HTC One M9 - locked and factory reset not working

[Rachel Jeffreys]

I have a HTC One M9 - on power up the boot menu is shown - none of the options fix the phone. I have tried to wipe data / factory reset but nothing changes. I have uploaded shots of the screens I have access to. The phone will also not connect via usb to the computer.

 

[vulcangrey]

You'll probably need to copy a file to a micro SDHC card, a flashable ROM that works with whichever recovery and firmware that you have installed, boot to recovery and flash that file from the memory card.

Which recovery did you have on there before it got stuck? And can you get to recovery now?

 

[martimarti]

I have a HTC One M9 - on power up the boot menu is shown - none of the options fix the phone. I have tried to wipe data / factory reset but nothing changes. I have uploaded shots of the screens I have access to. The phone will also not connect via usb to the computer.

How did you get there in the first place for example: the phone had some software installed on it and you decided to modify and install custom ROM? If so, what exactly did you do step by step? The more details you give, the more we can help you out about your problem.

 

[H3i]

I have official software with bootloader locked. For the history, my HTC One M9's sound system (containing all voice input i.e. microphone and all voice output i.e. all speakers) stopped working. I think those were because of heat up issues which are common for HTC especially in summer. Later before getting it repaired, I reset my phone and installed some apps including 'Tekken 7' (which turned out to contain just some cut scenes). Later, it wasn't able to reset. Whenever I tried, it displays logo and shows the message * This build is for development purposes only, do not distribute outside of htc with out htc's written permission, Failure to comply may lead to legal action * and reboots normally without resetting. Any help will be appreciated. Mobile info is attached.

 

[Hadron]

Where did you get these "some apps" you installed from? Because that message about the build being for development purposes only is something you see when a phone has been unlocked and/or system software modified, and if you had not seen that prior to installing them that might imply you downloaded some serious malware (especially if you are still on Android 5 - later versions are less vulnerable to malware that can escalate privileges and modify the system, but it was still possible with 5). To be clear, if you have seen this before then don't worry, that just means that at some point this phone has been unlocked or modified, but if it is new this is a source for concern.

How have you tried resetting? I'm going to guess it was from the system menu, so instead try booting into recovery mode and doing it from there. You can access recovery from the bootloader, which I assume you know how to access since your screenshot is from download mode. If your recovery is just a black screen (possibly with a red triangle) try pressing volume-up+power together to get the recovery menu. If your recovery is something else, tell us what, because that would suggest it has been modified. If you can't access recovery at all they suggests something has corrupted it.

But to be honest if you are unexpectedly seeing a message that implies a system mod then a reset isn't going to help - all a reset does is clear user data, it won't undo any system changes. For that you need a ROM Update Utility (RUU) to reflash the phone completely with a new set of official firmware. The thing is, to know which RUU we need we need to know your current software version and your cidnum (or else what country the phone was originally sold in and, if it was a network-branded phone, what network it was originally sold by. If it's currently being used on a different network or country that's irrelevant, it's the original that defines the "customer id number" or cidnum). You won't be able to flash an RUU that matches a different cidnum or contains older software, so we need to find a compatible one.

 

[H3i]

@Hadron
1. I downloaded necessary apps that I use normally from 'APKPure'.
2. Because I didn't wanted to login with Google ID until my phone was repaired.
3. This problem is for the first time.
4. Android version: 6.0 and not installing 7.0 update due to some 'Signature Error'.
I just discovered that my phone won't boot into recovery mode. At all and it just displays the same *This build is for development purpose....* and reboots.
5. Loads the below screen for both factory reset and recovery mode.

6. It's official software.(No custom recoveries)

I'm using this mobile for almost a year and this is the first time it is showing all these issues.

One thing more, sometimes upon reset, it reboots to bootloader with some memdump options including the following error: android reboot message: KP: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) known as Kernel Panic.

 

[Hadron]

OK, the "necessary apps" came from APKPure, but how about that Tekken thing? Any others from anywhere else? Android 6 shouldn't be susceptible to the type of malware I'm thinking of, but it's still very old so I'm not going to wholly rule it out. A "signature error" on an official over-the-air update would suggest a bad download to me. But I'm not going to rule out a hardware problem as the cause, e.g. a failure of an important part of the storage could conceivably cause at least some of this.

You say it's official software, but if you've only used the phone for about a year and it was manufactured 4-5 years ago (because they will have stopped making them before the HTC 10 came out in 2016) I doubt you can be sure of the phone's history. It could have been modified in the past (which leads me to speculate on whether something like that could perhaps cause the signature error on the official update if the phone hadn't been fully returned to stock, or if a different RUU than that intended for that cidnum had been used to return it to stock? As I say, that's only speculation. And actually if your recovery module is corrupted it wouldn't be able to install an over the air update anyway).

I think at this point the best bet is to identify an appropriate RUU and see whether it can be reflashed. You may need access to a Windows PC (unless the RUU can be found in zip format). In any event any software information on the bootloader page may be useful - knowing it's Android 6 helps, since any compatible Android 7 RUU will be more recent, but it may be that we can't find one of those. And the cidnum or original country/carrier will be necessary: the absence of a carrier brand on the splash screen suggests it may not be a carrier handset, but some mods would allow a previous owner to change that so I can't be certain. If you are up for installing an app called "fastboot" on a computer, connecting the phone via USB in download mode and typing the command "fastboot getvar cid" that will give a definite answer - you can probably fastboot download from htcdev.com - a web search for something like "fastboot download htcdev.com" should find it. Otherwise whatever you can say about the origin of the phone will help narrow the search.

 

[H3i]

@Hadron
1. Tekken was downloaded from some other site. It was my mistake.
2. The phone shows notification on my university's wifi about Nougat Update, it downloads but fails to install. I also tried to manually install this update using PC but that too failed giving the same 'signature error'. (I found a fix back then but did get myself to apply that)
3. You might (most likely) be right because I'm sick of this phone... Seriously it has many (small) bugs but considering my 'extra heavy use and getting into some technical stuff and disabling a lot of system apps', I usually ignore these small errors.

I will flash the phone tomorrow and will see if it works. I'm installing the Unlocked/Developer ROM that has 7.0 update. (It is currently unavailable to download from HTC's site but I already downloaded it long ago when I was trying to update it.) If still failed, I'll switch to some other version. Any advice about that?
Plus, what if I want to install Lineage OS? What are your personal views about that? Since I love to try out new software and to test the hell out of my devices...

 

[Hadron]

I have Lineage 14 (I think - android 7 anyway) on my old M7 these days: as an experiment in Android without Google I installed it a few weeks ago without installing the Google apps package. I haven't used it heavily (busy), but it seems stable and I like the general feel of it. You can of course add the Google apps package if you want a more regular Android experience, and most do, I was just interested in evaluating what it would be like without.

Of course there are apps that may not work with an unlocked phone (especially if you enable root), so if there's something like that you rely on it would be good to check compatibility first.

 

[H3i]

Sure. Thanks for the support.

 

[H3i]

For the history, my HTC One M9's sound system (containing all voice input i.e. microphone and all voice output i.e. all speakers) stopped working.

Ok, so I flashed my phone successfully and it solved the sound issue. Now it's working fine but for some reason, Google Play Services is crashing whenever I try to sign-in. It's weird. I removed the previous updates and installed new ones but still didn't work.