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"Of course you void your warranty that way." Wait.. What? Why would that be the case? And .. why would you state that you'd lose your warranty and prepend 'of

"Of course you void your warranty that way." Wait.. What? Why would that be the case? And .. why would you state that you'd lose your warranty and prepend 'of course'? As far as I'm aware you do NOT lose your warranty. That would be rather stupid (of course).

orf 10y ago
Because if you go about flashing your phone willy-nilly and some bad firmware bricks the phone, it's not the manufacturers fault is it.
- darklajid 10y ago
  I'd argue that you have a hard time bricking a phone. But even if you manage to do that somehow, that is a specific problem. Using a general statement like 'flashing voids your warranty' remains weird (and wrong imo). "Stuffing your phone in your pockets voids your warranty. Because if you stuff it in your back pocket and sit down on it, hard, it's not the manufacturer's fault if the screen breaks. Is it?"
  - justsid 10y ago
    But you _do_ void the warranty if you break your phone when sitting on it. It's a specific action that does that, and it's not as simple as "only rooting your phone voids the warranty"
    - darklajid 10y ago
      I.. think we agree? Are you just chiming in to support my position? Because I think that is what I wrote above. That was the point, I tried to answer the GP's 'if you brick it (by flashing it)..' line of reasoning with 'if you brick it (by sitting on it)..' and showing that there is no connection between flashing and bricking in general.
  - cfstras 10y ago
    There's plenty of opportunity. For example, there are reports of flashing the wrong firmware (Galaxy Note) on a similar phone (Galaxy SIII) can lead to bricking touchscreen controller-
    - darklajid 10y ago
      There's also plenty of opportunity to accidentally drop your phone in the loo. Common sense and being somewhat careful helps in the vast majority of things, flashing your phone included. That said, even if you flash stuff without reading instructions or fully understanding what you do: Most errors I've seen are flat-out not working (software stating: "Can't do this, you're messing up") or recoverable/soft-bricks only. (In the end it doesn't matter if you CAN kill your phone by flashing nonsense: That still wouldn't make a good argument for "Flashing voids the manufacturer's warranty". I'd just mean that those individuals who bricked their phone .. might not be covered.)
      - SixSigma 10y ago
        Since when is dropping your phone in the toilet covered under warranty ? Apple added "been in water detection" to avoid payout on that very activity.
        singold 10y ago
        The thing is that if you drop the phone in the toilet you aren't covered but that doesn't mean that you void your guarantee by using your phone while you are there, for me that's the difference. If I flash my phone and later some part of it breaks because it came bad from factory, that is independent of me flashing the phone and should be covered.
        darklajid 10y ago
        I never claimed that this was under warranty. I'm constantly trying to use this thread to kill any connection between 'rooted my phone', 'flashed a different firmware' and 'bricked my phone'. GP replied to one of my posts, saying that there IS a real risk of bricking your phone when you flash it (I don't disagree, but consider it unlikely). By comparing the process with a totally different ~real risk~ (phone -> toilet) I'm trying to drive the point home that it isn't a problem of either flashing your phone or playing some mobile game on that white throne of yours, it is a problem of being careless. Bricking my phone shouldn't be covered by a warranty. Flash or flush doesn't matter. But trying to imply that the warranty is void because I installed software is overly broad and crazy: If I flash CM today and the phone dies in a month from now due (battery dead, hardware issues w/ screen or power button, antenna issues, pick anything faulty you had with a vanilla/unchanged handset in the past), then CM isn't to blame and my phone has a working warranty (for all I know, for all I care - and anything else seems completely unacceptable in my world).
- izacus 10y ago
  Yes, if your firmware breaks the phone it won't be covered under warranty. If your phones hardware breaks, the firmware doesn't matter. Of course the manufacturers, who have vested financial insterest, will make you think otherwise.
  - jjawssd 10y ago
    It's cheaper for manufacturers to blame non-official firmwares for bricking a phone and saying "I told you so" as a big fuck you
- rlpb 10y ago
  Then it is your flashing of your phone willy-nilly and bricking the phone by doing that which might void your warranty, not rooting your phone. Of course, this depends on the laws in your jurisdiction.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Yeah, I'm tired of using these proxies to unwanted behaviour when the behaviour itself is easy enough to see. "What did you do that bricked your phone?" "I flashed some custom firmware and stopped the flash mid-way" "But how? All our phones are locked" "I unlocked it" "Aha! That is the real culprit!"
wccrawford 10y ago
I haven't worked for a computer manufacturer for a couple decades now, but back then it was common to require the user to use the stock software when requesting support. If you removed Windows and installed Linux, they wouldn't support it. If anything went wrong, they'd point to your changes and say that they are a possible cause and basically refuse to try to fix it until you un-did those changes. Likewise, if you hack special software onto the phone, overriding protections that they put in place to prevent it, I could see them refusing to spend time and money trying to fix the phone until you undid those changes first. And I believe some of those changes can't be un-done fully, even if you re-flash a stock firmware. The net effect is that it effectively voids your warranty. So no, technically you don't lose your warranty, but you also can't really make use of it, either. This really only applies to software things, though. Hardware problems, like the battery exploding or the phone just refusing to turn on would still be easy to get covered, since you can't even get far enough to see it's been modified. But if the GPS stops working or it stops receiving calls, they could blame it on the custom firmware, and they might even be correct.
- darklajid 10y ago
  I'm ignoring support - support is a different issue and unrelated when we're talking about the warranty here. If I hand in my handset to claim my warranty, I'm fine with a 'wipe by default' policy. In fact, my limited experiences (both with my phones and the ones from my closest family) that was implied anyway: You'd get the phone back with a ~fresh~ factory image (and all the crap- and adware that this includes). So here's the thing: If I claim that GPS doesn't work, you reflash it with a Known Good™ image and GPS still doesn't work - then the device has a hardware problem. If I can cause a hardware problem by running a different flavor of Android, then .. that's a serious hardware _design_ problem. I'm not saying that you cannot kill or damage a device. But defaulting to 'You installed stuff, you probably caused it' seems rather simplistic, is probably wrong a good number of times. You brought up PCs: I think you'd have a hard time if you'd defend the stance that installing Linux on a laptop voids the warranty. Granted, the underpaid tech support might not be able to help me around software issues, but if I claim that the wifi doesn't work and send it in... Do you believe they can/could/should refuse to check and fix the problem under warranty?

orf 10y ago

Because if you go about flashing your phone willy-nilly and some bad firmware bricks the phone, it's not the manufacturers fault is it.

darklajid 10y ago
I'd argue that you have a hard time bricking a phone. But even if you manage to do that somehow, that is a specific problem. Using a general statement like 'flashing voids your warranty' remains weird (and wrong imo). "Stuffing your phone in your pockets voids your warranty. Because if you stuff it in your back pocket and sit down on it, hard, it's not the manufacturer's fault if the screen breaks. Is it?"
- justsid 10y ago
  But you _do_ void the warranty if you break your phone when sitting on it. It's a specific action that does that, and it's not as simple as "only rooting your phone voids the warranty"
  - darklajid 10y ago
    I.. think we agree? Are you just chiming in to support my position? Because I think that is what I wrote above. That was the point, I tried to answer the GP's 'if you brick it (by flashing it)..' line of reasoning with 'if you brick it (by sitting on it)..' and showing that there is no connection between flashing and bricking in general.
- cfstras 10y ago
  There's plenty of opportunity. For example, there are reports of flashing the wrong firmware (Galaxy Note) on a similar phone (Galaxy SIII) can lead to bricking touchscreen controller-
  - darklajid 10y ago
    There's also plenty of opportunity to accidentally drop your phone in the loo. Common sense and being somewhat careful helps in the vast majority of things, flashing your phone included. That said, even if you flash stuff without reading instructions or fully understanding what you do: Most errors I've seen are flat-out not working (software stating: "Can't do this, you're messing up") or recoverable/soft-bricks only. (In the end it doesn't matter if you CAN kill your phone by flashing nonsense: That still wouldn't make a good argument for "Flashing voids the manufacturer's warranty". I'd just mean that those individuals who bricked their phone .. might not be covered.)
    - SixSigma 10y ago
      Since when is dropping your phone in the toilet covered under warranty ? Apple added "been in water detection" to avoid payout on that very activity.
      - singold 10y ago
        The thing is that if you drop the phone in the toilet you aren't covered but that doesn't mean that you void your guarantee by using your phone while you are there, for me that's the difference. If I flash my phone and later some part of it breaks because it came bad from factory, that is independent of me flashing the phone and should be covered.
      - darklajid 10y ago
        I never claimed that this was under warranty. I'm constantly trying to use this thread to kill any connection between 'rooted my phone', 'flashed a different firmware' and 'bricked my phone'. GP replied to one of my posts, saying that there IS a real risk of bricking your phone when you flash it (I don't disagree, but consider it unlikely). By comparing the process with a totally different ~real risk~ (phone -> toilet) I'm trying to drive the point home that it isn't a problem of either flashing your phone or playing some mobile game on that white throne of yours, it is a problem of being careless. Bricking my phone shouldn't be covered by a warranty. Flash or flush doesn't matter. But trying to imply that the warranty is void because I installed software is overly broad and crazy: If I flash CM today and the phone dies in a month from now due (battery dead, hardware issues w/ screen or power button, antenna issues, pick anything faulty you had with a vanilla/unchanged handset in the past), then CM isn't to blame and my phone has a working warranty (for all I know, for all I care - and anything else seems completely unacceptable in my world).
izacus 10y ago
Yes, if your firmware breaks the phone it won't be covered under warranty. If your phones hardware breaks, the firmware doesn't matter. Of course the manufacturers, who have vested financial insterest, will make you think otherwise.
- jjawssd 10y ago
  It's cheaper for manufacturers to blame non-official firmwares for bricking a phone and saying "I told you so" as a big fuck you
rlpb 10y ago
Then it is your flashing of your phone willy-nilly and bricking the phone by doing that which might void your warranty, not rooting your phone. Of course, this depends on the laws in your jurisdiction.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  Yeah, I'm tired of using these proxies to unwanted behaviour when the behaviour itself is easy enough to see. "What did you do that bricked your phone?" "I flashed some custom firmware and stopped the flash mid-way" "But how? All our phones are locked" "I unlocked it" "Aha! That is the real culprit!"

wccrawford 10y ago

I haven't worked for a computer manufacturer for a couple decades now, but back then it was common to require the user to use the stock software when requesting support. If you removed Windows and installed Linux, they wouldn't support it. If anything went wrong, they'd point to your changes and say that they are a possible cause and basically refuse to try to fix it until you un-did those changes. Likewise, if you hack special software onto the phone, overriding protections that they put in place to prevent it, I could see them refusing to spend time and money trying to fix the phone until you undid those changes first. And I believe some of those changes can't be un-done fully, even if you re-flash a stock firmware. The net effect is that it effectively voids your warranty. So no, technically you don't lose your warranty, but you also can't really make use of it, either. This really only applies to software things, though. Hardware problems, like the battery exploding or the phone just refusing to turn on would still be easy to get covered, since you can't even get far enough to see it's been modified. But if the GPS stops working or it stops receiving calls, they could blame it on the custom firmware, and they might even be correct.

darklajid 10y ago
I'm ignoring support - support is a different issue and unrelated when we're talking about the warranty here. If I hand in my handset to claim my warranty, I'm fine with a 'wipe by default' policy. In fact, my limited experiences (both with my phones and the ones from my closest family) that was implied anyway: You'd get the phone back with a ~fresh~ factory image (and all the crap- and adware that this includes). So here's the thing: If I claim that GPS doesn't work, you reflash it with a Known Good™ image and GPS still doesn't work - then the device has a hardware problem. If I can cause a hardware problem by running a different flavor of Android, then .. that's a serious hardware _design_ problem. I'm not saying that you cannot kill or damage a device. But defaulting to 'You installed stuff, you probably caused it' seems rather simplistic, is probably wrong a good number of times. You brought up PCs: I think you'd have a hard time if you'd defend the stance that installing Linux on a laptop voids the warranty. Granted, the underpaid tech support might not be able to help me around software issues, but if I claim that the wifi doesn't work and send it in... Do you believe they can/could/should refuse to check and fix the problem under warranty?