[AT&T] HTC one xl boot loop

[timmaaa]

He can't run an RUU, unless you want him to brick his phone. SuperCID + s-on + jb RUU = brick.

 

[scotty85]

He can't run an RUU, unless you want him to brick his phone. SuperCID + s-on + jb RUU = brick.

thanks for thw warning.

i remembered the OTA bricks,i hadnt realized that the ruu was affected as well. some poking around the evita forum confirms s on/supercid jb being a bad idea tho admittedly i cannot understand why,as the the root exploit for 3.18 still changes cid in order to allow unlock. youd think any write protections and security checks would affect the s on phone after changing the cid.

at any rate,scratch the ruu idea for now,best bet is to install a rom. and then once thats working,id pretty highly recomend to get s off. it will make life easier,and makes more oportunity to rescue soft bricks such as this one.

 

[timmaaa]

I believe the problem is that the RUU gets halfway through the process, then a CID check sees SuperCID and won't allow it to continue. As far as I know it's only a jb+ bug. At this point in time there's not really any reason to not have s-off anyway, there are a few methods available and they're pretty quick and easy.

 

[scotty85]

I believe the problem is that the RUU gets halfway through the process, then a CID check sees SuperCID and won't allow it to continue. As far as I know it's only a jb+ bug. At this point in time there's not really any reason to not have s-off anyway, there are a few methods available and they're pretty quick and easy.

what is the nature of the bricks? a hard brick(qhsusb_dload,no power on,no charge light) or a "permant soft brick" device stuck in ruu mode,unable to be rebooted back to bootloader,or to the OS?

what did folks do try and fix them?

edit:
does any s off method work that does not require htcdev unlocked(and therefor supercid)? i was looking for a one xl to use at work and looking into it a few weeks ago,and at that time there was not,and also no root for the newest firmware.

 

[timmaaa]

what is the nature of the bricks? a hard brick(qhsusb_dload,no power on,no charge light) or a "permant soft brick" device stuck in ruu mode,unable to be rebooted back to bootloader,or to the OS?

what did folks do try and fix them?

edit:
does any s off method work that does not require htcdev unlocked(and therefor supercid)? i was looking for a one xl to use at work and looking into it a few weeks ago,and at that time there was not,and also no root for the newest firmware.

I'll just start by saying I don't believe in the term "soft brick", it's always used to describe a situation where a phone is boot looping due to the user making an error (not flashing a boot.img or something like that). That isn't a brick in my books, I've always known a brick to be a device that will not power on at all and can't be saved without physical repair, or opening the casing at least (jtag).

The s-on + SuperCID + jb RUU brick is a proper brick, the phone won't boot at all and shows up as QHSUSB_DLOAD when connected to a PC. The only solution is a jtag repair.

Just to be clear, only at&t devices require SuperCID in order to have the bootloader unlocked, so there are plenty of Evitas out there that are bootloader unlocked but still have their stock CID. Facepalm s-off requires root and SuperCID (and hence previously having the bootloader unlocked). Rumrunner requires root only (and hence previously having the bootloader unlocked). Firewater requires root only (and hence previously having the bootloader unlocked), but I'm yet to receive confirmation that it actually works.

You are right about there not being any exploit for the latest at&t firmware yet, the closest you'll get to modifying the device is a kind of temp root (that automatically reroots on reboot) via Weaksauce. Obviously that'll only allow you to run root apps on the device. A few people have attempted s-off via Firewater and Rumrunner after gaining Weaksauce root but they've failed, but they weren't exactly what I'd call competent so I'm not ruling out the possibility of it working. Obviously if it did work you could easily get SuperCID using the fastboot command (fastboot oem writecid 11111111), and therefore be able to unlock the bootloader.

Or I believe jtag repairers are able to change the security status of the device as part of their service, that's an option.

 

[scotty85]

I'll just start by saying I don't believe in the term "soft brick", it's always used to describe a situation where a phone is boot looping due to the user making an error (not flashing a boot.img or something like that). That isn't a brick in my books, I've always known a brick to be a device that will not power on at all and can't be saved without physical repair, or opening the casing at least (jtag).

The s-on + SuperCID + jb RUU brick is a proper brick, the phone won't boot at all and shows up as QHSUSB_DLOAD when connected to a PC. The only solution is a jtag repair.

Just to be clear, only at&t devices require SuperCID in order to have the bootloader unlocked, so there are plenty of Evitas out there that are bootloader unlocked but still have their stock CID. Facepalm s-off requires root and SuperCID (and hence previously having the bootloader unlocked). Rumrunner requires root only (and hence previously having the bootloader unlocked). Firewater requires root only (and hence previously having the bootloader unlocked), but I'm yet to receive confirmation that it actually works.

You are right about there not being any exploit for the latest at&t firmware yet, the closest you'll get to modifying the device is a kind of temp root (that automatically reroots on reboot) via Weaksauce. Obviously that'll only allow you to run root apps on the device. A few people have attempted s-off via Firewater and Rumrunner after gaining Weaksauce root but they've failed, but they weren't exactly what I'd call competent so I'm not ruling out the possibility of it working. Obviously if it did work you could easily get SuperCID using the fastboot command (fastboot oem writecid 11111111), and therefore be able to unlock the bootloader.

Or I believe jtag repairers are able to change the security status of the device as part of their service, that's an option.

thanks for the ruu brick info. definately what id call a "hard brick"

for the record,my terminology:
-soft brick: what most users are experiencing when they panic post "help im bricked" threads, and describes any situation where the phone wont boot to a useable state in the OS,including bootloops,splash hangs,locked in bootloader with security warning,and possibly a couple other situations i cant think of at the moment, where a recovery may or may not be available.

in most cases these are easily fixed. however the "permanent soft brick" term pretty accurately describes verizon users who tried to s on without everything being back up to par,and thus becoming trapped in bootloader with the security warning with no signed ruus to run to resuce them,and no way of re-unlocking the device,since the cid/mid is blocked by htcdev,like att evita. an evita trapped in ruu mode may fit this same category. soft brick becasue a viable solution exists,permanent becasue the resources needed are unavailable.


-hard brick: no power light,no power on,processor "do not boot" mode possibly fixable via linux tools in the event of a QHSUSB_DLOAD situation,otherwise only via jtag(since s off bricks often do not throw the processore into QHSUSB_DLOAD mode)

just to be clear,att devices were what i was refering to when i asked about the the supercid/s off,sorry i should have been more specific. seems thats what you see most of on the forums... not nearly as many canadian or international evita users. there are couple threads ive been following but havent recieved any reply notifications and havent been back to check in awhile. having upgraded the main phone to an m8,im thinking ill use the m7 at work so the notion of picking up anotehr evita has somewhat diminished(tho i prolly still would for the right price ) id agree firewater hasnt been given a real test,im not real confident about the last user to have posted. it works for the dna on the latest update(also with weeksauce for temp root),so seems it certainly would work for att evita. if it doesnt,updated users may be screwed since write protections are now preventing cid change.

im really not sure why att and big red cant just allow htc to un-block these older devices for unlock. especially att,since they have not bothered to block either m7 or m8.

also thot id throw out there if you achieve s off on any evita via a temp root and tool not requiring supercid,there is no need to change cid or screw with htcdev at all,the lock status flag is easily enuff changed with adb after adding superuser access,keeping your personals off of htcdev that you have unlocked and messed with your phone.

 

[ostromk45]

Thank you all for this useful info and your continued help! Can anyone suggest a good rom for me to use? How do I get s-off or is that controlled by the rom I use.

 

[timmaaa]

Thank you all for this useful info and your continued help! Can anyone suggest a good rom for me to use? How do I get s-off or is that controlled by the rom I use.

Nobody can really suggest which ROM to use because everybody has different tastes, and different needs from their device. Only you can decide which ROM is best for you, just browse what's available and pick one you think you'll like.


S-off isn't ROM dependant at all, you have a couple of tried and tested s-off methods you can use:

Facepalm S-off

Rumrunner S-off

Each has specific requirements, so make sure you read carefully before you begin.

 

[scotty85]

just to add a little bit to the above,since youre supercid and rotoed,you can easily use either.

i used facepalm on a one s,and got some segmentation fault errors when running the last command that were fixed by installing viper rom,so if you go that route and get similar errors try a different custom rom,or different version of superuser(the faults are superuser related)

rumrunner is a bit easier on the user,as all you need is run the tool and sit back and watch. however,it is a more complicated tool and a bit trickier to get to run on windows. alot of users have had to turn off securities all together in order to download and run it successfully. you will also likely need to be running an insucure kernel,wich most custom roms have,so flash a custom rom if you get the kernel error trying it stock. again,viper is prolly a good choice.

the phone tools will generally run much more smoothly on linux,and after some irritating experiences with moonshine on windows,ive taken to just using ubuntu whenever running a phone tool. ive got 12.04 installed on an old laptop,but you can easily make a bootable cd,and its not that hard to use it to run the tools,so if you have issues on windows consider that option. just holler if you have further questions

as for the roms,go thru a few try them out. you can always go back to the favorite by restoring a backup. a good place to start is viper if you like sense,as it has alot of cusomizable options,or cyanogen mod if you like stock android(AOSP) roms