Vodafone Galaxy Note 4 bricked itself.

armstrongracer

My Galaxy Note 4 looks like it has bricked itself today.

I was away from home taking calls etc (not on wifi).. and looking for a location on google maps when I noticed the phone going laggy & slow. As I hadn't actually shut the phone off for a few days I powered it down & rebooted which normally does the trick when that happens. This time the phone powered up, Galaxy logo came up, went off as per normal. And then nothing.. The phone was left hanging with a black screen and a flashing blue led indicating phone is in start up mode. After 5 mins like that I tried to turn it off & restart using the power button but nothing happened. I pulled the battery and started again, and again, and again, same thing every time. Nothing I did produced a full boot up. Finally I resorted to a hard re-set using the standard combo of vol/home/power keys.

When I did that the usual blue script in the top left corner of the screen appeared indicating a re-boot... then nothing. Normally at that point the spinning android man appears indicating that the OS is booting up. Looks to me like the Android OS has crashed or has got corrupted.

It should also be said that the phone is not unlocked, is still on standard vodafone Ireland software, no new apps have been loaded recently, no existing apps have been updated either. The only recent change was an automatic factory firmware update that happened last week.

So, the question is, how can I go about re-installing the Android OS on a Galaxy 4 note. Experience has shown the people in the shop to be useless and I know they will just want to send my phone back for repair, it's not broken and I need it. Any ideas would be appreciated.

ED E

Check if you can boot into Fastboot or Recovery as a first step.

armstrongracer

Thanks ED,

None of that worked. In the end I had to reinstall the firmware via keis. Only then could I do a re-boot, but even that took 5 tries before that worked. There seems to be a known issue with Keis3 and Galaxy Note 4. It took lot of goes to get drivers to load and to get Keis communicating with the device. That was the reason why I had never done a backup so in the process of re-building the phone I've lost 6 months worth of texts, which is annoying, some were important. I thought they were stored on SD, which I was careful to remove during the process. The phone is back up and working now. On the off chance someone knows how I can recover the emails, it would be appreciated.

armstrongracer

Ok, latest on this.

Reinstall of firmware through Keis got phone back up and running. Phone perfect apart from lost data. Then after 5 days running perfectly it locked up as before. Pulling and re-installing battery left phone hanging at boot screen, as before. Reinstalled firmware again but still couldn't get it to power up fully this time, although it appeared to have some functionality (led changes colour when fully charged, haptic feedback when screen tapped, sound when vol +/-. It's like screen drivers are corrupted. As phone is less than 6 months old and under warranty I brought it back to Vodafone (its on a plan, not purchased outright). They sent it to repairers to be checked out, it should be noted that phone is pristine, no dings or scratches, never dropped, still looks brand new. Got text today from Vodafone. "Physical Damage" €190 to repair.

That is total nonsense, phone has no physical damage, it bricked shortly after an official firmware update. Factory re-set fixed it, all apps, stored data etc that could have possibly caused corruption were removed and erased during the re-set. The only thing common between the first and second crash is the firmware. Keis defaults to latest FW version. Vodafone are saying it's a Samsung issue and point me to a uk helpline, I pointed out to the Vodafone contact that software update would have come through Vodafone, either directly or indirectly. Firmware number recorded in Keis ends in (VDI) Vodafone Ireland. She couldn't answer that, quoting stock reply that its a Samsung issue.

Where do I stand, the phone wasn't bought outright, its an upgrade as part of a plan. Technically its almost like a lease hire, Vodafone must have part ownership of it. The repairers are most likely trying it on too, there is absolutely no physical damage. Firmware reinstall fixed the phone, I'm an engineer, physical damage doesn't suddenly unfix itself. Should I just threaten to walk away, stop paying the bill and leave Vodafone to it.

Arbie

My year-old Note 4 crashed this week, looks like eMMC failure. I think it's reasonable to expect 3 years from high-end phones. My last Note 4 also lasted only a year before getting battery problems - I complained to Vodafone for weeks until they eventually gave me a new one.