Help Honor 5x shuts down, then restarts, then shuts down, then restarts...

[Android Question]

Hi,

To start out with I am pretty illiterate with all thing android. I have never tried to install a custom ROM, I have no custom anything (recovery, ROM's, etc.) installed on my phone and I am not trying to get root access. I did download a rogue APK(?) from a Chinese website despite desperately trying to exit out of the browser application.

Yesterday my phone started cycling through the following process; Boot up, password screen, runs normally, then shuts down. So, for example, the phone stays on long enough to open an app then shuts down. I have done a factory reset. And still the same thing except now it shuts down while walking me through the setup process.

Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks

Octavio

Honor 5X
32gb of external Storage
Lollipop
EMUI updated
running OSX at home

 

[Bg260]

If it is a trojan virus then it has installed itself in the system partition. This is unaffected by a factory reset.
You might need to flash the factory firmware.

 

[kblanco]

I can't speak about whether or not you may have inadvertently downloaded a virus, but it's why you should always stay with the Play Store for your apps. While not perfect Google does routinely scan the Store for such things.

That said, I had a Moto G1 that succumbed to such a powering up, powering down, powering up and then powering down. It's called a Bootloop error and there's not a whole lot that you can do about it. I did a chat session with Moto and found out that it's a corruption of the software kernel at the heart of the OS. In my case I began a shutdown and then restarted it to quickly before it had completed the shutdown and had a few seconds to pause (who knew software needed a second to catch its breath). Their advice was to catch it as soon as it came up before it would freeze and start the shut down process and the loop by pressing the Power button and the Volume Down button simultaneously (at least for Moto devices and most Android devices). They continued with advising me that once into the Factory Reset menu, clear the cache and then do a factory reset.

In the end however is that it didn't help. After performing the factory reset, the phone initially would come up and stay up. However it ultimately began to intermittently freeze which would mean I'd have to power it down which ran the risk of bringing on the bootloop error which usually did occur meaning I'd have to factory reset it and then rebuild the device. After about the fifth or sixth time I finally gave up and considering the age of the device at the time just purchased a new device with more up to date features...

 

[mikedt]

Could be the rogue Chinese app had a Chinese trojan in it that sneakily rooted your Chinese phone and damaged or corrupted the Chinese firmware. Factory reset won't clear it, very likely it will need to be re-flashed.

Should be able to find the files and instructions you need on needrom.com

 

[Bpgnobl]

UPDATE

Hi, OP here...

Tl;DR
Phone works with HexoLibre, EMUI fails, everything backed up prior to crash on media card so no data loss.

I hired someone off the internets (locally, face to face) to trouble shoot my phone. A dicey proposition, I know but I spent enough time in the 90's hacking windows OS to know that getting up to speed involves a pretty steep learning curve. Gotta trust the whole Karma thing.

Anywho, my guy flashed everything he could think of, reinstalled EMUI (downloaded from Huawei) and then rebooted; problem persisted. However, when he rooted and installed an open source OS (HexoLibre) everything works fine.

For anyone who is interested, the file is called

Y成人快播v_1.5_crwt168_190829.apk

I can zip and attach if you want a look-see.

I am still extremely curious why flashing firmware did not get rid of the bootloop problem.


Thanks all.

O

Hi,

To start out with I am pretty illiterate with all thing android. I have never tried to install a custom ROM, I have no custom anything (recovery, ROM's, etc.) installed on my phone and I am not trying to get root access. I did download a rogue APK(?) from a Chinese website despite desperately trying to exit out of the browser application.

Yesterday my phone started cycling through the following process; Boot up, password screen, runs normally, then shuts down. So, for example, the phone stays on long enough to open an app then shuts down. I have done a factory reset. And still the same thing except now it shuts down while walking me through the setup process.

Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks

Octavio

Honor 5X
32gb of external Storage
Lollipop
EMUI updated
running OSX at home

 

[kblanco]

This is why I'm terrified to even attempt rooting my phones and subsequently don't. I mean it sounds really interesting, and for those of you with bloatware from the manufacturer or service provider that takes up a bulk of your memory it can be a real savior. But it's also a wicked beast if something goes wrong...

I'd rather do in the future what I just did with my most recent purchase. I purchased my first unlocked device just recently and made sure it had oodles of memory internal and the possibility of even more through an SD card slot. I also looked for a brand that provided a stock Android experience with no bloatware. I know it's not for everyone and it's not something everyone is interested in. But it's a close second to being rooted...

 

[Bg260]

I am still extremely curious why flashing firmware did not get rid of the bootloop problem.

If the incorrect firmware is flashed the device will not boot.
As of a year ago there were ~24,000 variations of Android and the number is growing.

http://qz.com/472767/there-are-now-more-than-24000-different-android-devices/

Sometimes it is difficult to track down the specific firmware.

Your custom ROM is designed specifically for a much smaller number of devices.
Clear as mud I'm sure.