I know that a previous post of mine talks about the infamous eMMC problem where the chip will burn out, however looking over some of my notes on eMMC chip problems I did come across a couple of things I noted in regards to possibly finding a solution to a couple of the issues.

 

Now the usual way we know we have an eMMC problem is that we get:

 

E:Can’t mount /cache/recovery/command

E:Can’t mount /cache/recovery/log

E:Can’t open /cache/recovery/log

E:Can’t mount /cache/recovery/last_log

E:Can’t open /cache/recovery/last_log

 

appearing as a debug message, this is actually the full “cache” partition being corrupted. Obviously the majority of rom chefs have run into this problem many times and myself included I have seen that message on more than one occasion over different handsets.

 

Usually there isn’t a fix for any error like that, once the cache partition is corrupted you really cannot recover from that, it is a catastrophic failure. The only way I have been able to fix this a couple of times and that was by immediately removing the battery and letting it sit for a couple of minutes before putting the battery back in.

Then if you boot directly into the boot loader and hit into recovery mode.

Now if you haven’t received any major errors you cahce partition should now be formatted as ext3, so if you cycle through the menus and format it to ext4.

Do a full wipe of everything, including factory reset, davlik cache and battery stats

Flash the rom of your choice again (now make sure it is the correct rom for the phone) and hope for the best that it works.

 

Now hopefully that potentially can resolve your problems, if not then you will probably have a serious eMMC problem and potentially will have bricked your phone.

 

I will say this method has worked 9 out of 10 times with me and I still have these notes saved for the next time it occurs.

 

Key things to remember, always track changes in the rom – see if there is a good user base and check them against other more popular roms to see the differences and benefits if there are any.

There has been a lot of talk more recently that the HTC Desire S actually suffers from the major problem that the iPhone 4 had which was the Death Grip where your signal would completely drop out when you held your phone normally. I can confirm that this is partially correct – there is a lot of speculation as to what the actual problem is. I seem to see it more when you are connected to a wi-fi point where the signal will drop around 20 dbm when you move your hand across the phone. There are reports that this is also the same for the likes of your 3G & H band signals but it seems that the user case is different each time.

 

The major problem is that no one problem is the same. Some people are experiencing problems with wi-fi signals some with their GSM radio signal – the best thing to do is to monitor your findings over a long period of time, a couple of weeks to be exact so that you can see a patern and then decide on the best course of action. You will also probably be looking to install a wi-fi signal monitor that will accurately tell you the signal strength so that you can measure it at different times and with the phone in different positions. Once you find a pattern (if there is one) next you will need to do a little bit of research see if anyone running the same software as you with the same radio and model has the same problem. A lot of people seem to think it is a software problem which will lie in the radio updates, where as other think it is actually a design flaw in the phone. Especially since the main antenna is in your battery cover (little gold contacts – check them out).

 

To solve the issue is really up to yourself, there are some serious problems in identifying where the actual problem lies and you will need to do some serious research in to try and find out a solution for your problem. My gut instinct is telling me to solve the issue you will need to fully update all the software the phone is running, OS and radio. This at least  gets rid of one of the variables and leaves you with the hardware issue itself.

 

This fault has been reported on both stock and modified ROMS so be careful what you choose to flash and for the love of god make sure you flash the correct rom/radio for your specific phone. I will not be held accountable for silly mistakes you make like that – you have been warned!!