Bricked during GDR 2

[calebcre]

Well I had an iphone and it updated just fine with no 20 hour Sean verified waits....right now I'm sitting at 5 hours with the spinning gears...but I'm sure it's just me. It couldn't possibly be like any of the other people who've waited hours and hours and hours for a simple update. And clearly, Microsoft will miss us as they are begging for proponents, yet can't do it without dropping the price of the phone to 99 cents....JUST SAYING. You trolls who aren't helpful on what to do when these things act up are useless. We've done everything that the instructions have told us, and yet NOTHING in the documentation says it should take 17 plus hours to update a simple CELL PHONE.

I feel you. My phone has had the cogs for over 2 hrs with nothing. Not trying to take sides in the argument, but I definitely would have expected some sort of notification that the update could take longer than an hour or two. I am a patient person and would have minded starting the process before bed. I just had no clue that it could take more than a couple hours. I still am a Nokia and Microsoft fan, but they definitely should have some sort of notification warning to let the consumer know about the possibility of such a long update.

**update**
After posting this, I did another soft reset and then just let my 920 sit for about 4 hours. When I came back home, the update was finished.

 

[euchrid_eucrow]

I actually have a new problem. My update went through after 45 min. But as soon as I put my phone to sleep the screen becomes disabled. I can click the middle button to get to lock screen but cannot swipe up. The cApacitive buttons do not work either. Only the side physical buttons work. However if I reset my phone through volume down and power the touchscreen can be used again. But if I put it to sleep again, screen becomes disabled again. Anyone else have this?

Had the same problem. My update took about an hour, and when i got back to the lock screen it was behaving the same way yours is. I was able to soft reset and unlock but as soon as i locked it again it went back to behaving erratically. Was able to plug it in to my desktop and remove everything I could off of it. Afterwards I tried straight resetting it from the "about" page in settings but I ended up back to several hours of spinning gears. I just finished re-flashing it via the sticky post plus a couple of other posts in this forum and its back to working normally. Note that's the sort of thing they can do at an ATT store if you're not comfortably with flashing firmware. I'm just mentioning this so you know its not a lost cause.

 

[Khyzersoze]

Had the same problem. My update took about an hour, and when i got back to the lock screen it was behaving the same way yours is. I was able to soft reset and unlock but as soon as i locked it again it went back to behaving erratically. Was able to plug it in to my desktop and remove everything I could off of it. Afterwards I tried straight resetting it from the "about" page in settings but I ended up back to several hours of spinning gears. I just finished re-flashing it via the sticky post plus a couple of other posts in this forum and its back to working normally. Note that's the sort of thing they can do at an ATT store if you're not comfortably with flashing firmware. I'm just mentioning this so you know its not a lost cause.

I have this issue now. I'll have to try what you did.

 

[iamtim]

I love how people think that iPhones or Androids don't brick during updates. Heh.

 

[scooooters]

I'm sorry. Was there something helpful in your statement to those of us having issues with the phone, or are you just here to be a ****** and troll? We already have that guy here.

 

[scooooters]

I've had 3 iphones and went through each of their updates...it's never bricked. My wife has had 4 iphones....several updates...never bricked. However, if they did, being able to take it to the Apple store and have them replace it is a nice option. Clearly, Microsoft AND AT and T has informed me that I'm s out of luck and will just have to buy a new phone....so I'm heading over to Apple to remedy the situation. If I'm going to have to drop 600 dollars to replace my phone, I might as well go with what's never given me issues.

 

[scooooters]

6 and half hours of spinning gears...and still spinning. Clearly this is definitely the phone to take down both Apple and Google. (rolls eyes)

 

[euchrid_eucrow]

I have this issue now. I'll have to try what you did.

K. This is what worked for me, step by step.

Notes: this is just for a north american, ATT branded 920!
Do not plug in your phone until told to do so!
I'm just helping here, relaying what worked for me. If this bricks/messes up your phone even harder, i apologize but you're doing this at your own risk.
Read through everything once, before proceeding.

1. Left the phone plugged in for a little while so it had some charge to it.

2. Went to this post: http://forums.windowscentral.com/no...h-any-lumia-920-full-amber-gdr2-features.html and grabbed this guy's nokia care suite from his skydrive. If you try to use the one from the main unbricking sticky post at the top of this forum, the care suite won't download the firmware and navifirm 1.7 doesn't work anymore.

3. Once you have the NCS (nokia care suite) from juan6996's skydrive, install it.

4. Open up the care suite and choose "product support tool for store"

5. On the following "Sign In" popup choose "Care Suite External" from the "Sign in to:" dropdown

6. Click "Sign in"

7. Once the product support tool opens up, from the menubar at the top go to Tools --> Firmware download

8. You'll see another window popup asking for a product code. The product code for an ATT black lumia 920 is: 059L848 Enter it and click on "Check online"

Note that there are product codes for each color variant. You'll have to google the other colors if necessary.

9.Click on "download" once the firmware comes up. It will say something about it being queued for DL. You can now close this window via the red "x" in the corner.

10. Let it download. It took me about 30mins.

11. Once the firmware has downloaded, go to File-->Open Product and filter for RM-820, only one should come up. Click on "Open"

12. Now go down to the lower left hand corner where it says "Programming" and choose "Recovery"

13. Click "Start"

14. It'll act like its re-downloading the firmware but just give it a minute.

15. At this point have the phone ready to plug into the computer but don't do it yet.

16. It'll then detect that the phone isn't plugged in, and show you a window to that effect.

17. At this point, if you can turn the phone off, do so. If you're stuck then soft reset. As soon as you feel the phone do its reboot click, plug it into the computer and click "Retry" on the window.

18. It should begin flashing the firmware. Mine took about 5-10mins since its basically a factory reset and isn't keeping anything.

19. Once its done it will reboot on its own and drop you into the setup your phone screen as if it were a new device.

Note: In order to get your backups back (the phone should have made one last backup before the first update to Amber that got you stuck in the first place) sign into your MS account BEFORE setting up your wifi. Also remember that if you have 2-step verification on you have to generate an app password for your MS account to sign in on the phone rather than the password you use to sign in normally to check your email, log into your PC, etc.

*this post not edited for spelling for expediency's sake.

 

[rdubmu]

I've had 3 iphones and went through each of their updates...it's never bricked. My wife has had 4 iphones....several updates...never bricked. However, if they did, being able to take it to the Apple store and have them replace it is a nice option. Clearly, Microsoft AND AT and T has informed me that I'm s out of luck and will just have to buy a new phone....so I'm heading over to Apple to remedy the situation. If I'm going to have to drop 600 dollars to replace my phone, I might as well go with what's never given me issues.

Did you do anything during the reboot. I would just wait and the phone will be updated. If you do a manual reset in the middle it is your fault that you bricked your phone. (camera button and volume down key)

As for my lumia 920, I bought it from the Microsoft store and have two year warranty, same thing you get with apple care. Did you buy this when you bought your phone?

 

[hudsonvalley]

I never got the spinning gears stage. It downloaded something, then got stuck on 'restarting', then bricked. I brought it back to life by soft resetting. Now the phone is completely usable. When I go to phone update , it just says Installing updates'.
This does not seem normal to me.

 

[euchrid_eucrow]

I've had an iphone brick during an update.

Though it is nice to be able to go to the Apple store and get it fixed. The other thing that's nice about Apple's sweetheart deal with the carriers is that you're updating from itunes rather than being at the mercy of some update server. Its pretty easy to put an iphone into recovery mode and reforce a firmware update when there's a problem. Not trolling, just stating something I wish MS/Nokia could implement. Re-flashing my 920 from NCS was a breeze and not that different from doing it via itunes, I wish that were the norm.

 

[lippidp]

FYI to everyone: I used to do lots of phone upgrades in a previous job and can tell you that ANY phone from any manufacturer with any OS will occasionally brick. Switching to a different brand or OS will not alleviate the problem. Just return it and move on. Make sure you have a backup of your data prior.

 

[boo516]

I'm currently at school in atlanta and ATT had a support center here so i just went in and got my phone replaced. I'll have to try the update again tomorrow on this new one.

 

[AccentAE86]

My assistant waited 12 hours for her iOS7 update on her 4s. My 520 updated in under 10 mins. It all depends on what is on your phone.

BTW she is bored as hell of iOS so she actually is using one of my AT&T Lumia 820s! And she loves it! I'll have to tell her to get the update. She's pretty close to making the full switch.

 

[lumia920yay]

I dont know how many people i have to explain this to, the phone is SUPPOSED to go into spinning, depending what data you and whats installed this can range anywhere from 10 minutes to literally 15-20 hrs, you resetting while the gears are spinnign is essentially interupting the flash and then you possibly brick your phone, all you impatient people bricking your phones and blaming nokia and everybody is ridiculous, they never said it would be under a certain amount of time, you cant wait then you deserve a bricked phone. I'm here to there is NO PROBLEM with bricked phones except people resetting it in the middle of an update or reset, its your fault, returning the phone to at&t because you didnt wait until update was done. At&t has no clue about windows phones they dont know any different. You CANNOT interrupt a flash in the middle of it, doesnt matter what your flashing, routers, phones, usb, they have to finish or you risk bricking whatever your flashing. And it has nothing to do with any hardware what so ever. If you have spinning gears its fine plug it in leave it alone might take all night next day it will be updated. If you dont like waiting that long then delete all the crap off your phone BEFORE you try to update it will update in 20 min easy.

After flashing a bunch of bricked phones....that seems to be the reason why they get bricked in the first place....unknowingly people see the gears spinning and say....o it might be stuck...okay time for a manual hard reset during that re-flash or reset which might corrupt the rom....then u get a bricked 920....

The thing is instead of spinning gears it could have some text explaining what is going on...that and some progress bar.....as I didn't know what was going on when I first bought my 920 and had gears spinning as soon as I turned it on.

 

[etad putta]

FYI to everyone: I used to do lots of phone upgrades in a previous job and can tell you that ANY phone from any manufacturer with any OS will occasionally brick. Switching to a different brand or OS will not alleviate the problem. Just return it and move on. Make sure you have a backup of your data prior.

This is true however the sheer number of 920's that go into the gears of death spin for an extended period of time is crazy. You can't ever reset this phone without thinking it could be an all day project or worse. NO other phone causes that feeling. Love my 920 but cmon man!!

 

[hs k]

Ask Sean...he's got ALL the answers.

Wahahaha!!! Man, that cracked me up. But what he said was true. My 720 (I'm from India) took me about an hour or so to update. So I guess that he's right in saying that the apps and data backup then the phone updates.

 

[etad putta]

My assistant waited 12 hours for her iOS7 update on her 4s. My 520 updated in under 10 mins. It all depends on what is on your phone.

BTW she is bored as hell of iOS so she actually is using one of my AT&T Lumia 820s! And she loves it! I'll have to tell her to get the update. She's pretty close to making the full switch.

ios7 didn't take 12 hours to install. The servers were getting hammered so it may have taken 12 hours to get it downloaded. Between the wife, kids, family etc no ones ipads or iphones took an extended period to update. 920 is a great phone, just don't ever reset it or do a major update unless the crying towel and booze are nearby.

 

[russshoe]

My 820 is toast new phone arrives tonight thanh god AT&T have next day delivery with FED EX

 

[scooooters]

When my phone automatically downloaded the new update, all I did was wait for it to finish...then some weird frowny face logo popped up and I even let THAT sit for an hour. After than time, I did a restart of the phone, and it's been spinning gears for nearly 15 hours now. So I'm guessing this toy phone will go back to AT and T and let them make me pay for an new iphone, because with this, I have ZERO time for Hokey Pokey 999 step reflashing nonsense. Either the phone works, or it doesn't. I didn't buy an extended 2 year plan and it shouldn't matter...the phone is less than 5 months old and it's crap. The OS may be great and I do like it a LOT, but I am losing business when my phone doesn't work as a PHONE.

PS, I guess Shawn's advice WAS garbage after all. Once again, a know it all IT guy doesn't have any answers.