefully, this post will sort you out...

SOLVED my case is in Galaxy S5 "Custom binary blocked by Reactivation Lock"

After removing the lock, I would suggest flashing the stock Samsung firmware for you model of phone, CSC and Product codes, (there are 4 stock firmwares for the, "P", model), as per #1.11 of 41 Galaxy S5 models - Dummies Guide to get you back on track and ensure that in Settings > Security > Reactivation lock, you have it unchecked, permanently.

 

[Dark Penguin]

I'll certainly give it a try later today, when I'm on my notebook. I must say the RL setup doesn't seem all that effective as a security feature, considering that it took almost a day for the lock to take full effect.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

[Dark Penguin]

Oh, dear! You do seem to be in a pickle Dark Penguin.

Hopefully, this post will sort you out...

SOLVED my case is in Galaxy S5 "Custom binary blocked by Reactivation Lock"

This part worked like a charm. A million thanks to you, and that guy in the other thread whom I also thanked.

After removing the lock, I would suggest flashing the stock Samsung firmware for you model of phone, CSC and Product codes, (there are 4 stock firmwares for the, "P", model), as per #1.11 of 41 Galaxy S5 models - Dummies Guide to get you back on track and ensure that in Settings > Security > Reactivation lock, you have it unchecked, permanently.

I've unchecked the reactivation lock, but do I now need to go back to stock to ensure that it stays unchecked? Eventually I'll probably want to flash the version of CM12.1 that you linked to, and what you suggest sounds like the best road map for safely getting to that point. But right now I'd just as soon hold off on tweaking for awhile..

 

[ironass]

I've unchecked the reactivation lock, but do I now need to go back to stock to ensure that it stays unchecked? Eventually I'll probably want to flash the version of CM12.1 that you linked to, and what you suggest sounds like the best road map for safely getting to that point. But right now I'd just as soon hold off on tweaking for awhile..

So long as the phone is behaving itself and the reactivation is unchecked, then, no.