Image Signature Verify Fail! after Vodafone OTA upgrade

[Guest TheMungKey]

Hi all,

Last night I updated my Vodafone Huawei Ascend G300 8815 from (I think) B892 through B895 to (I think) B936 over the air. The update to ICS seemed successful. It worked OK for a few hours while I

• restored my backup made using the Huawei app,
  
• rooted the phone & unlocked the bootloader
  
• uninstalled the Vodafone crapware using ROM Toolbox Lite
  
• fixed the language bug, etc.
  

although it was quite laggy and unresponsive. It was rebooted several times during this process and booted OK each time with that lovely(!) new Vodafone animation. This morning it hung while I was in settings about to modify a wireless access point and I pulled the battery.

Now when I turn it on, after a couple of seconds of the Huawei logo I get a black screen with a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark. Below this is "Image Signature Verify Fail!" in red, then the following in white:

"Your appboot image may have an incorrect signature.

Please update your image to a signature official one.

You can remove battery for power down."

No change after several battery pulls, and removing the SD card.

I can get to the pink screen using vol+ vol- and powering on but although I have installed the drivers no partitions appear in Windows.

I am not running CWM, Titanium or anything like that.

I have no DLOAD folder on the SD card as one of the post-update suggestions was to delete it as its presence supposedly interfered with mounting the SD card properly, so I can't reflash from the pink screen which I've seen suggested elsewhere.

What do I do next? I'd be quite happy to forego the ICS update just to get my phone working again!

Another thing, does anyone know if the phone will charge the battery while the pink screen is showing? It was down to 49% before this happened and I'd hate to flatten the battery while I muck around with it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edited November 5, 2012 by TheMungKey

[Guest oldfella]

put the SD card into a card reader, download a new dload folder, and reflash

[Guest TheMungKey]

Hi oldfella,

Thanks for your reply! Does it have to be the exact same (i.e. Vodafone) version, or could I use a stock version of 936 from the Huawei site? Or even some other version?

[Guest oldfella]

I would use a stock 936 or 944, the Voda one probably expects to upgrade from GB

[Guest unaszplodrmann]

You can use a stock version from Huawei, which - given that it's the version supplied by Vodafone is the same minus vodabloat - is a better option, unless you're strange like that ;)

Edit: Yep, B944 is the way to go, if you can find a full update rather than a package for clockworkmod.

Edited November 5, 2012 by unaszplodrmann

[Guest TheMungKey]

Well in the time it's taken to load the Huawei front page I've downloaded the Yoigo U8815_V100R001C86B944.rar linked elsewhere around these parts, so I'll give that a try and report back.

Edited November 5, 2012 by TheMungKey

[Guest TheMungKey]

No dice :( It unpacks, the grey/pink progress bar gets a third of the way through then as soon as it gets to "Step 2/2 Installing", I get the yellow triangle with the exclamation mark and "Update failed".

Edit: This is using a freshly formatted 2GB SD card with nothing else on it but the dload folder.

Is it worth downloading & trying another ROM or do I officially have a brick for a phone?

Edited November 5, 2012 by TheMungKey

[Guest bloomsan]

Try using the "middle" package that comes with the b895 download, before upgrading.

Edited November 5, 2012 by bloomsan

[Guest craigysd]

Remove SD card and use internal memory to update . I had hassle with a few updates failing so removed SD card and used internal memory and worked okay.

[Guest TheMungKey]

Hi bloomsan, thanks for your reply. The middle package is less than a KB, is that right? I have just tried it and it fails. A lot quicker than the other failure, I guess because of its much smaller size!

I can see a trip to Vodafone in my very near future. Somewhat annoying that I waited for the official update and it rewards me with a dead phone.

EDIT: craigysd, thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately I cannot mount the internal memory on my PC to put the update on it.

Edited November 5, 2012 by TheMungKey

[Guest tcpaulh]

try forcing the update by powering off, removing battery for 5 seconds then powering up holding both volume keys.

If that doesn't work you can try the IMEI method.

[Guest Cyda]

As the upgrade to ICS worked for a while you at least know that the update was successful so you will now be on baseband 2030.

If it was me, I would install ClockworkMod Recovery via fastboot and then install either the repack of ICS B944 or one of the custom ICS roms. This will not only get you back up and running but also give you a cleaner rom (without the vodaphone bloatware) and put you in the right place for when CM9 & CM10 are released in the coming weeks.

If you are unsure on how to do any of the above just ask and I'll explain.

[Guest TheMungKey]

Hi tcpaulh, the volume keys update method is what I have been using.

Does the IMEI method involve backing up and restoring the IMEI? I haven't got a backup of the IMEI as I've never tried to flash a downgrade or anything like that.

EDIT: Cyda, I will read up on fastboot, and come back if I have questions. Many thanks.

Edited November 5, 2012 by TheMungKey

[Guest Cyda]

I just had a thought, that method probably won't work because your bootloader is probably still locked. If you unlocked the bootloader after installing ICS you would be fine but if not then you will not be able to install CWM. It has been that long since I unlocked mine I forget about the locked bootloader.

[Guest TheMungKey]

I thought I did, there was a two step process I found somewhere & followed to root & unlock the bootloader but the page is in my history on my laptop at home and I'm not there right now. I do remember it popped up a dialog box warning not to use the mouse or keyboard, opened a cmd window and squirted some text into it.

With the phone in the state it's in now I suppose there's no way to verify this? Reading around, the old power + volume down for bootloader isn't an option in ICS (and definitely doesn't work for me). The only boot method that doesn't give the "image signature" error is power up while holding volume up and volume down, which goes to the pink screen.

[Guest unaszplodrmann]

It sounds like your bootlocker is unlocked, then. Like Cyda said, try taking the clockworkmod route.

[Guest Cyda]

Yeah it does sound like you luckily unlocked the bootloader. You should be able to enter fastboot by holding Vol. down and then power on (keeping vol. down held). The phone will appear to have just locked up and will stay on the initial splash screen but once in this mode you can connect the phone to your PC and flash CWM from here after this you can then look at installing a rom.

[Guest TheMungKey]

Vol. down/power on for fastboot doesn't work - it gives the same error described in the first post (after the Huawei logo).

When the phone was first connected in pink screen mode, three devices were found and the drivers install OK - a USB Composite device, DBadapter Reserved Interface (COM10) and Android Adapter Modem

Clutching at straws, I tried the commands "adb devices" and "fastboot devices" in pink screen mode but they don't find anything.

I've read elsewhere that trying to unlock the boot loader on ICS has been known to brick some phones. Could this be what happened to mine? Although, as I say the phone was rebooted successfully after the unlock. In fact it worked overnight, the alarm woke me up this morning and I listened to mp3s on the way in to work.

EDIT: Good news, everyone! I downloaded the complete Huawei downgrade from http://www.huaweidev...softid=NDY4ODE= and it appears to have worked. Why my earlier attempt didn't work I don't know. Maybe a different version of the "middle" package.

I now have B895 and I think I'll leave it there for the moment. Maybe I'll give CWM a go when I'm feeling brave. For now, I've just got to restore all my stuff from backup...

Answering my own question from earlier, it appears the phone does not charge while in pink screen/recovery mode as my battery was down to 5%. Lucky escape there, then!

Huge thanks to everyone who offered help.

Edited November 5, 2012 by TheMungKey

[Guest unaszplodrmann]

Aye, I'd install CWM. If your phone is being flakey for some reason, having a complete backup of the operating system on an SD card (via the nandroid backup options in CWM) is probably a wise precaution. It just makes restoring that much easier.

[Guest Hogweed]

And installing CWM Recovery is about as safe an option you can have with the G300 as it installs to the phone's recovery partition leaving the boot and system partitions unchanged. On ICS you have the added complication of the bootloader unlocking first but that is not needed on GB.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Hogweed

[Guest alhimyaa]

Vol. down/power on for fastboot doesn't work - it gives the same error described in the first post (after the Huawei logo).

When the phone was first connected in pink screen mode, three devices were found and the drivers install OK - a USB Composite device, DBadapter Reserved Interface (COM10) and Android Adapter Modem

Clutching at straws, I tried the commands "adb devices" and "fastboot devices" in pink screen mode but they don't find anything.

I've read elsewhere that trying to unlock the boot loader on ICS has been known to brick some phones. Could this be what happened to mine? Although, as I say the phone was rebooted successfully after the unlock. In fact it worked overnight, the alarm woke me up this morning and I listened to mp3s on the way in to work.

EDIT: Good news, everyone! I downloaded the complete Huawei downgrade from http://www.huaweidev...softid=NDY4ODE= and it appears to have worked. Why my earlier attempt didn't work I don't know. Maybe a different version of the "middle" package.

I now have B895 and I think I'll leave it there for the moment. Maybe I'll give CWM a go when I'm feeling brave. For now, I've just got to restore all my stuff from backup...

Answering my own question from earlier, it appears the phone does not charge while in pink screen/recovery mode as my battery was down to 5%. Lucky escape there, then!

Huge thanks to everyone who offered help.

How exactly did you end up fixing it? I have tried many different ways with no luck as of yet.

[Guest experiment626]

I had the same thing happen when updating using the latest vodafone update I have tried all the methods mentioned on here with various different updates but they keep failing at stage1 ... any help would be appreciated....

[Guest TheMungKey]

From memory this is what I did:

1. Downloaded the Huawei B895 downgrade linked in my post above.
   
2. Put a spare blank 2GB SD card in my PC and made a folder called dload in the root directory.
   
3. Unzipped the small (around 1KB) update.app of the 'middle package' into the dload folder.
   
4. Pulled battery, put the card in the phone and booted while holding vol up and down.
   
5. Pink progress bar, then update success message after less than a minute.
   
6. Phone off.
   
7. Replaced the small update.app in the dload folder on the SD card with the large B895 update.app
   
8. Pulled battery, put the card in the phone and booted while holding vol up and down.
   
9. Pink progress bar, then update success message after a few minutes.
   
10. Reboot
    
11. Restore apps etc. from backup
    

If that doesn't work I don't know what else to suggest, sorry.

[Guest alhimyaa]

Do you remember changing anything from the first time you tried the small update package? You mentioned earlier that the first time you tried it failed and then all of a sudden it worked the next time you tried it. It fails on step 2/2 for me.

[Guest TheMungKey]

The first time I downloaded the middle package from somewhere else, perhaps another thread on this site? The second time I used the one that came in the B895 downgrade. I don't know why it failed the first time and worked the second, or even if the two files were the same or different. Sorry.