Softbricked ZTE Open C after flashing Gecko & Gaia v1.4
Hello,
Not-quite-happy user of ZTE Open C here. This happened as follows: I've downloaded the rooted firmware from comebuy.com. The main reason was to install Russian keyboard, which I managed to do by building and flashing Gaia. The Gaia was from v1.4 branch, and some apps didn't work properly (camera & keyboard, in particular). Then I did the fatal mistake, it seems - instead of returning to v1.3 I decided to build & flash Gecko from v1.4. Almost everything worked fine except that I hit some bug where SIM card wasn't working at the start but switching airplane mode on&off fixed the situation. However, after a reboot, the screen just turned off right after showing the splash image of the fox. At that point, the system still booted into normal mode, so I tried to recompile Gaia again and flash it onto the device. And then only the recovery mode became available =\
Then I tried various things, and the current state is:
- recovery & bootloader modes work
- updates can't be applied, failing with 'E: signature verification failed' for both rooted and official firmware
- fastboot flash doesn't work, printing the message "FAILED (remote: flash write failure)" every time
- adb shell doesn't work - first it was barking about the wrong permissions (- exec '/system/bin/sh' failed permission denied (13)), by now I have erased the /system partition altogether using fastboot because adb push printed an error about no space left on device, and I thought maybe erasing some partitions will help (that was way too naive, I must admit...)
Now I wish to return to the original firmware, either from ZTE website or comebuy.com. The most adequate way seems to be applying an update from recovery mode, but the verification failure has to be circumvented somehow.
Any thoughts?
Выбранное решение
OK, I was able to unbrick it. My main issue was that I erased system partition, this created some extra problems.
Some facts:
- fastboot flash in fact works, but it fails to send large files (the limit seems to be around 300M in my case), and after unplugging the device while the fastboot process is in sending state, I had to change the port and reboot the device; using the same port or not rebooting leads to write failures for some reason
- it is always possible to boot using the command 'fastboot boot recovery.img'
- the stock recovery.img allows to apply an update via ADB or from SD card but the update.zip file has to be from the official ZTE website ((http://www.ztedevices.com/support/smart_phone/65229ec9-3165-424e-a7dd-3759356325fd.html?type=software)
- however, applying an update requires at least /system/build.prop (maybe some more files, I didn't check)
- it is possible to create system.img file from a directory, for that one should install make_ext4fs from ext4_utils (google the latter to find a zip file on xda-developers forum)
- in order to extract files from boot.img or recovery.img, use split_bootimg.pl script (http://www.enck.org/tools.html)
So, the steps that helped me are:
- download and unzip update.zip, boot into bootloader mode pressing power + volume down buttons
- extract the file 'file_contexts' from boot.img or recovery.img
- create or use existing system/ directory from update.zip, if there's an issue with sending large files to the device (like in my case), you can keep only lib/, bin/, and build.prop file - this makes for mere ~50Mb; or maybe even just build.prop, I didn't try that
- create system.img from the directory, using the command line 'make_ext4fs -l <size in Mb>M -a system -S file_contexts system.img <directory with system/ files>'
- flash it onto the device: fastboot flash system system.img - now there'll be no issue of non-existing /system/build.prop when applying updates
- next, run 'fastboot boot recovery.img' where the recovery.img is from the extracted zip file
- finally, apply the update via ADB or from SD
Все ответы (4)
Thank you for your question. Is the factory reset option still available? The official build will have to be provided by the ZTE. However I did some research where I bought mine: FAQ In the support page of ZTE the build is hosted here: http://www.ztedevices.com/support/sma.../65229ec9-3165-424e-a7dd-3759356325fd.html
When you run: adb shell getprop ro.secure Do you get 0 or 1?
If you get 1 then the device is not rooted. The most recent update to the ZTE Open C 1.3 ebay build does have the Russian keyboard. Once you reflash this build check for the most recent update for the keyboard.
Cheers.
Выбранное решение
OK, I was able to unbrick it. My main issue was that I erased system partition, this created some extra problems.
Some facts:
- fastboot flash in fact works, but it fails to send large files (the limit seems to be around 300M in my case), and after unplugging the device while the fastboot process is in sending state, I had to change the port and reboot the device; using the same port or not rebooting leads to write failures for some reason
- it is always possible to boot using the command 'fastboot boot recovery.img'
- the stock recovery.img allows to apply an update via ADB or from SD card but the update.zip file has to be from the official ZTE website ((http://www.ztedevices.com/support/smart_phone/65229ec9-3165-424e-a7dd-3759356325fd.html?type=software)
- however, applying an update requires at least /system/build.prop (maybe some more files, I didn't check)
- it is possible to create system.img file from a directory, for that one should install make_ext4fs from ext4_utils (google the latter to find a zip file on xda-developers forum)
- in order to extract files from boot.img or recovery.img, use split_bootimg.pl script (http://www.enck.org/tools.html)
So, the steps that helped me are:
- download and unzip update.zip, boot into bootloader mode pressing power + volume down buttons
- extract the file 'file_contexts' from boot.img or recovery.img
- create or use existing system/ directory from update.zip, if there's an issue with sending large files to the device (like in my case), you can keep only lib/, bin/, and build.prop file - this makes for mere ~50Mb; or maybe even just build.prop, I didn't try that
- create system.img from the directory, using the command line 'make_ext4fs -l <size in Mb>M -a system -S file_contexts system.img <directory with system/ files>'
- flash it onto the device: fastboot flash system system.img - now there'll be no issue of non-existing /system/build.prop when applying updates
- next, run 'fastboot boot recovery.img' where the recovery.img is from the extracted zip file
- finally, apply the update via ADB or from SD
Изменено Artem Tarasov
Is fastboot working on stock zte open c? to do this or does the stock zte open c need to be flashed via windows flash tool first?, before trying this?
Изменено vampirefo
vampirefo, it is needed for make_ext4fs tool (4th step). IIRC I found this piece of information here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?s=514ec0dafdabcdb258c74b86e0cf6b23&p=49367363&postcount=222