Help Nexus 5 stuck at screen of the eternally spinning balls

[laughingcloud]

I'm going to start off by saying I'm the noobiest of noobs, so please be gentle with your replies.

I was watching Youtube on my Nexus 5 yesterday when it suddenly shut down and attempted to restart itself. I watched it go very slowly from the white Google logo to the colourful spinning balls screen, and it got stuck there.

Status right now:

• Phone stops at spinning balls screen
• I can get to fastboot and factory recovery screen
• Factory reset doesn't work
• Power button appears to be working fine
• Charging is fine and I can see the battery icon when it's off
• Phone is not rooted, bootloader has not been unlocked

What I did so far:
Someone posted a thread with a similar problem and said to flash the factory image a few times, so I followed these instructions. Except to do that I need to unlock my (currently locked) bootloader first. I then tried to follow these instructions of unlocking bootloader, but got stuck at the last step of "fastboot reboot“, since my phone still won't get past the screen of spinning balls. HELP!

This is what's at the bottom of the system recovery screen:
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/log
E: Can't open /cache/recovery/log
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_log
E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_log
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_install
E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_install
E: failed to mount / cache (Invalid argument)
E: Can't mount /cache/recovery/last_kmsg
E: Can't open /cache/recovery/last_kmsg
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)

 

[Spec2nirvash]

So, final reboot brought you nothing...

Try rebooting into the *bootloader* And make absolutely sure you reboot into the bootloader first!! Look and see if the bootloader is unlocked (you'll see the unlocked symbol at bottom of Google start screen.

If it's unlocked, just go to next step and try flashing a factory TGZ image if you want to try going back to stock.

Alternately, from that point you can also flash a custom recovery and ROM. I'll warn you now; trying to restore a N5 that was previously running Lollipop is a pain in the a$$, you may have to try flashing several times before it boots. Also, if you go the way of flashing a custom recovery, follow instructions very carefully, otherwise you will only make restoring your phone even more difficult.

Its not just your phone... Lollipop update screwed a lot of people with N5s. Lots of people who let Google update it got an instant-brick, and some got a brick down the road, even without modding. They shoulda left KK alone, IMO.

Don't worry too much, a Nexus 5 is very hard to perma-brick. If you successfully flash a factory image, give it at least 10-15 minutes to boot. If it sits there on splash screen for a half hour or more, try flashing TGZ again. Also try a factory reset in recovery and reboot. If all else fails, you may have a screwed partition that needs to be fixed with ADB. You'll find that method in XDA forums.

Good luck!

 

[laughingcloud]

So, final reboot brought you nothing...

Try rebooting into the *bootloader* And make absolutely sure you reboot into the bootloader first!! Look and see if the bootloader is unlocked (you'll see the unlocked symbol at bottom of Google start screen.

If it's unlocked, just go to next step and try flashing a factory TGZ image if you want to try going back to stock.

Thanks, but my problem right now is that I CAN'T get it to unlock. Is there anything else I can do at this point?

 

[Spec2nirvash]

Keep trying to unlock it. Try switching up cables, verifying you have proper drivers, ADB installed and updated, etc. You could also try wugFresh Nexus tool kit, but it usually wont work any better over ADB, esp if there is a hardware or software problem.