A family member uses a Samsung Galaxy S7 (SM-G930F, herolte) with e/OS/ 3.1.1-s (Android 12) on it (which I installed myself on it). Two days ago after turning it on (not updating anything, just turning the smartphone fully on from a fully off state) it went into a boot loop: For a couple of seconds the Galaxy S7 logo can be seen, then the “e with bouncing dot” logo can be seen, for several minutes, which is way too long. Then, suddenly, it reboots by itself and starts the cyle again. And again. And again.
I am still able to enter e Recovery by pressing the volume up + power + home bottons when the cycle starts. The e Recovery is version 3.1.4. I was able to fully turn off the smartphone by the “Power off” advanced option.
Another unusual thing is that when I put a charging cable into the fully turned off smartphone the same cycle starts. While still working fine it only went into a special mode to display the battery percentage for some seconds and then go off again. Only a long press on the power button would actually turn it fully on (while it was still working fine).
What do I do now? Is there any way to get the smartphone out of its endless boot loop? Can and should I use the “Apply update” or “Factory reset” options? Is there at least any way to rescue the data from the smartphone?
I booted into e Recovery.
I used advanced option “Enable ADB”. The bottom the screen shows “Enabled ADB.”.
I connected the smartphone to the PC.
I used the following adb commands of plattform tools version 30.0.5 and 36.0.2:
C:\whatever\platform-tools>adb devices
* daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
* daemon started successfully
List of devices attached
ce07**********a10d unauthorized
C:\whatever\platform-tools>adb shell df -h /data
adb.exe: device unauthorized.
This adb server's $ADB_VENDOR_KEYS is not set
Try 'adb kill-server' if that seems wrong.
Otherwise check for a confirmation dialog on your device.
C:\whatever\platform-tools>adb root
adb: unable to connect for root: device unauthorized.
This adb server's $ADB_VENDOR_KEYS is not set
Try 'adb kill-server' if that seems wrong.
Otherwise check for a confirmation dialog on your device.
Nothing happens on the screen of the smartphone.
On a regular Android I know the “do you authorize this device for adb shenanigans”, but in Recovery nothing similar happens.
After doing all of this there now are two new files on the PC in the folder %HOMEPATH%\.android, adbkey and adbkey.pub. I assume they are about my PC, not my smartphone.
look like you won’t be able to run ADB commands because device was not prior enabled from
→ android settings → system → Developer Options → USB debugging
installing TWRP, and booting on it will automatically enable MTP files transfert,
you should at best copy you internal_storage content (if not encrypted) using your PC file-manager.
at least, (after mounting /system), using TWRP “advanced file-manager” you will be able to freeing some space by deleting some apps in /system or in /data
and perhaps boot to regular /e/OS
My PC runs Windows 11. I have two Surface Tables running Windows 10. All three devices already had adbkey files on them but unfortunately all three are not authorized when I run adb devices on them.
adb reboot bootloader fails because adb is not authorized.
fastboot devices shows nothing when run while the smartphone is in e Recovery with ADB enabled.
fastboot flash recovery /recoveryfilenameforyourdevice.img I have not tried yet.
Using physical buttons to boot the smartphone I can also enter “ODIN MODE”, as seen in this screenshot. Is this the mode the smartphone has to be in to run fastboot flash recovery /recoveryfilenameforyourdevice.img?
NO,
on Samsung it is called download mode / odin mode.
the right command is :
adb reboot download
.
NO,
fastboot commands don’t works on Samsung devices.
using “Heimdall” open sources flash-tool for Samsung, the right command is heimdall detect
But running a windows PC for a Samsung devices easier for you is to use “Odin3” Samsung proprietary flash-tool
.
NO,
fastboot commands don’t works on Samsung devices.
using “Heimdall” open sources flash-tool for Samsung, the right command is heimdall flash --RECOVERY /path_to_recovery-filename-for-your-device.img --no-reboot
But running a windows PC for a Samsung devices easier for you is to use “Odin3” Samsung proprietary flash-tool
.
NO,
please read the already linked documentation
.
yes,
only on some devices including the Galaxy s7 :
it can install customOS like /e/ from SDcard
I did ask here because I have limited expertise regarding a complicated technical problem. I’m sorry if my limited understanding of things and my mix-up of “fastboot” and “ODIN” caused frustration.
Back to the problem: Based on the advice given here I was able to solve it. I’ll write my steps down now for potential, future search function users:
Using the “ODIN MODE” on my Samsung smartphone and the “ODIN” software on my Windows PC (plus Samsung’s USB drivers) I was able to replace “e Recovery” with “TWRP”.
Booting into TWRP and using TWRP’s automatically activated file transfer (MTP) I was able to backup private data from the smartphone to my PC.
Afterwards I deleted some files (mostly videos) from the smartphone to make space in the storage.
Finally I rebooted the smartphone - which simply worked (proving the initial advice “/system partition could be full” was absolutely correct).
Everything is fine now - except I am a bit scared that a full storage can prevent my smartphone from booting.
At the end ADB was not necessary at all - a fact I did not know initally.
