T-Mobile Vivacity getting stuck at the T-Mobile boot screen

[Guest jamie85]

Hi all,

This is my first post on the forums - hope someone can help me!

I've had a T-Mobile Vivacity for almost 4 months now, and have had it unlocked for use on Giffgaff using the instructions here: http://www.modaco.com/topic/349128-how-to-rooting-unlocking-and-de-branding-your-zte-crescent-updated-now-complete/

This unlock worked, and I've been using my phone fine for these 4 months.

Recently, I've been having to turn my phone off-and-on occasionally as apps will persistently crash and result in a 'force close' message.

Yesterday I turned off my phone because of this, but now when I turn it on, it gets past the green Android logo but gets stuck at the T-Mobile logo, occasionally refreshing with the logo popping up again. I've tried removing the battery etc, and also turning it on without the SD card in, but to no avail.

Does anyone know how I can get my phone started again? I'm guessing that something keeps crashing whilst it is trying to boot, so that it can't get past the T-Mobile screen. I'm a novice when it comes to phone unlocking/flashing/ROMs etc, so I've not tried anything yet through fear of breaking the phone!

Many thanks,

Jamie

[Guest CurtisAndroidSF2]

Can you get into CWM by holding down Power+Vol- if so then just wipe cache and dalvik cache (under advanced) and reboot and it should be fine, if not do a full wipe (Format data, cache and dalvik)

[Guest Dazzozo]

Yeah, it doesn't sound like anything big. I imagine the worst would be you having to reinstall your ROM.

[Guest jamie85]

Thanks guys. I'm at work at the moment and don't have the phone with me, but will try when I get home.

I did try holding power and vol - yesterday, and got through to a screen that just said 'FTM'. I was expecting an options menu, like when I unlocked it...

Do I have to have the phone connected to my PC to see the options menu, or is it a problem that I'm just seeing the grey 'FTM' square when I press power and vol - ?

Cheers

[Guest fr0do]

The original image you restored wipes cwm and puts ftm back. Cwm is more flexible and you're going to have to do a little work to put it back.

Otherwise you could use the online update tool @ ZTE to restore your phone.

[Guest jamie85]

Ah, I see. Which option would be easier/more preferable - getting CWM back or using the online update tool? Is the latter easy enough to find with a Google search or are there a number of update tools? Will have a little more time to look into this when I get home :)

[Guest CurtisAndroidSF2]

Flashing CWM wouldn't be too difficult, or time-consuming, plus it'd be more worthwhile in the long run as it will help you get out of a lot of issues.

The ZTE tool is easy to find but you'd have a stock rom full of bloatware as far as I'm aware, and personally I'd prefer a custom ROM on my device!

[Guest jamie85]

To flash CWM, do I merely follow the instructions under "Installing Clockwork Mod Recovery Via ADB said:" in the following thread? http://www.modaco.com/topic/349128-how-to-rooting-unlocking-and-de-branding-your-zte-crescent-updated-now-complete/

Looks like it requires booting up the phone though, or is that just to enable USB debugging? If I ever disabled USB debugging (can't remember if I did!) am I now screwed, since I can't get onto my phone to switch it on?

Apologies for so many questions. As I said, I'm a novice at all this, so what is probably very easy seems a bit of a mystery to me at the moment! Would anyone kindly link me to the instructions I need to flash CWM?

[Guest CurtisAndroidSF2]

I think that will work fine, just give it a shot, if it doesn't work then just use the ZTE tool and you can start again from scratch.

[Guest BLu3HaZe]

Check in the old CWM 5 thread, pinned at the top. Last post there by me was made to help you out in such situations the easy way.

Though I can't tell you how to get to the bootloader as I've forgotten the key combination.

Edited July 2, 2012 by BLu3HaZe

[Guest jamie85]

Thanks to everyone for all your help so far. Unfortunately I've had to put fixing this on hold for the moment, as my terrible luck has led my laptop to having (unrelated) boot issues too. Need to fix getting my laptop started up before I'm able to fix my phone.

Sod's law that it would all go wrong at the same time :)

[Guest jamie85]

Hey guys,

No good news on my laptop yet (seems to be completely fubared, even after a fresh install of Vista), but I just used the ZTE update tool on my work computer and I've managed to get my phone switched on again!

Will using this tool have reset my unlocking of the phone? In other words, will I have to follow the guide I originally used to unlock it again to use on GiffGaff?

If so, I found that last time my internal memory filled up far too quickly and I had a hard time installing/updating apps. Pretty sure I used a stock ROM, as I wanted it to be as stable as possible, since I get pretty worried if anything messes up! Is there a good ROM to use that frees up as much internal space as possible? I'm looking ideally for something easy to use and that doesn't need frequent updating.

Thanks to everyone that's helped me so far :)

[Guest Dazzozo]

Should still be unlocked.

[Guest jamie85]

Yep, it is :)