S6 updated firmware and now bricked

[Woogieuk]

So I have been out of the country on my honeymoon for 3 weeks and came back last night. Woke up today to my phone telling me there was an update which in my sleepy state of mind decided to click update on. My phone then rebooted and continued to reboot for hours. I eventually got bored and looked this up online. It suggested clearing the cache and trying again... no dice.

I have now factory reset my phone (losing 3 weeks worth of my honeymoon photos which I can assure you I am not happy about) and now my phone just continues to reboot on the samsung Galaxy S6 screen.

Essentially I have a really expensive paper weight now.

I am curious as to what exactly vodafone will be doing about this as the updates are pushed by them and I can see I am not the only one here with this issue and fail to see WHY I should have to claim on my own insurance as my phone is now broken.

I am unable to restore anything via Kies as my phone is not even picked up by computers.I cannot install an update via ADB, Push from an external device or install from Cache.

Any ideas on what I CAN actually do?

[BandOfBrothers]

Hello.

May I Welcome you to The UK Vodafone eForum which is a Customer to Customer help and Discussion forum.

Please may I also advise that their is no longer any Account Access or Official Account assistance via the eForum.

Vodafone Customer Services wouldn't reply to you here. You would need to talk to them via 191 or Live Chat. 

Vodafone apply a 24 Month Warranty on the handset and so do Samsung. For a repair / re flash I would recommend approaching Samsung. samsung support.

You would have to check but the download of a firmware is at the users discretion. The firmware is pushed by Samsung and held back by Vodafone to their branded handsets so they can ensure it does not clash with their network. 

Samsung UK maybe able to further suggest options. In all the online information I look at regarding factory resets / Hard Resets their is typically a disclaimer / warning that such a process will / can delete data saved in the phones memory so a user should make a back up - if the phones current status lets it - or try to find an alternative to resolve the issue. 

Personally i use an iPhone 6 Plus with no SD Card slot like your make of handset, so I use DropBox which uploads my pictures taken automatically to the online vault. One of the many online vaults available. Is it possible yours uploaded to one such vault ?

[Woogieuk]

They are indeed at a users discretion but with no way to actually get rid of the damn message saying there is an update (That I found)

My phone NORMALLY syncs directly to my gmail account and uploads all photos there but as I went to the maldives and was travelling in Sri Lanka (Appauling Wifi in both) all were disabled (as was my data due to it being a extortionate in those countries) until I got back. I didn't actually mean to update the phone as I actually switched it on to back all these photos back up, I have resigned myself to the fact these photos are now gone.

I am not sure what anyone can do to assist in all honesty as all methods of updating my phone appear to be disabled and a factory reset appears to be the only option I have.

My main issue is that I am clearly not the only people having this issue and a reply from Vodafone saying they have acknowledged this (and I fail to see that this did not appear during their testing cycles) and are working on it. It is just so frustrating.

Does this warrenty apply even if the phone is purchased through Carphone warehouse?

Thanks for the reply though.

[BandOfBrothers]

You're Welcome for my reply. 

Samsung apply their 24 Month Warranty so you'd need to contact them for assistance. 

The link I added regarding Vodafones Warranty is if the product was purchased through them.

[jeffkinn]

If you purchased the phone from CPW then you are their customer and Vodafone has nothing to do with it. It won't be a Vodafone branded phone and the network would not have had anything to do with the update. I'd check the handset to see what country it was designed for as dealers have a tendency to supply phones meant for other countries. That means that the update cycle is one that relates to that country and not the UK.

[Woogieuk]

My original contract was taken out 3 years ago with Vodafone directly, I then upgraded my phone via Carphone Warehouse on the vodafone network as they could offer me a better contract on vodafone than vodafone directly could.

I still have vodafone branded apps etc on my phone so is definately a Vodafone handset. The updates are also pushed in batches via Vodafone as far as I am aware as I get the update after a lot of my friends who also have the S6 and at roughly the same time as another friend and my wife who are both on Vodafone.

[jeffkinn]

And CPW supplied the phone to you? That's surprising as I didn't think that dealers supplied network branded phones.

[BandOfBrothers]

Certainly is a conundrum. 

All the phones ive purchased from CPW have been unbranded. 

Did you get any Vodafone splash screens on booting up the phone ?

[Woogieuk]

No I dont think I did but it definately had all the my vodafone apps installed on the phone as they drive me bonkers.

I went into CPW today and they said they will send it off to be fixed but its a 14 day turn around and about a 99% chance I have lost everything for good.

Ah well, Live and learn.

[BandOfBrothers]

Did you perhaps ask CPW if they've starts to provide branded phones ?

I hope it's a swift turnaround for you and fingers crossed for your photographs although I do believe they auto flash the firmware again.