The kinda-official LG G4 bootloop thread

[RapidTurtle]

Who did you call at AT&T? I just called and the guy couldn't do anything because I couldn't tell him my "passcode" and I have no way to get to it at work.

I just called the regular number, and prompted to phone problems. Told the woman who answered the phone that I had the bootloop problem. She kinda chuckled, and knew exactly what I was talking about. I've had the phone for about 13 months, so warranty was out, but she was able to override the system. I got cheap and chose the free shipping over the 14.95 charge for 2 day, but wish I hadn't. The free is taking about a week n a half, and now I'm remembering why I got the G4 to replace my old motox, which I'm using as a spare.I

 

[RapidTurtle]

Just got my replacement from AT&T. It's a refurb, but seems in great shape. I'm just wondering by getting it from my carrier, what are the chances that it will boot loop again? When they refurb them, do they fix what causes the boot loop? SN starts with 505 if that help.

 

[Bosgarage57]

So my replacement I got approx 2 months ago has rebooted itself twice today and is getting hot. I've got a new phone on the way, but don't wanna sell it If it's on its way out. I'm thinking of an app or something that is very intensive so it'll bootloop and get a replacement. Is that a good idea or not? Any suggestion on intensive apps?

 

[Mike Dee]

Delete

 

[lostchild]

Just had mine bootloop the other day. Called AT&T , and they are sending me a replacement. The rep was nice enough to send out a replacement, even though I've had the phone for about 14 months.
It was a 5 minute phone call, as she seemed very familiar with the boot loop issue. Didn't even have to do any troubleshooting.

I tried talking to AT&T yesterday and they are not doing anything. My G4 is 16 months old.

 

[Tmint]

I just signed up to this site to tell you guys what I have just done tonight to my wifes phone to get her photos that she didn't back up.

Local service provider could not get it to turn on.Past warranty.
We ended up buying a new different phone and was able to keep the old G4 till friday so they can turn it in.


This G4 is just over a year old.
The phone will not boot at all.
Does not boot loop all the time,but I believe is same type of issue.
The phone will just go black after the first LG screen.
Sometimes it will boot loop.

I pulled the battery out..
heated the back of the phone with a blow dryer for 5 minutes put the battery back in the phone booted just fine.
The phone will shut off shortly after, not giving enough time to recover photos.

Soo.. I did the above but leave the back off the phone and used it to set the phone on and set up a blow dryer about 1 foot away to where it is blowing on the phone.I downloaded cpu-z to monitor temps as I was doing this.IF the phone shows a temp warning just remove the blow dryer for a about a minute. I kept the temps around 48 C during this whole process

I kept the blow dryer on the phone as I was backing up the photos.The phone only turned off once about 20 minutes later but..since then it has BEEN ON FOR OVER 2 HOURS.She had about 2000+ pictures so I'm glad its stayed on this long because as i type this it is still uploading the pictures to the cloud.

This info could help others that just need a way to get there phone backed up.This is just a TEMP fix.Soon as I pull the blow dryer away from the phone and it cools back down it will turn off.

 

[Doohickie]

I tried talking to AT&T yesterday and they are not doing anything. My G4 is 16 months old.

Same here. They had me send the phone in, then they sent it back unrepaired. There is a little crack on the corner of the screen and they marked it as Tampered/Damaged. GRRRR.

So I still owe on the phone. I'll pay it off then get something else. Not an LG.

I'm actually looking at a Kyocera ruggedized phone. Maybe it'll hold up better for me.

 

[PookiePrancer]

My sister's G4 succumbed to this issue a couple of days ago, just weeks out of warranty. Verizon brushed her off, so time to call LG.

 

[Doohickie]

Same here. They had me send the phone in, then they sent it back unrepaired. There is a little crack on the corner of the screen and they marked it as Tampered/Damaged. GRRRR.

So I still owe on the phone. I'll pay it off then get something else. Not an LG.

I'm actually looking at a Kyocera ruggedized phone. Maybe it'll hold up better for me.

So Friday I did just that. I paid off my LG G4 and said goodbye to LG products for the time being. I bought (on the accelerated AT&T Next Plan) a Kyocera DuraForce Pro. The Kyocera was a little over $400, MUCH less than the top brands (Apple, LG, Samsung). It's maybe just a bit below the name brand flagships in performance, but not much, plus it's ruggedized. With my phone history I thought that might be a plus.

 

[Doohickie]

So Friday I did just that. I paid off my LG G4 and said goodbye to LG products for the time being. I bought (on the accelerated AT&T Next Plan) a Kyocera DuraForce Pro. The Kyocera was a little over $400, MUCH less than the top brands (Apple, LG, Samsung). It's maybe just a bit below the name brand flagships in performance, but not much, plus it's ruggedized. With my phone history I thought that might be a plus.

.... but it doesn't support Advanced Messaging. So unless the whole rest of my world turns off their Advance Messaging options on their phones, I can't read their texts if they're anything more than simple SMS. The search for a phone continues.

 

[scottfish]

I am about sixteen months in and got struck by this today. Verizon is sending me a replacement.

Now to try the blow dry trick so I can get my pictures off.

 

[scottfish]

What a wacky day. I will share what I did to recover as much data as possible.

After letting the phone sit in the fridge overnight, I at least got a boot screen this morning. I couldn't get a full boot.

Then I read about the blow dry thing, so I used my electric fireplace as a pseudo-hair dryer and was able to get a little further in the boot process. So cold and hot are both doing something here...

I then put the phone in a freezer bag and froze it for about 45 minutes. It booted! I got a fraction of a backup to SD card a few times, and while I was doing so, I disabled WiFi, Bluetooth and set USB to file transfer mode.

Then I tried more heat. She booted, and I tried to catch enough time to transfer as much data as I could to my laptop. No dice. I couldn't keep it on life support long enough.

Back to the freezer... Now I got it to boot again and I laid it on the granite countertop to keep it cool. I backed up all of my pictures and anything else that seemed necessary after a few tries.

Back to the freezer for a factory reset. Now it is ready to ship back to Verizon.

***edit*** Side note. Now that I was able to factory reset it, it hasn't died for 15 minutes and counting. WTF.

 

[Joshua Luther2]

So, mine just gave up the ghost today. About a week and a half ago, after I updated to 27c on verizon, the very next day it rebooted on me three times. As well as the next day three times. So I chatted with LG and they said I could send it in to get the main board replaced in about 7 days. I decided I was going to go through Verizon. So I called them and they said I could bring it in to the a store and they could give me a warranty replacement since it was still within the one year of purchasing it. Well, it hadn't rebooted at all after that, so I decided to wait it out to see how long it would last. Well today, it randomly rebooted itself. Then about an hour later it froze up and shut off and won't restart at all. The only thing I can get it to do is when I remove the battery and then try to turn it on it will vibrate constantly for about 20 seconds. But nothing else. So I took it into a Verizon retail store and they said they could give me a warranty replacement, but it would take 3-5 days shipping, or 1 day shipping for $20. Obviously, I chose to have it shipped overnight.

I expected this to happen. I had all my pictures backed up to Google Photos so I really didn't lose anything that I can't replace. I just hate the fact that they couldn't give me a different device altogether. But the Verizon support person I talked to on the phone last week said if this happens to the replacement phone, then they could probably get me into a different phone. I really can't afford to pay off the phone with 11 payments left on it.

 

[lostchild]

For those of you with the G4's main board replaced, does the phone seem to get hotter much faster? Before it used to get hot if I used it for a while like 20 minutes. Now it gets hot after 5 to 8 min usage. I mean like uncomfortably warm like a heated gel pad.

 

[JayWill]

Well my G4 finally caught the bootloop bug today. I was ready for it as everything I care about syncs with the cloud, or I keep anything important on the SD card. My G2 made it about 2 years before it died, and the G4 a bit over a year. Not good LG. Safe to say I'm moving on. I liked your devices LG but a two year life span ain't gonna cut it. I like having spare devices around the house for certain things, or to pass off to the kids to mess around with. Heck I still have my wife's old iPhone 4 upstairs as a quick reach Sonos controller. That's not going to happen with LG's inability to build a device that last longer than my normal usage period. Oh well.

Best of luck to the rest of you all!

 

[werkx]

Just got my repaired phone back from LG today, Lets see how long it lasts...
Mainboard replaced. I just had to install the July 2016 system update, Boy did the phone get hot installing that one. Still has the old 505 serial on the sticker.

@bobby35ny, how's the replaced MB working out? Anyone with the replaced motherboard by LG has a recurring boot loop?

 

[CptSmith]

Just got my G4 back. Bought from eBay with a 05/2015 manufacture date and had no problems getting warranty service. Got a pretty nice CSR on the phone who told me not to worry about it. Repaired and shipped out same day. Says they just replaced the motherboard and it seems to be working fine, no overheating as of yet.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

Wow, this thread is still going on?

Damn. I wonder if LG still repairs or replaces phones that are out of warranty. Really want to get this one sorted.

 

[gendo667]

Wow, this thread is still going on?

Damn. I wonder if LG still repairs or replaces phones that are out of warranty. Really want to get this one sorted.

View attachment 245861

Man, I miss that leather back.

 

[dimdimus]

My story with LG G4:

More than 1 year ago (Summer 2015) I bought LG G4 H815 (international version) on Amazon to be used in EU and Israel while visiting there and in USA with Freedompop SIM card. Almost immediately after 1 year warranty expiration the phone died. LG service center in Israel (I was visiting Israel at that moment) refused to repair the phone. So, after return to USA I started conversation with LG USA. LG agreed to replace the phone but there was a catch: LG USA does not have H815 in stock, so, LG suggested to send me either ATT version H810 or T-Mobile version (H811). I asked ATT version because it is fully compatible with EU and Israeli mobile operators (except LTE band 20 that sometimes used in EU, but not in Israel) and I also knew that ATT unlocks its phones for non-ATT customers (if phone is not stolen, paid in full etc.).

Unfortunately, when I submitted request via ATT web site, I got response

We're unable to approve your request because the IMEI number provided doesn't match a device that's currently on the AT&T network

ATT CS did not help : they asked me to go to ATT store (and ATT store pingponged me back to ATT Support), after this they redirected me to LG USA to request unlock code and LG USA responded "only service provider can request unlock code".

In next iteration, ATT answered that "IMEI not recognized by the system". After I pointed them to screenshot of their own unlock page where this IMEI recognized as "LG G4 H810", they found another reason not to unlock:

I do apologize it may have been sold to you at that time however at this time LG is no longer supporting the device and not allowing us to submit unlock codes or a request. Sorry for the inconvenience

I pointed them to serial number 610xxxxxxx (it means, the phone manufactured in October 2016), but got in response same copy-pasted answer:

I do apologize it may have been sold to you at that time however at this time LG is no longer supporting the device and not allowing us to submit unlock codes or a request. Sorry for the inconvenience

Immediately after this I accessed ebay, searched for "LG G4 unlock code" and got unlock code for my phone. It took about 1 hour after I paid for this service and the price was less $4.00