Root ControlBear Bricked My Phone

ragnarkar · May 5, 2013

Was following the guide to S-Off my phone and followed it to the letter.

When I got to the step to run controlbear, here's the output:

Starting up......
Connecting to device...
Testing ADB connection
Test 1: Rebooting into bootloader
Waiting fastboot (60/60)
Test 1: Rebooting into bootloader FAILED
Press ENTER to exit.....

And now my phone will not power on at all.

Even tried a different battery (fully charged), no go.

Plugged in the charger and the red light doesn't come on.

What now?

ron scubadiver · May 5, 2013

Have you tried to get help at unlimited.io?

Consider sending the phone back to VM.

goshjosh · May 5, 2013

ron scubadiver said:
Have you tried to get help at unlimited.io?

Consider sending the phone back to VM.

This. Even if you don't get help from the unlimited.io IRC, you can always get a replacement from VM if you're still in the 1 year time frame from which you bought it. Just tell them it stopped turning on, they won't check for root or anything.

EHokie · May 5, 2013

goshjosh said:
This. Even if you don't get help from the unlimited.io IRC, you can always get a replacement from VM if you're still in the 1 year time frame from which you bought it. Just tell them it stopped turning on, they won't check for root or anything.

TRY to fix it first, though, please. VM is running out of replacements and I don't want them to all be gone when I need one because people messed up s-off

remanifest · May 5, 2013

For whatever reason, your phone wasn't picked up by adb and/or fastboot, probably due to a driver issue. Did you run the ControlBear program from within your ROM? If so, can you describe what happened, exactly, on your phone's screen? Did it just go dark, or did it give you some warning? Did you see the white HTC splash screen?

I would recommend pulling the battery out of the phone and disconnecting the USB cable, and leaving it alone for a few (3-5) minutes. When the time has elapsed, return the USB cable to the phone, then the battery - press and hold the power button for a few seconds (10 or less), and you should get power back. Nothing that ControlBear did should have bricked your phone, sounds like a power voltage issue to me.

If the above advice doesn't work, a lot of people have had luck with leaving the phone connected to the charger for a full night, and then the power suddenly (magically?) returning to their phones. The only thing I can think that causes this is a voltage regulation issue in the phone - I haven't experienced this on either of my EVO V's, so I can't say for sure.

ragnarkar · May 6, 2013

EHokie said:
TRY to fix it first, though, please. VM is running out of replacements and I don't want them to all be gone when I need one because people messed up s-off

Of course, it sure beats having to wait till the end of the week for a working phone.

remanifest said:
For whatever reason, your phone wasn't picked up by adb and/or fastboot, probably due to a driver issue. Did you run the ControlBear program from within your ROM? If so, can you describe what happened, exactly, on your phone's screen? Did it just go dark, or did it give you some warning? Did you see the white HTC splash screen?

I would recommend pulling the battery out of the phone and disconnecting the USB cable, and leaving it alone for a few (3-5) minutes. When the time has elapsed, return the USB cable to the phone, then the battery - press and hold the power button for a few seconds (10 or less), and you should get power back. Nothing that ControlBear did should have bricked your phone, sounds like a power voltage issue to me.

If the above advice doesn't work, a lot of people have had luck with leaving the phone connected to the charger for a full night, and then the power suddenly (magically?) returning to their phones. The only thing I can think that causes this is a voltage regulation issue in the phone - I haven't experienced this on either of my EVO V's, so I can't say for sure.

Tried taking the battery out - still dead as a doorknob.

Gonna try plugging it in overnight now..

remanifest · May 6, 2013

Good luck - in the future, it will be easier to help you if you answer the questions that are asked.

TaiPan69 · May 6, 2013

My phone did the exact same dead as a doornail brought it back to radioshack played stupid and they replaced it needless to say I'm s-on but throughly liking the negalite blurom and have had no troubles w/4 ext recovery

ragnarkar · May 6, 2013

remanifest said:
Good luck - in the future, it will be easier to help you if you answer the questions that are asked.

It restarted a few times on its own upon running ControlBear then it stopped responding at all and died.

I'm probably not even gonna root the new phone that comes in (going 100% stock).. this has not been a pleasant experience. The only thing I need root for is tethering and it's only for a particular location that I've never been able to get a Wifi connection to.

Leaving it "charging" overnight didn't do a thing.. called VM and they're processing a replacement for me.

ron scubadiver · May 6, 2013

There are non root tethering apps on Market.

EHokie · May 6, 2013

Maybe I'm wrong, but is there really anything to fully brick outside of flashing a bad radio or hboot? I've had some soft bricks requiring many hours to fix, but there always seems to be a way out.

ragnarkar · May 6, 2013

ron scubadiver said:
There are non root tethering apps on Market.

I'm considering using Foxfi (seems Bluetooth tethering works with this phone) since I only use Tethering to provide a connection to my Samsung Galaxy Note Tablet.

gothicnerd1033 · May 6, 2013

Some people havent had good luck with foxfi. it just wont work. Others have confirmed it working, So its a tossup if it will actually work or not.

colossus3874 · May 6, 2013

As someone who had MANY problems with S-Off, I can certainly understand wanting to throw in the towel. I did a few times but always went back to trying. I tried so many different ways and not one of them bricked my phone so I doubt it was the S-Off procedure itself. If you're seriously wanting S-Off, you will get it eventually

ragnarkar · May 6, 2013

colossus3874 said:
As someone who had MANY problems with S-Off, I can certainly understand wanting to throw in the towel. I did a few times but always went back to trying. I tried so many different ways and not one of them bricked my phone so I doubt it was the S-Off procedure itself. If you're seriously wanting S-Off, you will get it eventually

I was initially motivated to do S-Off because I haven't been able to get a *reliable* 4G signal for over a month (and this is in Southern California where Wimax is available in maybe 80-90% of all locations.)

I first unrooted and returned to stock on the phone and was able to get 4G easily (after installing all the recommended updates that I wasn't able to get when I rooted.)

Looking back, I should've stopped here. But I continued on to Step 1 in the S-off guide and ended up bricking the phone.

Not sure if I made it clear earlier but I could not install any radio updates due to having rooted earlier (back in September when I first got the phone) and my connection was in the dumps recently.

In any case, I don't really care for S-Off and/or root as long as I can get:

1) Reliable 4G
2) Tethering for my Tablet.

Also, Working 70 hours/ week = no time for nonsense like this happening to my phone ever again.

remanifest · May 6, 2013

EHokie said:
Maybe I'm wrong, but is there really anything to fully brick outside of flashing a bad radio or hboot? I've had some soft bricks requiring many hours to fix, but there always seems to be a way out.

No, not really. This phone is incredibly difficult to brick. All of the files included in the S-OFF procedure are of course intended for this phone, so it's not even really possible short of pulling power during flashing one of those things -- a step which his procedure did not get to.

I'm fairly certain that this was a power problem of some sort, and not related to the ControlBear tool. I've never seen this happen to anyone else's phone, but I suppose it's possible this was an anomaly.

If you'd like to send your old (bricked) phone to me, I'd be happy to see if I can get it back to life. I've got some tools at the house to run physical diagnostics, but of course I couldn't guarantee anything aside from that I'd try my best to fix it.

mjhealy1978 · May 6, 2013

TaiPan69 said:
My phone did the exact same dead as a doornail brought it back to radioshack played stupid and they replaced it needless to say I'm s-on but throughly liking the negalite blurom and have had no troubles w/4 ext recovery

when I was s-on that nega-lite blue rom frakked my evo v to shat!!! But my good buddy Remanifest hooked a Brotha up over team-viewer & I can now flash any rom, pretty much!!! I actually think it was the aroma installer that played the havoc on my evo-v!!! I had 4ext recovery too!!! ohh well all in the past now!

HaTrEd360 · May 6, 2013

Maybe when you downloaded Controlbear it was corrupted from the download.

remanifest · May 6, 2013

HaTrEd360 said:
Maybe when you downloaded Controlbear it was corrupted from the download.

An md5sum check would verify if that's the case

TaiPan69 · May 8, 2013

mjhealy1978 said:
when I was s-on that nega-lite blue rom frakked my evo v to shat!!! But my good buddy Remanifest hooked a Brotha up over team-viewer & I can now flash any rom, pretty much!!! I actually think it was the aroma installer that played the havoc on my evo-v!!! I had 4ext recovery too!!! ohh well all in the past now!

I've read remanifest's tutorial and I wish it was out when I first tried s-offing actually Ive thought of trying it again I've had many phones and I'd have to say never owning a HTC the whole rooting and s-off procedure is pretty different im sure it was user error but my phone bricked I was just trying to state that you don't need to be s-off to have a good experience with this phone that's all.

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