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[Q] Help with SGH-T959W only booting into recovery

Hello, all. I hope someone can help me with my SGH-T959W. Right now I'm at the point where the phone has CWM installed, but will only boot into recovery no matter what I do. I've followed the N00b guide to Flashing/Fixing the SGS4G, but clearly I'm missing something.
I tried to follow the Windows-based procedure for the SGH-T959W, but was unable to get version 1.40 to execute, and was unable to locate version 1.31.
So, given that the SGH-T959W and SGH-T959V are the same phone except for the bootloader, I tried the Java-based Stock KJ-6 + Root. The first time I tried it, the upload failed after the PIT, and the phone was no longer able to boot into anything other than download mode. I eventually managed to get it to the point where it tried to flash the modem, but I was never able to get the modem to flash successfully. I tried both under Windows and Linux, using two different PCs and every USB cable I could find, since I know those tend to be dodgy. Still, I've never gotten past flashing the modem, though sometimes it's done worse.
But at this point, I had a phone that would dutifully boot into CWM, so I could change strategy anyway. So I grabbed the unofficial Cyanogenmod 10.1, copied it to the root of the SD card, and tried to load that via CWM. It failed the hardware check.
That's problem #1. Is it possible to modify Cyanogenmod to check for the 959W instead of only the 959V?
Now, problem #2. I decided to give Slim ICS a whirl, since it's light on requirements and a 512MB/1GHz device would probably appreciate a lighter load. The two packages claim to install, but the progress bar never reaches 100%, and when I try to boot the phone, it just boots into CWM. It's a newer version of CWM now, and the startup logo is different, so something worked, but clearly not everything.
When installing, I did mount UMMU, factory reset, wipe the cache and the Davlik cache, mount UMMU, install, then fix perms. But I still get that loop back to CWM.
So something critical didn’t take, however many times I tried (I've lost count, but I think I'm going on 10), and I don't know the architecture well enough to know where to start looking. I'm pretty comfortable with other operating systems, but this is only the second Android device I've tried to customize.
I suspect I can’t solve any other problem until I solve problem #2, regardless of which distro I end up wanting to run.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I figured the more questions I answered up front, the better the chances of fixing this would be.
Thanks for any help you're willing to offer a n00b.
Dave F.

I think what you were doing with heimdall is the way to go except the t959w doesn't like modems and I think there's some way to leave out the modem part but eh.. I'm not that well versed. Anyway here's a link that may or may not be relevant
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1956025

Please read forum rules before posting.
Questions and request for assistance go in the Q&A section.
Thread has been moved.
Thank you for your future attention to this.
Have a great day!

dfarquhar said:
Hello, all. I hope someone can help me with my SGH-T959W. Right now I'm at the point where the phone has CWM installed, but will only boot into recovery no matter what I do. I've followed the N00b guide to Flashing/Fixing the SGS4G, but clearly I'm missing something.
I tried to follow the Windows-based procedure for the SGH-T959W, but was unable to get version 1.40 to execute, and was unable to locate version 1.31.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look here for 1.3.1.
dfarquhar said:
So, given that the SGH-T959W and SGH-T959V are the same phone except for the bootloader, I tried the Java-based Stock KJ-6 + Root. The first time I tried it, the upload failed after the PIT, and the phone was no longer able to boot into anything other than download mode. I eventually managed to get it to the point where it tried to flash the modem, but I was never able to get the modem to flash successfully. I tried both under Windows and Linux, using two different PCs and every USB cable I could find, since I know those tend to be dodgy. Still, I've never gotten past flashing the modem, though sometimes it's done worse.
But at this point, I had a phone that would dutifully boot into CWM, so I could change strategy anyway. So I grabbed the unofficial Cyanogenmod 10.1, copied it to the root of the SD card, and tried to load that via CWM. It failed the hardware check.
That's problem #1. Is it possible to modify Cyanogenmod to check for the 959W instead of only the 959V?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, not a CWM issue. Ever since TeamAcid and I started on CM9 (and I believe the last few CM7 builds) added support for T959W. Almost everyone (thankfully! ) has kanged those device trees and also support T959W. I'm sure other T959W users will chime in to tell you that 97% of all roms here work on T959W. (GB and forward)
dfarquhar said:
Now, problem #2. I decided to give Slim ICS a whirl, since it's light on requirements and a 512MB/1GHz device would probably appreciate a lighter load. The two packages claim to install, but the progress bar never reaches 100%, and when I try to boot the phone, it just boots into CWM. It's a newer version of CWM now, and the startup logo is different, so something worked, but clearly not everything.
When installing, I did mount UMMU, factory reset, wipe the cache and the Davlik cache, mount UMMU, install, then fix perms. But I still get that loop back to CWM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Crazy mount setups shouldn't matter anymore. That was an oldschool Froyo/Early GB thing. Almost all new CWM install scripts do the right thing now.
dfarquhar said:
So something critical didn’t take, however many times I tried (I've lost count, but I think I'm going on 10), and I don't know the architecture well enough to know where to start looking. I'm pretty comfortable with other operating systems, but this is only the second Android device I've tried to customize.
I suspect I can’t solve any other problem until I solve problem #2, regardless of which distro I end up wanting to run.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I figured the more questions I answered up front, the better the chances of fixing this would be.
Thanks for any help you're willing to offer a n00b.
Dave F.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the long posts! Especially when then they contain more detail for me to help you figure out your problem with. I'm also partial to the short posts that include logs!
TwitchyEye said:
I think what you were doing with heimdall is the way to go except the t959w doesn't like modems and I think there's some way to leave out the modem part but eh.. I'm not that well versed. Anyway here's a link that may or may not be relevant
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1956025
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@TwitchyEye you're right That is the heimdall oneclick that should be used.
@dfarquhar I think using the heimdall oneclick that @getochkn made should be the right path for you. Make sure you use the right version of heimdall. Make sure you completely remove the old version (software and drivers), use zdiag to make absolutely sure!
If all else fails, post here again! (maybe with logs )

Thanks everyone. I grabbed v 1.3.1, so I'm getting ready to try it now.
If anything goes wrong, I'll look into where the logs are stored and how to retrieve them, and I'll be back. Assuming I can't use the logs to figure it out on my own of course.

dfarquhar said:
Thanks everyone. I grabbed v 1.3.1, so I'm getting ready to try it now.
If anything goes wrong, I'll look into where the logs are stored and how to retrieve them, and I'll be back. Assuming I can't use the logs to figure it out on my own of course.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes, it's just the output you see on your screen is a good enough log

bhundven said:
Sometimes, it's just the output you see on your screen is a good enough log
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got it working! Heimdall 1.3.1 was the key. I then turned around and flashed Slim ICS since I had it on the SD card already, and it worked. I'm debating whether to move on to Slim Bean, but maybe I need to leave well enough alone for a few days now that I have a working phone.
Thanks again,
Dave

Updating advice please ! Reroot failure

Hi everybody ! Ill try to keep it simple as I'm sure its covered somewhere but here goes ....
Ive been using my shield portable, rooted, for ages now no problems.
Like many Ive updated it in short ever since nothing whatsoever has worked properly , most annoyingly the screen doing backflips when you go near it and hundreds endless strange updates when rebooting.
Anyway I don't think you or I or any of us want to waste time trying to figure out why its done any of this but I just want to be able to fix it. I guess I'm going to have to start again somehow! its worth noting here that all my backup apps like Helium now don't seem to work.
After the update I of course ReRooted and it appears fine from boot loader , still says unlocked. but upon usage its clearly very confused about whether its rooted or not !
In short its useless. Advice please My kung Fu warriors
May your arrows fly straight and true

I have no idea about the various issues, but I would perform a factory reset, and clear cache and dalvik cache using at least 3 swipes per each function. The method of rooting I recommend is by flashing a zip of SuperSU from a custom recovery menu. CWM or TWRP are both available for the NSP. After flashing SuperSU, when you reboot and go into SuperSu you'll see that it's installed (locked down tighter) as a system app.
Downloads:
SuperSU (latest stable version) v2.65
CWM Recovery Menu (latest version) v6.0.4.4
TWRP (Modified recovery (based on TWRP v2.8.7.0)
Sorry. This is the best I can offer you right now. If this doesn't work I would reflash the stock images of whatever OTA you wanna be on. The images can be found @:
SHIELD Open Source Resources and Drivers. You'll need at least the platform-tools portion of the Android SDK (to use Fastboot to flash from recovery). A user friendly PC app that can basically do all this sort of stuff is Shield Ram v1.1. You might find that easier to use.
Oh and here's the latest Minimal ADB and Fastboot Drivers installer [v1.3.1]
If you need further help, let me know.

Hi ! Thanks for the good advice.
I should have mentioned, I'm using a Mac now.
From what I understand it's still possible , maybe
Even easier.....
Sorry to throw a spanner in your super helpful works !
Thanks again

[/COLOR]
Marrhead said:
Hi ! Thanks for the good advice.
I should have mentioned, I'm using a Mac now.
From what I understand it's still possible , maybe
Even easier.....
Sorry to throw a spanner in your super helpful works !
Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, pretty much the rule is generally "as long as you can still see the screen, it's probably fixable". Sounds to me like your best bet, would be to download the OTA you wanna be on, and flash a new install to your Shield. It's the quickest way from A-B. I'm about 99% sure that this would solve the problem (as long as you re-root it properly). Though if you have your reasons, you can try some of the other things first. You're welcome and let me know how things go!

So where does one get the latest OTA?
cheers

Marrhead said:
So where does one get the latest OTA?
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did link up the main Nvidia page that would lead to the OTA images, but here's a direct link to DL just the OTAs:
Edit: you can get there through the link I included in my previous post: SHIELD Open Source Resources and Drivers. I'm having issues with editing posts, and all sorts of odd **** with the link trying to post a more direct link. It's an Nvidia site, just scroll down to Shield Portable Recovery OS Images (something like that).
Unfortunately there are only Linux and Windows downloads available. I'm not sure what your best option would be, as you have a Mac. You could contact Nvidia support, and see what they say about it. Sorry, but I don't think I can probably help much more than this.When I contacted Nvidia support about a year ago, they were pretty helpful. Hopefully you get this sorted soon. Oh and the OTAs are flashed via a terminal/command prompt. So if you can emulate DOS on your Mac (which I don't see why not...DOSbox? maybe) then that sounds to me like the solution.

Ok , hit another brick wall. Im using a windows computer now, followed all the instructions i can find, and now the bootloader seems dysfunctional.
Ive got adb and fastboot and its recognising the device but once rebooted into bootloader which loads fine, the commands say no device found and nothing works in this mode.
If i hit recovery mode then a little dead android appears! poor little guy.
I tried shield ram but it had same problems, seems to run fine but cant find shield once its in bootloader...
Ive got the image zip of the update i want to flash but no idea if im doing it right- not sure how to use it.
Help!

Installing TWRP per instructions and now phone DOA...

Hi all,
I've been ROM'ing since 2013 on multiple devices so I am somewhat familiar with adb/fastboot flashing and commands, what to do, what not to do, etc.... I just picked up a used pixel and first thing I did was unlock the bootloader - no problem. Next I go to root, so I began following this tutorial https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/root-your-google-pixel-pixel-xl-0174670/ , as instructed I DL the required drivers, image files, patch file etc...and follow this tutorial for installing TWRP https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/install-twrp-custom-recovery-your-pixel-pixel-xl-0175163/ , I get to step 8 and instruct via the command window to fastboot boot twrp.img, just as instructed. Everything appeared to be going the way it should as it started to boot to TWRP but almost as quickly the phone just died. I mean dead as a door nail. It won't do a thing. It won't even charge now. I have never had a phone just die like this. I fear I have met my first true full on brick.
I mean, yeah, I have soft bricked phones many a times but always had a backup to restore or was able to dig my way out one way or another but that was explainable by messing with questionable ROM's or something similar. Here I was just booting to the phone specific most recent version of TWRP by a solid well known tutorial with solid links, no indication that these could be the wrong images or zip's at all....but I'll be damned if this phone is dead as hell. I'm hoping someone can shed some light as to what happened or even miraculously tell me that it can be fixed.
Guys, is this a worst case scenario full on brick with no hope or getting it back to life? If so, why? Where did I go wrong? If this is going to be what I fear it is I hope to at least understand how it happened so I can avoid it in the future. This was a very expensive F-up on my part. I am beside myself with grief and disbelief that I could have done this with as many times as I have unlocked bootloaders, rooted, installed TWRP, flashed ROM's, etc.. I mean I 'm not the best but I am not a noob by any means. I feel like such a dumb ass right now!
Appreciate any help or explanation anyone can offer. Thanks.

We don't flash avb or any other patches anymore and haven't for like an android version and a half. For future reference look for more current information when modding a phone and for simple things like root guides go to xda don't just ask Google.

@kerryh420,
Those are some pretty old tutorials!
After plugging in the charger and wait for say 10seconds, can you boot into bootloader with button combo?
(Power + volume down or power + volume up for recovery as alternative)
Cheers
Sent from my Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 using XDA Labs

No offense, if you've been ROM'ing since 2013 you'd know not to go to other websites for tutorials! XDA is your best friend to follow instructions on Rooting, Flashing a recovery, and etc! Sorry that happened to ya. If it's literally dead you're probably out of luck and I know that's not what you want to hear. My best advice is to not follow tutorials on other websites. Good luck on your next device!

Trouble returning to stock? Possible solution.

I spent half yesterday, into the wee hours of the morning trying to get my pixel back to life. Figured I'd post my goof as it may help someone later.
I flashed the aosp build using the android flash tool just out of curiosity. Realizing dual sim did not work on asop without gapps of some sort, I decided to go back to the public builds. That's where things went crashing down, fast and hard. Literally 6 hours trying everything I knew and everything I could find. Tried 3 different computers, multiple different cables, made sure adb and fastboot were updated like 5 times, tried using the flash tool, tried downloading and using flash all, tried erasing everything and starting over, tried lineage, tried side loading via adb, tried fastboot flashing individual images... All failed, flash tool complaining about not enough space, local installs complaining about missing partitions, not valid files, just everything that could go wrong did. The only thing I could successfully get installed was aosp.
The solution? What was preventing it? I use ublock and privacy badger. Disabling those, off to the races, everything went smoothly and I'm back up and running. What puzzled me, how could I used the flash tool to go to aosp but not back? Why, or how was it interfering with a local flash? Maybe things got screwed up somehow and that was messing with the local flash...idk but if you're in my position try disabling those and give it a whirl.

Which flash tool are you talking about? Everything you're doing sounds overly complicated.
I recommend sticking with cmd for windows, and terminals in linux .

noidea24 said:
Which flash tool are you talking about? Everything you're doing sounds overly complicated.
I recommend sticking with cmd for windows, and terminals in linux .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that, I tried using the flash all bat for windows and then I tried flashing individual images via adb. Nothing worked. I have no clue why the local installations kept failing unless, as I said something got messed up using the android flash tool via chrome.
Here's the flash tool which I used to load aosp.

I can't understand what problem you were facing:
use newest platform tools
use newest Google USB drivers
use firmware image of google developers page
reboot into fastboot (by volDown + Power or via adb)
flash-all
working smooth like butter if you can read

hanni2301 said:
I can't understand what problem you were facing:
use newest platform tools
use newest Google USB drivers
use firmware image of google developers page
reboot into fastboot (by volDown + Power or via adb)
flash-all
working smooth like butter if you can read
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing you can't read, I did all that. I'm simply posting this in case someone else runs into the same issue I did. As I said, I'm not sure if trying the aosp build changed anything or any of my numerous attempts fouled something. The only way back was disabling ublock and privacy badger and using the flash tool. For clarification, I've been doing this since the very first android, the T-Mobile G1 and am not new to this game.

You were right, I didn't read carefully enough, or to call it by it's name, I misunderstood your posts. The title of your thread lets believe that you have trouble returning to stock and you need help on that.
That something goofy kicked you out of routine I didn't read (was reading from newest to oldest post, so tbh, that was not clever)
I'm also not new to this, so let us stay calm. Nice that you share your experiences.
I would suggest to change the title in: 'try this if you have trouble with returning to stock' I r something similar.
Have a good time!

hanni2301 said:
You were right, I didn't read carefully enough, or to call it by it's name, I misunderstood your posts. The title of your thread lets believe that you have trouble returning to stock and you need help on that.
That something goofy kicked you out of routine I didn't read (was reading from newest to oldest post, so tbh, that was not clever)
I'm also not new to this, so let us stay calm. Nice that you share your experiences.
I would suggest to change the title in: 'try this if you have trouble with returning to stock' I r something similar.
Have a good time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. I'm still at a loss as to what went wrong but needless to say, for myself, I won't be trying AOSP via the flash tool again.

Little late on this, but I was in a rut as well then realized I had adblockers on which caused issue with the flash tool.

Easiest way to get back to stock is by using Android Flash Tool https://flash.android.com/back-to-public

The struggle... (64 bit recovery porting)

I've got the Oukitel WP16 which a 64 bit and has an octa-core MediaTek Helio P60 MT6771V on Android 11. Actually a pretty decent rugged phone. Originally tried to root it through fastboot and bricked it about 2 weeks after getting it. For the life of me, I couldn't bring it back to life. Finally after 4 months of it just sitting in a drawer, I went about flashing it to bring it back to life a little differently than I was before and it stuck. Very thankful that it was working again because in those months I had destroyed 3 of your average break if you touch them phones. However me being me, getting it going again wasn't enough. So I gave rooting it a try again. Got it! Rooted with Magisk. Now because I have one of those devices I believe is under rated and under developed, I can't find any kind of development done on it whatsoever and want to build/port TWRP so I'm able to try a GSI ROM. My problem is that every tutorial I read or watch has nothing like what is my stock ROM. Either names of files are different or I find the files in other folders, I've got more folders than what I'm trying to port, and, I would need to double check again, but I wanna say that I've even found them in different partitions. So my question is, what do I do? Like fstab is not in the recovery but in something else. That something else that has fstab in it, my port doesn't have that folder at all. And there are others like that. I've tried several, I repeat SEVERAL different tutorials and cannot figure out what to do. I know it's beyond the capabilities of the tool, but I even tried one of those Hovatek port tools. Obviously didn't work because of the kernel. So to say I'm lost is an understatement. This isn't the first phone I've tried this with. Had another 64 bit with the same chipset that actually had a unofficial TWRP built for it. But when it came to try to port a ROM, I was left with files in different folders and things that weren't in the ROM i was trying to port. I eventually just have up because I kind of had to since scuba diving with the phone here in the Mexican Caribbean finally took it's toll on the phones external hardware. But yeah, back to my only question. What do I do in this situation? I'm mainly concerned about it because this WP16 has a night vision camera on it which I use quite often and don't want to lose that. Recovery has nothing to do with the camera but the ROM I'd like to port will. So figuring out what to do with the recovery could eventually lead me to my answer with the ROM. Anyway, kind of a long winded explanation just to get to what may seem like a simple question to some. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

finnroth69 said:
I've got the Oukitel WP16 which a 64 bit and has an octa-core MediaTek Helio P60 MT6771V on Android 11. Actually a pretty decent rugged phone. Originally tried to root it through fastboot and bricked it about 2 weeks after getting it. For the life of me, I couldn't bring it back to life. Finally after 4 months of it just sitting in a drawer, I went about flashing it to bring it back to life a little differently than I was before and it stuck. Very thankful that it was working again because in those months I had destroyed 3 of your average break if you touch them phones. However me being me, getting it going again wasn't enough. So I gave rooting it a try again. Got it! Rooted with Magisk. Now because I have one of those devices I believe is under rated and under developed, I can't find any kind of development done on it whatsoever and want to build/port TWRP so I'm able to try a GSI ROM. My problem is that every tutorial I read or watch has nothing like what is my stock ROM. Either names of files are different or I find the files in other folders, I've got more folders than what I'm trying to port, and, I would need to double check again, but I wanna say that I've even found them in different partitions. So my question is, what do I do? Like fstab is not in the recovery but in something else. That something else that has fstab in it, my port doesn't have that folder at all. And there are others like that. I've tried several, I repeat SEVERAL different tutorials and cannot figure out what to do. I know it's beyond the capabilities of the tool, but I even tried one of those Hovatek port tools. Obviously didn't work because of the kernel. So to say I'm lost is an understatement. This isn't the first phone I've tried this with. Had another 64 bit with the same chipset that actually had a unofficial TWRP built for it. But when it came to try to port a ROM, I was left with files in different folders and things that weren't in the ROM i was trying to port. I eventually just have up because I kind of had to since scuba diving with the phone here in the Mexican Caribbean finally took it's toll on the phones external hardware. But yeah, back to my only question. What do I do in this situation? I'm mainly concerned about it because this WP16 has a night vision camera on it which I use quite often and don't want to lose that. Recovery has nothing to do with the camera but the ROM I'd like to port will. So figuring out what to do with the recovery could eventually lead me to my answer with the ROM. Anyway, kind of a long winded explanation just to get to what may seem like a simple question to some. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your device already have TWRP [Firmware version: OUKITEL_WP16_RU_V04_20220621 ] but you not need Custom Recovery for install GSI. Use stock recovery.
About GSI with a night vision camera support so is much expensive solving that. You can try but need very experience and patience of the tests and solutions.

lopestom said:
Seriously? Thank you! I'm guessing the link is gonna be in 4pda being that it's Russian? I've spent a month searching and haven't found anything whatsoever. And since I don't read Russian, I always overlook 4pda even though it's been a great resource in the past. And yes, I'm aware you don't "need" custom recovery for GSI's. It does make things a little easier for me though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The recovery issue will be solved since there is a recovery out there. That still doesn't solve the mystery and problem i have of files being in different places though. In that case what do I do if the files isn't in the same place in the port as it is in the stock, or the other way around? Add the stock file to the same folder it is in for the port? Or should I make a new folder in the port that's name is the same as in the stock? If neither, what do I do?

finnroth69 said:
Seriously? Thank you! I'm guessing the link is gonna be in 4pda being that it's Russian? I've spent a month searching and haven't found anything whatsoever. And since I don't read Russian, I always overlook 4pda even though it's been a great resource in the past. And yes, I'm aware you don't "need" custom recovery for GSI's. It does make things a little easier for me though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No! Search my repository in the github in the release option.
finnroth69 said:
The recovery issue will be solved since there is a recovery out there. That still doesn't solve the mystery and problem i have of files being in different places though. In that case what do I do if the files isn't in the same place in the port as it is in the stock, or the other way around? Add the stock file to the same folder it is in for the port? Or should I make a new folder in the port that's name is the same as in the stock? If neither, what do I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I wrote before, it is very difficult to solve issues like the original stock ROM camera. There are even one or two people who managed to get this to work.
Now what you don't understand: If you want a Custom ROM, use GSI and adapt, solve, analyze and test by changing some stock ROM files in GSI. You must understand that you need experience and time. You can even compile a Custom ROM - any GSI - specifically for your device. So you just need to have the source code of your device, have the GSI source code and know how to compile the file so that you can do the tests. Again, you must understand that you need experience and time.
If you haven't researched what is GSI and still think that Custom ROMs portability that happened before until Android 7.1 then look, read and update yourself.
In your questions, be as detailed as possible. You write a lot of parts and you scramble the words.
As for having GSI normally I already wrote where there is an instruction to install and you follow. As for TWRP, look it up on my github.
As for solving something in the GSI, if you managed to install it and still used the phh options to try to fix any bad part, then it is only you who will be able to solve any error/adaptation/bug/extra installations that there.

Trust me when I say I understand what you're saying. I have done some testing I have watched tutorials, I have studied. but everything that I have seen is basically switching a file from a folder on the stock ROM to a folder in the ported ROM with the same name as what's in the stock ROM, and possibly adding a little script to something. What I'm trying to figure out is what I asked. Fstab is not in recovery on my phone's stock ROM. It is in something else. But fstab is in and a part of recovery for TWRP. So even though there might be a TWRP for my phone doesn't help me to know if I should be creating that same folder that's in my stock ROM in the ported one for fstab or other files that are like it. I have downloaded the TWRP from your profile and I've gone to the 4pda and discovered that you're the dev who ported it with and without encryption. Nice work and thank you! I would like to move beyond being a flash baby though. So I'm simply trying asking that one specific question to help me learn because it is something I am lost on. Whether it is to port recovery, port a ROM, or whatever, I don't know what to do when the location of the files I need to port from the stock aren't matching with the with the location of the files in the port itself. Fstab is just one example. I'm gonna send you a friend request. Later when I fire up my laptop, I'll take screenshots to physically show you exactly what I mean. Please be patient and don't get upset at me for trying to learn. As well as please take your time in responding. It's no rush since I've got a business to run and this is something I'm trying to teach myself on the side. It really is something I'm lost on, and if I'm lost on it, how many others has it confused as well?

As for the camera app issue. We can forget I asked that also. I understand completely what you're saying about it being far beyond my reach right now. Thank you for the heads up on that.

Mr. Lopestom can you please help me with your recovery images? I cannot seem to get any of them to boot. I've tried the with script found on 4pda, without that script, I've tried flashing an empty vbmeta, but nothing is getting the images to boot. See attachment for script I'm talking about. Attachment only shows me running it, but I have tried without.

What sense does it make to flash an empty VBMETA ? You typically pull the existing VBMETA and pass this file to Fastboot what rewrites 2 bytes in that file.

finnroth69 said:
Mr. Lopestom can you please help me with your recovery images? I cannot seem to get any of them to boot. I've tried the with script found on 4pda, without that script, I've tried flashing an empty vbmeta, but nothing is getting the images to boot. See attachment for script I'm talking about. Attachment only shows me running it, but I have tried without.
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The problem is not in the vbmeta file. You can use this one if you can: Post in thread 'Looking for a walkthrough on installing a custom ROM on a BLU G90 PRO' https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...om-rom-on-a-blu-g90-pro.4253737/post-85180967
The big fact is that the company put a recovery.img stock file inside /vendor/etc/ and you should know how to deal with it. So only removing this recovery.img and repacking modified vendor.img made by u; install that in your device so you can have TWRP.

jwoegerbauer said:
What sense does it make to flash an empty VBMETA ? You typically pull the existing VBMETA and pass this file to Fastboot what rewrites 2 bytes in that file.
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I'm not sure to be honest with you. Like I told lopestom, I'm just trying to teach myself as I can in my free time. A lot of what I do is imitate what I see or read. While reading post about flashing twrp i had read something about flashing an empty vbmeta file.