1. DrCroubie's Avatar
    Virus, thy name is google play services.

    The Short Story:
    My Priv won't turn on. Well, it will, the hardware's fine. That it won't boot is the problem. It shows the Blackberry logo, the circle/square thing spins around a bit, the login screen appears. I type in my password and then the circle/square thing spins around and spins around and does nothing.

    And I mean "I quite literally went off to see some Fringe shows and came back 9 hours later and it was still spinning" sort of nothing (at least I left it on the charger).

    So now I need to try to boot it up into some sort of safe-mode, but that doesn't seem to work either. I've tried 2 methods to get into safe-mode that I've found via random searching:

    - hold power button and release to get the shutdown menu, then press and hold again to get the 'reboot into safemode' option.
    Well that doens't work because the phone isn't on. When I get to the login screen I can press the power button for the shutdown menu (power off / reboot / take bug report), but then I press it again and nothing changes. No 'reboot into safemode' option there.

    - turn it on and when the BB logo shows, press the volume down button and that boots it into safe mode
    Uh, no it doesn't. That does absolutely nothing. Nor does the volume up button, nor both together

    One thing I did try is holding the volume down button *while* (not after) pressing the power button (like taking a screenshot). That at least does something. Gives me a 4-choice menu of 'barcodes' (shows serial number barcodes) / 'continue the bootup' (just behaves as before) / 'reboot into fastboot' (just reboots to the same 4-option menu) / 'turn off the device' (does what it says at least)

    So is there an actual way to get into safemode that works?

    Is there any way to connect it to a PC to do some debugging?

    Is there a way to get an interactive bootup or something?

    Can I somehow re-enable the services that I disabled yesterday to allow it to bootup without it actually booting?

    The Long Story:
    For the last few years, I've been constantly fighting against the 'google play services' app which keeps trying to install 'device administrators' which have permissions to 'remotely control my phone, delete my data, access my location' and all that stuff. I don't like security holes as wide as that (security is why I bought a BB in the first place, besides the PKB all I want is security).

    So every once in a while, usually whenever I reboot my phone, I go back into Settings -> Security -> Device Administrators and yep, google's taken over my phone again by enabling 'find my device' as device administrator, which I promptly turn off every time. A few weeks ago it started getting worse, in that it happened every few hours without reboot (and it also started putting in 'screen lock service' as device admin for good measure), so usually I'd wake up in the morning and make sure it was turned off.
    Then it stopped for a few weeks.

    Yesterday, it came back on. And it's not just me being a security-paranoid weirdo, it's very easy to tell when it's on, because nothing that relies on google play services actually works properly (usually games, but also the google play store won't load sometimes). It happens so often that I'm used to it, whenever something gets stuck I go into Apps -> Google Play Services -> Force Stop and then reload whatever app I'm trying and it works again. But when 'find my device' is an administrator, I can't force-stop google play services, so nothing loads. So I turn the device administrator off, force-stop google play services and then everything loads again.

    Yesterday was different. I tried to turn off the device administrator: 'Sorry, settings has closed unexpectedly'. Again and again. Rebooted, no difference. Obviously some sort of problem with google play services, but I can't force-stop that because it's called itself an administrator.
    So (and I'll admit, maybe I shouldn't have), I tried disabling other google play things that may be causing it to get stuck. Google play store I've dis-/re-enabled plenty of times with no problems, but that changed nothing. I think the problematic one was 'google services framework' (I've force-stopped that dozens of times, but never tried disabling it before). That also didn't help. But then I thought to reboot it, and now it's stuck in the loop described in The Short Story. I think what's happening is that on boot, the google play services is trying to install itself as administrator, but it can't find something that it needs from the 'services framework' app because that's disabled, and just getting stuck on boot.
    So all I want to do is be able to turn it on to undo whatever I did yesterday, but I need to be able to do that in order to turn it on and I see no way out of this vicious cycle thus far...
    03-21-21 07:24 PM
  2. conite's Avatar
    Virus, thy name is google play services.

    The Short Story:
    My Priv won't turn on. Well, it will, the hardware's fine. That it won't boot is the problem. It shows the Blackberry logo, the circle/square thing spins around a bit, the login screen appears. I type in my password and then the circle/square thing spins around and spins around and does nothing.

    And I mean "I quite literally went off to see some Fringe shows and came back 9 hours later and it was still spinning" sort of nothing (at least I left it on the charger).

    So now I need to try to boot it up into some sort of safe-mode, but that doesn't seem to work either. I've tried 2 methods to get into safe-mode that I've found via random searching:

    - hold power button and release to get the shutdown menu, then press and hold again to get the 'reboot into safemode' option.
    Well that doens't work because the phone isn't on. When I get to the login screen I can press the power button for the shutdown menu (power off / reboot / take bug report), but then I press it again and nothing changes. No 'reboot into safemode' option there.

    - turn it on and when the BB logo shows, press the volume down button and that boots it into safe mode
    Uh, no it doesn't. That does absolutely nothing. Nor does the volume up button, nor both together

    One thing I did try is holding the volume down button *while* (not after) pressing the power button (like taking a screenshot). That at least does something. Gives me a 4-choice menu of 'barcodes' (shows serial number barcodes) / 'continue the bootup' (just behaves as before) / 'reboot into fastboot' (just reboots to the same 4-option menu) / 'turn off the device' (does what it says at least)

    So is there an actual way to get into safemode that works?

    Is there any way to connect it to a PC to do some debugging?

    Is there a way to get an interactive bootup or something?

    Can I somehow re-enable the services that I disabled yesterday to allow it to bootup without it actually booting?

    The Long Story:
    For the last few years, I've been constantly fighting against the 'google play services' app which keeps trying to install 'device administrators' which have permissions to 'remotely control my phone, delete my data, access my location' and all that stuff. I don't like security holes as wide as that (security is why I bought a BB in the first place, besides the PKB all I want is security).

    So every once in a while, usually whenever I reboot my phone, I go back into Settings -> Security -> Device Administrators and yep, google's taken over my phone again by enabling 'find my device' as device administrator, which I promptly turn off every time. A few weeks ago it started getting worse, in that it happened every few hours without reboot (and it also started putting in 'screen lock service' as device admin for good measure), so usually I'd wake up in the morning and make sure it was turned off.
    Then it stopped for a few weeks.

    Yesterday, it came back on. And it's not just me being a security-paranoid weirdo, it's very easy to tell when it's on, because nothing that relies on google play services actually works properly (usually games, but also the google play store won't load sometimes). It happens so often that I'm used to it, whenever something gets stuck I go into Apps -> Google Play Services -> Force Stop and then reload whatever app I'm trying and it works again. But when 'find my device' is an administrator, I can't force-stop google play services, so nothing loads. So I turn the device administrator off, force-stop google play services and then everything loads again.

    Yesterday was different. I tried to turn off the device administrator: 'Sorry, settings has closed unexpectedly'. Again and again. Rebooted, no difference. Obviously some sort of problem with google play services, but I can't force-stop that because it's called itself an administrator.
    So (and I'll admit, maybe I shouldn't have), I tried disabling other google play things that may be causing it to get stuck. Google play store I've dis-/re-enabled plenty of times with no problems, but that changed nothing. I think the problematic one was 'google services framework' (I've force-stopped that dozens of times, but never tried disabling it before). That also didn't help. But then I thought to reboot it, and now it's stuck in the loop described in The Short Story. I think what's happening is that on boot, the google play services is trying to install itself as administrator, but it can't find something that it needs from the 'services framework' app because that's disabled, and just getting stuck on boot.
    So all I want to do is be able to turn it on to undo whatever I did yesterday, but I need to be able to do that in order to turn it on and I see no way out of this vicious cycle thus far...
    tl;dr

    But you don't have a virus. This is typical Priv behaviour from time to time.

    Reload your OS.

    https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/sup...roid-os-reload
    03-21-21 07:56 PM
  3. DrCroubie's Avatar
    Any other options besides a complete reformat and start again? I've got most of my photos and stuff up to whenever I backed up last (although that may have been a few months ago), but I'd still rather not lose all my chat logs and things if I can avoid it.
    Any other options before I go full nuclear?
    03-21-21 08:43 PM
  4. howarmat's Avatar
    Any other options besides a complete reformat and start again? I've got most of my photos and stuff up to whenever I backed up last (although that may have been a few months ago), but I'd still rather not lose all my chat logs and things if I can avoid it.
    Any other options before I go full nuclear?
    all of that should be automatically backed up and not lose anything….
    03-21-21 08:50 PM
  5. conite's Avatar
    Any other options besides a complete reformat and start again? I've got most of my photos and stuff up to whenever I backed up last (although that may have been a few months ago), but I'd still rather not lose all my chat logs and things if I can avoid it.
    Any other options before I go full nuclear?
    No other option I can see. I assume you had Google Backup and Google Photos cloud sync enabled?
    03-21-21 09:03 PM
  6. DrCroubie's Avatar
    Well, given that I don't trust google with their 'find my device', I'm hardly going to backup stuff to them am I? (not to mention all that pesky data it would have used, some of us live in 3rd-world countries don't forget)

    But losing data or not is not the point. I'm well aware that's an option for the last resort, emphasis on 'last resort'.
    Is there no way to debug it over usb?
    Enter some sort of 'safe mode' and/or interactive bootup thing?
    (I'll show my age if I say 'get an early printk over /dev/ttys0', and I doubt there's a direct android equivalent, but that's the kind of thing I'm going for to start with, leave nuking it for the 'last resort' that it is)
    03-22-21 01:17 AM
  7. conite's Avatar
    Well, given that I don't trust google with their 'find my device', I'm hardly going to backup stuff to them am I? (not to mention all that pesky data it would have used, some of us live in 3rd-world countries don't forget)

    But losing data or not is not the point. I'm well aware that's an option for the last resort, emphasis on 'last resort'.
    Is there no way to debug it over usb?
    Enter some sort of 'safe mode' and/or interactive bootup thing?
    (I'll show my age if I say 'get an early printk over /dev/ttys0', and I doubt there's a direct android equivalent, but that's the kind of thing I'm going for to start with, leave nuking it for the 'last resort' that it is)
    You are already facing the last resort.
    03-22-21 06:57 AM
  8. SteinwayTransitCorp's Avatar
    all of that should be automatically backed up and not lose anything….
    I bet not
    03-22-21 08:12 AM
  9. SteinwayTransitCorp's Avatar
    Virus, thy name is google play services.

    The Short Story:
    My Priv won't turn on. Well, it will, the hardware's fine. That it won't boot is the problem. It shows the Blackberry logo, the circle/square thing spins around a bit, the login screen appears. I type in my password and then the circle/square thing spins around and spins around and does nothing.

    And I mean "I quite literally went off to see some Fringe shows and came back 9 hours later and it was still spinning" sort of nothing (at least I left it on the charger).

    So now I need to try to boot it up into some sort of safe-mode, but that doesn't seem to work either. I've tried 2 methods to get into safe-mode that I've found via random searching:

    - hold power button and release to get the shutdown menu, then press and hold again to get the 'reboot into safemode' option.
    Well that doens't work because the phone isn't on. When I get to the login screen I can press the power button for the shutdown menu (power off / reboot / take bug report), but then I press it again and nothing changes. No 'reboot into safemode' option there.

    - turn it on and when the BB logo shows, press the volume down button and that boots it into safe mode
    Uh, no it doesn't. That does absolutely nothing. Nor does the volume up button, nor both together

    One thing I did try is holding the volume down button *while* (not after) pressing the power button (like taking a screenshot). That at least does something. Gives me a 4-choice menu of 'barcodes' (shows serial number barcodes) / 'continue the bootup' (just behaves as before) / 'reboot into fastboot' (just reboots to the same 4-option menu) / 'turn off the device' (does what it says at least)

    So is there an actual way to get into safemode that works?

    Is there any way to connect it to a PC to do some debugging?

    Is there a way to get an interactive bootup or something?

    Can I somehow re-enable the services that I disabled yesterday to allow it to bootup without it actually booting?

    The Long Story:
    For the last few years, I've been constantly fighting against the 'google play services' app which keeps trying to install 'device administrators' which have permissions to 'remotely control my phone, delete my data, access my location' and all that stuff. I don't like security holes as wide as that (security is why I bought a BB in the first place, besides the PKB all I want is security).

    So every once in a while, usually whenever I reboot my phone, I go back into Settings -> Security -> Device Administrators and yep, google's taken over my phone again by enabling 'find my device' as device administrator, which I promptly turn off every time. A few weeks ago it started getting worse, in that it happened every few hours without reboot (and it also started putting in 'screen lock service' as device admin for good measure), so usually I'd wake up in the morning and make sure it was turned off.
    Then it stopped for a few weeks.

    Yesterday, it came back on. And it's not just me being a security-paranoid weirdo, it's very easy to tell when it's on, because nothing that relies on google play services actually works properly (usually games, but also the google play store won't load sometimes). It happens so often that I'm used to it, whenever something gets stuck I go into Apps -> Google Play Services -> Force Stop and then reload whatever app I'm trying and it works again. But when 'find my device' is an administrator, I can't force-stop google play services, so nothing loads. So I turn the device administrator off, force-stop google play services and then everything loads again.

    Yesterday was different. I tried to turn off the device administrator: 'Sorry, settings has closed unexpectedly'. Again and again. Rebooted, no difference. Obviously some sort of problem with google play services, but I can't force-stop that because it's called itself an administrator.
    So (and I'll admit, maybe I shouldn't have), I tried disabling other google play things that may be causing it to get stuck. Google play store I've dis-/re-enabled plenty of times with no problems, but that changed nothing. I think the problematic one was 'google services framework' (I've force-stopped that dozens of times, but never tried disabling it before). That also didn't help. But then I thought to reboot it, and now it's stuck in the loop described in The Short Story. I think what's happening is that on boot, the google play services is trying to install itself as administrator, but it can't find something that it needs from the 'services framework' app because that's disabled, and just getting stuck on boot.
    So all I want to do is be able to turn it on to undo whatever I did yesterday, but I need to be able to do that in order to turn it on and I see no way out of this vicious cycle thus far...
    I use a Priv once in a while and I can tell you a refresh of the OS once in a while goes a long way. Conite is right (please do not tell him I agree with him). A great phone but can be very finicky
    03-22-21 09:51 AM
  10. conite's Avatar
    I use a Priv once in a while and I can tell you a refresh of the OS once in a while goes a long way. Conite is right (please do not tell him I agree with him). A great phone but can be very finicky


    We may disagree on tech sometimes, but I'd still love to hit the pubs with you!
    03-22-21 10:01 AM
  11. SteinwayTransitCorp's Avatar


    We may disagree on tech sometimes, but I'd still love to hit the pubs with you!
    I am Their...............anytime.
    Attached Thumbnails Google Play bricked my Priv ... help please? (safe mode?)-beer.gif  
    03-22-21 11:28 AM
  12. DrCroubie's Avatar
    You are already facing the last resort.
    Google Play bricked my Priv ... help please? (safe mode?)-nothing.png ?
    anon(5597702) likes this.
    03-23-21 01:48 AM

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