Galaxy S8 does not reboot into e Recovery screen

Community Easy Installer
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8

So the highlights of your log seem positive. The download seems to go ok, towards the end of the log we get

C:\Program Files\easy-installer\bin\heimdall" flash --RECOVERY ""C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\easy-installer\sources\dreamlte\recovery-e-latest-r-dreamlte.img"" --no-reboot

(debug)PIT file download successful.

(debug)Uploading RECOVERY

(debug)RECOVERY upload successful

(debug)"waiting for recovery"

wait-for-sideload

Waiting for Recovery is waiting for you to do your button presses to boot to e-Recovery.

I am not absolutely certain … but, as far as I understand it “wait-for-sideload” is the next / second “standby” situation, Edit but it is not happening.

So, the question is … did you ever see e-Recovery, were you at all in the situation we see at the start of this thread? Easy installer hangs on Samsung Galaxy 7 after formatting on "send package with abd".

However if you never saw e-Recovery (as in that photo) I think you must have just missed the “Crucial step”

The significance of --no reboot is that you can start in your own time. You are on the green Downloading screen, you bring the phone down to black, you move it quickly to Start “Boot to Recovery” without ever letting it do a “standard reboot cycle”.

Any time you miss the crucial step your recovery is expected to be overwritten back to standard Android recovery (you are seeing this?), so you must flash it again, you don’t get a second chance!

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9

I’ve been using this method and have not had success so far. I am confident that I am switching just as quickly as in the video. It seems like the timing window is much smaller for me than in the video. I suppose I will keep trying.

Could you clarify? This sounds like I don’t need to be quick? -On second thought, I’m guessing --no reboot just means it won’t automatically reboot after the Download is finished. Is that correct?

That’s the thing. I am not getting into the standard Android recovery, I am just getting back into Download mode on reboot. Could this mean I’m not switching buttons quickly enough, and it just registers that I’m pressing VolDown + Bixby + Power? If that is the case, it’s a bit odd to me because I am not holding it down for 7 seconds.

10

And just to clarify- after every failed attempt I go through the easy installer again and reflash it.

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11

Indeed, you really have to anticipate it and move before a “full close”, some models generate a very small blip of text or colour should you see that, treat that as the signal! I seem to remember doing it many times, counting the seconds and experimenting with the finger move almost before the black screen.

Yes, so you can unplug it, walk around the room, meditate and prepare yourself for the big event.

So this would be the standard behaviour where Android Recovery was unbootable for some reason, the phone “falls back” to Download mode.

So you are running Easy Installer again each time after each “fail”?

We know it is registering the Volume down + Power, because this is commencing the standard “Soft reset”, it seems not to be registering the move to “Boot into Recovery” early enough.

Maybe next time you run Easy Installer, check the log before the finger press. You have plenty of time. Use ^F in a copy of the log to look for

(debug)RECOVERY upload successful

… now you should be more confident you have e_Recovery waiting there for you (maybe once or twice the upload failed!?)

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12

yes.

I’ve probably tried two dozen times now. I used a metronome to time perfectly when I should switch buttons. I found this video and I’m doing exactly as in the video and it’s not working. I know that the video is for TWRP and another OS entirely, but getting into recovery should be the same, right?

I’m thinking tomorrow I’ll just go and try to install it manually as @piero suggested. I am frustrated because it feels like the easy installer is just a red herring that I’ve wasted hours on trying to get it to work.

13

My suggestion can look stange, but : have you tried using few anothers USB cables ?

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14

I am sorry to hear about the time you invested in this.

I think it is possible that e-Recovery is not being flashed successfully … it is unfamiliar to me that the job collapses within 1 minute at this point.

2024-08-12 16:02:56,736 DEBUG [Thread-11] e.e.i.t.CommandExecutionTask [null:-1] getFullCmd(), full command =  [cmd.exe, /c, ""C:\Program Files\easy-installer\bin\scripts\wait-e-recovery-sideload.bat" "ce11182b884ceb3401" "C:\Program Files\easy-installer\bin\adb\""]
2024-08-12 16:02:56,782 DEBUG [Thread-11] e.e.i.t.CommandExecutionTask [null:-1] 
  (debug)"waiting for recovery"
2024-08-12 16:02:56,782 DEBUG [Thread-11] e.e.i.t.CommandExecutionTask [null:-1] 
  (debug)"C:\Program Files\easy-installer\bin\adb\adb" -s ce11182b884ceb3401 wait-for-sideload
2024-08-12 16:03:48,481 INFO [JavaFX Application Thread] e.e.i.EasyInstaller [null:-1] stage is closing

The logic is that Easy Installer has to remain online to carry on when you provide the phone booted e-Recovery.

What is much more common in a log is multiple repetition of (debug)"waiting for recovery".

Just a thought

I guess this is an advanced troubleshooting suggestion … I wonder if there is any chance that unplugging the phone is having a negative effect. I think disconnecting the phone is not critical. If one were to open the current.log alongside Easy Installer, is there any evidence that Easy Installer collapses when the device is unplugged?

Say one tries to proceed without disconnecting the phone, can / does Easy Installer proceed … can current.log be reloaded and show better progress?

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15

I used another cable for the last few attempts, yeah. No difference.

16

I just did a test run and from what i understand it says stage is closing when I close the installer. So I wonder if I was just extra quick that time, and closed the installer right away when I saw it hadn’t booted into Recovery. I sampled some of the other log files and they look the same- the time between wait-for-sideload and stage is closing is just different. Probably because I don’t always immediately close the installer?

I think for most of yesterday I have not been unplugging the phone during attempts.

I think I’m done trying to troubleshoot the installer, and I’m now going to do it manually. I appreciate all the replies.

17

I quite understand you spent enough time on Easy Installer … but we don’t close Easy Installer at this point, the job is only half done … one would leave the Easy Installer running … for the next bit.

In other words … we flash the Recovery partition, Easy Installer waits while we deal with the phone … when we return we do jobs like “Format data” under the “supervision” of Easy Installer … then finally Easy Installer will flash /e/OS. Only then, with with out newly transformed phone, would one close Easy Installer … it is expected to standby for the next job till finished.

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18

I understand. Let me clarify: I booted into download mode according to the easy installer, waited until it finished flashing, and then tried the “soft reboot” button presses followed by the “recovery mode” button presses. Only once it booted did I close the installer, because it would boot into the Download mode every time, indicating that it didn’t work. Then I would exit download mode on the phone, start it normally and do the whole thing all over again.

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19

Okay. Following this guide, I tried to flash the recovery manually. To save time/effort I reused the heimdall.exe that came with the easy-installer.
That gave the same result as the easy-installer: Heimdall told me that the Recovery upload was successful, but I was not able to boot into recovery and was just kicked to the Download mode again.

At this point I switched to this guide but I just kept using Heimdall because I was already familiar with it. And I was able to successfully flash TWRP and boot into it! I’m now continuing with the guide and I’ll add a solution once I have /e/ installed.

This seems to point at an issue with the recovery image, maybe? I will leave that to someone else to figure out.

I hope I didn’t come across as angry at you. The only thing I’m upset at is the easy installer xD. I guess I should have figured that it wasn’t going to work after the first ten or so tries, and should have tried to do something different. Thank you for your quick replies, I appreciate it.

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I didn’t detect anything negative towards me in your account @krokodilregister. If anything I was aware of being defensive on account of my interpretation of the the close juxtaposition of “waiting for recovery” and wait-for-sideload, uncertainty, and whether I was trying_to_make_the_log_fit with changes in the code for the latest version of Easy Installer together with this already linked post.

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21

I last successfully installed the e-2.2-t-20240723-UNOFFICIAL-dreamlte:

Now I tried to install e-2.2-r-20240719418592-dev-dreamlte in the classic way - in vain, because more or less the above mentioned failures occurred. I’ll keep it short:

  1. installation of recovery-e-1.19.1-r-20240110372392-dev-dreamlte.img
  2. installation of those vendors
  3. installation of e-2.2-r-20240719418592-dev-dreamlte.zip

Not only the /e/ ROM e-2-2-r was installed correctly, but also /e/ Recovery V2.2.

By the way:
I’ve encountered faulty /e/ recoveries more frequently since releases V2.x, not only with Samsung Galaxy devices, but - also with other CustomROM distributions that are based on the source code of LineageOS 20.0 and 21.0. If there is an bug in the LOS code, this has far-reaching negative consequences.

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22

Wouha ! an Android 8.1 based firmware part…
still needed…today !
Bravo.

23

The idea does not come from me, but is part of the /e/ documentation

  1. Manually reboot into recovery:
  • With the device powered off, hold Volume Up + Bixby + Power. When the blue text appears, release the buttons.

On some devices, installation can fail if vendors are not up-to-date. In this case, please:

  • Download those vendors
  • Install them
    • On the device, go into Advanced > ADB Sideload, then swipe to begin sideload
    • From the computer, please run adb sideload <vendors file>
24

I’m facing the same issue with my Samsung S8 and do not have Windows.

I do not see the ADB sideload option in the Samsung menu. Should I start the phone in the recovery mode from where there’s a ADB sideload menu option and push the file with adb?

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Hi @marcaurele welcome to the /e/ forum. I do not mean to be giving you a hard time in your first post, but I always think “same issue … which issue”, there were a lot here :slight_smile:

What same issue? Failure of Easy Installer?

Why do you mention Windows? Do you say this because of

That link is labelled a Windows method but … are you able to follow along in Linux till the point where you have TWRP … if that is what is needed? The reason for this way forward was that the e-Recovery seemed to be non-functional.

It is not there.

Well, yes … if you have a working Recovery, but the issue seems to have been to have been a non-working recovery. A Working e-Recovery would look and behave like this [HOWTO] use e-Recovery to wipe & format data before sideloading/install eOS.

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Thanks @aibd , I wil be clearer.

My problem is to get the phone to get into the e-recovery mode / screen, on a Samsung S8. I tried with the easy-installer, but when it’s time to do the 3 buttons press from Vol Down + Bixy + power to turn off / cancel the download mode, and switch to the recovery mode with volume up + bixy + power, it does never work. I tried many times. I looked at the video where the guy simply move the finger on the volume button. Nothing could work.

Then I moved to the manual installation mode, tired to repeat the easy installer process. I built Heimdall on my linux laptop without the UI, and I validated adb could correctly see the phone with the adb devices. I validated heimdall with heimdall print-pit which rebooted the phone as described.

Now I pushing the recovery image (for which I checked the sha256 sum) with heimdall. It shows a successful upload onto the phone:

./heimdall flash --RECOVERY recovery-e-2.2-r-20240715417776-stable-dreamlte.img --no-reboot
Heimdall v1.4.2

Copyright (c) 2010-2017 Benjamin Dobell, Glass Echidna
http://www.glassechidna.com.au/

This software is provided free of charge. Copying and redistribution is
encouraged.

If you appreciate this software and you would like to support future
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Initialising connection...
Detecting device...
Claiming interface...
Setting up interface...

Initialising protocol...
Protocol initialisation successful.

Beginning session...

Some devices may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!

Session begun.

Downloading device's PIT file...
PIT file download successful.

Uploading RECOVERY
100%
RECOVERY upload successful

Ending session...
Releasing device interface...

but I’m still unable to move to the recovery screen with the button dance. It keeps showing the download screen.

I thought I could use adb reboot recovery but that does not work when the phone is in download mode.

So I’m trying to understand now this Vendor thing, but do not understand how I should load it onto the phone.

Why do you mention Windows? Do you say this because of

At this point I switched to this guide but I just kept using Heimdall because I was already familiar with it. And I was able to successfully flash TWRP and boot into it!

Yes, it’s about this message. I looked at Odin and it’s all windows stuff.

My understanding is that the recovery image could be buggy and cannot let the phone boot in recovery mode, so I should find another way to get into that mode, with another image. Is the TWRP image the alternative to get eOS on a phone with the link from @krokodilregister ?

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28

I managed to get the TWRP initial image on the phone, and did the data reset as explained on the other page. I used the ADB menu entry to sideload the eOS image onto the phone and it got installed, tada! It’s on, it worked!

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