Onyx Nova 3 bricked

[Renate]

Well, the idea was to to get a foot in the door, not necessaerily to fix anything.

So, a while ago you had the regular boot getting to the boot animation. Since then this is no longer the case? Any idea what you did?

Unfortunately the toybox mount command is kind of screwed. It doesn't understand fstabs. So if you want to mount something you'll have to know all the details. Does "mount /system" in recovery work? Does this work:

# mount -t ext4 /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /data

[Renate]

Ok, here's what you do:

Do you still have that 1.5GB 3.2 update zip file?
On your desktop extract META-INF/com/google/android/update-binary.
Now you have the original (untouched) 1.5GB file and a ~2MB update-binary

Go to a fresh fastboot boot recovery with ADB.

# mount -t ext4 /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /data
# mount -t ext4 /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/cache /cache

Do not mount system.

C:\>adb push big3.2update.zip /data/local/tmp
C:\>adb push update-binary /data/local/tmp

# cd /data/local/tmp
# chmod 755 update-binary
# ./update-binary 2 1 big3.2update.zip

Good luck.

[LinuxReaderer]

RE: #31, what caused me to no longer see the boot animation was, I think, that I tried flashing system.img to system from fastboot once I saw I had access, but must have messed it up somehow. If I go back into EDL mode I could probably put it back to how it was.

All of the mount commands don't work, unless I remove "bootdevice" in which case they do. I see all the partitions in /dev/block/by-name/ instead of /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/:

# ls /dev/block/                                                               
by-name   mmcblk0p10 mmcblk0p20 mmcblk0p30 mmcblk0p40 mmcblk0p7   ram14 
loop0     mmcblk0p11 mmcblk0p21 mmcblk0p31 mmcblk0p41 mmcblk0p8   ram15 
loop1     mmcblk0p12 mmcblk0p22 mmcblk0p32 mmcblk0p42 mmcblk0p9   ram2  
loop2     mmcblk0p13 mmcblk0p23 mmcblk0p33 mmcblk0p43 mmcblk0rpmb ram3  
loop3     mmcblk0p14 mmcblk0p24 mmcblk0p34 mmcblk0p44 platform    ram4  
loop4     mmcblk0p15 mmcblk0p25 mmcblk0p35 mmcblk0p45 ram0        ram5  
loop5     mmcblk0p16 mmcblk0p26 mmcblk0p36 mmcblk0p46 ram1        ram6  
loop6     mmcblk0p17 mmcblk0p27 mmcblk0p37 mmcblk0p47 ram10       ram7  
loop7     mmcblk0p18 mmcblk0p28 mmcblk0p38 mmcblk0p48 ram11       ram8  
mmcblk0   mmcblk0p19 mmcblk0p29 mmcblk0p39 mmcblk0p5  ram12       ram9  
mmcblk0p1 mmcblk0p2  mmcblk0p3  mmcblk0p4  mmcblk0p6  ram13       zram0 
# ls /dev/block/by-name/                                                       
abl       devcfg  hyp        misc        persist  sti      xbl    
apdp      devinfo keymaster  mmcblk0     pmic     storsec  xblbak 
bluetooth dip     keystore   mmcblk0rpmb rawdump  system   
boot      dpo     limits     modem       recovery toolsfv  
cache     dsp     logdump    modemst1    rpm      tz       
cmnlib    frp     logfs      modemst2    sec      userdata 
cmnlib64  fsc     mdtp       msadp       splash   vbmeta   
ddr       fsg     mdtpsecapp onyxconfig  ssd      vendor

so as a result, update-binary also fails:

# cd /data/local/tmp   
# chmod 755 update-binary
# ./update-binary 2 1 update.zip                                               
SELinux:  Skipping /product_file_contexts:  empty file
SELinux:  Skipping /odm_file_contexts:  empty file
SELinux: Loaded file_contexts
ui_print Target: ONYX/Nova3/Nova3:10/2021-11-30_22-32_3.2_5bccd60/4167:user/dev-keys
Target: ONYX/Nova3/Nova3:10/2021-11-30_22-32_3.2_5bccd60/4167:user/dev-keys
progress 0.650000 0
ui_print Patching system image unconditionally...
Patching system image unconditionally...
performing update
open "/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/system" failed: No such file or directory
script aborted: E1001: Failed to update system image.
ui_print E1001: Failed to update system image.
log error: 1001

[Renate]

# cd /dev/block
# ln -s . bootdevice

(Yes, between -s and bootdevice is a period.)
Then proceed as before.

[LinuxReaderer]

Wow, it worked, it boots up and functionality looks intact! Thank you so much for your help and patience. I'm going to go into EDL mode and dump the device so I always have a last known good configuration.

[Renate]

Glad to hear it.

You can also backup/restore from recovery. You just have to switch the USB connection to UMS (a/k/a "mass_storage").

# usbcfg 18d1 4ee0 ums,adb

There's no guarantee that the ADB can be reconnected, it depends on your drivers. The entire 32 GB of the EMMC will be presented over USB like a flash drive.