M7 (originally m7att) can't flash newer recoveries topic

Been working on this for a few days but I am running out of ideas. I originally consulted @nkk71 privately about this but we've been unable to find anything to resolve the issue. Hopefully, someone has experienced this before or has a fix, if this is not a hardware issue.

I have a m7att that appears to be unable to flash newer recoveries. It only seems to accept certain old versions and I haven't been able to exactly pinpoint why, this is my last resort before trying to go through the trouble in reviewing github commits for the recovery updates. Before you say "fastboot erase cache"; yes, I've done that hundreds of times (literally).

I can run adb commands in certain recoveries even when they are frozen on "Entering recovery..." screen. See the table I posted below under the adb? column for more info on which.

symptoms
- Can't flash certain recoveries (see list, especially newer ones)
- fastboot commands sometimes/very seldom lag or don't carry through (or I'm just impatient to wait and I just rebooted the bootloader)
- fastboot sometimes shows hbootpreupdate: 11 randomly while parsing commands (e.g. on fastboot getvar all)

status of the m7
- S-off, rooted
- fastboot getvar all info

Code:

---

fastboot getvar all
(bootloader) version: 0.5
(bootloader) version-bootloader: 1.60.0000
(bootloader) version-baseband: 4T.33.3218.15
(bootloader) version-cpld: None
(bootloader) version-microp: None
(bootloader) version-main: 7.15.401.1
(bootloader) version-misc: PVT SHIP S-OFF
(bootloader) product: m7_ul
(bootloader) platform: HBOOT-8064
(bootloader) modelid: PN0712000
(bootloader) cidnum: CWS__001
(bootloader) battery-status: good
(bootloader) battery-voltage: 4235mV
(bootloader) partition-layout: Generic
(bootloader) security: off
(bootloader) build-mode: SHIP
(bootloader) boot-mode: FASTBOOT
(bootloader) commitno-bootloader: dirty-91bb20e1
(bootloader) hbootpreupdate: 11
(bootloader) gencheckpt: 0
all: Done!
finished. total time: 0.132s

---

- emmc chip info:

Code:

---

root@m7:/sys/class/block/mmcblk0/device # cat name hwrev fwrev manfid oemid date type serial cid

name MBG4GA
hwrev 0x0
fwrev 0x4
manfid 0x000015
oemid 0x0100
date 02/1998
type MMC
serial 0x6f160877
cid 1501004d4247344741046f1608772138

---

Partition info and other misc, just in case maybe something is off about this one

Code:

---

root@m7:/ # cat /proc/partitions
cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

 179        0  30535680 mmcblk0
 179        1        128 mmcblk0p1
 179        2        256 mmcblk0p2
 179        3    130671 mmcblk0p3
 179        4          1 mmcblk0p4
 179        5        16 mmcblk0p5
 179        6        256 mmcblk0p6
 179        7      15577 mmcblk0p7
 179        8        256 mmcblk0p8
 179        9      1024 mmcblk0p9
 179      10        256 mmcblk0p10
 179      11      2048 mmcblk0p11
 179      12      2080 mmcblk0p12
 179      13      5120 mmcblk0p13
 179      14      1024 mmcblk0p14
 179      15      1024 mmcblk0p15
 179      16      61441 mmcblk0p16
 179      17      8190 mmcblk0p17
 179      18      32768 mmcblk0p18
 179      19      1022 mmcblk0p19
 179      20      4096 mmcblk0p20
 179      21      4096 mmcblk0p21
 179      22      20480 mmcblk0p22
 179      23          4 mmcblk0p23
 179      24        256 mmcblk0p24
 179      25        16 mmcblk0p25
 179      26      1280 mmcblk0p26
 179      27        64 mmcblk0p27
 179      28      1024 mmcblk0p28
 179      29      98727 mmcblk0p29
 179      30      54270 mmcblk0p30
 179      31      76800 mmcblk0p31
 179      32      98303 mmcblk0p32
 179      33      16384 mmcblk0p33
 179      34      16383 mmcblk0p34
 179      35    1900543 mmcblk0p35
 179      36    655359 mmcblk0p36
 179      37  27262976 mmcblk0p37
 179      38      25600 mmcblk0p38

---

Code:

---

root@m7:/ # cat /proc/emmc
cat /proc/emmc
dev:        size    erasesize name
mmcblk0p19: 000ffa00 00000200 "misc"
mmcblk0p34: 00fffe00 00000200 "recovery"
mmcblk0p33: 01000000 00000200 "boot"
mmcblk0p35: 73fffc00 00000200 "system"
mmcblk0p26: 00140200 00000200 "local"
mmcblk0p36: 27fffe00 00000200 "cache"
mmcblk0p37: 680000000 00000200 "userdata"
mmcblk0p22: 01400000 00000200 "devlog"
mmcblk0p24: 00040000 00000200 "pdata"
mmcblk0p27: 00010000 00000200 "extra"
mmcblk0p31: 04b00200 00000200 "radio"
mmcblk0p16: 03c00400 00000200 "adsp"
mmcblk0p15: 00100000 00000200 "dsps"
mmcblk0p17: 007ffa00 00000200 "radio_config"
mmcblk0p20: 00400000 00000200 "modem_st1"
mmcblk0p21: 00400000 00000200 "modem_st2"
mmcblk0p28: 00100000 00000200 "cdma_record"
mmcblk0p18: 02000000 00000200 "reserve_1"
mmcblk0p30: 034ffa00 00000200 "reserve_2"
mmcblk0p32: 05fffc00 00000200 "reserve_3"
mmcblk0p29: 06069e00 00000200 "reserve"
mmcblk0p25: 00004000 00000200 "control"

---

Here's a list of the result of all the recoveries I've tried so far on the L firmware (7.15.401.1)




What I've tried:
- Pastebin of typical process, this one was with 7.15 firmware. http://pastebin.com/wwM2GYdR
- Various FW, 1.29.401.12 up to 6.09.401.5 official firmware (current ROM)
- RUU'ed with 1.26.502.10, (was originally on 1.26.502.05 at bone stock)
- Flashed a stock firmware/recovery (1.26.502.10 , 6.09.401.5, 7.15.401.1) and then tried custom recovery right after
- @nkk71 & @cschmitt misc partition corruption guide.

Attached in this post is the original mmcblk0p19 (rename the file) from this mainboard.



(tags: @Danny201281 @clsA maybe you guys might have seen something similar to this before)

Attached Files

mmcblk0p19_originalbackup.img.zip - [Click for QR Code] (1,022.5 KB)