Astro won't boot -- userdata corrupt?

[abliss]

I dropped my Astro and busted the screen, so I had to pay the ebay premium for a replacement. When it showed up I rooted it the same way and everything seemed fine. Then I transferred over some userdata from my old handset, which ended up being about 30Gb. Afterwards I stopped/started the android runtime and it wouldn't come up, stuck on the pulsing "android" screen, with some NullPointerExceptions from system_server in the logcat. I noticed that all the directory names in /data/data and in /data/user/0 were random-looking base64 strings, and the same happened after a reboot of the device. I thought maybe I had screwed up my encryption keys somehow, so I tried "fastboot erase userdata". But now I still get stuck on the pulsing "android" screen and to make matters worse, I've lost adb.

I tried returning everything back to stock (restoring boot_a.img and vbmeta_a.img with mtkclient, then re-locking the bootloader) but then it won't get past the "red state" dm-verity boot-up screen, which claims my device is corrupt and will poweroff in 5 seconds unless I press the power button (and if I do, it just drops to fastboot).

My only guess is that maybe I put too much stress on the mmc flash with my data transfer, causing the part to fail.

Anyone have suggestions for debugging or proceeding? Anyone found a way to get a serial console? My only idea is to try to transplant th screen from the new device to the old one (or the mainboard from the old one to the new one), but I'm very scared to attempt it with no instructions.

[cam1965]

Hi.

Astro has A/B partitions . Maybe with mtclient you can save the files from b partition and restore them to the a partition. Plase do it at your own risk.
Please see :

https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/see-if-your-phone-has-a-b-partitions-for-seamless-updates-0299060/

Try also unlocking the bootloader. ( when I thought I bricked my phone )

Please see my post below :

https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=36831.0

Also please do not change files ( In my case Little kernel ). Please see my other post:

https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=36843.0

[abliss]

Thanks. I'm able to get into the stock recovery and mess around a bit in there, but no luck restoring functionality yet.

I seem to have lost the original boot.img from before I applied magisk, so I can't try getting my device back into the "green state". The "boot_b" partition seems to be empty (all 0x00). Does anybody have a copy of the stock boot.img that they'd be willing to share? You can email it to me with my username at gmail.com.

[cam1965]

Sorry. I did not make a backup before rooting my device.
I am using the root boot image from Noppe from this : https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=36812.0
But there He provided the original boot image. You can try .
Good luck !

[Dom (shymega)]

Never use the `b` partition on the Astro. It's a bit odd in partition structure, but you should be using the 'a' slot - I believe 'b' acts as temporary storage for OTA updates, where the new files are written there, then copied over to the 'a' slot.

If you need the 'boot_a.img', I can provide that here.

[abliss]

Thanks @shymega, I'd love to get the original boot_a.img (if it's different than the one Noppe shared at https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?topic=36812.0 , which has  sha1sum 2d6f1d3948f28c0c4d460c4420f3111ad4604e78 )

[Dom (shymega)]

Hi,

It's attached here.

`sha1sum: ad85ec3925f7e780c3eb8b3dfbecb20935da5b22`.

Might be rooted. It's just one I got from a member of the Astro Slide Discord - my Astro is running older firmware, and it's not from my Astro. Can't vouch for it's stability.

[Dom (shymega)]

Well, it turns out 41MB is too big for OESF.

Below is a link to a Google Drive file - this is `boot_a.img`, which you should ONLY flash to slot 'a'.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UxBbkUD9ITb067trzol7kqGnWw9yAfC6/view?usp=sharing

EDIT: Updated link.

[Varti]

Unfortunately the attachments' sizes limit is set (to 20MB if I remember well) by the database's settings, it cannot be overridden by the forum's software and it can be only changed by the host provider. I can however store the file on the forum's account and add a direct link to it, if you wish.

EDIT:
File mirrored here: https://www.oesf.org/repository/planet-devices/astro/boot_a.img

Varti