Samsung Galaxy A51: Smartphone hangs after update in Odin mode "AVB Fail"

[German]It looks to me as if a software update (OTA update) has been "bricking" Samsung Galaxy A51 series devices since the beginning of November 2023. The devices remain stuck in Odin mode with the message "AVB Fail" during or after the software update. Since two blog readers have already reported being affected, I'll summarize some information in one post.

Software update ends with Odin mode

Blog reader Sebastian from Germany posted a comment within the discussion area of my German blog on September 1, 2023 and asked whether anyone had heard that Samsung had damaged the Galaxy A51 series with a (OTA) software update? The mishap apparently happened to him, because his device starts in error mode with "Odin Mode AVB Fail". Nothing works anymore. Sebastian asked how to bring the Samsung Galaxy A51 back to life?

As I hadn't come across the case, I just kept it in the back of my mind. On November 5, 2023, however, Heike responded to Sebastian's entry and reported a similar observation. As I periodically clear the discussion area of older comments, I have moved Heike's text here.

Hello Sebastian,

My smartphone A51 has also been stuck in this cursed error mode since Thursday evening. I tried resetting it with the buttons on the side until my fingers hurt. Samsung hasn't been able to help me yet. I already thought it was my device. But that can't be a coincidence.

Have you found a solution in the meantime? I'll probably go to a cell phone store tomorrow.

And during a quick search on Stack Overflow, I came across the post Galaxy A51 stuck in ODIN mode after OTA update from the beginning of November 2023, in which the person concerned reports the following.

Samsung Galaxy A51 received an OTA update last night – installed it, auto-restarted, loaded the Samsung welcome page, then loaded a bright blue screen with:

ODIN MODE (AVB fail)
SUPER: Build-id does not match with the reference
(SUPER): 71281625R, (BOOTLOADER): 66118624

Downloading...
Do not turn off target
Do not disconnect USB cable during the software update!
Volume down key + side key for more than 7 secs : cancel (restart phone)

And a barcode in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Followed the instructions to restart (vol & side key) but just returned to the same ODIN page. Same when restarting when connected to the PC. PC says it can't recognise the USB device when it's connected.

I'm not interested in using the phone again, I just want to retrieve photos and any other data from it if possible.

I'm a relative novice, but I can follow instructions if anyone has a solution? Thanks!

So another identical description to the two cases of the blog readers above – only the error description is more detailed. The device was broken during the Over the Air Update (OTA) and went into Odin mode. But I also found older cases like this one in the XDA forum.

Odin mode is the firmware part in the ROM on Samsung smartphones and tablets that is used to download new firmware versions from the internet and then install them on the device (called flashing). In the Samsung forum there is this thread where the termination of the Odin mode is outlined. T

Rescuing devices from Odin mode

The case of devices getting stuck in Odin mode during an Internet download or OTA update because something has gone wrong does not seem to be that rare. Often data in the flash memory does not seem to match the firmware update, or the download is not intact and the update fails.

There is a YouTube video entitled "Samsung Repair – Frija & Odin Tutorial (No Data Loss)", which describes how to save the device without losing data in the event of such errors. On reddit.com there is this discussion from Nov. 2022, where there are also some hints.

A further description of how to repair a Samsung smartphone that is in a boot loop in Odin mode can be found here. It describes the activation of Odin mode and the "hard reset" of the device as well as the deletion of data partitions in the flash memory (data is lost). This website basically summarizes the same rescue measures in a more compact form. A German blog reader came back to the German edition of this article and left a comments describing the following steps to awake the smartphone form Odin mode:

Hello,

I received a call on Saturday evening asking for help on exactly this topic. Here is the (for me successful) recovery procedure:

1. Download Frija Github Frija Releases
2. Unpack Frija and launch it, select SM-A515F as type, select VD2 for Vodafone or DTM for T-Mobile as CSC depending on your preference;download firmware and have it decrypted
3. unzip the firmware (7zip)
3. Firmware entpacken (7zip)
4. Download Odin Odin3_v3.14.4.zip and Samsung driver Samsung_USB_Driver_v1.7.59.0.zip
5. Install the driver, connect the phone to the PC, start Odin as Admin, select the appropriate files from the unzipped directory (BL, AP, CP, CSC)
6. Press "Start" in Odin and wait

At the moment I can't say whether all the data is still there, I'm still missing the Google account data…

Good luck

Mr. Bit

As I don't have a Samsung Galaxy A51 smartphone, I can't say whether the instructions will help in the above case. It would be worth a try – otherwise the only thing to do is to annoy Samsung support to get a remedy. Are any of you still affected by this OTA update error?