Root How a couple force closes snowballed on me

[sdrawkcab25]

This is a kind of long process of what I went through to kind of get my phone back up and running after a few small force closes snowballed. My phone is up and running now but still not at 100%, any input would be appreciated.

My phone's previous software information was the following.
Virtuous Rom 2.6 with King's BFS #5 kernel not overclocked and the Incredible Revolution Theme.

About a week ago I started noticing some random force closes with some of the HTC services (.com.htc.downloader, or something similar). It would force close but never caused me any problems that I would notice. The only new app I had added in about a month was "Angry Birds Lite"

Then yesterday my phone started acting sluggish all of a sudden so I decided a reboot was in order. I used "quick boot" and selected reboot and my phone started to reboot, and then started to boot loop (it would get all the way to the droid eye animation and sit for a minute then try to boot again). I pulled the battery and attempted to let it boot again and it was still stuck in the boot loop. I then booted into recovery and attempted to restore one of my backups with no luck, now it would just get stuck at the first white HTC incredible screen and sit for half an hour if I let it. Next I did a full data/dalvik cache wipe and tried to restore a couple different nandroids with no luck.

My next step was just to re-download Virtuous and start fresh. I was able to get Virtuous to boot but after going through the set up .com.htc.launcher would go into a force close loop with no way out of it, after another few attempts at loading Virtuous and other Sense based roms and having them all fail with the same .com.htc.launcher force close loop, I tried to go to a senseless Rom and was able to get Sky Raider to boot with no issues. But I wanted my phone back the way I had it.

My last resort was to unroot back to stock(S-off still). I downloaded the stock PB31IMG.zip and flashed it to my phone with complete success. Next I needed to root my phone again. I used the UnrEVOked 3.2 and got my phone rooted, but I couldn't boot into recovery. After much trial and error I was able to get recovery to load by flashing Adrynalyne's version of clockwork mod. I then flashed Virtuous 3.1 with the stock kernel onto my phone, and then I was able to flash back to the standard Clockwork mod recovery.

My phone is up and running now fine when it's on. But my issue now is that I can't do anything through rom manager or manually through clockwork mod to my phone without my phone getting stuck in a boot loop or getting stuck at the first HTC incredible screen after booting out of recovery. Even after just making a nandroid backup of my phone (without loading any apps) it will get stuck at the HTC screen. 95% of the time, clearing the dalvik cache will let my phone boot, but if I had loaded any apps they are all erased and just a placeholder is left on the home-screens. Sometimes I need to do a data wipe to get it to boot.

So..... Any suggestions anyone?

edit: I'm using a newly formatted FAT32 sd card since flashing back to stock and rooting again

 

[iowabowtech]

How about trying to flash RA recovery in Rom Manager and give that a shot. Might be able to narrow it down to a Clockwork issue.

 

[xkingofgodzx]

Wow that's really interesting you posted this. I started having the exact same problem with frankenrom and king kernel #5. My phone was being really slow then i got a force close on just about everything you can get last night. I have been wanting to get back to stock 2.1 so I can upgrade to the official froyo anyway. So I had to do it the long way because I installed the first ota leak back in the day. It was actually pretty quick and painless. So I went back to stock upgraded to the official froyo, rerooted, installed frankenrom and king kernel 5 again and I am 100% back up and running.

 

[mike1]

Same thing was just happening to me on skyraider but a battery pull worked for me

 

[sdrawkcab25]

I just got done experimenting with another recovery and still the same issue, thinking about going back to stock 2.2 again for a day, then starting over. Even right after flashing a new rom, I can't do a reboot without getting stuck at the HTC splash screen.

 

[iowabowtech]

I have to admit, this thread has had my gears turning all evening. I cannot figure out how this problem could have followed you after reloading the full 2.2 image. It just doesn't add up to me.

Having said that, before you retry 2.2 again, perhaps try formatting the boot partition in Clockwork. That's where your problem seems to lie IMO. It's the only thing I can think of even though I think this would have been addressed when loading the PB31IMG. After that, without rebooting, wipe data/cache/dalvik and load your Rom from SD and cross fingers. Might be worth a shot prior to reloading the IMG file again.

 

[txateer]

I'm kinda new and have been LURKING the boards, just flashed last week because I was really curious about rooting, just seemed like a fun and cool thing to do.

About 3 weeks before, however, I had the exact same thing happen to my original stock dinc. the first couple of times it did the exact thing as far as getting to the start up flash screen and freezing forever. I was still running 2.1 BTW. Then it started to do the power cycling on boot up when it got to the first white droid incredible screen and just cycle over and over.
At first it was only doing it once a week but started to happen several times a day. I would have to pull the batt and let it sit for up to 10 min and then it would reboot just fine.
I took it to the VZ store and they replace my battery free of charge, it actually stopped for a couple of days and then started again.
A week later , back at the VZ store it happened just as I handed the guy my phone. He just said that they would replace it under warranty and the next day I had my new droid, well, a 'certified new' one anyway. Works just fine.
Anyway, I guess my main point is it seems really easy to get caught up on all the finer points of kernels and ROMS and overlook that the problem MIGHT be hardware......

My 2 cents

'CERTIFIED NEW' still incredible Dinc
ROOT with stock 2.2
2.6.32.15-g54663b9-dirtykoush@koush-OSx86 #6 kernel

Thanks

 

[sdrawkcab25]

I have to admit, this thread has had my gears turning all evening. I cannot figure out how this problem could have followed you after reloading the full 2.2 image. It just doesn't add up to me.

Having said that, before you retry 2.2 again, perhaps try formatting the boot partition in Clockwork. That's where your problem seems to lie IMO. It's the only thing I can think of even though I think this would have been addressed when loading the PB31IMG. After that, without rebooting, wipe data/cache/dalvik and load your Rom from SD and cross fingers. Might be worth a shot prior to reloading the IMG file again.

That sounds like a good plan, gonna try that later. I'll report back.

 

[fullhouse131]

I just got a bunch of force closes and now am too in a boot loop on FrankenRom

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Still no luck after formatting boot and wiping and flashing...any other ideas before I go stock again?
I had my fingers crossed too. It actually booted good after coming out of recovery, I let it sit for an hour after booting up, then tried using some stock programs but got force closes on some of them. So I tried to turn it off then back on but got stuck at the first splash screen. Booted into recovery and wiping the Dalvik cache let it boot again.

Does that sound like clockwork isn't loading roms correctly? Although I've tried flashing with a couple different versions of clockwork and the alternate recovery that is in Rom manager...

 

[iowabowtech]

My last resort was to unroot back to stock(S-off still). I downloaded the stock PB31IMG.zip and flashed it to my phone with complete success. Next I needed to root my phone again. I used the UnrEVOked 3.2 and got my phone rooted, but I couldn't boot into recovery. After much trial and error I was able to get recovery to load by flashing Adrynalyne's version of clockwork mod. I then flashed Virtuous 3.1 with the stock kernel onto my phone, and then I was able to flash back to the standard Clockwork mod recovery.

Know what you mean, that's why I suggested the alternate recovery earlier b/c it did sound odd. The original lack of ability to get into recovery still kinda bugs me too.

I guess a guy can't rule out a hardware issue as mentioned in an above post but if you're not ready to quit yet, go back to the partitions menu and this time format boot, data, system, and cache partitions. Then reload the Rom. I would also advise either trying a different Rom, or verifying the zip by way of an MD5 sum. If you don't have a Rom that provides one, I'd find one that does. That rules out the Rom download glitch possibility.

Just want to verify an earlier point you made also...you're NOT overclocking right? That can cause issues similar to this if you're OC to high.

Also, just out of curiosity, what do you have on your SD card besides the Clockwork folder right now? Maybe try moving everything off the card to the PC before trying the above idea. If you get any errors during that effort, maybe a corrupt file could be related to the problem. If not, move only the Clockwork folder (for now) back to the card and try the full format plan above. Obviously you'll have the Rom on there too.

Just my thoughts. I could be all wrong here, love your tenacity though.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

I figure the hardware thing was ruled out because my phone worked perfect when I flashed the stock image.

But yes, I am not overclocked and running the stock kernel. I've been trying to load the virtuous Rom and uncommon sense Rom and I've verified the md5 on both of them and have downloaded them multiple times. I'm going to try your next suggestion later. I had originally been messing with all this stuff on a blank SD card that I formatted to fat32 but have since gone back to my original card.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

No luck with any of that. It seems as though my problem is with the dalvik cache, I have to wipe it every time after rebooting my phone or it won't boot past the first splash screen. Looks like I'm going to flash back to stock and start over

 

[rmzd88]

I'm kinda new and have been LURKING the boards, just flashed last week because I was really curious about rooting, just seemed like a fun and cool thing to do.

About 3 weeks before, however, I had the exact same thing happen to my original stock dinc. the first couple of times it did the exact thing as far as getting to the start up flash screen and freezing forever. I was still running 2.1 BTW. Then it started to do the power cycling on boot up when it got to the first white droid incredible screen and just cycle over and over.
At first it was only doing it once a week but started to happen several times a day. I would have to pull the batt and let it sit for up to 10 min and then it would reboot just fine.
I took it to the VZ store and they replace my battery free of charge, it actually stopped for a couple of days and then started again.
A week later , back at the VZ store it happened just as I handed the guy my phone. He just said that they would replace it under warranty and the next day I had my new droid, well, a 'certified new' one anyway. Works just fine.
Anyway, I guess my main point is it seems really easy to get caught up on all the finer points of kernels and ROMS and overlook that the problem MIGHT be hardware......

My 2 cents

'CERTIFIED NEW' still incredible Dinc
ROOT with stock 2.2
2.6.32.15-g54663b9-dirtykoush@koush-OSx86 #6 kernel

Thanks

I'm having this same problem. I thought about taking my phone to Verizon, but would they notice it is rooted and therefore void the warranty/insurance?

 

[sdrawkcab25]

...so after flashing back to unrooted stock and having it work perfectly fine for a couple hours(able to reboot fine, no bootloops and no force closes), I decided to re-root again and am back to the same problems. I had the same problem again when trying to root, UnrEVOked rooted the phone but got stuck at the step where it boots into recovery. So I had to pull the battery and boot into the phone and flash clockwork through ROM manager. I'm starting to think it might have something to do with the computer I'm using to root with. Still really doesn't make much sense though.