Odin Flashing Failed At Hidden.img [How To Fix]

Just recently, I was trying to flash Android 7.0 Nougat on a Galaxy S6 Edge. Upon trying to flash the firmware via Odin, Odin resulted in failing the flashing and it got stuck at the hidden.img file. Odin couldn’t pass the flashing beyond hidden.img. It just soft-bricked my Galaxy S6 Edge. Without passing the flashing procedure, the phone won’t boot or go ahead. It simply shows an error on the screen acknowledging that your firmware has been malfunctioned. It says that “An error has occurred while updating the device software. Connect your phone with Samsung Smart Switch to recover it now”. It seems pretty easy that you will just install Smart Switch, install your phone’s USB drivers and then connect it and boom. But it will not always work as it’s supposed to. For an Android power user, the quick and easy fix would be to just do something about the hidden.img file and get the phone running. That’s exactly what we are about to do.

After looking up for the fixes online and trying a slew of methods, I was finally able to flash the firmware successfully on the phone and recover it. Have a look on the Odin flashing failed at Hidden.img solution to fix this issue if it’s coming up at your end.

Odin Flashing Failed At Hidden.img

1. First of all, you have to download the appropriate firmware for your phone. If you’re here on this page, it means you’ve already downloaded one and that’s why you’re facing this issue. Assuming that your firmware is correct, you need to copy the firmware.tar.md5 file on your computer’s desktop in a separate folder.
2. Now download and install 7zip compression tool.
3. Now right-click on the firmware.tar.md5 file. Click on 7zip > Extract here.
4. It will start extracting the firmware.tar.md5 file and you will have all the files outside the zip file in a minute. Move the firmware.tar.md5 file to some other folder to avoid any kind of confusion. You should have the extracted files in a separate folder to make it easy.
5. Now you will find a file called hidden.img here. Delete this file.
6. After deleting this file, select all other files one by one.
7. After selecting all files, right-click on any file to bring up the options.
8. Now click on 7zip > Add to archive. This will bring up an archive options box. Select the .tar compression type. In the file name, copy and paste the name of the original firmware file. Make sure that the name is followed by the .tar extension.
9. Start the archive process now. It will create a new firmware.tar file quickly.
10. This new firmware.tar file will be without the hidden.img file. You can now flash this file and the flashing procedure should go quite smooth. That’s all with this procedure.

Flash Hidden.img file after it fails in Odin

1. Just in case you cannot let it go without the hidden.img file, then there is a method to flash it as well. Here’s what you are supposed to do for that.
2. Make sure that you’ve unticked the Auto-Reboot option in Odin.
3. Flash the complete firmware in the original form. I.e. without extracting the hidden.img file.
4. As soon as the firmware flashing process fails at hidden.img, disconnect your phone from your PC.
5. Click on the Reset button in Odin which is located right next to the start button. This will clear everything in Odin.
6. Now extract the firmware that you just flashed.
7. You will get the hidden.img file from the extracted content. Rename this file to hidden.img.tar.
8. Your phone is still in the download mode with the flashing failed. Press and hold Volume Down + Home + Power Key to reboot it into new download mode. Do not restart it into any other mode. It should boot directly into download mode once again.
9. Once it comes back in the download mode, connect it to your PC. Odin will read your phone once again.
10. Click on the AP tab in Odin and select the hidden.img.tar file this time.
11. Flash this file and restart your phone afterwards.
12. Congrats! You’ve flashed the firmware with the hidden.img file. That’s all.