Root [Merit] Rooted for 6+ months,rebooted, no keyboard

[CherryGirl205]

I had a friend root my ZTE Merit a little more than six months ago and haven't had any problems since. I was using Go keyboard, not the stock one. I complained to a friend about my phone slowing down. Well-meaning as she is, she grabbed my phone and did a factory reset for me. BAD IDEA. Now I have no keyboard and 12 apps. The alarm, the browser, calendar, call log, contacts, dialer, email, gallery, market, messaging, music, settings. How do I get any keyboard back so I can fix this? There is no file explorer on the phone although I can still connect it to usb and read the SD card.

 

[kingmt]

Use another phone to Bluetooth the app to your phone.

 

[Motorhead1991]

Should have had your friend flash CWM recovery to it and made a backup.

 

[Hadron]

Did your friend who rooted it remove the stock keyboard? That's the only way a reset would do this. Not the best idea for precisely this reason.

Options:

The simplest is probably to ask your friend who rooted it to have a look, since they presumably are familiar with the phone and tools for it.

As has been said, if you have a custom recovery then restore a backup if you made one, or flash a new ROM if not. I don't know how to enter recovery on a ZTE - it's usually a matter of pressing some key combination while booting.

If you still had usb debugging on you could use adb to install a keyboard, but I expect the factory reset will have turned that off. Again, if you have a custom recovery you should be able to do this while in recovery mode. There's info on adb here: http://androidforums.com/faqs/443072-adb-guide-updated-12-05-2011-a.html (the commands needed are adb push and adb install).

You can flash a set of stock software. I don't know how to do that with a ZTE, but the unrooting instructions should tell you - look in the All Things Root Guide sticky post in the device's All Things Root forum. This will put the phone back to its original unrooted state.

Sorry this is vague, but not knowing the device I can't be very specific.

 

[kingmt]

The second easiest way it's to just push app.apk to it by Bluetooth. Before you start have unknown sources marked. It is at home/menu/applications/.

Easiest is to go to google play push menu My Apps & go to all to see if you Go Keyboard it's still there.

Once you get it at up again I suggest you make a backup With CWM Then try to move your keyboard & file explorer apk into your so system app folder. That way this won't happen again.

 

[Hadron]

But after a factory reset you need to enter your Google account details on the phone in order to install from the market, whether from the phone or from the web. And for that you need a keyboard.

I don't know about bluetooth as my attempts to transfer apks that way always fail. If it needs a file manager that's also missing (otherwise could just copy apk to sd and install it). But worth a try.

 

[out of ideas]

I made a flashavle zip with the keyboards. Ill upload qhen im done with Work

 

[CherryGirl205]

Thanks for the help, everyone. I'm going to read up and try to flash a new ROM when I feel confident in it. Just to clear a few things up, I'm not letting my friend touch it again since she made such a stupid mistake in the first place. I can't access the play store to just download it again because after the factory reset, it disconnected my account from the phone and I can't type anything in to reconnect.
I did try to bluetooth the .apk file but for whatever ungodly reason, the bluetooth is not working properly either.

Edit: Oh, thanks Out of Ideas

 

[CherryGirl205]

Update: I fixed it! I'm so excited. This is what I did for anyone who has the same problem and is new to this stuff too.
I downloaded SDK tools
and had to uninstall/reinstall the ZTE Merit drivers (no link for that bc when I connected after uninstalling it autoplayed the installation). Restarted computer.
Enabled Unknown Sources in Application menu on phone. Enabled USB debugging.
Connected phone via USB.
Then I opened cmd on PC
Typed in adb install <C:\Users\...keyboard filepath.apk>
stuff showed up. Last line showed success.
Restarted. Fixed. I am so happy I could cry.

 

[kingmt]

Forgot about the google account. I Bluetooth apps all the time but if it isn't working...

 

[out of ideas]

awesome glad you got it working.

now make a backup!! lol.

 

[Hadron]

Good plan - always have a backup

 

[kingmt]

Good job & congrats.