• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Nexus 7 (2012) Stuck in Startup Loop?

MrTripStack

Lurker
I recently had an issue with my Nexus 7 freezing constantly and I tried to perform a factory reset through the tablet's setting itself instead of the recovery menu now it seems to be stuck in some sort of loop when I try to start it. This tablet is non-rooted and completely stock, btw.

When the tablet turns on, it boots into a screen that shows an Android with a spinning blue cage on his chest, the word "Erasing..." and a bar at the bottom, which isn't actually filling to show any progress and is instead full blue with these lines going through it.

After a few minutes of that, the blue cage thing and the bar stop moving and the tablet freezes, bringing me to a screen with an Android laying on his back with a red exclamation point above his open chest.

When I press Power and Vol+, it brings me to the recovery menu, with this at the bottom:

Also, I don't know if this is important or not, but it says Android system recovery <3e> and KTU84P at the top of the recovery menu.

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 closing dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/MSC (I/O error)
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
Being that I'm in the recovery menu, I have the option to reboot, apply update from ADB, wipe data/factory reset, and wipe cache partition. Being as it's constantly telling me that it either can't open or can't mount /cache, I thought wiping the cache partition would help, but that also gives me a bunch of fails:

-- Wiping cache...
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
Formatting /cache...
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 closing /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/MSC (I/O error)
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
After that, I attempted to do a wipe from this menu, which also gave the same errors:

-- Wiping data...
Formatting /data...
E: failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
Formatting /cache...
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
Data wipe complete.
Formatting /cache...
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 closing /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/MSC (I/O error)
E? failed to mount /cache (Invalid argument)
After all that jazz and long wall of failure, it brings me back to the recovery menu. Even with all the failing, I thought it did something since it said "Data wipe complete", but now trying to "reboot system now", it brings me to a solid black screen as if the tablet locked up or just turned off. Turning it back on again, it shows the word "Google" before displaying the original screen of the android with the blue spinning cage and the word "Erasing", effectively completing the loop.

My warranty obviously expired ages ago now and I'm hoping somebody here can help.
 
Those messages don't sound healthy unfortunately.

You could try to install a completely fresh system from scratch using one of the toolkits (wug's/mskips), but from the messages you're getting, I think you might be goosed, sorry :(
 
So, update here: I tried to mess with it some more this morning and it seems that it got through the factory reset it was stuck on, but I'm still having issues with constant freezing.

I can get to the "Google" bootup screen and where the colored circles spin around before bringing me to the menus to set up my Wi-Fi and account and all that (like it did when it was first out of the box), but now it continues to freeze while trying to set up these settings.

I managed to input my Wi-Fi password and skip over the rest of the settings in hopes of getting into the system before another freeze and now it gets stuck on a black screen that only shows the "back" arrow at the bottom and the battery and internet indicators at the top right.

Any ideas, guys? I can effectively get into the bootloader now, but attempting to wipe through the recovery menu gives the same errors as before while clearing cache seems to work without issues.

I attempted to use a Nexus Root Toolkit (Wuggs, I believe) to "Flash Stock + Unroot" with the "Soft-Bricked/Booloop" option selected and everything seemed to work until it got towards the end when the program stops responding.

Now I can't boot into the system at all and I only get a very primitive "bootloader" that says Google (instead of showing the Android) and that's it. I can use the volume keys to browse between "Start", "Restart bootloader", "Recovery mode", and "Power off". Both Start and Recovery mode bring me to the same exact screen while "Restart bootloader" seems to bring me to a complete bootloader, but choosing any of those options brings me right back to the screen without all the info.

I feel like I'm just messing this up more the more I mess with it and I'm not sure what else to try. This Nexus 7 is completely stock, by the way.
 
Back
Top Bottom