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Help Please Help.. I'm Stuck! (LG G2 Soft Brick? I think?)

Crissy_A

Lurker
Mar 20, 2017
3
1
Hi there fellow Android users! Unfortunately, I have made a foolish mistake and now I badly need your mighty super-brains over here at AndroidForums to help me out!

Let me start out by saying I have an LG G2 VS980 (3aa) on Lollipop 5.0.2


Now all I wanted to do was change the boring boot animation that displays on startup with one that was more neato. So I did a simple google search and found a guide which instructed me on how to do so. It had me install a "one click root" APK file, and then install it and run it - which apparently rooted my phone and gave me access to my system folder. I then went into my /system/media/ folder and renamed the original bootanimation.zip (to bootanimation-og.zip) and replaced it with a new bootanimation.zip. Everything was perfectly fine until I rebooted my phone a few hours later. It was then that I discovered that I had accidentally used a bootanimation.zip for another phone, and it was not compatible with mine! Total face palm, I know! :(

So now when I power up my phone, it quickly flashes that (bad/incompatible) image before going straight to a blank screen that does not allow me to do anything. Not good at all, guys! So after doing TONS of hunting around on google and the XDA forums, I still have not been able to fix it. At first, nothing was working. However, after several hours of fiddling around with things, I have finally managed to get ADB to recognize my device again! So I have made a little bit a progress.

After getting ADB to work, I did something which was suggested on a guide I found on Google - which was to use ADB to "pull" the bad file from the system folder. So I went into the command prompt and issued the "pull /system/media/bootanimation.zip" command, and it worked, sort of, I think? It ended up pulling everything out of my /system/media/audio folder, as well as the bootanimation.zip, bootanimation-og.zip, and shutdownanimation.zip files - and placed them into a folder called "bootanimation.zip" inside my ADB folder. Unfortunately, after trying to reboot my phone, it did not solve the problem. The same blank screen happens.

So then, following another guide which recommended I try "pushing" the original bootanimation.zip back into my system folder, I tried just that. I opened the command prompt and issued the "adb shell" command, followed by the "su" command - and this is where I get stuck. It shows me the #root access, but it does not allow me to type anything. I assume this is because SU is trying to display the "permission? option" on my phone - but I cannot ALLOW it because of my blank screen issue.

So here I am, completely stuck. A couple of people on the XDA forums have suggested that I just flash back to stock using KDZ, but I have a couple of concerns regarding that. First, when I go to their "Restore LG G2 Back to Stock" guide, it says I have to flash the same firmware that I had previously. When I go to the link provided to download the firmware, under the Verizon folder there are only 2 firmwares listed: "Verizon VS98024A_11.kdz" and "Verizon VS98027A_05.kdz" - neither of which are the firmware my phone was using, which was "VS9803AA" - So I am unsure if I would even be able to use that method? And second, I was really hoping I would be able to fix this without losing all of my data, so I would REALLY like to be 100% sure that there are no other solutions to my issue before I resort to wiping everything and reverting back to stock.

So this is where I hope you guys and your brilliant minds can swoop in and save me from my troubles! Is there ANYTHING I can do to save my phone, by replacing that stupid incompatible bootanimation.zip file with the original one - without wiping back to stock and losing everything? If any of you are able to help me, I would be sooooo forever grateful! I will patiently await your responses. Thank you guys SO much in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

Much appreciative,
Crissy
 
As far as replacing the boot animation, not my field of expertise maybe someone else will come forward. Flashing a KDZ file that's pretty straight forward, as far as i know you can flash that file and be just fine and update the firmware as well if you would like.

Hi there James! Thanks for hoppin' in here and taking the time to try and help me out. I certainly appreciate it! Yeah, I'm getting pretty close to just flashing a KDZ back to stock at this point. I was just hoping to get either A) A few opinions regarding possible solutions that I may have overlooked, or B) A few people saying, "Sorry, looks like you're SoL - It's time to wipe it and revert back to basics" - whichever happens first.
 
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