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Article says crash, not brick. Brick is not recoverable.

by chooseaname 6y ago

Hamuko 6y ago
Soft bricks can be recovered from.
- jessriedel 6y ago
  I hadn't heard the term "soft brick" before, and if you Google it all the top results are about this.
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    "soft brick" is commonly used on XDA.
    - jessriedel 6y ago
      Is it a term that's usually only applied to androids?
      - 4cao 6y ago
        Not really, it's used for example with OpenWRT too: site:openwrt.org "soft-brick" - 213 results
      - wyldfire 6y ago
        'brick' in general is a sliding scale based on how many device debug/recovery tools you have access to and how much device disassembly you're willing to tolerate.
      - eghad 6y ago
        No, iOS devices can also soft-brick, it's just a general term. Most often people encounter the term in relation to hacking/rooting hardware, like a Nintendo DS/Switch for instance. Hitting up Wikipedia or Trends can help you dig through its usage considering how Google's search algo heavily biases current events wrt relevance.
- chooseaname 6y ago
  Neither the article nor the headline say soft brick. Besides, "soft brick" is just someone not wanting to admit that brick has an understood definition but they like the word brick and want to use it.
  - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
    Does brick have an understood definition though? I think this is the millionth time I see this exact discussion about a news story using the term differently from the one true definition. That doesn't seem very understood to me.
    - parliament32 6y ago
      Well, yeah. "Brick", as in a paperweight, as in it's dead for good, forever. It's in the word.
    - stOneskull 6y ago
      discussions must be had. it's one of those sesame street stories anyway; they want to use tech lingo with the kids.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      It's so rare these days I really don't understand why people fuss over the definition. It's almost impossible to brick anything with software, and even in hardware unless you damage the PCB itself you can usually recover if you tried hard enough (e.g. Even if you fry a $1500 FPGA you could technically reflow a new one and pray the bitstream is OK if you need it fixed now - although I'd rather you than me)
      - OJFord 6y ago
        Technically you could also lay out new components and copper trace on an actual brick, too. I've always understood it to mean 'broken beyond software or high-level firmware repair'. i.e. if not actually a blown component, something needs to be reflashed which has an inaccessible JTAG header or something, rather than something 'higher level' like recovery images over ADB & USB.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
asveikau 6y ago
But the article also says if you set it as your wallpaper, you cannot get past the lock screen, which I am guessing is because it crashes again loading or rendering the wallpaper. So maybe you could boot with a key combination and reset the phone, but it's pretty close to bricking.
gruez 6y ago
Some users report that it soft-bricked their phones (ie. they had to factory reset their device). Others were able to recover it by either deleting the wallpaper from TWRP, or pressing a sequences of keys to take a picture and set that as the wallpaper (apparently for them only the display was broken, everything else worked(.
G4E 6y ago
It's described as crashing in loop, even on restart. For people who don't know how to reflash/wipe from recovery, it render their phone useless, so as well as bricked. I'm curious to see the post-mortem on this one, i'd guess a bug in the libjpg used in android, and a malformat in the encodibg of the picture ?
- ehsankia 6y ago
  From my understanding, if it happens once, it's a crash, if it keeps rebooting it's a brick. If it can be recovered it's a soft-brick, otherwise it's a hard-brick.
  - neunnech 6y ago
    Another commenter agrees with you, writing: > it soft-bricked their phones (ie. they had to factory reset their device) But the whole point of coming up with the word "brick" was to describe the set of scenarios where even things like factory reset won't work. This is "literally" all over again.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      But even with a hard brick (where it's "literally a brick"), you can sometimes bring it back to life by opening the device and swapping a component or soldering something. I like soft vs hard brick, because it connects to software and hardware. With a soft brick, the device is basically a brick until you reset the software. With a hard brick, it requires potentially a hardware fix.
  - Polylactic_acid 6y ago
    The thing is there is always more levels of bricked. Usually people refer to bricked as being unrecoverable through the usb flashing methods but there is usually a way to open up the device and flash the nand chip back to a working state. So its bricked in the perspective of a user but not for someone with electronics experience.
dang 6y ago
We've changed the title to sidestep this. The word 'brick' is up there with 'doxx' on the list of curiously provocative words that people will strongly protest if you use them wrong, yet aren't exactly well defined. Not as high on the list as 'doxx' though. 'Troll' is on that list too.

Article says crash, not brick. Brick is not recoverable.

Hamuko 6y ago

Soft bricks can be recovered from.

jessriedel 6y ago
I hadn't heard the term "soft brick" before, and if you Google it all the top results are about this.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  "soft brick" is commonly used on XDA.
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    Is it a term that's usually only applied to androids?
    - 4cao 6y ago
      Not really, it's used for example with OpenWRT too: site:openwrt.org "soft-brick" - 213 results
    - wyldfire 6y ago
      'brick' in general is a sliding scale based on how many device debug/recovery tools you have access to and how much device disassembly you're willing to tolerate.
    - eghad 6y ago
      No, iOS devices can also soft-brick, it's just a general term. Most often people encounter the term in relation to hacking/rooting hardware, like a Nintendo DS/Switch for instance. Hitting up Wikipedia or Trends can help you dig through its usage considering how Google's search algo heavily biases current events wrt relevance.
chooseaname 6y ago
Neither the article nor the headline say soft brick. Besides, "soft brick" is just someone not wanting to admit that brick has an understood definition but they like the word brick and want to use it.
- CathedralBorrow 6y ago
  Does brick have an understood definition though? I think this is the millionth time I see this exact discussion about a news story using the term differently from the one true definition. That doesn't seem very understood to me.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    Well, yeah. "Brick", as in a paperweight, as in it's dead for good, forever. It's in the word.
  - stOneskull 6y ago
    discussions must be had. it's one of those sesame street stories anyway; they want to use tech lingo with the kids.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    It's so rare these days I really don't understand why people fuss over the definition. It's almost impossible to brick anything with software, and even in hardware unless you damage the PCB itself you can usually recover if you tried hard enough (e.g. Even if you fry a $1500 FPGA you could technically reflow a new one and pray the bitstream is OK if you need it fixed now - although I'd rather you than me)
    - OJFord 6y ago
      Technically you could also lay out new components and copper trace on an actual brick, too. I've always understood it to mean 'broken beyond software or high-level firmware repair'. i.e. if not actually a blown component, something needs to be reflashed which has an inaccessible JTAG header or something, rather than something 'higher level' like recovery images over ADB & USB.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

asveikau 6y ago

But the article also says if you set it as your wallpaper, you cannot get past the lock screen, which I am guessing is because it crashes again loading or rendering the wallpaper. So maybe you could boot with a key combination and reset the phone, but it's pretty close to bricking.

gruez 6y ago

Some users report that it soft-bricked their phones (ie. they had to factory reset their device). Others were able to recover it by either deleting the wallpaper from TWRP, or pressing a sequences of keys to take a picture and set that as the wallpaper (apparently for them only the display was broken, everything else worked(.

G4E 6y ago

It's described as crashing in loop, even on restart. For people who don't know how to reflash/wipe from recovery, it render their phone useless, so as well as bricked. I'm curious to see the post-mortem on this one, i'd guess a bug in the libjpg used in android, and a malformat in the encodibg of the picture ?

ehsankia 6y ago
From my understanding, if it happens once, it's a crash, if it keeps rebooting it's a brick. If it can be recovered it's a soft-brick, otherwise it's a hard-brick.
- neunnech 6y ago
  Another commenter agrees with you, writing: > it soft-bricked their phones (ie. they had to factory reset their device) But the whole point of coming up with the word "brick" was to describe the set of scenarios where even things like factory reset won't work. This is "literally" all over again.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    But even with a hard brick (where it's "literally a brick"), you can sometimes bring it back to life by opening the device and swapping a component or soldering something. I like soft vs hard brick, because it connects to software and hardware. With a soft brick, the device is basically a brick until you reset the software. With a hard brick, it requires potentially a hardware fix.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  The thing is there is always more levels of bricked. Usually people refer to bricked as being unrecoverable through the usb flashing methods but there is usually a way to open up the device and flash the nand chip back to a working state. So its bricked in the perspective of a user but not for someone with electronics experience.

dang 6y ago

We've changed the title to sidestep this. The word 'brick' is up there with 'doxx' on the list of curiously provocative words that people will strongly protest if you use them wrong, yet aren't exactly well defined. Not as high on the list as 'doxx' though. 'Troll' is on that list too.