Cannot escape boot loop after battery drain

[lhuge]

My Note8 is stuck in a Boot Loop after (a) displaying warnings about moisture in the USB charging port and (b) complete battery drain. When I put the phone on a wireless charger it immediately showed the Samsung logo and then went into a boot loop.

Attempting the couple of button-combo presses I've found does not stop the loop, which continues until the battery drains again (if I remove it from the wireless charger)

Over a year ago the phone spent several minutes in salt water. After that it had problems with cellular internet connection for a few weeks but then got better. Recently I've had some moisture warnings so I just haven't used the charging port.

I'd love to find a way to get the phone out of the boot loop, even if just to limp along until I get back home next week and can hopefully get the phone replaced under insurance.

Any advice?

 

[James L]

Try this. Hold volume down, Bixby and power while connecting it to a PC. If it goes to the screen where it says download or cancel choose cancel and it should boot normally.

 

[lhuge]

Try this. Hold volume down, Bixby and power while connecting it to a PC.

Thanks for your quick reply. At least that made something different happen! Connected to my Windows laptop, pressing those buttons, I get a blue-green screen offering to download a custom OS if I press the Volume Up key (or to cancel if I press Volume Down). If I press Volume Down it immediately goes back to the Boot Loop. I haven't tried pressing Volume Up.

Is there a way this can help me get my phone back to life?

 

[James L]

Thanks for your quick reply. At least that made something different happen! Connected to my Windows laptop, pressing those buttons, I get a blue-green screen offering to download a custom OS if I press the Volume Up key (or to cancel if I press Volume Down). If I press Volume Down it immediately goes back to the Boot Loop. I haven't tried pressing Volume Up.

Is there a way this can help me get my phone back to life?

You could hold power and volume down and as soon as the screen goes black switch to bixby, volume up and power and factory reset or go into download mode and reflash the stock firmware provided you know the Google account info attached to that device.

 

[lhuge]

You could hold power and volume down and as soon as the screen goes black switch to bixby, volume up and power and factory reset or go into download mode and reflash the stock firmware provided you know the Google account info attached to that device.

Thanks again for helping out with this - I went to sleep before I realized you had replied again so quickly.

I have google credentials for the phone (login, password and backup one-time codes - obviously I can't receive an SMS on the phone or get to google authenticator, but I assume my backup codes would work).

I should probably understand what this will entail before I make a decision about whether to reflash the firmware or just muddle through for four days before I get back to civilization and a T-Mobile store. If I reflash the firmware will I lose everything (app settings and data) on the phone? I'm sorry to say I don't know what I have backed up in the cloud other than Google Photos - I don't care about media but losing all app settings might be a big pain.

I'll start researching reflashing to try to answer questions on my own - if there are good instructions here or elsewhere, feel free to point me there (but I'll keep firing questions at you as long as you keep answering).

Thank you!
-lhuge

 

[James L]

If you used the home csc and the other 3 necessary files apps and data will be fine. App settings, not sure.

4 days without a phone could be a peaceful
experience.

Odin is straight forward, boot into download mode, put the files in the appropriate slots, press start.

 

[lhuge]

I finally got around (yes, on Christmas) to trying to reflash/download firmware.

After pressing Volume Up to "Download a Custom OS", the phone goes to a screen with "Downloading... Do Not Turn Off Target" in the middle of the screen and then in small multicolored letters:


CARRIER: TMB
RPMB fuse blown
RPMB peovisioned
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official
FRP LOCK: On
WARRANTY VOID: 0x0
QUALCOM SECUREBOOT: ENABLE
RP SWREV: B1(1,1,1,1) K1 S1
SECURE DOWNLOAD: ENABLE
DID: ***************



This screen is unchanged for a couple of hours. Is it significant that is says RPMB fuse blown?

I'm guessing that this phone is good and truly dead, and that I will just have to set up a new one from scratch, more or less. The only huge pain will be restoring all my accounts that use Google Authenticator for 2FA.

Let me know if there's anything else I can try without a great deal of technical difficulty, but at this point I'm pretty much willing to give up.

Thanks again for all the assistance.

 

[James L]

Okay you booted into download mode, connected the device to the PC. Are the drivers installed? Did you put the files into the appropriate slots in Odin and press start?

 

[lhuge]

Okay you booted into download mode, connected the device to the PC. Are the drivers installed? Did you put the files into the appropriate slots in Odin and press start?

I think I'm good with most of that EXCEPT I'm not confident of which firmware version to download. On the firmware.science site it asks me to choose my model number, which I think is SM-G950U (S8), but I'm not completely sure (could it be SM-G950U1?), and then it wants me to enter my current version, but I do not know what to choose there (and obviously I can't access the phone to check).

It really is OK to say "kid, I think you're over your head here" and just give up - but if it sounds like I'm very close to getting firmware flashed with just a little more info, fire away. I can just get a new phone through insurance, so it's not worth spending a lot of effort getting this one back running. On the other hand there's absolutely no downside risk of bricking the phone if I'm just going to hand it over to T-Mobile when I get a new one anyway, so I might as well try.

Thank you very much for taking the time to help.

 

[James L]

SM-N950U Try Samfirm or Frija

 

[MrJavi]

I finally got around (yes, on Christmas) to trying to reflash/download firmware.

After pressing Volume Up to "Download a Custom OS", the phone goes to a screen with "Downloading... Do Not Turn Off Target" in the middle of the screen and then in small multicolored letters:


CARRIER: TMB
RPMB fuse blown
RPMB peovisioned
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official
FRP LOCK: On
WARRANTY VOID: 0x0
QUALCOM SECUREBOOT: ENABLE
RP SWREV: B1(1,1,1,1) K1 S1
SECURE DOWNLOAD: ENABLE
DID: ***************



This screen is unchanged for a couple of hours. Is it significant that is says RPMB fuse blown?

I'm guessing that this phone is good and truly dead, and that I will just have to set up a new one from scratch, more or less. The only huge pain will be restoring all my accounts that use Google Authenticator for 2FA.

Let me know if there's anything else I can try without a great deal of technical difficulty, but at this point I'm pretty much willing to give up.

Thanks again for all the assistance.

I finally got around (yes, on Christmas) to trying to reflash/download firmware.

After pressing Volume Up to "Download a Custom OS", the phone goes to a screen with "Downloading... Do Not Turn Off Target" in the middle of the screen and then in small multicolored letters:


CARRIER: TMB
RPMB fuse blown
RPMB peovisioned
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Official
FRP LOCK: On
WARRANTY VOID: 0x0
QUALCOM SECUREBOOT: ENABLE
RP SWREV: B1(1,1,1,1) K1 S1
SECURE DOWNLOAD: ENABLE
DID: ***************



This screen is unchanged for a couple of hours. Is it significant that is says RPMB fuse blown?

I'm guessing that this phone is good and truly dead, and that I will just have to set up a new one from scratch, more or less. The only huge pain will be restoring all my accounts that use Google Authenticator for 2FA.

Let me know if there's anything else I can try without a great deal of technical difficulty, but at this point I'm pretty much willing to give up.

Thanks again for all the assistance.

Hello and welcome to AF. As a rooted user, Im very familiar with flashing Official firmwares via Odin. I also agree, that if you bought your device from T-Mobile its an SM-G950U. Firmwares can be downloaded from the link below.

https://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/recent/

However, my advice to you would be return it before your warranty expires. Software issue are one thing but replacing hardware is expensive. I believe, the moisture warnings are an indication the motherboard is compromised and hardware failure is inevitable. Get a brand new phone and enjoy the holidays.

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas.

 

[James L]

I'm confused, you posted under the Note 8 but then say it might be a S8.

 

[MrJavi]

I'm confused, you posted under the Note 8 but then say it might be a S8.

Excellent observation, I hadn't noticed that until you mentioned it. Good of you to point that out.