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Downgrading after new update? Also warranty and root/unlock questions

As a preface, I got the ATT one x a few days ago, so far I'm really happy with it, but would like to get rid of a bunch of the bloatware and want to get root.
So this morning I woke up to the update message. Now I read up on it the night before on these forums that I should wait to update if I want to root/etc, so naturally I don't want to update quite yet. But here's the problem. The message popped up so fast that I could barely read the message. My thumb must have been right above the accept button, since the message disappeared almost instantly and the process started up. I exited it as far as possible, and it seemed to work. I used apps on the phone, and everything seemed fine. As soon as I locked the phone again, it decided to reboot, initiating the update, all on its own. Even a forced power-off wouldn't stop the wheels turning. And now I feel like an idiot. So is there any way/what is the best way to downgrade or reverse the update?
TL;DR: I accidentally updated the new update, is there, and or what is the best way to downgrade so I can eventually root?
As for my second question, obviously the warranty will be in question if I root/unlock. I've read that HTC will honor the warranty even if it's an unlock, but not a rom flash (even after a return to stock?) If I root/unlock, run into a problem, and return to stock will by warranty be effected? I've never done a warranty return, so would there be a difference if I tried to go through HTC, ATT, or Costco (purchase location)? The reason I ask is because my last phone's (Original Atrix, love it so much) wifi died before the 2 year period, and we had an upgrade on the family account, and this time the One x was purchased with American Express, so I now effectively have a 2 year warranty to cover such problems I might have.
I know that with enough time I could find some of these answers on the forums, but because they are so lively, it's hard to keep track and sift through the forums for information. Thanks for your time and thank you in advance for your help.

In regards to the root on the update there is no way to downgrade or root given your situation at this time but hopefully one of the talented people here on xda wil find a new exploit like they did for the 1.85
As far as warranty goes someone else will.have to let you know.
Sent from my Nocturnalized Beast

same boat
I am in exactly the same boat. I didn't check the MD5 on a download of CR4.5 and it completed wiped my phone (SD Card as well). I was away from my laptop and had to wait days to get it back online. When I finally got it up and running, I was rooting through the one click and in checking the update, it updated to 2.20. So now I'm stuck.
I have my previous unlock token, but I'm not sure if that will do me any good. I don't want to do much until a new RUU becomes available.
misiek93 said:
As a preface, I got the ATT one x a few days ago, so far I'm really happy with it, but would like to get rid of a bunch of the bloatware and want to get root.
So this morning I woke up to the update message. Now I read up on it the night before on these forums that I should wait to update if I want to root/etc, so naturally I don't want to update quite yet. But here's the problem. The message popped up so fast that I could barely read the message. My thumb must have been right above the accept button, since the message disappeared almost instantly and the process started up. I exited it as far as possible, and it seemed to work. I used apps on the phone, and everything seemed fine. As soon as I locked the phone again, it decided to reboot, initiating the update, all on its own. Even a forced power-off wouldn't stop the wheels turning. And now I feel like an idiot. So is there any way/what is the best way to downgrade or reverse the update?
TL;DR: I accidentally updated the new update, is there, and or what is the best way to downgrade so I can eventually root?
As for my second question, obviously the warranty will be in question if I root/unlock. I've read that HTC will honor the warranty even if it's an unlock, but not a rom flash (even after a return to stock?) If I root/unlock, run into a problem, and return to stock will by warranty be effected? I've never done a warranty return, so would there be a difference if I tried to go through HTC, ATT, or Costco (purchase location)? The reason I ask is because my last phone's (Original Atrix, love it so much) wifi died before the 2 year period, and we had an upgrade on the family account, and this time the One x was purchased with American Express, so I now effectively have a 2 year warranty to cover such problems I might have.
I know that with enough time I could find some of these answers on the forums, but because they are so lively, it's hard to keep track and sift through the forums for information. Thanks for your time and thank you in advance for your help.
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Click to collapse

BB2DX said:
I am in exactly the same boat. I didn't check the MD5 on a download of CR4.5 and it completed wiped my phone (SD Card as well). I was away from my laptop and had to wait days to get it back online. When I finally got it up and running, I was rooting through the one click and in checking the update, it updated to 2.20. So now I'm stuck.
I have my previous unlock token, but I'm not sure if that will do me any good. I don't want to do much until a new RUU becomes available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ruu is out for the 2.20 on the HTC dev site
If you already have your unlock token you should be fine just run through the steps to unlock then root. Your still stuck with the new hboot so your previous nandroids will no longer work and you can no longer flash boot images from recovery.
Sent from my Nocturnalized Beast

misiek93 said:
As for my second question, obviously the warranty will be in question if I root/unlock. I've read that HTC will honor the warranty even if it's an unlock, but not a rom flash (even after a return to stock?) If I root/unlock, run into a problem, and return to stock will by warranty be effected? I've never done a warranty return, so would there be a difference if I tried to go through HTC, ATT, or Costco (purchase location)? The reason I ask is because my last phone's (Original Atrix, love it so much) wifi died before the 2 year period, and we had an upgrade on the family account, and this time the One x was purchased with American Express, so I now effectively have a 2 year warranty to cover such problems I might have.
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Consensus seems to be that a warranty return to AT&T, they don't normally check for bootloader unlock at all. Technically, they can check, and void your warranty. But to this point, they don't seem to be. This is probably your safest bet. But that warranty is only one year.
Based on various reports by XDA users HTC seems to be much more strict about enforcing their own warranty terms. I would suggest going through AT&T rather than HTC.
For your AmEx warranty, I think that would be handled by AmEx (not AT&T). You should probably check through them, and see what the warranty terms our (might be handled by a 3rd party?). I think only someone that has had experience with the AmEx process could say for sure what would happen in this case. So maybe somebody will chime in.

redpoint73 said:
Consensus seems to be that a warranty return to AT&T, they don't normally check for bootloader unlock at all. Technically, they can check, and void your warranty. But to this point, they don't seem to be. This is probably your safest bet. But that warranty is only one year.
Based on various reports by XDA users HTC seems to be much more strict about enforcing their own warranty terms. I would suggest going through AT&T rather than HTC.
For your AmEx warranty, I think that would be handled by AmEx (not AT&T). You should probably check through them, and see what the warranty terms our (might be handled by a 3rd party?). I think only someone that has had experience with the AmEx process could say for sure what would happen in this case. So maybe somebody will chime in.
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Amex is extremely lax. All they want is a copy of the original warranty and require doing the work at an authorized repair shop. Then they reimburse you, no questions asked.

GroovyGeek said:
Amex is extremely lax. All they want is a copy of the original warranty and require doing the work at an authorized repair shop. Then they reimburse you, no questions asked.
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I kinda figured as much. They aren't in the business of fixing phones, so I guessed they either just farmed it out to a 3rd party company, or just paid up pretty easily. Credit cards (especially AmEx) also often cover things like lost luggage, travel insurance (cancelled flights, etc.) and I don't imagine they go through much hassle confirming that kind of thing either. They must figure that the extra business gained from offering their services (and yearly fees) outweighs the payouts they have to make.
Thanks for clarifying with your personal experience, probably useful to the OP.

HOXL freezing on incoming call (new phone)

I bought this phone a month ago and i've had nothing but problems since i bought it, att said it could be software and a update would fix it but this is getting old now, when someone calls and i goto swipe the unlock, the screen freezes and the phone keeps ringing and ringing till i hard restart. i've ran multiple roms, flashed multiple kernels, the only thing i havent done is flashed any radios because i have no idea how to do that since the phone is s-on. is there any ANY ANY advice that would remedy this problem from anyone?
Thanks.

I would suggest a warranty replacement... Unless you've had it less than 30 days. AT&T really has no idea what they're talking about concerning software, they always say it's a software issues.

HTC_Phone said:
I would suggest a warranty replacement... Unless you've had it less than 30 days. AT&T really has no idea what they're talking about concerning software, they always say it's a software issues.
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they offered me a free htc one x+ or a galaxy s 3 since i said i refused to have refurb on a 2 month phone. was a hard decision lol but i went with the gs3 with free overnight shipping.. maybe the jellybean update for my one x will make it work properly since they said i can keep it.

[Q] phone needs to be repaired, is it still possible to unroot phone?

some time in the past week, i accidentally dropped my HTC one X and the LCD screen broke (several cracks) which obviously would require a replacement but the phone is still usable, i can still call/text, literally everything except of course the screen is cracked.
So i went to the nearest HTC service center and the screen replacement would cost $260 (converted to dollars from my local currency) PLUS $150 because im using a different ROM (MIUI to be exact) and not the stock ROM.
theyre asking me to pay an additional fee because im using a different ROM and a rooted phone, I only wanted to replace my LCD screen. the OS is still working! and they were saying some technical stuff like the board was broken and other reasons they could think of to persuade me.
now my question, is it still possible to 'unroot' my phone and bring it back to the HTC stock ROM, without a trace of being rooted previously?
this topic is also related to my other post "How to get RUU - i need it to revert back to stock ROM"

pedenski said:
some time in the past week, i accidentally dropped my HTC one X and the LCD screen broke (several cracks) which obviously would require a replacement but the phone is still usable, i can still call/text, literally everything except of course the screen is cracked.
So i went to the nearest HTC service center and the screen replacement would cost $260 (converted to dollars from my local currency) PLUS $150 because im using a different ROM (MIUI to be exact) and not the stock ROM.
theyre asking me to pay an additional fee because im using a different ROM and a rooted phone, I only wanted to replace my LCD screen. the OS is still working! and they were saying some technical stuff like the board was broken and other reasons they could think of to persuade me.
now my question, is it still possible to 'unroot' my phone and bring it back to the HTC stock ROM, without a trace of being rooted previously?
this topic is also related to my other post "How to get RUU - i need it to revert back to stock ROM"
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Click to collapse
It is possible, using an RUU to relock the bootloader and unroot the phone, but where the bootloader says ***TAMPERED*** and ***UNLOCKED*** now, it will change to ***RELOCKED***. AFAIK, there is no way to make the boatloader show ***LOCKED***", it will forever show ***RELOCKED***, unless you unlock it again. So basically there will always be some trace of your phone having been unlocked. Someone else pointed out that, aSsuming you've followed the most popular unlock guides, you had the use the HTC Dev site to get a file, and that since you did that, it's also on record on some server someWhere that you have unlocked your phone.
So basically, unless it's a know manufacturing defect, you are most likely screwed. Don't quote me on that though, as there are always stories of people saying the right things to the right people and getting their devices replaced where most others were not able to.

garfnodie said:
AFAIK, there is no way to make the boatloader show ***LOCKED***", it will forever show ***RELOCKED***
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You can change the flag back to LOCKED if you S-off: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2168578
But as mentioned, HTC presumably has some record of you unlocking the bootloader via the HTCDev.com website.
Plus, there was a thread a while back on the "international" One X forum section where people were reporting that HTC was honoring the warranty for phones with unlocked bootloaders; but denying warranty service for unlocked bootloader if a custom ROM was every installed (even if the phone was returned to the stock ROM before sending in for warranty). So apparently, HTC has some way of knowing a custom ROM was ever installed, even if its no longer on the phone.
A question for the OP: have you tried going through your carrier for a repair? Some carriers (such as AT&T) seem to be much more forgiving about modding the phone, and might forego any "custom ROM" fee.

$150 extra to replace a screen because you have a custom Rom? They have no relation. Find someone else to do the repair, or just order the parts and do it yourself. Not very hard to do, order LCD+digitizer, and watch some you tube videos on the process.
Sent from the HOXL dimension of S-OFF

What are the chances :D

So. I bricked my phone when I ruu'd back to the 2.20 update and took the 3.18 OTA update. It bricked my phone because I was rooted with s-on. I called AT&T's warranty center and told my phone stopped working after I performed an update and they sent me a new one. What are the chances that they'll actually know that my phone was rooted? Has anyone else gone through this?

marcur12 said:
So. I bricked my phone when I ruu'd back to the 2.20 update and took the 3.18 OTA update. It bricked my phone because I was rooted with s-on. I called AT&T's warranty center and told my phone stopped working after I performed an update and they sent me a new one. What are the chances that they'll actually know that my phone was rooted? Has anyone else gone through this?
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If it doesn't turn on at all they won't be able to tell because, well, they can't turn it on.

I'm just guessing but you might be committing some kind of fraud in doing that?
Sent from my One XL using XDA Premium

I bricked my old one x by flashing ice cold jelly RIM meant for the international one x. And I called Rogers and they sent me a new one as my old one x won't turn on. Its been a year now and no calls, no fees, nothing.
Sent from my One X using xda app-developers app

While AT&T technically reserves the right to refuse warranty service due to modification of the phone; in actual practice I have yet to see a report of them actually doing that. Many folks here have returned rooted and bootloader unlocked phones (even running custom ROMs) for various hardware defects (with the screen still able to turn on, and therefore not difficult to tell it was rooted), with no issue.
That said, I'm usually not a fan of making a warranty claim for a brick resulting from your own lack of research. But the case of SuperCID and OTA/RUU shouldn't be bricking people's phones (its not clear why it does), so its a bit of a gray area, and I'd personally on the fence about calling it fraud (leaning to the side of "not fraud").

I will say this about AT&T warranty. They really don't deal with software. In fact they recieve 5,000 phones that are not really broken. They have a simple check system and if everything passes, then they give you a new phone. Even though I was not in the warranty department, I transferred a lot people there.
Back to the subject, if you tell them you tried to update it and it did not work, most likely they will replace it. As long as it is not water damaged and was not physically tampered with.
Sent from my Carbon-ize Evita using xda-developers app

Herc08 said:
I will say this about AT&T warranty. They really don't deal with software. In fact they recieve 5,000 phones that are not really broken. They have a simple check system and if everything passes, then they give you a new phone. Even though I was not in the warranty department, I transferred a lot people there.
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Click to collapse
5000 phones in a month? In a week?
Very informative, nonetheless. Thanks for the post.

No worries. Since I didn't sign a contract I can talk about it as much as I want . The reason for this is because reps do not fully troubleshoot. As a tech support rep, I made sure to rarely transfer, because it coudld be something as small as a setting
Sent from my Carbon-ize Evita using xda-developers app

I wouldn't say this is fraud at all. The rep on the phone asked me if the phone had any physical or water damage. He said nothing about software modification and if he did, I would have been honest with him. The bricked phone itself was in excellent condition even after 8 months of use. I've always been good at maintaining my phones in the past. If anything, they could use the phone for parts or something.
I did receive my replacement phone yesterday in the mail. I sent out my bricked phone today.

Technically with Google and HTC both having tracking software buried in stock os a real phone software egineer can prolly tell just by punching up your imei what's going on. I did tech support for blackberry business (worst phn in my opinion) and it was possible to pull up there home screen and guide them through setting up stuff. I know some people that do att warranty and they tell me they have never in there location made phone out of warranty from software only physical damage and water strip detector.
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

HTC knew my bootloader was unlocked

How would they know this?
I had to chat with their online CS about replacing my phone that seems to have a defective digitizer (sometimes it registers inputs when I'm not touching it and inputs in places other than where I touch it). They asked me what software number I'm running, which is 1.55.605.2. I'm guessing that number somehow denotes if my bootloader is unlocked?
They didn't seem to care though and told me to just re-lock my bootloader before I send the phone back to them. I'm just curious as to how they knew since that's the only info I gave them about the phone.

No just that number alone doesn't tell them that your bootloader is unlocked. You must have told them other information as well like say you radio versions, etc. If say you flashed a 1.55.605.2 based stock rom but DIDN'T flash the most current radios then you would have mismatching versions. If they by chance asked what radio version number you had then that could give it away. Cause the only way you could have mismatching radio/software versions is if your bootloader was unlocked and you were flashing stuff. But there are other indictators too. You might have unwittingly told them other stuff that could give it away. I wouldn't worry about it though. HTC is generally pretty cool about it. They know for example that a dead pixel in a screen has absolutely nothing to do with an unlocked bootloader or SOFF so they still honor the warranty. Unlike companies like Verizon.

I had a similar conversation with Motorola when I had the Droid RAZR MAXX HD. After trying to do a factory reset to sell the phone it got hung up in the cache wipe. I contacted Moto, explained the problem and told them that the phone was not rooted. The csr told me that she could see that the phone was not rooted, and set up the rma to get it fixed. I too was surprised by this info from Moto. Moto had built in a root checker into their software and apparently it sent back info to Moto without my knowing. So I wouldn't be too surprised if other oems have followed suit.
Sent from my HTC One M8.

nicholi2789 said:
No just that number alone doesn't tell them that your bootloader is unlocked. You must have told them other information as well like say you radio versions, etc. If say you flashed a 1.55.605.2 based stock rom but DIDN'T flash the most current radios then you would have mismatching versions. If they by chance asked what radio version number you had then that could give it away. Cause the only way you could have mismatching radio/software versions is if your bootloader was unlocked and you were flashing stuff. But there are other indictators too. You might have unwittingly told them other stuff that could give it away. I wouldn't worry about it though. HTC is generally pretty cool about it. They know for example that a dead pixel in a screen has absolutely nothing to do with an unlocked bootloader or SOFF so they still honor the warranty. Unlike companies like Verizon.
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No, I'll post the transcript later (at work right now) if you want. It was literally the only thing she asked me about the software before she confirmed with me that the bootloader was unlocked. Maybe it was social engineering..? Lol
Yeah, I'm not worried about it, as she didn't even hesitate to warranty the phone for me still. I was just curious as to how she knew that.

NSA I tell ya. Oh and HTC knew you met that hooker on your lunch break too so watch those texts.

T4rd said:
No, I'll post the transcript later (at work right now) if you want. It was literally the only thing she asked me about the software before she confirmed with me that the bootloader was unlocked. Maybe it was social engineering..? Lol
Yeah, I'm not worried about it, as she didn't even hesitate to warranty the phone for me still. I was just curious as to how she knew that.
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Click to collapse
Well for all we know HTC apps could be logging information about our phones. There's no way we could know except for reading days and days worth of logcats. It is interesting though.

Yeah I recently had the worst customer service experience with HTC ever. They confirmed my bootloader was unlocked and i sent it in for a screen repair since it was cracked. They made me pay full price for the repair because they said it voided the warranty.
Then when I asked the customer support person if i paid for the repair out of pocket would they send me the phone still unlocked and S-off'd. The support person said specifically that if i didn't escelate the problem then they would just repair the screen. So i didn't escalate the problem and when i got the phone back i found out i was no longer unlocked or S-Off'd.
Then when i spoke to customer support again they quoted the previous tech and said that if i escalated the problem they would have likely done the repair for free and left my phone unlocked. I also found out what i paid for was a new board and the screen repair. They refused to help me in any way. I even asked if i could escalate the problem and if there was a way i could be refunded for the main board replacement since i only requested the screen be repaired. They said nope your SOL.
Litterally don't understand how anyone has had a good experience with HTC support :/
TLDR: Bootloader unlocked, sent phone for repair. Was lied to by customer support and offered no help from HTC.

T4rd said:
Yeah, I'm not worried about it, as she didn't even hesitate to warranty the phone for me still. I was just curious as to how she knew that.
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Click to collapse
I think it was social engineering
Or
HTC allows most every phone to be unlocked EXCEPT Verizon does not. So they are probably working with the rest of the world and thinking Remember to lock your bootloader!

scrosler said:
I think it was social engineering
Or
HTC allows most every phone to be unlocked EXCEPT Verizon does not. So they are probably working with the rest of the world and thinking Remember to lock your bootloader!
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Click to collapse
They are saying they knew it was unlocked from the phone call, does this mean make sure it is relocked before making the call? This kinda scares me, I have never had issues with warranty replacements but I am new to Verizon. Will Verizon know I am unlocked and reject me or can I simply relock if needed? Hopefully I will never have to use warranty but this does not sound good lol.
While I am here I have a quick question without opening a new thread, why does this Verizon M8 forum's phone description show us having the 2.5ghz processor? I thought we had the 2.3Ghz version from Verizon? Thanks

LibertyMonger said:
They are saying they knew it was unlocked from the phone call, does this mean make sure it is relocked before making the call? This kinda scares me, I have never had issues with warranty replacements but I am new to Verizon. Will Verizon know I am unlocked and reject me or can I simply relock if needed? Hopefully I will never have to use warranty but this does not sound good lol.
While I am here I have a quick question without opening a new thread, why does this Verizon M8 forum's phone description show us having the 2.5ghz processor? I thought we had the 2.3Ghz version from Verizon? Thanks
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Well do have the 2.3 ghz version. And you can re-lock your bootloader with a fastboot command. Verizon is not that strict on their phones. Noone even looks. I've sent 2 M8s back to Verizon for warranty replacements. One still said s-off, the other said unlocked and s-off. Noone every said a word to me. Not to mention all the warranty replacements in the past I've done with other devices.
Just do everything you can to lock it back up and get it as close to stock as possible since it doesn't take that much effort. But I wouldn't sweat it too hard. I don't think they even look aside from powering it on and making sure it isn't water damaged.

They can tell because of the HTC DM and the HTC Checkin Services
These apps occasionally check in with HTC servers and send log files
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Free mobile app

my HTC story:
well here goes.... I bricked my my M8...BAD, to the point of no boot, no hope. So i worked with HTC tech support via chat, and told them i had rooted & SOFF'd my phone, and i was willing to pay to get the phone fixed and back. So they sent me an email explaining the mail in procedure. I sent the phone, the tech conversation transcript, and a letter stating the specific problem with the phone, also explaining root & SOFF. And i got a refurb phone from them a week later, free of charge. But this one had terrible scratches all over the camera lense. So i sent it back, and i got sent another refurb, this time with a good lense. By that time, i had paid my edge contract buyout, and gotten a new M8, so now i have 2 M8's. Customer service wasn't bad for me.

FragmentedLogik said:
They can tell because of the HTC DM and the HTC Checkin Services
These apps occasionally check in with HTC servers and send log files
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Free mobile app
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Maybe time to see what happens if they are renamed,removed, or froze with TB.

I recently cracked the screen on my VZW M8. I chose the $19 option with HTC Advantage. I first sent my unlocked, s-off device to HTC. They received the device in 2 days, and shipped out a replacement device the same day, free of charge. I guess I'll call it "luck".

sfobrien said:
Maybe time to see what happens if they are renamed,removed, or froze with TB.
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HTC DM you can disable in the app mgr.

Do you have the HTC Quick Guide app installed from the market?