Day: July 22, 2014

How I bricked and unbricked my Xperia S after flashing kernel

I was testing my Xperia S with images from CyanogenMOD and OpenSEMC projects, then after flashing this kernel:

# fastboot flash boot OpenSEMC-kk-beta2-oldmapping-boot.img 
sending 'boot' (9223 KB)...
(bootloader) USB download speed was 36326kB/s
OKAY [  0.275s]
writing 'boot'...
(bootloader) Flash of partition 'boot' requested
(bootloader) S1 partID 0x00000003, block 0x00002000-0x0000bfff
(bootloader) Erase operation complete, 0 bad blocks encountered
(bootloader) Flashing...
(bootloader) Flash operation complete
OKAY [  1.727s]
finished. total time: 2.002s

And this combination of files:
OpenSEMC-kk-beta2.zip
pa_gapps-stock-4.4.2-20131230-signed.zip

My device didn’t started anymore, all I see was a black screen.

I was following the instructions from this page:
http://www.androidhogger.com/how-to-install-cyanogenmod-11-android-4-4-xperia-s.html

Then after searching how to unbrick a Xperia S I found this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2088525

Then tested the hard-reset: VOLUME_DOWN + VOLUME_UP + POWER. I feel the vibration of phone starting but after plugin the USB cable nothing is recognized. Trying this hard-reset with USB cable plugged didn’t work. I removed the cable from computer and as fast as I could pluged it back after hard-reset and saw this using $ dmesg command:

[ 3974.182383] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 15 using xhci_hcd
[ 3974.199391] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0fce, idProduct=3dde
[ 3974.199403] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 3974.199408] usb 3-1: Product: QHSUSB_DLOAD
[ 3974.199413] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM
[ 3977.466235] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 15
[ 3977.825237] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 16 using xhci_hcd
[ 3977.842089] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0fce, idProduct=3dde
[ 3977.842110] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 3977.842121] usb 3-1: Product: QHSUSB_DLOAD
[ 3977.842130] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM
[ 3981.107036] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 16
[ 3981.468040] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 17 using xhci_hcd
[ 3981.484920] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0fce, idProduct=3dde
[ 3981.484931] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 3981.484936] usb 3-1: Product: QHSUSB_DLOAD
[ 3981.484941] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies MSM
[ 3984.927213] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 17

Then I decide to test another approach: hard-reset and execute fastboot command to flash a known kernel:

# fastboot flash boot S_DooMLoRD_AdvStkKernel_FW-96_v3.elf 

sending 'boot' (9244 KB)...
(bootloader) USB download speed was 36408kB/s
OKAY [  0.275s]
writing 'boot'...
(bootloader) Flash of partition 'boot' requested
(bootloader) S1 partID 0x00000003, block 0x00002000-0x0000bfff
(bootloader) Erase operation complete, 0 bad blocks encountered
(bootloader) Flashing...
(bootloader) Flash operation complete
OKAY [  2.291s]
finished. total time: 2.567s

Great it worked and I can use ClockWorkMod again to flash a good Android version.

Reinstalling CyanogenMod 10 on Xperia S

First I installed the Clock Work Mod (CWM), it was easy I just follow this page:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2302393

$ adb reboot bootloader

$ sudo -s

# fastboot flash boot S_DooMLoRD_AdvStkKernel_FW-96_v3.elf

sending 'boot' (9244 KB)...
(bootloader) USB download speed was 36833kB/s
OKAY [  0.272s]
writing 'boot'...
(bootloader) Flash of partition 'boot' requested
(bootloader) S1 partID 0x00000003, block 0x00002000-0x0000bfff
(bootloader) Erase operation complete, 0 bad blocks encountered
(bootloader) Flashing...
(bootloader) Flash operation complete
OKAY [  1.831s]
finished. total time: 2.104s

Then I restarted the phone keep pressing VOLUME_UP to enter on CWM recovery mode.
In CWM menu I cleared data/cache (factory reset) and installed these files:

cm-10-20131224-FXP-nozomi.zip
gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip

Update: I use rVoix calling recorder program and this is the configuration that worked for my Xperia S:
Android version: 4.1.2
Kernel version: 3.0.58-FXP+ (Sat Jan 19 23:15:35 EET 2013)
CyanogenMod version: 10-20130119-UNOFFICIAL-nozomi
Version Number:
cm_nozomi-userdebug 4.1.2 JZO54K eng.
root.20130119.230737 test-keys
This is rVoix version I’m using: rvoix_mod_kaefert_v2.apk !
A strange thing I noticed: rVoix doesn’t work the first time I run it, after restarting the Android the rvoix service starts but the icon doesn’t appear in the notification area and the audio format selected (MP3/AMR) is ignored and it always save only WAV files.