Coby 9742 stuck installing gapps

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
Hello,

First of all, huge thanks to Traveller, vampirefo, and all others who've contributed to the absolutely amazing guide stickied in this forum. Without you guys, I'd be trying to use GetJar right now, so seriously, thanks.

I'm on the part of the walkthrough where it comes time to install google apps. I downloaded the zip file from the goo.im link (accidentally downloaded the wrong android version at first, but restored in cwm to the last backup and tried again with the correct zip) and after installing in cwm, nothing happens. No google apps, no play store.

Now I certainly don't doubt the guide, since it's gotten me this far without error, but am I missing a step here or something? I'm using the correct zip file for my version of ICS and it seems to complete the install in cwm without any errors, so I'm not sure what could be going wrong.

Not sure if the two issues are related, but the "recovery mode" boot for cwm also doesn't work for me. I've tried pretty much every combination of holding buttons down between the 4 on the unit and it won't boot into any other recovery mode at all. (Even the system default recovery, which is what I assume cwm overwrites.) There is a black screen that flashes during the Coby logo splash, but that happens on every boot, whether I'm holding buttons down or not. The only way I can boot into cwm recovery is by using the adb tool (recovery -> cwm -> reboots the device) but is that going to harm my device in any way if I continuously boot it like that? I see adb is pushing files every time it recovers the tablet into cwm, but I assume those are the same stock cwm files it put on there the first time.

Any help would be very much appreciated. And before you ask, I do have both a stock dump, and a post-cwm dump.
 

Traveller

Administrator
Staff member
Jun 16, 2012
2,858
982
Without the tablet being plugged in, press power and volume -. It gets me into recovery every time.

If you attempt to install and the installation is unsuccessful, you likely have to remove the bloatware from /system/app before the apps can be installed. Later 9742 tablets have more bloatware than mine.
 

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
Without the tablet being plugged in, press power and volume -. It gets me into recovery every time.

Just tried it again and nothing. The exact boot up sequence is:

Coby splash screen
1-2 seconds of black screen
Coby splash screen (seems to go longer if I'm trying to get into recovery, could be confirmation bias)
android text splash

And from what I've read from others' experiences, I should see the recovery screen before the android splash. So I don't know what's going on with that. Do you think I should restore to my stock image and try installing cwm again?

If you attempt to install and the installation is unsuccessful, you likely have to remove the bloatware from /system/app before the apps can be installed. Later 9742 tablets have more bloatware than mine.

This is another thing I've had trouble with. I can't access the tablet's internal memory (outside of /mnt/sdcard) from USB, and using ES File Manager won't allow sufficient permissions to remove files outside of /mnt/. I was also under the impression that there would be an error message of some sort if the install found insufficient space, which never came up.

I'm sorry if this all sounds terribly noob. :) I'm really new to android, my phone is really just a phone and this is my first real venture into the OS.
 

Traveller

Administrator
Staff member
Jun 16, 2012
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You guys are either not rooted, or you haven't gone into ES File Explorer's settings and enabled root support. There's no reason you guys shouldn't be rooted since you have to be rooted to create a system dump, so check the file manager's settings.

As to getting into recovery, you can safely use ADB to get into the recovery, but the key combo is far more convenient. As I mentioned, power and volume - get me into recovery. Press and hold volume - and at the same time press and hold power. Do not let go of either until the recovery pops up.
 

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
...you haven't gone into ES File Explorer's settings and enabled root support.

This worked. Thanks. Coming from Linux, I assumed it would prompt for su permissions after requesting the delete operation. Again, still getting used to how android works.

As to getting into recovery, you can safely use ADB to get into the recovery, but the key combo is far more convenient. As I mentioned, power and volume - get me into recovery. Press and hold volume - and at the same time press and hold power. Do not let go of either until the recovery pops up.

If I do this, it does the exact start-up sequence as I described in my earlier post -- but if I continue to hold those two buttons past the android text splash, the OS comes up in "Safe Mode" (as denoted in the bottom-left corner), is this relevant or somewhere close to the recovery option?

I'm going to try re-installing gapps now, will report back later today with what happens. I trimmed my /system/apps folder down to 47.2 MB, but is there a specific benchmark for free space I should be aiming for?
 

Traveller

Administrator
Staff member
Jun 16, 2012
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I believe you should be good to go in installing the Google apps.

Have you tried the "default" key combo of Power, Volume +, and Volume - to get into recovery?
 

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
Yessir, good to go indeed. Thank you so much for all the assistance. I just installed it and everything seems great so far; did another cwm backup and system dump and now all I've got left are the system tweaks. I'll be adding my stock image to the thread later once I get it uploaded somewhere. It's really the least I can do for all your help.

Have you tried the "default" key combo of Power, Volume +, and Volume - to get into recovery?

Funny, I actually didn't try this before, as I assumed the two buttons couldn't be held down at once without breaking something.

Just tried it and it was no different from holding no buttons at all. In fact, I had to test it again because I thought I accidentally released one. No safe mode, no cwm, no default recovery, no nothing.
 

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
Well, ****. Something went wrong again.

Since my last post, I've:
- Downloaded Tweaks-CMBatt.zip from this thread
- Used the adb tool to boot into cwm
- Realized I'd left USB storage mode on and killed the adb batch process (it killed after the files had been pushed, but before the reboot command was issued)
- Turned off USB storage mode and used adb again
- Installed Tweaks-CMBatt.zip and rebooted

At this point, when it rebooted, the first coby logo displayed, then the black screen, then the second coby logo came on for a while longer than normal, before going to black screen. (This happened the last few times I installed from zip, as I recall, as android had to "patch applications," but was normally after the android splash.)

From here, I:
- Rebooted
- Rebooted
- Tried to reboot into safe mode (no luck)
- Tried adb booting into cwm to restore my last backup (no luck)
- Made this post

So where to from here? I'm concerned that I've somehow bricked it, either by leaving it in USB storage mode while trying to get into cwm the first time or by using the wrong file or something. I've left it booting while I've been typing this, and sitting on the black screen for 10 mins so far shows no progress or anything else.

As far as previous history of modding, you have it in this thread. I've been following the guide to the letter, no livesuite or anything else.

I have a dump from after installing gapps (confirmed it was working) and before the tweaks mod tried to go through, but I can't access cwm from this current state, so I'm not sure how to restore that. When it boots, I hear the "you plugged in a USB" sound from windows, and I can reboot it from adb, but going recovery -> cwm won't even reboot it, much less access cwm.
 

Traveller

Administrator
Staff member
Jun 16, 2012
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With your difficulties in getting into cwm, there may be no way to restore your tablet. You used the right files, so I suspect interrupting the process screwed something up. LiveSuite may get you running, but I would exhaust all other avenues first before trying that software.
 

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
You used the right files, so I suspect interrupting the process screwed something up.

Aw, hell. That's not really what I wanted to hear, but that'll teach me for not checking every step of my procedure before going ahead.

LiveSuite may get you running, but I would exhaust all other avenues first before trying that software.

So, what exactly is livesuite? I've heard all this talk about it and how I shouldn't use it, but what exactly is it and how can it help me in this situation? Since I have a stock dump of my firmware, could I theoretically use livesuite to boot into recovery and flash back to stock, then start the root/cwm process over again?

I mean, if there's any way to force the tablet to boot into cwm via adb, that would be ideal, since I have the cwm backup and stock recovery dump available on the device. But I guess I'm just lost on where to go from here.

EDIT: I was tinkering around with the shell commands in adb and found a bugreport feature that seems to have tons of info. I dunno if it'll be of any use to you, but I don't understand a whole lot of what's going on in it. Bug report

Another edit: Looking more closely at the bug report, the kernel log is showing that around timestamp [18.009] the sockets /dev/socket/zygote, /dev/socket/netd, and /dev/socket/dnsproxyd all attempt to initialize, but keep getting killed and re-initialized. Is this technically a "boot-loop," then? And more importantly, how do I stop that?

Holy ****, is this guy ever going to stop editing: Check out what I found in the processes table!

system 132 1 40380 5080 fg ffffffff 00000000 S /system/bin/surfaceflinger
shell 133 1 4460 192 fg ffffffff 00000000 S /sbin/adbd
graphics 144 1 32728 4556 fg ffffffff 00000000 S /system/bin/bootanimation
root 203 2 0 0 fg ffffffff 00000000 S kworker/u:2
root 1144 2 0 0 fg ffffffff 00000000 S kworker/0:2
shell 1757 133 760 356 fg c00384a4 40095e54 S /system/bin/sh
shell 1759 1757 824 356 fg c047abec 40063438 S bugreport
shell 1760 1 884 432 fg ffffffff 00000000 S /system/bin/dumpstate

media 1761 1 25520 6336 fg ffffffff 00000000 S /system/bin/mediaserver
root 1762 1 7412 900 fg ffffffff 00000000 S /system/bin/netd
shell 1807 1760 960 356 fg 00000000 4009f438 R ps

That's right, adb is still able to access the shell! This gives me hope, even though it's probably not the good kind. Please, oh mighty and wise Traveller... Please tell me this news brings hope for my tablet. :D
 
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Traveller

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Jun 16, 2012
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I take it you've read the LiveSuite Obsolete thread? It isn't so much LiveSuite itself that is the problem, although it has been known to brick tablets. The main issue is the ROMs. The ROMs that were offered in the forum here were not keeping up with Coby's hardware changes and causing problems. However, where LiveSuite can benefit you is in its ability to access the tablet when the recommended methods fail. LiveSuite and a ROM image will totally rewrite the internal storage and then install the ROM.

You just don't want to boot that ROM however. You want to root the tablet if not already rooted via the stock ROM image and install CWM again. From there you can restore your system dump. Installing CWM on top of a LiveSuite install is not something I recommend as the two don't always play nice, but at this point you have little to lose.
 

3d12

Member
Jul 19, 2013
10
0
However, where LiveSuite can benefit you is in its ability to access the tablet when the recommended methods fail. LiveSuite and a ROM image will totally rewrite the internal storage and then install the ROM.

So, my tablet is completely inaccessible? If I run "adb shell" from the command prompt, I can still get into the shell, though. You're telling me there's no way to fix whatever is wrong from within adb? Since I've heard nothing but bad things about livesuite so far, I'd really like to fully explore all available avenues before resorting to that.

EDIT: While it appears I can get into a shell from adb, further tinkering has revealed that su doesn't work anymore. I can't invoke "adb shell su -c blahblahblah" from the windows shell, nor "su blahblah" in the adb shell (returns "Segmentation fault").

And where would I get this ROM for livesuite, then? Would that be the stock dump that I took before I started modding?

You just don't want to boot that ROM however. You want to root the tablet if not already rooted via the stock ROM image and install CWM again. From there you can restore your system dump. Installing CWM on top of a LiveSuite install is not something I recommend as the two don't always play nice, but at this point you have little to lose.

So let me get this straight: if I use livesuite to flash the tablet with the stock image, then root it and install cwm on top of that... Can I then use cwm to flash to the stock recovery again and start over from square one in the guide? Or will there still be some livesuite left over in the system? Please explain like I'm five; it's not that I'm new to computing, but I really want to comprehend the process before I start tinkering any further.

I really should have quit while I was ahead. I had great functionality after installing gapps, but I got greedy and wanted to patch up "in case I ran into any compatibility issues." This is just a nightmare now.
 
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Traveller

Administrator
Staff member
Jun 16, 2012
2,858
982
Your tablet at this point is completely inaccessible. If you want to muck around with LiveSuite and try to fix it, that is up to you. I would recommend exchanging the tablet for a new one from wherever you got it. It will be less time consuming and less of a headache.

LiveSuite ROMs are not the same thing as the system dumps we have people do. They are not available in the Coby Generation 3 forums nor are any links to such ROMs allowed here due to the damage the ROMs have done to user's tablets. You can find both LiveSuite and ROMs using a Google search however. Now, I am trying to remember clearly here. If I recall, the stock LiveSuite ROM for the 9742 is not rooted and does not have a CWM recovery image. Once you install this ROM through LiveSuite you will need to root, install CWM on top, hope you don't brick your tablet, and then use CWM to restore your ROM from either your nandroid backup that I recall you making, which will completely wipe out the LiveSuite ROM and replace it with yours. This will restore your tablet to operating condition. The reason why I mention using your nandroid backups or system dump is because the LiveSuite ROM won't function correctly if booted, thus you would need your backups anyway.
 

vampirefo.

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 8, 2011
3,836
1,394
If you have adb working, post a few results.

adb shell

mount

busybox df -h

I am still not following why you can't use hardware keys to boot into recovery, the reason you can't with adb is you have no root.

On my grandson's 9742, to get into recovery from poweroff.

press and release at same time both power and volume down, as soon as you see the word Coby press and hold both power and volume down for 3 seconds, release power, keep holding volume down til you are in recovery.
 
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