Hello everyone

I'm a bit ashamed to say I lurked for a long time in these forums but I registered only now to ask for help..

A few days ago something pretty strange happened to my SPH-DA120: the unit had no anti theft password set and I bought it on amazon as soon as it has been available here in Italy. I connected and disconnected multiple times from power during these years to work on my car, so I'm 200% sure no anti theft password has ever been set.

A few days ago (right after the end of my warranty, obviously.....), the unit started to behave abnormally: it often crashed and required me to powercycle it and froze every time I selected any of the animated backgrounds.. no problems with the static ones. When connecting carplay the unit would reboot. Then, it suddently rebooted  and started to ask the anti theft password.. Obviously none is set so I can't enter it.

I already tried to restore factory settings from testmode, but it keeps asking the password on boot

I suspect the unit firmware is corrupted: I have downloaded the original firmware packages from pioneer website and placed them on a USB drive. 

Does anyone know if it can be flashed from testmode? It's the original firmware, so I think it should be doable

I have been able to update the firmware from test mode, however the unit still asks for the password  

Seems that this is going to become a nice paperweight.

If anyone needs help on updating from testmode PM me. 

No need to buy something, just reset settings from testmode menu or delete user database files in extdata partition.

Hi bonee

Thanks! I already tried entering in testmode and resetting the settings multiple times to no avail sadly

But this whole "delete user database" instead is a new idea! I'll try as soon as I get back from work this evening.. provided I find the user DB file

I'll report back, thanks for now  

It worked!!! Deleting user database worked!!!

It seems that the warp function isn't working anymore..  Is there any way to reenable warp safely? I don't want to hack anything, just want my hu back to wat it was..

Considering that my headunit was "stock", with an unmodified 1.11 firmware, I tried to reenable warp to get it starting fast again.

Bottom line, don't do this as I'm now stuck with the headunit in endless reboot loop...

I've been offered help with repairing it (for a price) but I don't think I'm willing to spend more money on this thing.. I'm disappointed, I bought the Da120 without dvd or other mechanical parts to make sure that it was reliable and long lasting.  The unit hadn't an anti theft password set (I disconnected the battery in the past, so I'm sure of this), started asking it after a glitch.. and for me this is unnacceptable :/ 

Can anyone help me exit the boot loop? I just want my DA120 to return to the factory fast booting firmware, I don't want to hack or anything..

Otherwise, if I have to pay to repair this thing, I'll simply pay to buy something different this time. 

Thanks anyway

I'll trash this HU and buy another brand that doesn't self destruct asking an anti theft password

And just for the sake of who will read this thread in the future... I bought the headunit, took it out of the box myself and there when it was installed.

No anti theft password has ever been set, this is simply memory corruption and on something with this price is unacceptable, al least from my POV

Thanks everyone who tried to help me.

you could fix this easily with uart adaptor, to disable WARP, your unit will boot again normally (and slow), then, upload GOOD firmware to your internal SD card, then re-enable WARP from the BSP and you should be back up and running like new