Stuck in Team Win Recovery Project after Android update

Yay! I think it worked! Thanks for all your help!

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So sorry Lou. I had the same thing - I just turned on my phone 4 weeks ago - and instead of the usual start up TWRP 3.1.1-0 came on. A total mystery, no idea what it was. With no guide available I scrabbled through the virus’ options but ended up wiping my phone, back to factory settings, all data gone, valuable photos, texts, contacts… I found a Google back up recovery - and got back my contacts and some photos (no idea how they got them…) It all seemed to be back to normal.
On 3rd October it happened again The Team Win virus. Again, no escape, so I ripped my sim card out and put it in an old Samsung phone I’d grabbed as back up. Sorted!! OK lots lost but I had most recent contacts in my Filofax…
Lesson? Don’t use my Fairphone2, use the button phone instead (with no internet), use a camera for valuable photos - and write down vital contact numbers.

Another Elk… I I know that name from somewhere…) - would the fairphoneangels be able to help delete this TeamWin Recovery Project VIRUS?? Well what else is it but a virus?? I didn’t install it, it’s hi-jacked my FP2 phone, caused my data (texts, photos contacts) to be deleted.
My FP2 is now dead and flat due to the thing. I HAD to make a phone call 3 days back when the TWRP virus hacked my phone. Being the second attack, I’d taken my old tough Samsung as back up. SIM card ripped out of my FP2, into the Samsung, turned on - and call made - I was up to date on the status of my recently dead brothers burial dispute - and I was in my van and driving 10 minutes later.
My FP2 is DEAD until I find out how to block this virus. - OR someone posts instructions on how the damned thing works before it destroys another phone.
Anyone know anything?

TWRP is the recovery on the phone and therefore an important part of the software. If you end up there it was either an accident (e.g. you pressed the volume up button during booting) or something is wrong with the software and the operating system couldn’t load, so the phone booted into recovery instead.
Next time you end up there try to just tap on “reboot” and then “reboot system”. If that gets you back into TWRP again instead of booting the phone normally see if your volume button might be stuck and then try again. If it still doesn’t work try manually reinstalling the OS.

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I have nothing to add to @paulakreuzer’s explanation of what TWRP is (not a virus).

The recovery can be deleted, but this is rarely done deliberately, as the recovery program on a smartphone does nothing if it is not running, and it only runs when the phone boots into it, it doesn’t run in the background of the OS or anything.
It’s mainly there to provide ways to recover (hence the name) the phone from a state in which something’s wrong with the OS or with the interaction of OS, Apps and data. Some maintenance options apart from that might be added.

Whether a Fairphone Angel can delete the recovery would depend on the Angel’s experience with the phone. Fairphone Angels are volunteers helping others in their spare time, their expertise may vary.
Normally, I think they would be glad to find TWRP still working on a Fairphone 2 with possible OS trouble.

Not directly, but …

… and TWRP was part of this upgrade, but that’s not really important. Important is: There’s a recovery program on the phone. At least with Android that’s standard procedure.
Before TWRP Fairphone OS just came with a different recovery program (the stock recovery program Google provides for Android). Without the upgrade, you just would have seen a different screen … the Android robot lying on its back, maintenance flap on its belly opened, perhaps with a red warning sign in front.

If you are curious, somebody took the time to write a detailed guide with screenshots here … it’s for a different device and an older TWRP 3.x version, but in general TWRP works the same on many devices, and the basic set of options is the same at least in the current 3.x versions, so …


No idea? …


I want to be constructive here.

A smartphone is a full-blown computer in miniature form and with the ability to phone. The manufacturers of smartphones all do their best to hide this simple and potentially sales hindering fact behind a simplified, ideally more easy to use front, but the engine room in the background looks and works at least as quirky as any quirky desktop computer or notebook.

Full-blown computers need some knowledge and care (or a person around who can provide those, just ask my family :slight_smile: ), and because of this they are not everybody’s favourite thing to use, that’s one of the reasons why in the realm of phones “dumber” devices are still available, with new ones introduced every year, because they still sell.

What are you really doing with your smartphone which your old Samsung phone can’t do? Or what would you potentially want to do?
Depending on that, there might be options for you where less can go wrong.

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I believe TWRP is a virus. I don’t have an Open OS on my FP2 - but got infected by TWRP - that eventually wiped my phone of all data. I’m thinking of not using my FP2 again after I got killed twice by this virus. (I’m using an old Samsung… but still have hopes I can recover from this virus…)

I’m really sorry for the repeated problems you’ve run into!
But I’d recommend reading

or
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+twrp
before spreading too many conspiracy theories.
(I suppose you’ll notice that - in contrast to a virus which is the cause auf the problem - TWRP is just a symptom - and a powerful tool … So in my eyes this comparison does not really fit…)

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I moved our posts from the unrelated topic here.
Sorry to be blunt, but just you not understanding it and not being able to handle it doesn’t make TWRP a virus.
Of course believing is by definition not knowing, and believers of all kinds of stuff like to spread the word, but hastily spreading this non-knowledge here doesn’t help anybody now.

We don’t know yet what the cause of the problem is.

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Ok, I see my comment can be misunderstood… I didn’t mean there’s a computer virus acting here. I meant that a virus in its name giving functing may be a reason causing a disease. TWRP is not causing a problem but may just appear here because there is some problem…

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OK Its not a virus. However its not obvious what to actually DO when it appears on our phones! We’re not all computer experts - I just bought an ethical phone, which happened to be ‘smart’ - that does things I’ve never seen before - and crashes . End of the day, I want an ethical simple phone. I have a camera that I’ll use in future instead of the FP2 - because the last crash wiped out weeks of vital business photos - and I needed them. Google just seems to hoover up my photos - as I don’t know what’s backing up or where to - and I’m deeply suspicious of how safe their back up actually is. You know?
If its an Open OS recovery programme - why is it on my Android FP2?

It is a recovery program for any Fairphone regardless of the OS. It is present on any FP2 by default, though the default version has limited functionality and users of alternative operating systems often replace it by another version.

What crash are you referring to, your phone suddenly ended up in TWRP and would not boot normally even if you pressed reboot there? Usually pressing reboot in TWRP (and ignoring the warnings about no OS installed) is enough to get a phone working again that ended up in TWRP by accident.

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Maybe to make it more clear: a recovery is essential for any smartphone. You can’t have a smartphone without a recovery as it is needed to install system updates for example. That would be like asking for a computer/laptop to not have a BIOS. Both are usually not visible to the user but it is impossible to not have them.

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In short: You are right to be deeply suspicious.

The usual way of operating an Android phone starts with the initial setup, which will ask for your Google account. This is the central part.
If you provide your Google account (that’s really an if, as you don’t need to), and if you don’t immediately afterwards disable syncing for this account in the account settings, Google will start to sync everything it can find on the phone to Google’s servers … contacts, photos, any other user data Google can make sense of, which Apps are installed etc. … and this syncing process will keep on going in the background.

It is worth to note that for a still large majority of Android device users this either is a totally welcome and wanted upside, or they just don’t care or know it any other way.
Local backup you would have to seriously think about and invest time in? Tedious and unnecessary … Google has everything.
Migrate data and Apps to a new phone? No problem … Google has you covered.

The downside … all your stuff is on Google’s servers in US jurisdiction. Not everybody wants this (mildly speaking).

So … how safe is their backup? As safe as they are able to safely operate their “cloud”.
Fun fact you would of course expect now: All the big cloud market leaders that be (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) have already suffered embarassing service outages and even data losses in their cloud infrastructure, but until now this mostly hit the data of businesses who even paid them for cloud services (which makes it worse, but went largely unnoticed by the general public).

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Excellent answer Another Elk!
So I might as well back everything up to Google - after working out how - whenever I take vital photos… Seeing as they don’t have my permission to use them (do they?) I can’t be done for unfortunate photos? Whatever - it’s a risk at work - as my festival sauna kit photos often get bombed by passing users - that I have to edit before posting. Tough!
Mostly I want to find out how this TWRP works - so I can recover my phone when it hits. I’ll go hunt for info on that - (which I’ll print for my Filofax… (yep, no battery, so always safe) Meanwhile, still have no idea why the damn thing is being triggered anyway. I will be carrying a camera in future - as I can’t trust the FP2…

This totally saved my day, thank you! :partying_face:

Hi, you wrote that “Normally, once you are in TWRP’s main menu, you can just connect your phone via USB to your PC, and Internal Storage would be available so you could copy files over”, I have tried connecting them via USB over and over but nothing happens. If I understood you correctly the phone should show up like normal when I connect them? Any idea why this does not happen and what I can do?

I don’t usually need that feature, so your comment prompted me to try after a long time … and it didn’t work for me either, but it clearly did in the past. So …

I’m using Windows 10 Pro 1903.
For testing purposes over time I apparently installed different USB/MTP/ADB driver packages like “Minimal ADB and Fastboot” (I think there are even different incarnations with the same name), “Universal ADB Driver” and possibly more, and I either forgot to uninstall them again, or they didn’t uninstall cleanly, or whatever.

To get MTP running again, I did the following …

  • Disconnected the phone from the computer.
  • In Control Panel - Programs and Features:
    Uninstalled everything with “MTP” or “ADB” in its name.
  • Rebooted Windows.
  • In Control Panel - Device Manager:
    Enabled View - Show hidden devices, and then uninstalled every possible ADB, MTP and smartphone device, hidden or not.
  • Rebooted Windows.
  • Connected the phone again with booted TWRP, Windows then needed a moment to set up MTP again automatically and prompted a success message afterwards.

Et voilà … Now the Fairphone 2 with “Internal Storage” and “Micro SD card” shows up again in Explorer as soon as TWRP is booted and the phone is connected via USB. I tried TWRP 3.2.3-0 and 3.3.1-0.

Turns out I deleted my working dic:adb and dic:fastboot commands with this endeavour (they were probably from Minimal ADB and Fastboot), so I did the following …

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I’ve just crashed again. I charged my phone - without the sim card in - turned it on… Emails still coming in, amazingly (wi-fi available) - and a Fairphone update. So I checked that - it started downloading… Net time I look, its in TWRP again. So I’m trying this… A zip file came in, a partition seems to be updating. Ah, the ‘No OS…’ Rebooted anyway - as mentioned by others. Hmm Fairphone start screen. All seems fine. Oh… an email came in, a current subject despite the sim card having been out for a week. What the … Do I even need a simcard?? This is so weird. See why TWRP needs clear instructions on the screen?

The SIM card is needed to connect to the mobile network, so you need it for calls and SMS/MMS messages as well as internet via mobile network.

E-mail is relying on internet, doesn’t matter whether internet via mobile network or internet via WiFi.
So as long as you have WiFi, you indeed wouldn’t need a SIM card to get e-mails, or access the internet in general.

I guess you will like the next OS update, as it replaces TWRP with the stock Android recovery, which has a lot less options than TWRP.
(This was announced recently in several TWRP-related bugtracker issues.)

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I hope that’s going to be an improvement… A recovery programme that doesn’t tell us how to use it - with a risk that if I pick the wrong option wipes all of my data - is not a recovery.
And I have no idea why it keeps coming up. After the first one I have kept firmly away from the volume buttons - and my FP2 has crashed twice more in 3 weeks. Meanwhile my old Samsung button phone works fine (as long as I remember to charge it every 5-6 days) without crashing.
So… I have a FP2 that does email and even surfs - as long as I have wi-fi - and a Samsung that takes photos and takes calls without crashing - and it doesn’t even cancel calls if the screen touches my ear! Sorted.
I’ll keep an eye out to see if the new OS avoids these TWRP crashes - and if it does I may put my SIM back in and see if it’s a phone or not. Not impressed.