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software update zonked my phone..

Q

quartz11

Lurker
I have a Galaxy Ace GT-S5830i, inherited from a family member, about 5 years ago.

it had Android 2.3.6,
Baseband GT-S5830iXXLD2
Kernel 2.6.35.7 dpi@DELL134#1
Build Gingerbread XXLD3

for 5 years to be honest I've barely used it. I started playing with it about 2 months ago.

it was generally running ok for about a month. the first time I connected it to WiFi (3 weeks ago), it kept white screening when I tried to download any apps.

I connected it to the kies software 2 weeks ago, and kies updated the phone, I *BELIEVE*, to MD2 version.
(I'll explain why I 'believe' that in a second).

The phone appeared to update, and has ran slightly worse for about 2 weeks. battery life had gone down by about a third, and it still kept white screening when I tried to use google play, or samsung apps. also on the LD2 software, the touch screen icons responded immediately. on the MD2 software, there were often small delays in opening the icon, and often small delays when anything onscreen was pressed

yesterday I woke up to find the phone was stuck looping on the swirling blue stars animation, and samsung logo. it just keeps looping round and round. only way out is removing battery. I turned it off overnight to see if anything would 'reset'. (it didn't, still keeps looping)

I've tried connecting to kies, and it says "SIM card not inserted", and doesn't see the phone

I believe the new software version was MD2, because I had a look at the info page 2 weeks ago, but didn't make a note of it. now the phone is looping on it's start screen and I can't check the version.

any info would be appreciated...
 
Try booting into recovery and clearing the system cache. If that doesn't work you could consider a factory reset. I honestly think those are your best chances.

If it's stable in Odin mode you could consider downloading and reflashing the firmware. But I'll be a little surprised if a reflash works: if you had a corrupted update that would have caused the problem immediately, not a few weeks later. But maybe if the problem is due to failure of part of the storage a full reflash might bring it back to life (though probably temporarily if so).

To be honest I think this phone had problems already, the real question is what they were. If they were due to bad data that were not cleared by the update, and that's what's got worse, then a cache wipe or a factory reset might fix it. In fact in normal circumstances I'd consider old, not fully compatible data as a possible cause for performance regression after the update. But if the problems were symptoms of a deeper malaise (e.g. a hardware issue) then there's no guarantee that you can do anything (I'm sure repair isn't economically viable for a phone this old). And there's not enough information to really make a diagnosis, all I can think of is just trying things.
 
Okay so first a family member own the device, than it was passed on to you and for five years you barely used it.
And it was running gingerbread o.s
So your try to update a device that is five to six years old?
You could do everything Hadron suggested and who knows you might get lucky
Personally I don't think your device is compatible with the current software, I personally think your best bet is to look at another device.
 
Hi Hadron thanks. some googling in the past hour brought up odin, which is samsungs flash software? do you know where I would get the "manufacturers" 2.3.6 gingergread? I've tried the on/menu/volume up arrow switch on, did a wipe cache, and reset defaults, one of the things it came up with (and I had to do a juggling act to get a photo of this and holding the phone at the same time)

-- wiping data...
formatting /data...
formatting /cache...
data wipe complete.
e:failed to mount /data (invalid argument)
e:copy_log_files_to_data :: can't mount /dataRebooting...


joe - when you say the device isn't compatible with current software, you mean the s5830 isn't compatible with android version 9? or with gingerbread version 2.3.6?

phone battery was fine under the LD3 software. got 5 days out of it a month ago (mostly on standby). on the MD2 (or whatever it was) software, it was 3 days maximum
 
The repository for official firmware that I know is Sammobile.com. You'll want the full model number: I'm not a Samsung expert, but I'd generally expect the bootloader to show that type of information.

I don't think Joe's remark is about the system software but about the applications. 2.3.6 is about the time that Android switched over from Android Market to Play Store. I can easily imagine a phone with those specs struggling these days, since an update to the Play Store app (which will happen automatically without any say from you) would use 1/3 of its internal storage just by itself, without it storing any data. And Heaven alone knows whether there's a version of Google Play Services that can work with that device (the Play Services apk on my phone is more than double the size of your entire internal storage), or whether there's a version of the Play Store that can still work without Play Services. So it's a good point: I had thought that the fact that you had the Play Store rather than the Android Market would mean that it should work, but I realise that I don't know whether a version old enough to fit your phone would still be compatible with the Play Store itself. So it might be that your problems with Google/Samsung app stores are intrinsic to the old OS version and limited resources of the phone, rather than (as I'd been thinking) symptoms of some other issue.

(I suppose I could fire up my old HTC Desire to test, which had similar specs and I think the last ROM I left on it was based on 2.3.6. But I'd surely have to charge it up before it would start now).
 
I've installed Odin software on laptop, and have file S5830iXXMC1_S5830iODDLK1_RST_S5830iDDMC1_HOME.tar.md5 (235MB)

Switching on S5830i, into green android logo "downloading" screen. plugging phone into laptops USB and running Odin, log says

<ID:0/004> Added!!
<OSM> Enter CS for MD5..
<OSM> Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..
<OSM> Please wait..
<OSM> Checking MD5 finished Sucessfully..
<OSM> Leave CS..
<ID:0/004> Odin engine v(ID:3.1301)..
<ID:0/004> File analysis..


and hangs on file analysis for half an hour. I'm assuming file anaylsis shouldn't take this long?
 
quartz11 said:
I've installed Odin software on laptop, and have file S5830iXXMC1_S5830iODDLK1_RST_S5830iDDMC1_HOME.tar.md5 (235MB)

Switching on S5830i, into green android logo "downloading" screen. plugging phone into laptops USB and running Odin, log says

<ID:0/004> Added!!
<OSM> Enter CS for MD5..
<OSM> Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..
<OSM> Please wait..
<OSM> Checking MD5 finished Sucessfully..
<OSM> Leave CS..
<ID:0/004> Odin engine v(ID:3.1301)..
<ID:0/004> File analysis..


and hangs on file analysis for half an hour. I'm assuming file anaylsis shouldn't take this long?
Click to expand...
it should not take very long. disconnect everything, reboot both the phone and pc, and try again
 
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