We are trying to get hold a custom recovery for Lenovo Tab3-710F. We are using hundreds of Lenovo tablets in our projects and have up until now used Tab2 A7-10 which has a custom recovery build for it (found here att XDA).
The reason we need the custom recovery is for cloning the unit which works good in CWM or TWRP.
The problem now is that Lenovo have stopped selling Tab2 so we are now stuck with a unit we cant clone.
Have somebody successfully created a custom recovery for the unit? If not or if you have we are offering payments/devices to get this working asap. Are you interested please PM us? When we have it we can share it to the world here no problems for us.
If you need to root the device KingoRoot latest APK works.
So hope somebody can help us.
Perhaps useful for you: I've managed to extract the stock rom of a brand new TB3-710F
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/lenovo-tab-3-7-essential-tb3-710f-mt8127-t3416397
This also includes the "recovery.img" so you could try to change this image and simply flashing it. If it does not work you'll have a stock rom to restore it.
gogetrd said:
We are trying to get hold a custom recovery for Lenovo Tab3-710F. We are using hundreds of Lenovo tablets in our projects and have up until now used Tab2 A7-10 which has a custom recovery build for it (found here att XDA).
The reason we need the custom recovery is for cloning the unit which works good in CWM or TWRP.
The problem now is that Lenovo have stopped selling Tab2 so we are now stuck with a unit we cant clone.
Have somebody successfully created a custom recovery for the unit? If not or if you have we are offering payments/devices to get this working asap. Are you interested please PM us? When we have it we can share it to the world here no problems for us.
If you need to root the device KingoRoot latest APK works.
So hope somebody can help us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did u manage to get TWRP or CWM for TB3-710F ?
zwirc said:
Did u manage to get TWRP or CWM for TB3-710F ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I built it for them. Download here
@Tzul @gogetrd We are trying to achieve something similar, configure about 700 tablets of this model. I have played with custom ROMs in the past, but mostly as a consumer (e.g. Cyanogen on personal devices).
It is my understanding that installation using the files provided by @Tzul would require to;
0. create a custom ROM.
Then for each device
1. root device (e.g. Developper mode, allow "Unknown source"s, adb install one rooting apk, run it, etc).
2. install custom recovery on device
3. flash custom ROM
Am I right?
If so do we agree that the time spent doing these operations might be about similar than the time spent e.g. manually installing / configuring the device? Or is there a way to automate the steps above?
You can configure 1 tablet, then extract the ROM and flash it with the "download mode". You don't even need to boot the tablet!
If you want more info let me know, back from holiday in a few days
@lacostej You can certainly automate some steps, and you do not always need root. (And the best way to root is to install the latest SuperSU via TWRP; no need for questionable apps that are doing who knows what...)
There are three ways to install another firmware:
The MediaTek SmartPhone Flash Tool (SPFT). This is a PC program (Windows and Linux) that allows reading and writing of the entire internal storage (on a partition granularity). Via USB, while the device is powered down. Only for devices based on MediaTek chips, of course (this tablet is MediaTek-based).
Fastboot. This is a little USB protocol implemented by the bootloader. A Fastboot client on PC can communicate with the bootloader via USB and execute certain commands, e.g. "fastboot flash" for flashing partitions. However, there are a few drawbacks with this:
First, you need to boot the device into fastboot mode. Some devices have a boot menu that allows you to do this, but this device doesn't. Starting the tablet via power+volumeUP takes you directly to the recovery instead of a boot menu. But in the recovery, whether stock or TWRP, there's a reboot to bootloader option. Using ADB (adb reboot bootloader) should also take you there.
Second, the "fastboot flash" command is restricted on this tablet. If you were to use "fastboot flash recovery <recoveryfilename_here>", for example, it would abort with an error message. I have patched the bootloader to allow the flash command, but you'd first need to install this patched version on your tablet(s), of course, via SPFT or other means.
Third, the "fastboot flash" command has a size limit - the bootloader needs to buffer the USB data in RAM before it can be written, and since the tablet has only 1 GB of RAM, you obviously can't flash a 1 GB system image this way. The buffer is actually a lot smaller: just 128 MiB. Meaning whatever file you send to the tablet via "fastboot flash", it cannot be larger than 128 MiB. So, how do you flash the system or userdata partition then, which are much, much larger? By splitting their image file into many smaller "sparse" image files, each of which is below the size limit. There's probably a tool for doing this, but I don't know any details.
TWRP, or another custom recovery. They allow you to create and restore backups. TWRP has some automation support via OpenRecoveryScript.
So, if you have 700 tablets to configure, you can configure just one, then save its state via SPFT or TWRP, then restore that on each other tablet.
What is its "state"? Well, the system, cache, and data partitions. The system partition is normally read-only and won't change, therefore you do not need to clone it. Unless you install root and modify stuff on the system partition, of course. The cache partition is quite irrelevant. It is the data partition that has all the app settings.
However, if you clone the data partition from one tablet to others, then you're causing each tablet to use the same Android ID (a long number identifying an Android device, usually randomly generated when Android is first booted after a factory reset), the same Bluetooth and WiFi MAC addresses, and some other IDs that should be unique on each device (the tablet's Lenovo serial number might be in some cloned files as well, e.g. the WiFi settings).
You can at least avoid cloning the MAC addresses by deleting the entire directory /data/nvram/ before you create your backup. MediaTek devices have a dedicated NVRAM partition that contains the MAC addresses and some other stuff, and this data gets unpacked to /data/nvram/ when Android boots. Unless the files there already exist. So, by deleting /data/nvram/ before you clone, you force each tablet to extract its unique MAC addresses again at the next boot...
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Really appreciated.
Tzul said:
@lacostej And the best way to root is to install the latest SuperSU via TWRP; no need for questionable apps that are doing who knows what...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't SuperSU already requires root? (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1538053)
How did you get root on your Lenovo device? (I assume you had one to dump the image)
However, if you clone the data partition from one tablet to others, then you're causing each tablet to use the same Android ID (a long number identifying an Android device, usually randomly generated when Android is first booted after a factory reset), the same Bluetooth and WiFi MAC addresses, and some other IDs that should be unique on each device (the tablet's Lenovo serial number might be in some cloned files as well, e.g. the WiFi settings).
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly the thing I was worried about when it comes to cloning. Those problems might arise later during QA, and I probably don't have the time required to do it properly this time.
lacostej said:
Doesn't SuperSU already requires root? (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1538053)
How did you get root on your Lenovo device? (I assume you had one to dump the image)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SuperSU is just like any other root manager. It provides the actual "su" (superuser) binary that other programs rely on to obtain root privileges, plus an Android app for managing permissions and settings. The su binary needs to be installed on the system partition (at least traditionally), but in order to get write access there, you need root privileges. Therefore, this is a chicken and egg problem: SuperSU provides root, but it also needs root in order to be installed. Other root manager are no different - except that some try to exploit security flaws in Android in order to temporarily obtain root and install their su binary.
Anyway, the classic solution to this conundrum is the (custom) recovery: it basically has root built-in. It can write to the system partition by default, after all one of its jobs is to install firmware updates.
TWRP includes a SuperSU stub. If you leave TWRP via the Reboot menu, it checks whether or not the su binary is installed (at least in Android 4 and 5), and if it isn't, it asks if you'd like to install the SuperSU stub. Which you can then use in Android to update to the latest SuperSU via Play Store. But you can also install SuperSU's latest "update zip" in TWRP to immediately install the full version.
lacostej said:
That's exactly the thing I was worried about when it comes to cloning. Those problems might arise later during QA, and I probably don't have the time required to do it properly this time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it is annoying. MediaTek apparently wisened up a bit. Newer platforms they produce do not unpack the NVRAM partition to the data partition anymore. Instead, they use a dedicated "nvdata" partition for that purpose. That way, if you clone the data partition, you at least won't include the unpacked NVRAM data (MAC addresses and IMEI). But still, some other IDs such as the Android ID, references to the serial number, etc. will very likely be referenced by some other files on the data partition.
I created a little "update zip" that can be "installed" via TWRP, which is just a shell script that tries to delete all the files on the data partition that contain unique or sensitive info. I use it to "clean" a data partition before publishing it. But it's not perfect yet...
@Tzul Your modified rom is great. But I have one problem with it.
When you connect your turned off device to the power supply there is a clock and charging animation. The clock is several hours ahead of the system clock. System clock and clock during the charging are connected (when I change the system time the 2nd clock also changes the hour).
I was trying to use hwclock but without success.
Is there some kind of file where I can set the correct time zone for the 2nd clock?
Sorry for my English.
@Yozen I didn't modify the ROM. I extracted and packaged it.
When the tablet is turned off and then connected to a power supply, it will usually start "off-mode charging" (can be disabled, so that Android will boot up instead). This is handled by the bootloader (LK, lk.bin), which also displays the battery animation and the clock that you see. Apparently the bootloader on this device doesn't handle time zones, because the clock shown uses China Standard Time (CST, UTC+08:00). This is the first MediaTek-based device I've seen which shows a clock in the off-mode charging screen at all. I guess they normally don't because they have no simple way to figure out the user's correct time zone at that stage.
Will this method and these files work for TB3-730F?
Sir, is there a custom ROM available for Lenovo tab3-710f ?
lacostej said:
@Tzul @gogetrd We are trying to achieve something similar, configure about 700 tablets of this model. I have played with custom ROMs in the past, but mostly as a consumer (e.g. Cyanogen on personal devices).
It is my understanding that installation using the files provided by @Tzul would require to;
0. create a custom ROM.
Then for each device
1. root device (e.g. Developper mode, allow "Unknown source"s, adb install one rooting apk, run it, etc).
2. install custom recovery on device
3. flash custom ROM
Am I right?
If so do we agree that the time spent doing these operations might be about similar than the time spent e.g. manually installing / configuring the device? Or is there a way to automate the steps above?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you do it in the end? I'm trying to do something similar here and am very curious!
.acy said:
How did you do it in the end? I'm trying to do something similar here and am very curious!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For us it is this "simple".
1. Manually configure a single device
2. Readback the ROM (get the ROM from the device and store it on your PC) using SP Flash Tool
3. Parse the ROM from a single file to multiple files using Mtk Droid Tool
4. (clear cache partition & remove stuff like serial number)
5. Load your ROM in SP Flash Tool
6. Click start
7. DO NOT START your new tablet
8. Connect it to USB
9. Wait (assuming you already have the preloader drivers installed)
10. Done, new ROM is flashed to your tab!
edit:
Oh and with 700 tablets it might be nice to look into compressing the file as the full 8gb dump we flash (and we don't do a lot these days) will take ~30-40 minutes
mattiemvs said:
3. Parse the ROM from a single file to multiple files using Mtk Droid Tool
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's unnecessary, because the SP Flash Tool can already read back partitions into separate files.
Also, you don't need to clone some partitions like cache, and you really should not clone nvram and parts of data, otherwise you'll end up with tablets sharing unique IDs such as MAC addresses, which will cause problems.
Tzul, you are absolutely right! I typed the items from my mind as it has been quite some time since I've created the ROM
tb3-710f s000028
Tzul said:
Yes, I built it for them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello tzul,
Thanks for your jobs.
I want to install Lenovo_TB3-710F_S000027_TO_S000028_Patched_Tzul.zip
But i don't know how i do this when i try with SPFT i choose teh scatter-file and i have an error :
sp flash toll error : 5417
The load scatter file is invalid !
hint :
please check the scatter file and select again
Can you help me ? please
@siegheart73 That is a patched OTA update. It needs to be installed by the recovery (stock or TWRP). If a zip file contains a "META-INF" folder, then it's most likely intended for the recovery, and not for the SPFT.
Tzul said:
@siegheart73 That is a patched OTA update. It needs to be installed by the recovery (stock or TWRP). If a zip file contains a "META-INF" folder, then it's most likely intended for the recovery, and not for the SPFT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your answer.
I go to test it.
I want to root this kernel 000028 and i have difficult to do it ?
Do you have a easy solution ?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Related
Hi there,
I just came up to Android with an Orange branded HTC Desire. Until now, I was using a HTC Diamond 2 with WM and tried some cooked ROM. But it was really easy with WM. Now, I need to understand more or less how my Android phone works to be able to play with it the same way I played with my Diamond 2.
As I'm a bit lost with some Android terms and concepts and I would like to purpose a kind of glossary for newbies like me. The goal is to explain common concepts with a functional and a technical point of view. I try to give example based on Nexus One and Desire based on personal experiments.
I'll start with what I've understood last few days and believe to be right. I'll ask you to correct my mistakes and to complete this FAQ. I'll keep this post updated.
For the moment following lines may contain big mistakes. I will try to flag validated information.
ROM
A ROM contains the OS on your phone. It can be installed like Windows or Linux on your desktop PC. A ROM contains the kernel and a pack of applications already installed for you. You can find a lot of cooked ROM (ROMs made by great people who would like to share with you optimizations they've done on their phone) on Internet. Normally, Android phones only accept ROM which are signed by the reseller. So you can only put Orange ROM on Orange branded phone.
Moreover, installing a new ROM is a way to update your phone. However, Android phone include an internal updating system (it's just a program like Windows update) so you can receive updates without installing a new ROM. It's called OTA (On The Air) update. OTA update is the way for basic customers to receive update for their phone.
Functionally :
Install a ROM is as easy as execute an exe on you Windows PC. It very easy and fast. You can also install a ROM by using the Recovery Menu.
GoldCard
A GoldCard is a modified SDCard which allows you to put the original unbranded ROM on a career branded phone (installing the original HTC Desire ROM on an Orange HTC Desire). Normally, if you try to execute a HTC ROM updater with a Orange phone, you'll be stuck after 4 or 5 clicks on next. With a Goldcard in your phone, you can archive the process.
You can't install a ROM built for an other device just using a GoldCard (installing a Nexus One ROM on a Desire is not possible).
GoldCard is only needed if you have a carrier-branded Desire, even for rooting process. Unbranded phones never need it.
Be sure to keep your GoldCard because it will be needed for each ROM modifications. You can use a GoldCard as a normal SDCard without problem. However, if you create new partitions for app2sd, your GoldCard will ruined.
Functionally :
Create a GoldCard is easy. It will take you 30 minutes. Not all SDCards work to create a GoldCard. Mine (SanDisk 4Go) included in my Orange package worked perfectly.
Instructions can be found here or here.
Technically :
If I'm right, while you are installing a ROM from the executable on your desktop PC, the phone checks if the ROM you're trying to install match a hard coded key on the phone. With a GoldCard, you make the phone believe signature is good.
CID
The serial number of your SDCard. You'll need to retrieve it with ADB Shell to create your GoldCard.
Functionally :
In ADB Shell (see ADB section), following command line give you your CID :
Code:
cat /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:*/cid
Fastboot
It's like the BIOS on your desktop PC. You can access the fastboot with a keyboard combo while starting your phone. It give you access to some function like Recovery Mode or SIM Unlock. With fastboot, you can also install a new ROM using a zip placed on your SDCard.
Use can easily unlock Fastboot on the Nexus One using a ADB shell command.
Fastboot give you access to the recovery mode. In this mode, you can gain write permission in the /system partition which is not possible in Disk Drive mode, event with USB Debugging enabled. With this access, you can easily remove applications which are included in the ROM (like FriendStream in HTC ROMs).
Functionally :
To reach Fastboot on Desire : Hold down back button while pressing power.
Technically :
When you connect the phone to your PC in Fastboot, you will establish a special connection with the device. It uses "Android Bootloaded Interface" driver.
Fastboot unlock
An operation to unlock Fastboot. It's the first step to root your phone. It's easily done for the Nexus One via ADB (see here). It much more difficult with the Desire (possible thanks to Paul).
HBoot
An other boot menu.
Functionally :
To reach HBoot on Desire : Hold down volume down button while pressing power.
ADB
ADB means Android Debug Bridge. You can read this. When you connect your phone to your PC, you can choose different modes :
Charge only : No interaction with your PC
Internet tethering (only if you have a HTC standard ROM, Orange & Co disable this option) : Your PC will see your phone like a modem.
HTC Sync (if you have a HTC standard ROM) : Use to synchronize you data with HTC Sync software
Disk drive : Your PC will see your phone as a USB key allowing you to access to your SDCard
If you're in Disk Drive mode (or even if you're in Charge only mode), you can activate USB debugging (setting > applications > development on your phone). In this mode, your PC will use a ADB driver to establish a special connection. With ADB drivers, you have access to ADB Shell.
With ADB Shell, you can list every file on device and deploy your own application.
Functionally :
Activate USB debugging on your phone to play with ADB Shell.
ADB Shell is accessible from Windows or Linux.
For people who don't use to play with command line, on windows, you must either open a cmd.exe and move in the "tools" folder (with cd command) of your unzipped ADB package or add this repository to your path (instructions here[URL].
Then you can check that everything is alright with following command :
Code:
adb devices
You should see :
Code:
List of devices attached
HTxxxxxxxx device
Then you can type "adb shell" to enter the shell. All Unix basics commands are available and you can do whatever your want... almost nothing since you're not root.
Rooting
Rooting a device is a process to become root on its OS. It allows you to install very nice apps like app2sd (to install application on SDCard), SetCPU app (to overclock or downclock your device) or OpenVPN. This kind of apps can not run if your device is not rooted.
With a rooted device, you can install apps which are not yet validated for your phone on the market by modifying the ID of your device (like the user-agent of your browser). It's easier than downloading the apk file from somebody who extracted the application on a device accepted by the market for this application.
Finally, with a rooted device, you can install ROM from an other device (installing a Nexus One ROM on a Desire).
Functionally :
On Desire, become root is now possible thanks to Paul from Modaco. On Nexus One, it much more easy.
Process is easy if you follow guides step by step. Warning, it will remove all data and configuration on your phone. However, your SD card won't be modified.
If you follow the guide to root the Desire, one of the first steps is to put a big zip file on your SDCard (often rootedupdate.zip). In fact, this zip file contains the ROM you'll have on your phone at the end of the process. Guides generally provide an almost generic ROM. The only modification made to this ROM is the addition of the Superuser Permissions app (the Ninja icon) which will help you to grant root access to applications asking for permission. Installing this ROM is the easier solution. However, you can use every ROM you want (you will find some very interesting ROM on this forum). Just put the file on your SDCard at the beginning of the process and point to the good zip file in the last step. Warning, if you want to install a ROM with app2sd in it, you must know that this application requires a special partition on your SDCard, so you must format your SDCard before the first boot of your new ROM. To do this, just after installing the ROM zip file (the last step of the rooting process), you have to stay in the Recovery Menu and use the good option to create partitions on your SDCard. Of course, your SDCard will be formated.
Technically :
I have no idea what are tricks to become root. You have to find a hole in the phone software. It's not easy.
The process itself requires several steps :
The first step is to unlock the bootloader. This step is easy on Nexus One. On Desire, this step is archived by installing a kind of ROM from Fastboot on your phone.
Unlocking bootloader will give you access to the Recovery Menu and will make your phone accept non-HTC-signed updates (for Desire).
Then, you have to connect your device in HBoot mode to your PC in order to write some files on the phone. These files are used to launch the Recovery Menu. From this menu, you can wipe all data and some caches (I don't know differences between all caches)
Finally you can install a new ROM on your device using a zip file on your SDCard.
Recovery Mode
The Recovery Mode is a special mode accessible from HBoot. You'll need to access this mode to push files needed for the Recovery Menu. It's an important step in the rooting process.
Functionally :
When your phone is in Recovery Mode, you'll see a little red triangle on your screen.
Technically :
Recovery Mode is a special provided by Android to do special operations. In fact, I don't know what's the real usage of this mode.
Recovery Menu
The Recovery Menu is a small tool accessible from Recovery Mode. It purposes some options such as wipe your data, format your SDCard and the most important option : deploy ROM or files from a zip file previously dropped at the root of your SDCard.
Functionally :
The Recovery Menu is a green menu you have to use in the root process.
Technically :
On the Desire, Recovery Menu is the only way to write files on /system. Put a zip file on the root of your SDCard and the Recovery Menu will unzip the package and deploy files on your phone for you. You will have to use this menu to install OpenVPN because this application requires to put some file in /system partition. In the last step of the rooting process, Recovery Menu will deploy your ROM (which is nothing more than just a bunch of files) on your phone.
SIM Unlock
SIM Unlock in a process different from all others. If I'm right, you'll have to use Fastboot, put some files on your SDCard and press SIMUnlock. Required files can be provided by your operator. This process works with all ROMs and don't required a root access.
Nandroid Backup
The Nandroid backup process creates binary images (.img) of the boot, data and system partitions (and ext also, if you choose nand+ext). Needless to say you need root in order to be able to perform this kind of backup.
Later, you can use those image files to restore those partitions, in a very similar way you restore a hard-disk partition from a ghost created image. Practically the restore process erases all their content and replaces it with the data saved in the img files, thus reverting the phone's software to the state it was when you performed backup.
Nandroid backup doesn't include the radio image; you can only change (or revert) the radio by flashing it again.
If you want to go back to stock software, you need to use a RUU, which overwrites all the modifications you made into the phone's software (and of course removes the root access as well).
APK
This is the file format for applications. Each application is packaged in an APK file. When you install an application from the market, you're just downlading an APK file which is then automatically installed on your phone.
You can also find APK files on Internet, put them on your SDCard (or directly download them from your phone) and install them.
Deodexed
Technically :
By default, applications are odexed. This allows Android to preload some parts of an application to optimize its launch time. Unfortunately it makes application resources be dispatched outside the APK. Deodexing is a process of gathering all resources inside the application.
Functionally :
Some applications apply a theme on other applications. You need a deodexed version of the targeted application to use this. However, deodexing applications is not a process you should take care of. You'll find some custom ROMs in which all applications have been deodexed for you.
That's all for now. I really want to complete technical information on above lines. It will be great if somebody could explain why you can not install a Nexus One ROM on a HTC Desire using only a GoldCard. Moreover I would like to know how works Fastboot with SDCard. It seems that SDCard plays a really important role (used to update ROM, SIM unlock and GoldCard).
PS : English is not my native language, please be indulgent.
Many thanks to The Professor and silvake for some precisions.
Matco.
Great topic idea, thank you!
Great idea!
Just found out that you need to be in recovery mode in order to have write permissions to the /system partitition (Disk Drive with USB debugging enabled won't work).
More details in the link below, if you want to include them:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6347071&postcount=2
(credits go to emdzej)
Thank your for your support. I just updated the post with your details.
I would like to add some links but I don't have enough rights to add the url tag in my posts.
CID register - serial number of your sd card
Perhaps time to move the info to the wiki ?
Greetings from a vastloper
This should deffinatley get a sticky + be added to the wiki. Great info, so many new terms to learn now that i'm experimenting with android on my blackstone and seriously considering a Desire
Thank you for your replies. I just made some improvements.
It will be ready for the Wiki as soon as someone will confirm informations and help me to complete blanks.
I would really like to have more technical informations. Feel free to share what you know !
For moderators, is it possible to allow me to add URL ?
Matco said:
Thank you for your replies. I just made some improvements.
It will be ready for the Wiki as soon as someone will confirm informations and help me to complete blanks.
I would really like to have more technical informations. Feel free to share what you know !
For moderators, is it possible to allow me to add URL ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
matco my desire was not branded by any network.. does this mean to root I should just go ahead with the root process ignoring the goldcard step?? thanks
Yes, you're right (check [Guide] Rooting in this forum, page 4 post 39). GoldCard is only needed for branded phone.
Anyway, the website which generated the .img has been disabled. So you can't create easily a GoldCard right now...
Negative, it's back online:
http://psas.revskills.de/?q=goldcard
guys stuck on the red exclamation mark.. using vista, i ran recovery bat but the recovery mode is not going green. what other files hould be in the same folder as recovery bat?
Everything that was in the original pushfiles.zip along with adb-nilezon. Not sure if they're still there, but if they are, here's where you should be able to find them.
I just updated the FAQ as I successfully rooted my Desire. Rooting process helps me to understand what are Fastboot and HBoot for.
It would be nice if someone can tell me if you can put any zip you want on your SD Card for the last step of the rooting process or if you have to use special ROM included in the file package (rootedupdate.zip).
Thanks by advance.
You can put any full ROM on as the last step, it doesn't have to be rootedupdate.zip. That one will be exactly stock + root, though - so for people who like the phone as is but want root, that's the ROM they want.
You can download anybody else's ROM and throw it on for the final step if that's your cup of tea, though. May want to mention that if they're picking a ROM with A2SD in it, that they need to perform the SD setup before booting, or they may run into trouble with that.
Thank your for your reply.
I will add a warning for people who want to install a ROM with app2SD in it (if I'm right they can use the little "green" menu just before installing the zip file to create partitions on SD Card).
As you seem to have a good understanding of the rooting process, could you explain me what is the goal of the first step (installing a fresh ROM from RUU Installer with phone in Fastboot Mode)? And what are pushed files for ? Is it for green menu?
You need to partition the SD card (using the partition options in the recovery (green) menu) after your ROM and A2SD are installed - if you partition beforehand, you'll lose the zip files you need to flash.
The first step unlocks the bootloader so it'll allow low-level access and recovery mode and so the phone will accept non-HTC-signed updates, I believe. The pushfiles in the second step are forcing the recovery menu (the green menu you mention) onto the device - but since we can't have write access to /system while the device is outside of recovery mode, we have to push the files every time.
very helpful for winmo converts thanks
it took me some time to figure that out
I've done some updates thanks to The Professor.
Great thread, thank you
*** Use at your own risk these instructions worked for me on MY tablets that is no guarantee they will work for you ***
This is for the ProScan PLT9650G(K-1G-8G) tablet. It has the RockChip RK3126 chipset. The one I am working with was purchased in Canada at the Atlantic Superstore. I will just briefly outline what I needed and had to do to root and install a TWRP recovery on the tablet. See the attachment for the recovery image. I will explain how to get the programs and general steps to make a full backup of the tablet before ever rooting the device. It is a little difficult, and not necessary, but like any backup can be helpful to have around.
Specifications:
The ProScan tablet has:
- Android Lollipop 5.1.1;
- Quad-core Processor, 1.2Mhz;
- 1 GB of DDR3 Memory;
- 8GB Flash Storage;
- 800x480 Screen Resolution.
Backup Overview:
1) Install USB drivers;
2) Put tablet in bootloader mode;
3) Read the different partitions.
Tools Needed:
1) Rockchip Driver Assistant v4.3;
2) Android Tool v2.3.
Detailed Instructions:
This tablet is a newer version and requires at least version 4.3 of the Rockchip Driver Assistant. The older versions (4.1) won't recognize the USB product id (310D) in bootloader mode.
Download the drivers unrar and run DriverInstall.exe. Select uninstall to clean any old drivers and then select install to install the newer ones. I've done this under Windows 7/8.1/10. Since I've done it so often and so many times with different driver version, I can't remember if the bootloader drivers require you install them with the driver signing turned off or not. The problem becomes that the bootloader drivers (under Windows 8+) will fail the driver signing authentication and won't install. The ADB and MTP drivers are signed and will install correctly, but when you boot the tablet in bootloader mode the device will be unrecognized by Windows. If you end up with this problem follow these instructions and then install the drivers.
After testing on a new machine under Windows 10 the drivers install fine. There is no need to boot with driver signing verification turned off.
To put the tablet in bootloader mode follow thes instructions:
1) Unplug tablet (both power and usb);
2) Turnoff tablet;
3) Press and hold the esc and power buttons at the same time;
4) Hold until the stock recovery menu comes up;
5) Press the esc button to go down to the menu item saying bootloader;
6) Press the power button to execute that menu item.
The screen will go blank. Plug the tablet into the computer and it will be recognized as a device type "Class for rockusb devices" in the Windows Device Manager.
Download the Android Tool from the link provided. The link gives a detailed description of how to backup all the partitions. I have included my parameters.txt file that I created. From the standpoint of undoing the root operation described below I believe only the recovery and system partition needs to be saved. But saving all the partitions never hurts. After you have followed the information in the link and saved the partitions you can move on to rooting the device.
One serious warning I have NOT been able to write anything to the device using the Android Tool. It always give me an error and won't even try. The backups we create can be used from within the tablet to restore it later if needed.
Custom Recovery Overview:
1) Root device;
2) Download the image file on the tablet;
3) Flash the recovery partition with the image file.
Tools Needed:
1) KingRoot;
2) Terminal Application;
Root Device:
The device rooted using KingRoot. Startup the tablet and go through the setup process. Download the apk from the link provided. The version used in testing was 4.6.2. You will need to allow "Unknown sources". The app will eventually give a button just try to root. This will eventually work and the tablet will be rooted.
Extract the img file from within the zip file below onto the internal drive. Make sure you put it in the Download directory. If you are doing this from the tablet it should go there if you move it over using the computer make sure you put it in that directory or change the command below to the proper directory.
Install a terminal emulator. Anyone will do, the one I chose is linked above. Open the emulator and type:
Code:
su
at the prompt. KingRoot should prompt you asking if you want to grant root privilege to the command prompt. Then type the command:
Code:
dd if=/sdcard/Download/TWRP_800x480_Unified.img of=/dev/block/rknand_recovery bs=4096
. That's it if you type:
Code:
reboot recovery
the tablet will reboot and TWRP should start up.
Notes:
If you saved the original system partition you can install it using TWRP and effectively unroot the device but keep the TWRP recovery. With the recovery image you can install it over the TWRP and return the tablet to its stock state. I'm giving these tablets to my kids and I wanted a way to return them to the state I bought them plus after I've personalized them for each of my kids I can make a backup in case they do something that messes them up.
This will also work for the PLT1065G but you need to use different recovery/parameters. The kernel is different (looks like a different touchscreen).
Thanks for this. Got one for $50 at Loblaws today. Will attempt rooting.
Got it for my 6 yr old
Edit: Fixed boot issue
protectivedad said:
*** Use at your own risk these instructions worked for me on MY tablets that is no guarantee they will work for you ***
This is for the ProScan PLT9650G(K-1G-8G) tablet. It has the RockChip RK3126 chipset. The one I am working with was purchased in Canada at the Atlantic Superstore. I will just briefly outline what I needed and had to do to root and install a TWRP recovery on the tablet. See the attachment for the recovery image. I will explain how to get the programs and general steps to make a full backup of the tablet before ever rooting the device. It is a little difficult, and not necessary, but like any backup can be helpful to have around.
Specifications:
The ProScan tablet has:
- Android Lollipop 5.1.1;
- Quad-core Processor, 1.2Mhz;
- 1 GB of DDR3 Memory;
- 8GB Flash Storage;
- 800x480 Screen Resolution.
Backup Overview:
1) Install USB drivers;
2) Put tablet in bootloader mode;
3) Read the different partitions.
Tools Needed:
1) Rockchip Driver Assistant v4.3;
2) Android Tool v2.3.
Detailed Instructions:
This tablet is a newer version and requires at least version 4.3 of the Rockchip Driver Assistant. The older versions (4.1) won't recognize the USB product id (310D) in bootloader mode.
Download the drivers unrar and run DriverInstall.exe. Select uninstall to clean any old drivers and then select install to install the newer ones. I've done this under Windows 7/8.1/10. Since I've done it so often and so many times with different driver version, I can't remember if the bootloader drivers require you install them with the driver signing turned off or not. The problem becomes that the bootloader drivers (under Windows 8+) will fail the driver signing authentication and won't install. The ADB and MTP drivers are signed and will install correctly, but when you boot the tablet in bootloader mode the device will be unrecognized by Windows. If you end up with this problem follow these instructions and then install the drivers.
After testing on a new machine under Windows 10 the drivers install fine. There is no need to boot with driver signing verification turned off.
To put the tablet in bootloader mode follow thes instructions:
1) Unplug tablet (both power and usb);
2) Turnoff tablet;
3) Press and hold the esc and power buttons at the same time;
4) Hold until the stock recovery menu comes up;
5) Press the esc button to go down to the menu item saying bootloader;
6) Press the power button to execute that menu item.
The screen will go blank. Plug the tablet into the computer and it will be recognized as a device type "Class for rockusb devices" in the Windows Device Manager.
Download the Android Tool from the link provided. The link gives a detailed description of how to backup all the partitions. I have included my parameters.txt file that I created. From the standpoint of undoing the root operation described below I believe only the recovery and system partition needs to be saved. But saving all the partitions never hurts. After you have followed the information in the link and saved the partitions you can move on to rooting the device.
One serious warning I have NOT been able to write anything to the device using the Android Tool. It always give me an error and won't even try. The backups we create can be used from within the tablet to restore it later if needed.
Custom Recovery Overview:
1) Root device;
2) Download the image file on the tablet;
3) Flash the recovery partition with the image file.
Tools Needed:
1) KingRoot;
2) Terminal Application;
Root Device:
The device rooted using KingRoot. Startup the tablet and go through the setup process. Download the apk from the link provided. The version used in testing was 4.6.2. You will need to allow "Unknown sources". The app will eventually give a button just try to root. This will eventually work and the tablet will be rooted.
Extract the img file from within the zip file below onto the internal drive. Make sure you put it in the Download directory. If you are doing this from the tablet it should go there if you move it over using the computer make sure you put it in that directory or change the command below to the proper directory.
Install a terminal emulator. Anyone will do, the one I chose is linked above. Open the emulator and type:
Code:
su
at the prompt. KingRoot should prompt you asking if you want to grant root privilege to the command prompt. Then type the command:
Code:
dd if=/sdcard/Download/TWRP_800x480_Unified.img of=/dev/block/rknand_recovery bs=4096
. That's it if you type:
Code:
reboot recovery
the tablet will reboot and TWRP should start up.
Notes:
If you saved the original system partition you can install it using TWRP and effectively unroot the device but keep the TWRP recovery. With the recovery image you can install it over the TWRP and return the tablet to its stock state. I'm giving these tablets to my kids and I wanted a way to return them to the state I bought them plus after I've personalized them for each of my kids I can make a backup in case they do something that messes them up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems the boot issue is still there. Do you ever get this? It will get stuck at the PROSCAN logo display.
Friko said:
It seems the boot issue is still there. Do you ever get this? It will get stuck at the PROSCAN logo display.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had it stuck. It was when I was testing things. I can't remember what I did. I do know one time I left it for a day and I noticed the ProScan logo had a flashing cursor in it.
protectivedad said:
I have had it stuck. It was when I was testing things. I can't remember what I did. I do know one time I left it for a day and I noticed the ProScan logo had a flashing cursor in it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been fiddling with it and it seems to be completely random. So I guess it's something we'll have to live with.
I bought it for my 6 year old who's dying to play Pokemon Go. The app runs okay on it. It's just the 'GPS' (or lack of a proper GPS chip) that's a bit slow/inaccurate
Hello I to bought this tablet in Canada I successfully rooted it but is there a reason why no other cameras can be downloaded or Music players or Instagram.
Is thee any chance to unbrick this tablet?
I have one stuck in the boot logo, hard reset wont solve, is there any flash file?
Hellooooo !!
anybody here ?
---------- Post added at 12:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:26 PM ----------
ANYONE TEIED THIS FIRMWARE?
https://mega.nz/#!TVFX0CiZ!6CaGOSGZM47PQAd9KZDuKcPJaXsCL3n3JJQBtXPRHJo
is there any tool capable of flashing this tablet?
I have tried all known by me and all report a sudden error as sson as you try to write anything.
like OP said.
I have one stuck at boot logo, I have 2 firmwares ready to flash.
yurais said:
is there any tool capable of flashing this tablet?
I have tried all known by me and all report a sudden error as sson as you try to write anything.
like OP said.
I have one stuck at boot logo, I have 2 firmwares ready to flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a way to create an SDCARD and it will run from the SDCARD. I've forgotten how . I'm looking at one of my kids cracked ones right now. The touchscreen is cracked so I'm looking at build Ubuntu for it. I'll post when I figure out the SDCARD again.
Reset tablet to factory
I was able to use the factory irmware to reset the tablet from a computer. It will over write any custom recovery, etc. I have been unable to recreate a custom image any changes make the image fail. I found the software I used to create a bootable SDCARD but I can't get it to work keeps failing on creating the MBR. The software was the Rockchip SD Firmware Tool and there is an option to create SD Boot. So far I can only find v1.43 anyone have v1.45?
Let me know here as soon as you just remember anything related to this.
I got another tab like this, screen cracked and I could read off its firmware, so I now have a working firmware waiting to be written...
Enviado desde mi SM-N920T mediante Tapatalk
Thanks so much for this guide. I picked one of these up for $6 when HHGREGG was closing.
Proscan PLT7650G
Good day is there a guide and firmware for a Proscan PLT7650G
Technician
protectivedad said:
I was able to use the factory irmware[/URL] to reset the tablet from a computer. It will over write any custom recovery, etc. I have been unable to recreate a custom image any changes make the image fail. I found the software I used to create a bootable SDCARD but I can't get it to work keeps failing on creating the MBR. The software was the Rockchip SD Firmware Tool and there is an option to create SD Boot. So far I can only find v1.43 anyone have v1.45?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you flash the image? what software did you use,
Thanks.
it's not possible to change the rom or custom image of the tablet to another operating system like ubuntu or linux. It has allow OEM bootloader unlocked in the settings in developer section greyed out and it doesn't allow oem bootloader unlocking 'enabled'. You cannot enable it.
What you are doing is just resetting the factory image. or rom. you can just push the reset button with pin after charging the tablet for 3 hours.
These tablets are not 'cheap' to make and google, cell phone companies subsidize these 'cheap' tablets. so you have to use and pay them when you subscribe to their cell phone 'service' or google advertisements when you use their 'service'.
Lots of vaporware being pushed saying they can unlock something for $40 or downloading tools etc. wasted of time as it's impossible to unlock oem BOOTLOADER if the manufacture has locked it, you cannot install another operating system in the tablet, or smart phone. so don't waste your time.
Only some phones allow oem unlocking bootloader and those are the higher end phones costing $400-$600 for a tablet that are not 'subsidized' by google or you cell phone company as with 'cheap' phone or tablet.
the firmware is not available for download at the manufacture website that should raise alarms about the firmware. I've factory reset the device and now it's having reboot issues, either the firmware is defective or corrupt bootloader etc. The manufacture proscan seems to be selling the devices yet no technical support or even a direct download from the manufacture, downloading firmware from thirdparty servers is security risk. it seems like today lots bogus websites and no technical support from manufacturers in tech devices they sell. and people have to sites like XDA for 'free' technical support. Even Microsoft which makes billions in profits fail to provide proper technical support for some reason. and have to rely on 'free' technical support for bugs and issues with their software and hardware and lots vaporware apps etc.. bogus apps. that don't work.
Rooting gives the user the ability to install and change OEM software. from what i gather so don't waste your time, to root a device, allows the user to delete operating system files. if the manufacture doesn't allow changing the oem software there is nothing you can do. about so don't waste time trying root it or try to install ubuntu or linux on the tablet or smartphone if it's oem LOCKED. bootloader. you cannot unlock it. it's much harder to unlock oem software.
the method to 'restore' factory image or known as 'flashing the rom'
there is no reason to flash the rom etc.
1. just hold the power button and esc button at the same time
2. release the power button wait 2 seconds
and then release the esc button
you should now be in boot up mode.
this unit doesn't allow you to be in bootloader mode. so you CANNOT install another firmware or install linux etc. other than the proscan firmware.
3. press esc to select restore the factory settings
4. press the power button to select
this the easiest way to restore stuck in browser or need to flash the rom
again if the rom is 'corrupt' which is not likely
if that is the case
the option to "apply update from external storage" doesn't seem to work as you cannot mount to flash the rom and reinstall the .img file from the .zip file
"apply update from external storage"
where you saved your .zip doesn't work
the apply updated from ADB works you need a usb computer hooked up to you computer and terminal command to ADB to your table to rinstall the .imge file
update ,this no longer seems to work in installing the .zip file method to install the firmware.
lot of software and hardware that have no technical support or documentation and the stuff just doesn't seem to work and high security risk with no updates from manufacture as it cost them money to resolve issues. selling disposable technology tablets. that is not meant to last. basically toys. for kids.
WARNING: Performing the actions decribed here will void your warranty and possibly brick your device. This was not written for complete noobs and assumes some prior experience. I will not be held responsible if you ruin your device.
NOTE: This was all tested on a stock iWork 10 Flagship dual boot (aka iWork 10 Ultimate) purchased from the manufacturers website. Device model is "i15 T", Device serial number starts with "i15TD": if you have another variant such as i15TL i can not vouch for any of this working the same way.is tablet
UPDATE: @popcorn2404 modified the boot.img on his USB Type-C variant if this tablet (i15-TCL), confirmed everything working well and was nice enough to provide the modified boot image. See downloads at end of post.
OTA: Most likely this will break OTA. Dont know yet...
Prerequisites:
PC with working ADB/Fastboot
Device properly recognized.
I'm using ubuntu 15.10 so I just added an entry to /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules to get things going properly
(EDIT: Windows 64 bit usb drivers attached to post -thanks @Jade.J.Munkey)
TIP: I would highly recommend extracting your stock recovery, boot and system images for safekeeping. These can easily be flashed back in fastboot if something goes wrong. Some may say this is overkill as you will be able to backup and recover with TWRP, but one never knows...
Unlocking bootloader
WARNING: this will erase all data, settings, etc... AND system default language will be chinese when you reboot
Go to settings, about tablet and tap 5 times on the Build number to activate developer options
Go to Developer options and enable OEM unlocking & USB debugging
Plug in your device while booted into android, then open a terminal
just to make sure adb is good type
Code:
adb devices
my output looks like this
Code:
List of devices attached
0123456789ABCDEF device
reboot tablet into fastboot mode
Code:
adb reboot fastboot
The device will now reboot to the OS selection screen. Select android and then it will boot into fastboot mode
once again just to be sure all is good type
Code:
fastboot devices
once again, my output
Code:
0123456789ABCDEF fastboot
then to unlock the bootloader
Code:
fastboot oem unlock
you then should see something like:
Code:
...
(bootloader) Unlock protection is set
(bootloader) Unlocking anyway since this is not a User build
OKAY [ 15.330s]
finished. total time: 15.330s
This is what you should see now in the bootloader if all went well:
SECURE BOOT - DISABLED
LOCK STATE - unlocked
Your bootloader in now unlocked. When you reboot it will take some time for the first boot and the system language will have defaulted back to chinese. Not too difficult to sort if you're familar with Android settings. Otherwise just google "android change system language from chinese to english".
Tip: At this point you may want to already download/copy the supersu zip to internal storage of the tablet so you're all set up for flashing it later...
Modified boot.img
Because of built in security, if you make any changes to system the device will not boot, so you need a modified boot image.
If you have the exact same kernel version as I do you can download the provided modified boot image here. Otherwise you can look HERE for instructions on how to make your own modified boot image. Personally I used SuperR's Kitchen to unpack & repack the image and did the modifications manually with gedit.
Kernel version 3.14.37-x86_64-L1-R429 made on Wed Mar 2 18:22:46 CST 2016
-if you have that one you are good to go ahead and use the image provided here.
Boot device into fastboot connected to PC. From the directory where you have the modified boot image type:
Code:
fastboot flash boot i15TDboot.img
Obviously if you made your own boot image you'll need to replace "i15TDboot.img" with the name of yours...
That's it, now on to recovery and rooting...
Flashing custom TWRP (compiled by @vampirefo)
Assuming you are still connected to the device in fastboot and the custom recovery is in the same directory:
Code:
fastboot flash recovery i15t_recovery.img
Now use volume buttons to select recovery mode and tap power button.
You should now be in TWRP. First, please be smart and make a backup!
Because this device has an unusual mount point, the supersu script will fail to properly mount system (thus failing to flash) so:
From TWRP main screen select "mount" then select system, then return to main screen
Select "install" and then the supersu zip you should already have on the tablet.
Boot system. Now there is one thing left to do:
To prevent the system from overwriting TWRP with the stock recovery on the next reboot:
With a root enabled file manager mount system r/w and navigate to /system/etc
Rename install-recovery.sh to install-recovery.sh.bak
That's it. Enjoy!
If you're looking for more info on this device, check out Laura's great thread
Thanks
@vampirefo - for taking the time to compile TWRP for this device, you rule man!
Laura - for all the info she's made available for this device
@SuperR. - for his kitchen
@Chainfire
@popcorn2404
Downloads
TWRP recovery
Modified boot image (i15-TD)
Modified boot image (i15-TCL)
SuperSU
There will be additional resources for this device here
Delete
Windows 10 64bit fastboot driver for Cube iwork10 Ultimate
When the device is at fastboot, Windows Device Manager says "Cherry Trail CR" with a yellow exlamation point. abd works fine when it is booted in to normal android. Anyone have this driver or could tell me where to aquire it ?
Cube iwork10 Ultimate Fastboot driver for Windows 10 64bit
Jade.J.Munkey said:
When the device is at fastboot, Windows Device Manager says "Cherry Trail CR" with a yellow exlamation point. abd works fine when it is booted in to normal android. Anyone have this driver or could tell me where to aquire it ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much for the good work, I am successfully rooted. The only deviation from the instructions that occurred for me was that /system/etc did not appear in the TWRP file manager, fortunately the .sh did not run upon rebooting after installing the SU zip. So I just I just renamed the .sh in NextApp File Explorer with Root Add-On installed once booted in to android; I have since tested booting in to recovery and then back to android and it is working fine.
Here is the driver I found to enable the Cube iwork10 Ultimate to be seen by Windows 10 64bit whilst in fastboot:
onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=96BA73741E4680ED!5237&authkey=!ALGigNIfrlvxfvI&ithint=file%2czip
if anyone needs it. (remove space from url before pasting in to browser)
Jade.J.Munkey said:
Thanks very much for the good work, I am successfully rooted. The only deviation from the instructions that occurred for me was that /system/etc did not appear in the TWRP file manager, fortunately the .sh did not run upon rebooting after installing the SU zip. So I just I just renamed the .sh in NextApp File Explorer with Root Add-On installed once booted in to android; I have since tested booting in to recovery and then back to android and it is working fine.
Here is the driver I found to enable the Cube iwork10 Ultimate to be seen by Windows 10 64bit whilst in fastboot:
onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=96BA73741E4680ED!5237&authkey=!ALGigNIfrlvxfvI&ithint=file%2czip
if anyone needs it. (remove space from url before pasting in to browser)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad it worked out for you. Based on your experience I changed the instructions in the OP. Actually that's the exact same I did after doing this the first time but I thought it would be easier to do before first boot in TWRP. Anyhow thanks for pointing this out.
Attached windows usb driver to OP. Thanks!
Stock based, recovery flashable ROMs now available:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/rom-stock-cube-iwork-10-flagship-i15-t-t3372281
Can someone please make like a video for this or something more lames terms (user friendly). Cause i have a cube iwork 10 Ultimate Dual Boot (i15-TL) and am having issues on Android side where i do not have an option to move apps to sd card in apps settings. Also in storage there is no tab showing all apps on sd card. Im guessing i would need to root my device right? Can someone please help me i just want to get this working properly... i would show screenshots but i don't know how to attach them.
Will the recovery work with i15-TL?
Thank you in advance
flubber1911 said:
Will the recovery work with i15-TL?
Thank you in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I understand from reading at http://techtablets.com/forum/forums/cube/iwork-10-ultimate/
-it *should* work as my understanding is that the TD and TL are virtually identical other than different flavors of windows installed. But I can NOT personally confirm this as I have not tested on the TL variant.
What I can say with a higher level of certainty is that the procedure for unlocking the bootloader should be exactly the same. Once the bootloader is unlocked it is easy to reflash the stock recovery via fastboot should the custom recovery not work properly. (Assuming one has previously extracted an image of the original recovery to begin with. Same for boot and system images.)
So if the custom recovery does not work, it is pretty easy to reflash the original, as well as the original boot or system images should something else get messed up.
Hope this helps. Feel free to ask anything else if anything is unclear...
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
Thank you for your precise answer. I already successfully rooted my Cube. I need the recovery to flash the latest xposed sdk. I' ll have a look if someone extracted the original recovery.
geryalvi said:
Can someone please make like a video for this or something more lames terms (user friendly). Cause i have a cube iwork 10 Ultimate Dual Boot (i15-TL) and am having issues on Android side where i do not have an option to move apps to sd card in apps settings. Also in storage there is no tab showing all apps on sd card. Im guessing i would need to root my device right? Can someone please help me i just want to get this working properly... i would show screenshots but i don't know how to attach them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock android on this device does not offer the option to move apps to sdcard.
Tools such as link2sd require a rooted device.
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
flubber1911 said:
Thank you for your precise answer. I already successfully rooted my Cube. I need the recovery to flash the latest xposed sdk. I' ll have a look if someone extracted the original recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, no problem man. I'm curious to see how xposed works out, I've not got around to trying to install yet. Let us know here how that goes.
A copy of the original recovery from my i15-T(D) can be downloaded here: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24499762636003042
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
I installed an app called Rashr - Flash Tool on my phone. It says it can backup the recovery.
So I did; lets see then if your custom recovery works out
jetfin said:
The stock android on this device does not offer the option to move apps to sdcard.
Tools such as link2sd require a rooted device.
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok so i have i15-TL, with the instructions provided will i be able to root my Android? Also if i Root Android does anything happen with the Winows side? (I still would like a Dual Boot) So im looking to be able to move apps to my sd card, can someone please help me understand how to Root my device and be able to move apps to sd card? Any help would be greatly appreciated, and also thanks to Jetfin for replying my last post. Plz hlp...
geryalvi said:
Ok so i have i15-TL, with the instructions provided will i be able to root my Android?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As clearly stated in the OP, I do not know for sure because I have not tried on that variant, but it *should* work. If you read a few posts back, you can see that another TL owner seems to have successfully rooted his device. Hot tip: *reading* is very important here before asking questions.
geryalvi said:
Also if i Root Android does anything happen with the Winows side? (I still would like a Dual Boot)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, this will not affect the windows side of things. Dual boot is unaffected.
geryalvi said:
So im looking to be able to move apps to my sd card, can someone please help me understand how to Root my device and be able to move apps to sd card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The instructions for unlocking and rooting in the OP are very simple and straightforward. If you are inexperienced in general with rooting android or with adb/fastboot, those answers can easily be found on XDA and elsewhere by searching.
As far as moving apps to SD, since nobody seems to have done it yet (or posted that they have) the only way right now would be to root your device and try out one of the specific apps for that like link2sd. I will try to check this out ASAP but can not promise how soon because I'm focusing my efforts right now on porting another ROM to this device...
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
I could cry right now ... At first I have to say that flashing the TWRP recovery worked flawlessly But always when I tried to flash the Xposed SDK I got an error saying: Updater process ended with error: 255 ( I have no idea how to fix that yet
flubber1911 said:
I could cry right now ... At first I have to say that flashing the TWRP recovery worked flawlessly But always when I tried to flash the Xposed SDK I got an error saying: Updater process ended with error: 255 ( I have no idea how to fix that yet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you manually Mount system in TWRP before flashing xposed?
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
jetfin said:
Did you manually Mount system in TWRP before flashing xposed?
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
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Click to collapse
No, do I have to do that? D
---------- Post added at 10:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 PM ----------
Ok I manually mounted System, but it still doesn´t work ...
jetfin said:
As clearly stated in the OP, I do not know for sure because I have not tried on that variant, but it *should* work. If you read a few posts back, you can see that another TL owner seems to have successfully rooted his device. Hot tip: *reading* is very important here before asking questions.
No, this will not affect the windows side of things. Dual boot is unaffected.
The instructions for unlocking and rooting in the OP are very simple and straightforward. If you are inexperienced in general with rooting android or with adb/fastboot, those answers can easily be found on XDA and elsewhere by searching.
As far as moving apps to SD, since nobody seems to have done it yet (or posted that they have) the only way right now would be to root your device and try out one of the specific apps for that like link2sd. I will try to check this out ASAP but can not promise how soon because I'm focusing my efforts right now on porting another ROM to this device...
Sent from my OnePlus2 using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply, so my question before i attempt to root my device is: if i follow the steps provided on OP will i loose any of my current information on my Android side? If so would i need to backup my android (How so). Sorry for all of hte questions but i am a noob on how to do this..
Thanks again
Below you will find a download for my modification of a ported Team Hovatek TWRP file as their TWRP did not support OTG. Thanks to Team Hovatek for making a nice porting tool. Unfortunately it took some days and late nights of work to get the ported TWRP to actually be useful as this phone needs OTG support to use TWRP.
When I recently got the Unihertz Atom I didn't realize that it had no micro SD card slot for an external SD card like the Unihertz Jelly Pro had. However it does have OTG support unlike the Jelly Pro but I could not find any TWRP versions for the Atom. So I found a TWRP porting tool from Hovatek and I was able to create a TWRP version but USELESS unfortunately as that version of TWRP did not have OTG support for the Atom.
To make matters worse that TWRP can't deal with the encrypted internal storage of the Atom so there was no way to do a backup of your system. It was possible to format data in TWRP and do a backup to it but upon reboot all that data was gone and reset by the Atom as an essentially new phone being setup for the first time.
I needed a way to modify the ported TWRP so it would recognize an OTG flash drive or USB flash with an OTG cable. I used Image Kitchen to disassemble the original Atom Recovery image and also the modded TWRP recovery image so I could find what was missing from TWRP that was there in the original setup. After a whole lot of reassembling and reflashing various attempts to fix the OTG problem I finally got it. Had to add different lines of code to 3 different files within the unpacked TWRP recovery for it to finally recognize an OTG attached flash drive.
A couple notes on using your external flash drive with TWRP. First you want to insert the flash drive with an appropriate USB type C OTG adapter or cable. Or I see Sandisk (and possibly other brands) are now making a flash drive with USB and Type C dual setup for OTG use.
Bootup your regular phones Android system and look in the pull down notifications - it will ask if you want to use the flash drive as storage. Answer yes and it will then Format it to FAT32 0x0C type which is different than what it was fresh out of the package as most will be FAT32 0x0B type. Once formatted the way the Atom wants it you can use it. However if you put the drive back in your Windows computer it may not see the drive at all. The solution is to open Windows Disk Management and Assign it a drive letter. Once that is done you can read and write to it from both Android and Windows or Linux.
Once that is done you can turn off your phone (IMPORTANT). Do not use any apps that reboot into recovery after installing this TWRP or you will likely just get a black screen and it won't boot up until you reflash the preloader, boot and recovery.
To get into recovery hold down the Volume UP button and the Power button at the same time until you see Unihertz then release both. This is of course after you have flashed TWRP. More on that below. Once your are in TWRP you may have to remove your Flash drive if you had it plugged in during recovery boot up - then reinsert it for TWRP to see it. You can then see it when you mount storage or select storage and it should show the size of your flash drive.
You can then backup your Boot, Recovery, EMMC, System and cache. However the data on the Atom seems to be encrypted in a way that this TWRP does not see it so it will be best to use something like Titanium backup for your Apps and their data. The TWRP though will ensure a complete backup of your system and it's settings as well as the other items mentioned above. I am still looking into why it can't see the encrypted data part of the phone but for now it's nice to have an image of all the rest of the phone. If anyone can help with that I would appreciate it. So far I've tried several 'no encrypt scripts' and ones to turn off DM verity I found on XDA but none of them worked on this phone.
Here is the download of my modded TWRP and also a link for the SHA-256 of it:
TWRP mod: TWRP mod by droidzer1
SHA-256 for file above: SHA-256 for TWRP mod Love the Atom - fast Octacore 4GB Ram - 64GB Internal storage, rugged and tiny as an underfed mouse. :silly: Enjoy !
Notes on Installing this TWRP on your Atom
There are two ways I have used to install this TWRP onto the Atom. One way (and the best way IMO) is to use the SP Flash tool version 5.1828. The other is to use Fastboot. I believe for both methods you need to enable developer options on your phone and turn on OEM unlocking. But if you use Fastboot you also have run the line: "fastboot oem unlock" to install TWRP and that will wipe your phone to a new reset condition plus you will see the 5 second "Orange State" pause screen every time you turn on the phone. To eliminate the "Orange State you can run : "fastboot oem lock" but that will once again totally reset your phone wiping everything including apps and settings. So I prefer using SP Flash tool to avoid all that.
When installing with SP Flash tool I always flash the preloader, boot and recovery (the TWRP modded one) and of course the scatter file. It seems if you don't flash all of those it sometimes doesn't want to boot up.
Also this mod is for the official Unihertz 11-30-2018 ROM version which is the latest update I've seen as of a week ago. I don't know if it will work for other versions. You will want to download that ROM to get the scatter file that is needed by SP Flash tool and it's always good to have an original ROM just in case. Link for the new 11-30-2018 Atom ROM here: 11-30-2018 Atom ROM If you are not on that version you could backup your apps and data with Titanium backup and then install the new ROM while flashing my modded TWRP all at the same time. Just make sure the TWRP you download is named "recovery-verified.img" when you replace the stock one in the SP Flash tool list on the Download page. Also make sure on the tools 'Connections' setting that you check 'Battery installed'.
IMPORTANT!!! - Every version of SP Flash tool I've used shows up as having a virus or trojan and although it may probably be a False positive to be safe I always run Shadow Defender before starting the SP Flash tool. There may be other similar programs but I found this to be one of the best as it totally freezes your computer and hard drive(s) so nothing can be changed or written permanently to them while in Shadow mode. Once you reboot everything is back to a normal state and any changes that may have been made are gone. SP Flash tool available here: SP Flash tool v5.1828 I strongly suggest you use this latest version as previous ones had some issues in completing this project.
A couple quick notes on using the SP Flash tool: It is best to start the tool, have all your items in the check boxes loaded (select scatter file location first) check and locate preloader, boot and recovery - the preloader and boot are from the original ROM you downloaded from the above link. Unzip it and you'll see the needed files inside along with the scatter file.
Once that is ready turn OFF your phone and hook it up with the original USB-C cable to your computer. Wait for it to show the battery charging screen and wait till all that disappears and you have nothing but the black screen. (Or per user SepticFuddy you can hold the Volume Up key while inserting the USB cable and it will connect quickly - I have not tested it this way). Then click on the Flash tool download button. After that you need to push the Atom Power button once briefly - not long enough to turn it on - just a brief click. After that you should see the Flash process going on - it only takes a few seconds to load the preloader, boot and recovery and then you will see a "done" with a big check mark. Remove your phone then and boot into your regular Android OS or use Volume Up and the Power key to boot into your TWRP. :highfive:
Why TWRP doesn't work with Encryption - from TeamWin
I guess this may explain why it is unlikely to get TWRP to work with the encrypted data partition - straight from Teamwin's TWRP website:
"Why doesn't TWRP support encryption on my device?
TWRP encryption is supported in 2 phases. The first item is keeping up with the newest support from AOSP, which can require lot of changes and integration with the new AOSP release. This can take time especially if we have to wait for reference devices to test with. The second item is custom blob support and integration with device OEM firmware.
Even if your device supports AOSP encryption and decryption, it usually requires custom blob support. The process of figuring this out may take time and may never be done. Some vendors such as Samsung use their own encryption techniques. Without heavy deconstruction/decompiling of custom library blobs, and successful ports by an active maintainer, this may never be done. Encryption support is a nice thing to have in TWRP, and not a must have support option. We feel that the ability to backup system and install custom firmware can outweigh having no TWRP support at all."
From: TWRP Website FAQ on Encryption
How I fixed TWRP
For anyone who wants to try the mods their self if you don't trust using the recovery I uploaded I believe these are the changes I made to the ported TWRP. You need of course the porting tool from Hovatek and after you have ported your original recovery you will want to use Image Kitchen to make these mods to the ported image:
Use Image Kitchen to unpack the ported TWRP recovery. In the Ramdisk folder this line "ro.agui.otg_usbdisk=yes" orginally found in the prop.default of the original recovery needs to be put into the file "default.prop" which is a different file name than the original but I am sure is the same purpose and was referenced in the original by a small file with that name.
Then this line "/dev/mt_otg_test(/.*)? ubject_r:mt_otg_test_device0" from the original recovery image in the file "nonplat_file_contexts" I believe I copied into the file "file_contexts" in the TWRP image in the Ramdisk folder.
Note - the above code line that has a smiley in it is because there is the letter "o" followed by a colon. Replace the smiley with "o" and : no spaces between it and the letter 'u' before it or between 'o' and :
I think the third file I modified was found in the unpacked folder /ramdisk/etc in the file 'recovery.fstab' and I took this line "/devices/platform/mt_usb* auto vfat defaults voldmanaged=usbotg:auto " from it to add to the same file in the ported TWRP. Then just repack everything in Image Kitchen and you should have a TWRP recovery that works with OTG.
If you aren't familiar with how to use Image Kitchen it would be best to google how to use it. I have left out some of the basics such as needing to Copy the “recovery.img-kernel” and “recovery.img-kernel_offset” from the unpacked stock recovery and overwrite those two files in ported TWRP folder. Best to look for an instruction article on techora.net about porting TWRP on mediatek devices.
Thank you, it's awesome! But how did you manage to flash Magisk? I can't flash it as /data and /storage can't be mounted.
You should be able to flash it with Fastboot by using command:
fastboot flash boot /path/to/patched_boot.img OR simply put it in the fastboot folder and type:
fastboot flash boot boot.img (the patched boot image)
You may want to review info on the Magisk thread here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk-v7-universal-systemless-t3473445
This method of course is done with you computer and USB cable attached to the Atom. Make sure you have correct drivers for it to fully recognize your phone.
A bit more info from topjohnwu's Magisk thread mentioned above:
Via Magisk Manager:
This method does not need root, and also does not require a custom recovery.
However, you MUST have a stock boot image dump beforehand, and you also have to be able to flash the patched boot image, either through fastboot/download mode or ODIN
Install the latest Magisk Manager
If you're planning to flash the patched boot image through ODIN, go to Settings > Update Settings > Patched Boot Output Format, and select .img.tar. For normal users leave it as the default .img
Press Install > Install > Patch Boot Image File, and select your stock boot image file
Magisk Manager will now patch your boot image, and store it in [Internal Storage]/Download/patched_boot.img[.tar]
Copy the patched boot image to your PC. If you can't find it via MTP, you can pull the file with ADB:
adb pull /sdcard/Download/patched_boot.img[.tar]
Flash the patched boot image to your device and reboot. Here is the command if using fastboot:
fastboot flash boot /path/to/patched_boot.img
If the above method fails for some reason you should also be able to flash to patched boot image with SP flash tools as long as you have the scatter file for the ROM you have installed on your phone. As I mentioned if you flash the patched boot image that way I found it best to also flash the preloader and recovery at the same time.
Cannot mount /data
What you did here was remarkable. I love the Atom so I never tried to tinker with recovery since I might end up with a bootloop. I hope we find a solution soon on how to mount /data.
post-root network failure
First off thank you for doing the research and posting in the thread to help us root this awesome little device.
I followed your steps to the "T" and I was able to successfully patch magisk and re-download it back onto my atom and it was rooted BUT, there seems to be some sort of network issue that I'm stuck on, I'm unable to turn on the wi-fi and bluetooth and every few seconds I keep getting an error message that says "bluetooth keeps stopping" consistently whenever I have the phone on.
I was wondering If you had any idea on what might be causing this, or if you had this problem.
thank you, and I look forward to hearing back from you
droidzer1, Finally got to post now and wanted to thank you for your work on the Atom. I got it rooted and got TWRP working too with only some frustrations because I got in a hurry and missed a detail the first try. I haven't found any problems and have had it running about 2 weeks now with root and TWRP. Nice to have root and of course great to be able to do a whole system backup now!
---------- Post added at 03:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 AM ----------
hayestak said:
First off thank you for doing the research and posting in the thread to help us root this awesome little device.
I followed your steps to the "T" and I was able to successfully patch magisk and re-download it back onto my atom and it was rooted BUT, there seems to be some sort of network issue that I'm stuck on, I'm unable to turn on the wi-fi and bluetooth and every few seconds I keep getting an error message that says "bluetooth keeps stopping" consistently whenever I have the phone on.
I was wondering If you had any idea on what might be causing this, or if you had this problem.
thank you, and I look forward to hearing back from you
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Click to collapse
Were you able to get this fixed? Doesn't look like droizer1 has been on here recently. Mine didn't have either of those issues. Have you tried doing a factory reset and doing the whole process over? I think sometimes just a computer PC might glitch something on your phone so doing it over might skip the hiccup.
---------- Post added at 03:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 AM ----------
Since droidzer1 first posted this in early January you might try using the version of Magisk that was available at that time as I think by later March when you posted there was a newer version out and I've found some versions of Magisk to not work a hundred percent and had to use an older version on some phones.
The latest Magisk (19100) + Xposed (v90 beta 3) work fine for me using the TWRP posted above, in case people were wondering about it.
R
Lost in reboot ...
Hi
I urgently need some help. I seem to be lost...
I have successfully installed TWRP on my Unihertz atom. And I can manage to go into either TWRP mode or into fastboot mode.
I can also successfully unlock the Unihertz atom with:
fastboot oem unlock-go
But what is next?
If I reboot, my phone constantly reboots. It cycles into reboot without Android coming up.
(perhaps I made something wrong).
What I actually want is: The phone should boot including Magisk.
Can anyone please help me what commands I have to issue (with the phone connected to my linux computer via USB) in order
to recover to a normal reboot? Which image-file should I use (please provide URL)?
Can anyone please help me what commands I have to issue to flash Magisk?
Which image-files I should use (please provide URL)?
If somebody has a custom rom or lineageOS rom I would be even happier ...
Thanks a lot.
Thank you
Confirmed working with the Android 9 Pie 2019082617 ROM, latest Magisk 19.3 (19300), latest Riru core v19.5, latest Riru- EdXposed v0.4.5.1b (4463) (SandHook). EdXposed seems hit or miss after a reboot though, getting it to stick may take a few installations.
To get SP Flashtool to work, I had to hold the Volume Up key while inserting the USB cable and it would instantly connect, rather than following the OP's instructions of just inserting the cable and waiting for a black screen.
I'd love to see a custom ROM like LineageOS or something, but this is will have to do for now.
SepticFuddy said:
Confirmed working with the Android 9 Pie 2019082617 ROM, latest Magisk 19.3 (19300), latest Riru core v19.5, latest Riru- EdXposed v0.4.5.1b (4463) (SandHook). EdXposed seems hit or miss after a reboot though, getting it to stick may take a few installations.
To get SP Flashtool to work, I had to hold the Volume Up key while inserting the USB cable and it would instantly connect, rather than following the OP's instructions of just inserting the cable and waiting for a black screen.
I'd love to see a custom ROM like LineageOS or something, but this is will have to do for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the mention of a quicker method. I've updated my post to include your info.
LineageOS for Uniherz Atom?
SepticFuddy said:
I'd love to see a custom ROM like LineageOS or something, but this is will have to do for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too!! LineageOS for the Unihertz Atom would be great!
The hadrware of the Uniherz Atom is just great, is is small and it is dual-sim. This is unique in the market.
I would be even willing to contribute with 100,- EUR if somebody delivers a working LineageOS ROM.
Any body interested? :highfive:
SepticFuddy said:
I'd love to see a custom ROM like LineageOS or something, but this is will have to do for now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The main problem is that unihertz never released their source code (despite being obliged to do so according to the android licensing contract).
There are some bits in the official mediatek kernel source tree (https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/mediatek/) but I doubt that this would be enough to build something stable out of it.
@droidzer1 Hey there, what is the difference between your modded TWRP and this test release by the TWRP Builder Project asside from the TWRP version?
J-Kos said:
@droidzer1 Hey there, what is the difference between your modded TWRP and this test release by the TWRP Builder Project asside from the TWRP version?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure what the difference is except I came out with mine in January and theirs came out in March. Theirs is about 4 Megabytes bigger - maybe a newer version (mine is 3.2.1-0). I contacted 'bigbiff' at TWRP about mine when I had it working but they were not interested unless I had a device tree which I didn't so they didn't want to post it on their site.
Great, thanks for your reply. I am satisfied with you version, so I will just keep using it.
Disclaimer: This guide and the tools included are provided as-is. Testing has been limited and nothing is guaranteed to work. I take no responsibility for lost data, bricked devices, etc. Continue at your own risk, and please read carefully. THIS GUIDE WAS WRITTEN FOR PHONES ON ANDROID 8.1 - MAY NOT WORK ON DEVICES WITH THE PIE UPDATE.
Note that Magisk and TWRP can interfere with downloading and installing OTA updates. At this time the only updates are security patches, so it would be best to make sure all OTAs are installed before starting.
Mounting and decrypting the data partition is still hit-or-miss. If you haven't set up a passcode or password, TWRP should be able to mount it, and you still might be able to even if you have. Magisk will corrupt encrypted partitions and force a factory reset, and TWRP will not be able to help you back things up if Magisk has been installed before disabling encryption. You've been warned.
Guide: Installing TWRP and Magisk on the Visible R2
Tools:
prog_emmc_firehose_8917.mbn - firehose for flashing system partitions
Latest available TWRP zip - contains TWRP recovery image and the necessary files for flashing
fstab.qcom - for removing forced encryption
Patched boot image - for installing versions of Magisk newer than v16.7
Stock firmware - optional, but handy to have in case something goes wrong.
Windows users: QPST/QFIL and the QDLoad drivers (possibly the first set of ZTE drivers as well, but likely not necessary). Installing drivers in compatibility mode for XP or Windows 7 might help resolve issues.
Install adb if you don't already have it set up.
Linux users: qdl source code; the guide will cover compiling and installing it. You'll also want to install adb from your distro's repositories. There is a snap package for qdl, but it doesn't work for the purposes of this guide, so please don't use it.
Part 1: Installing TWRP
TWRP is an easy-to-use, touch-based custom recovery for Android devices, designed to make backups and installs simple and painless. Unfortunately, the installation of TWRP on the R2 is going to be a little less simple and painless; the device's bootloader isn't locked down, but it doesn't support fastboot commands, meaning we'll need to get our hands dirty to flash partitions.
Before starting, it's also worth noting that the current TWRP build cannot always decrypt encrypted data partitions, and the device is encrypted by default. This means that TWRP may not be able to mount or back up your data partition unless it's formatted and forced encryption is removed (see part 2).
To flash TWRP, we need to put the device into EDL mode and forcibly overwrite the existing partitions using an EDL tool and the firehose linked above, which unfortunately requires a PC of some sort. Enable USB debugging on your phone, then follow the steps for your operating system below.
For Windows:
1. Install the Qualcomm driver package. Before continuing, you will need to make sure Driver Signature Enforcement is disabled on your PC; QFIL may have issues communicating with the device if Windows blocks the driver.
2. Install the QPST package, then open QFIL from the Start menu.
3. Select 'Flat Build' under Select Build Type.
4. Extract the TWRP zip to an accessible directory (something like C:\TWRP works fine). Place the firehose.mbn in the same directory.
5. Press 'Browse' under Select Programmer, then navigate to the TWRP directory and select the firehose file.
6. Press 'Load XML'. Select rawprogram_recovery.xml, then patch0.xml
7. Connect the phone to your PC and make sure USB debugging is enabled. Make sure your PC is trusted by the phone for ADB commands, then send 'adb reboot edl'.
8. If everything went well, the phone should have rebooted with a blank screen, and QFIL should be asking you to select a port. Press Select Port, and then choose (hopefully) the only item available).
9. The 'Select a port' message should now read something like Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008 (COM#). IF it does, simply press download.
10. There should be some output in the status window, ending a few seconds later with a blue Download Succeeded message. If so, you're done, and can restart your phone. If there's a red error message, or the status window seems to be stuck on sending, double-check that your device is registered properly in Device Manager.
11. Once you're done flashing, you can reboot into TWRP by holding down the Vol Up button as the phone reboots.
For Linux:
1. Unzip the qdl zip into its own directory, then enter the directory.
2. Compiling qdl requires libraries that may not be installed. For Ubuntu users, you simply need to run ' sudo apt install libudev-dev libxml2-dev' to install them; people with other distros should know how to use their package manager and may have to find the packages under a similar name. If any other packages are required (errors compiling, etc.), let me know so I can update this.
3. Actually compiling should be as simple as opening a terminal in the working directory and running 'make && sudo make install'. If you get no errors, qdl should be installed and able to run from any location, and the compile process shouldn't take much time at all.
4. Before running qdl, ModemManager needs to be disabled, as it can interfere with accessing the phone in EDL mode. In Ubuntu (and most systemd-based distros) you can ensure that it's stopped by running ' sudo systemctl stop ModemMangager'. If you need the ModemManager service, make sure to restart it when you're done.
5. Extract the TWRP zip to an easily-accessed folder, like ~/twrp, and place the firehose mbn in the same folder.
6. Navigate to the TWRP folder and open a terminal there. Now would be a good time to plug in your phone and enter EDL with 'adb reboot edl'.
6a. If your phone was already connected in EDL mode before stopping ModemManager, you might need to reboot it and enter EDL again.
7. If you're in the same directory as the TWRP files, you should be able to start flashing by running 'sudo qdl prog_emmc_firehose_8917.mbn rawprogram_recovery.xml patch0.xml'.
8. If everything's good, you should see some output on your screen, and the phone should reboot momentarily. If the command finishes without output, ModemManager or something similar may have interfered. Make sure ModemManager is stopped, reboot your phone into EDL mode again, and try again. If it hangs at Waiting for EDL device, you're not running the program with admin privileges or your phone isn't in EDL mode.
9. Once the process has finished and your phone has rebooted, you should have TWRP installed. Boot into it by holding Vol Up while rebooting.
That's it! Verify that TWRP is working as expected by doing some test backups and restores, etc. Note that TWRP builds for this device are still sort of experimental; decrypting the data partition may not work for some users, and keeping data encrypted while trying to flash Magisk will not work - you will need to wipe and decrypt the device. If you're satisfied just with TWRP, there's not much else you need to do. If you want to run Magisk or decrypt your device for other reasons, keep reading.
Part 2: Removing Forced Encryption
By default, the device encrypts the data partition without input from the user. This is not ideal, and even if TWRP can decrypt and mount your data partition, from my experience Magisk's init process apparently gets things wrong and tries to write to data before its decrypted - whether that's actually the case or not, the fact of the matter is that Magisk has corrupted my data partition every time I've tried to install it while data was encrypted.
DO NOT flash any zip that removes dm-verity and force encryption - these modify the boot and recovery partitions, and the stock kernel doesn't like the way they do it. If you've flashed the patched boot.img first then you'll at least be able to boot to your system partition afterwards, but it'll still nuke recovery even with a custom kernel installed on it. If you're still using the stock boot.img, you'll get boot loops and won't be able to access recovery; your only choice is to enter diagnostic mode, and reflashing anything from that point is a gigantic pain in the ass, so please, just don't. If you feel the need to do it regardless, please please please reflash your boot and recovery images before rebooting.
Counter-intuitively, the quickest and most painless way to stop the device from force-encrypting itself is to modify the fstab on the vendor partition - the boot partition has no fstab files, and the ones in the TWRP recovery image are already set to make encryption optional. Place the fstab.qcom on the phone's microSD card (internal storage will work if you don't have one, as long as TWRP can access your internal storage; if not, use adb push/pull rather than the below commands), boot into TWRP, and adb shell into your device by USB; if done while in TWRP, you should have root permissions. If your PC doesn't see your phone as an ADB-ready device, go to Mount settings in TWRP and tap on the option to disable MTP; after confirming that ADB works, feel free to re-enable MTP. Once ADB is working, run the following commands:
Code:
mount /vendor
cp /vendor/etc/fstab.qcom /external_sd/fstab.qcom.bak
cp /external_sd/fstab.qcom /vendor/etc/fstab.qcom
chmod 644 /vendor/etc/fstab.qcom
umount vendor
.
That's the simple part - you've replaced the fstab on the vendor partition with one that tells the device that encryption is optional, and backed up the original to your microSD as fstab.qcom.bak, just in case. Now you need to actually remove the existing encryption, which will wipe all the user data from the device. If that hasn't scared you out of continuing, read on.
While we're still in TWRP, we need to go to the Wipe menu. From there, we need to Format Data. It'll give you warnings in a scarier color than I did, but you'll have to type yes and continue regardless. Once that's done, hit the back button a couple times before rebooting. Do a standard factory reset, then reboot.
From there, it may take a couple tries for the device to boot normally as it reformats and repopulates the data partition. If you find yourself stuck on a black screen, reboot again, and if it keeps happening, boot into TWRP and then reboot to System from the reboot menu. Eventually, you should be able to get back to the device setup screen, and depending on your security settings beforehand, you may be prompted to enter your PIN, password, or Google account information.
From here, you should be able to mount, backup, and restore your data partition in TWRP without any issues. If you want to go further and root your device, keep reading for the Magisk guide.
Part 3: Any Magisk You'd Like
Note: Magisk and encrypted data partitions do not play nicely together. Follow through Part 2 first, or you'll have headaches.
ZTE's kernel has a custom SELinux plugin called policyproc, which in short doesn't play nice with a lot of things that modify what happens during the kernel's startup sequence. Unfortunately, modifying the startup sequence is what Magisk does best, and versions of Magisk past v16.7 don't play well with the stock kernel.
If you're fine with v16.7, you can download the zip from its Github release page and flash it through TWRP. However, it doesn't support current versions of Magisk Manager or the uninstaller zip, and naturally it doesn't have all the features of newer versions.
This is where the patched boot image comes in. Basically, it's the stock kernel, rebuilt with policyproc disabled, stuffed into the stock boot.img and replacing the original kernel. It's not entirely perfect as ZTE deliberately left out bits of the source, but even working around that, the kernel seems to run fine after nearly a week of testing on my own device. Still, if you run into any issues that don't show up with the stock kernel, please let me know.
So. you can take that patched boot image and install newer versions of Magisk whichever way you'd like. The default method would be to use TWRP to flash the patched boot image, then flash the latest Magisk zip (v20.1 at the time of writing). Alternatively, you could put the patched boot.img on your microSD or internal storage, install the Magisk Manager app, use it to patch Magisk into the patched boot image, then use TWRP to flash the patched-patched-image to the boot partition. Either way should work fine, and honestly I'm hoping if you've made it this far you don't need further instruction on how to get Magisk installed.
Note that on the first reboot after installing Magisk, the phone may reboot again before loading the system normally. I assume this is standard practice for initializing Magisk, but honestly I have no idea.
With that, you've done just about everything you came here to do. If you still feel like tweaking and possibly bricking your phone, however, scroll on down to Part 4.
Part 3.5: Updating Your Magisk Install
When a Magisk update is available, the Magisk Manager app will generally push a notification to you. Letting the manager handle the upgrade is a good way to get bootloops, unfortunately; upgrading requires re-patching and re-flashing the boot image, and most apps running in system mode seem to handle the task poorly on the R2. If you want to update to a newer version of Magisk, it'd be best to reboot into TWRP, flash the 'clean' Magisk-ready boot image, then install the zip for the version of Magisk you want to update to. You don't need to uninstall previous versions of Magisk to do this, and it should be doable even if a previous Magisk upgrade left you stuck in a boot loop. Note that if you previously told the Manager to 'hide' itself, you may end up with two Manager apps after the update; it should be safe to remove either of them, although the one with the Magisk Manager name will need to be re-hidden if you choose to keep it.
Part 4: Going Even Further Beyond - Project Treble and You
Google requires that all Android phones releasing with Android Oreo or newer must support the Treble framework: generally speaking, anything that's 'stock' Android lives on the system partition, and anything manufacturer or carrier specific exists on the vendor partition. This has allowed for developers to create generic system images, or GSI, consisting of particular Android system partitions that should run on a variety of Treble-enabled devices. And wouldn't you know it, the R2 launched with Oreo, and you've got a couple handy methods of writing system images to your device, through TWRP and EDL flashers.
So, does that mean the R2 supports these GSIs? Not really! Honestly, it's more that it's up to curious people to find out. I've been able to get phhussons's Oreo image working, but that's a bit boring on a device that supports Oreo out of the box. A couple more highly modified Pie builds failed to boot properly, either hanging on their splash screen or crashing the display manager before getting through setup.
There's also the fact that they're generally only distributed as sparse system.img files, something I had trouble flashing with QFIL, and up until about 18 hours before this guide went live, the only TWRP build I had for the R2 could only write images to the boot and recovery partitions, not system, so writing them meant I had to decompress them to a standard EXT4 image and then flash them with QFIL, which wasn't a lot of fun to mess with. In short, testing's been pretty limited, but this build of TWRP should make it much easier for anyone to flash whatever image they'd like. If you feel like being a guinea pig, we'd all love to hear the results! If you want to test, you should look for A-only, ARM64 images.
Questions and Issues
My phone is bootlooping after leaving recovery!
If you haven't messed with system partitions in a way that might cause a bootloop, reboot to recovery and try to boot to system from there. If it continues, reflash your boot image (and Magisk afterwards, if necessary, removing the extra Manager app that might pop up in your app tray if you've got Manager disguised in its settings).
I can't access ADB or MTP from recovery.
It happens sometimes, especially in Windows; just toggle MTP on/off from inside TWRP, or unplug and replug your USB cable.
My phone says I need a factory reset, but TWRP just reboots.
This generally happens if something messed with the encrypted data partition. Do not tap the factory reset button on your phone; instead, power off entirely and manually reboot into TWRP by hilding Vol Up while booting. Perform a factory reset (and format data if necessary) from there, then reboot.
(to be populated)
Credits
@deadman96385 - for uploading the tools that made this possible and the stock ROMs that saved my ass more than a few times
@famewolf - for feedback on what did/didn't work in the last guide
@asderdd - for his Axon 7 kernel work which I shamelessly copied to get Magisk working
Anyone who's contributed to Magisk or TWRP over the years, and the maintainers of the moto e5+ device tree for TWRP since I used most of their branch.
Sources
Kernel source, specifically the tree used for the Magisk patch
TWRP device tree
@FEGuy
Attempted to flash the new twrp via zip....acted like it worked but when I when to install section only boot and recovery were options....so I installed the twrp image itself to recovery....rebooted back into recovery and got a black screen. Additional attempts to go into recovery did same thing. I'll attempt to use the flashify app under factory rom to restore previous copy of twrp. It should work as I had magisk going...I think.
That is... not really reassuring. I've suspected the zip flash might not actually work, but I double-checked that TWRP build on my device first.
What's weird is that that's also the only TWRP image I've gotten to boot without dragging it through an AVB signing process. Let me sign that image and reupload it, see if it works any better.
FEGuy said:
That is... not really reassuring. I've suspected the zip flash might not actually work, but I double-checked that TWRP build on my device first.
What's weird is that that's also the only TWRP image I've gotten to boot without dragging it through an AVB signing process. Let me sign that image and reupload it, see if it works any better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Always possible I hosed something....I grabbed the img of the previously good twrp and flashed it via flashify app...said it worked but when booted to recovery got same black screen. I'm about to experiment with the usb drivers you mentioned vs the ZTE USB ones in the op...they conflict with each other so uninstalling old ones.
If the ZTE and QDLoad drivers conflict, I'd probably say keep the QDLoad. I honestly don't remember if I ever installed any ZTE drivers other than the ones that can be served from the phone by USB.
Pretty sure flashify is just broken; I tried it the other day with the same results after flashing a test build that didn't work at all.
I just redownloaded the TWRP from the original link and it worked fine, and there shouldn't be any files or signature tied to my own device, so I don't really know why it wouldn't work on other phones. I've got another one coming in the mail for actual use on Visible, but it won't be here to test on until tomorrow.
In the meantime, try this TWRP. No different other than letting AIK give it an AVB signature, but some of my test images wouldn't boot otherwise. If it works I'll update the zip in the first post.
FEGuy said:
If the ZTE and QDLoad drivers conflict, I'd probably say keep the QDLoad. I honestly don't remember if I ever installed any ZTE drivers other than the ones that can be served from the phone by USB.
Pretty sure flashify is just broken; I tried it the other day with the same results after flashing a test build that didn't work at all.
I just redownloaded the TWRP from the original link and it worked fine, and there shouldn't be any files or signature tied to my own device, so I don't really know why it wouldn't work on other phones. I've got another one coming in the mail for actual use on Visible, but it won't be here to test on until tomorrow.
In the meantime, try this TWRP. No different other than letting AIK give it an AVB signature, but some of my test images wouldn't boot otherwise. If it works I'll update the zip in the first post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I su from adb and do a dd if=twrp-signed.img of=xxxxxxxxxxx can I overwrite it manually from shell and if so do you know the path I should use to get it to our recovery?
If flashify is broken, twrp is broken and I'm unable to use qdl nor qfil I'm kinda screwed (for the moment). The qdload drivers did not show the device on a com port when in edl mode...the zte ones do but then again I can't write anything. Any ideas what the heck is up with the linux qdl? Even with --debug it says nothing.
---------- Post added at 02:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:48 AM ----------
famewolf said:
If I su from adb and do a dd if=twrp-signed.img of=xxxxxxxxxxx can I overwrite it manually from shell and if so do you know the path I should use to get it to our recovery?
If flashify is broken, twrp is broken and I'm unable to use qdl nor qfil I'm kinda screwed (for the moment). The qdload drivers did not show the device on a com port when in edl mode...the zte ones do but then again I can't write anything. Any ideas what the heck is up with the linux qdl? Even with --debug it says nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried dd if=twrp-3.3.1-1-z5151v.img of=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/recovery and did same with new signed one. I still get black screen when recovery "loads". At this point I'm going to have to get something figured out with qdl or qfil.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if dd was going to work or not.
Try the QDLoad drivers again in Windows, make sure that the device is using them. If it's not showing up as a COM port in device manager, force it to use the proper Qualcomm driver, which on my system installed to C:\Windows\system32\qcusbcer.sys - I don't know if that installed with the QDLoad drivers or with QPST/QFIL itself.
As for qdl, I don't know; it's been hassle-free for me, for the most part. If you're sure you're in EDL mode and not diagnostics or something, an output from lsusb might help diagnose the issue. If the debug flag isn't providing useful info, might as well try it without. I don't know if there's services other than modemmanager that might interfere with qdl, it could depend on distro.
EDIT: I'll also preemptively warn against trying the TWRP app to flash; it'll do about as much good as flashify.
Will tackle it "later" in the morning. Thanks for the quick followup. I might see more clearly in morning when not so frustrated with it. I swear I haven't had this many issues with getting twrp installed in a long time.
*update* Ok so I lied....I completely recompiled qdl from https://github.com/andersson/qdl and it's working as expected..I used it to flash the original twrp. I then used that twrp to flash the twrp-signed.img and rebooted back into it with no issues.
I also flashed your patched boot and it got as far as the blue visible screen after the zte one then hung. I reverted to my nandroid copy of boot.
The Treble pie loaded ok...I did do a factory reset so data would not conflict..it did do one reboot before loading normally. See screenshots.
The First 4 are from when it was initially installed. The later photo's I had added gapps, a few apps, snapped a picture to use as wallpaper and various other minor things. I found it to be faster under treble pie than it was with factory oreo. I haven't found anything that didn't work yet on it.
Launcher: Evie Launcher
famewolf said:
I also flashed your patched boot and it got as far as the blue visible screen after the zte one then hung. I reverted to my nandroid copy of boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you still have Magisk installed at the time? I'd have recommended uninstalling Magisk using the uninstaller zip from the 16.7 release before replacing the boot image; if there's still Magisk data in /data then booting with a non-Magisk boot image is probably going to cause issues.
In the meantime, I guess I'll update the TWRP zip with the signed recovery image, just in case.
FEGuy said:
Did you still have Magisk installed at the time? I'd have recommended uninstalling Magisk using the uninstaller zip from the 16.7 release before replacing the boot image; if there's still Magisk data in /data then booting with a non-Magisk boot image is probably going to cause issues.
In the meantime, I guess I'll update the TWRP zip with the signed recovery image, just in case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the current installer which failed. I didn't locate the 16.7 uninstaller.
*update* I did finally locate the 16.7 Magisk Uninstaller.
FEGuy said:
Did you still have Magisk installed at the time? I'd have recommended uninstalling Magisk using the uninstaller zip from the 16.7 release before replacing the boot image; if there's still Magisk data in /data then booting with a non-Magisk boot image is probably going to cause issues.
In the meantime, I guess I'll update the TWRP zip with the signed recovery image, just in case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also installed open gapps pico pie amd64 version on top of the pie rom without issue. I have magisk 16.7 working with treble without issue so maybe it was just the newer versions that had issues?
My 2nd R2 (You are a bad influence) arrived today. Anything you need tested on a stock model? Here's hoping qdl/qfil cooperates 1 last time.
When you were patching the kernel did you see anything that was keeping the phone in LTE only mode for calls? When I get a minute I'm going to put my t-mobile sim into the R2 and see what it will do under the pie rom but since it's still using same kernel I wondered if that would be an issue. We know on the stock rom all calls have to use VOLTE.
I haven't figured that much out yet, unfortunately. I don't know if it's due to the way the kernel is built, or custom libraries distributed on the vendor partition, or what. From what I can tell, the bands are properly unlocked in the NVRAM, and I don't really know enough about modem firmware to make heads or tails of those files.
I will note that for people using the phone on Visible, using a non-stock ROM works for getting around the one-connected-device-per-hotspot limit.
FEGuy said:
I haven't figured that much out yet, unfortunately. I don't know if it's due to the way the kernel is built, or custom libraries distributed on the vendor partition, or what. From what I can tell, the bands are properly unlocked in the NVRAM, and I don't really know enough about modem firmware to make heads or tails of those files.
I will note that for people using the phone on Visible, using a non-stock ROM works for getting around the one-connected-device-per-hotspot limit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had a couple of thoughts...a quick and dirty method to provide "flash and go" rom's might be to do a nandroid of just system or maybe system and boot for whatever rom and make that available for download. I also know there are methods to convert a nandroid into a flashable zip although I haven't done it before. This was more a thought for folks wanting to go to b12 that already had twrp...simple enough for an existing b12 user to back up system. I have verified swapping between nandroid pie vs stock oreo works ok (assuming you are restoring the right data for each). Also the fingerprint "images" continued to work fine after a restore.....on a previous device when we did a nandroid restore we would have to delete the file storing pin/fingerprints as they wouldn't let you into the phone until re-recorded. It also worked if you remember to turn those OFF before doing the backup....wasn't an issue with the R2. The phone is noticeably more responsive on pie than it was with stock oreo. I'm curious whether you found that to be the case with treble oreo?
Oh minor annoyance....I changed the device id to z5151 which is what it showed under stock but when doing an adb shell the command line is "phhgsi_arm64_a:/" Do you know how to change that? This will change it temporarily till next login: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33069161/how-to-change-adb-shell-prompt-name-before-the-mark
You could try using setprop as root to set ro.build.product or ro.product.device back to Z5151, or manually edit the build.prop; beyond that, I don't know of a simpler way.
I'm having trouble getting the mobile data working on pie,
I can search for networks and it finds visible but it wont connect.
thanks!!!!!!!!
rangolizardy said:
I'm having trouble getting the mobile data working on pie,
I can search for networks and it finds visible but it wont connect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The visible apn was missing from my pie,
If you're an idiot like me and flashed to pie before backing up "apns-config.xml" then here is the stock one with the visible apn settings: mega(.)nz/#!t5o2mKDL!qVHZijM-MhfLyZwmkrkQ7OddepV7xQVBsRbQr1AhCLY
Remove the () Someone else can maybe post the intact link as i seem to be unable to.
After this 4G works like a charm.
rangolizardy said:
The visible apn was missing from my pie,
If you're an idiot like me and flashed to pie before backing up "apns-config.xml" then here is the stock one with the visible apn settings: mega(.)nz/#!t5o2mKDL!qVHZijM-MhfLyZwmkrkQ7OddepV7xQVBsRbQr1AhCLY
Remove the () Someone else can maybe post the intact link as i seem to be unable to.
After this 4G works like a charm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Posted for rangolizardy: http://mega.nz/#!t5o2mKDL!qVHZijM-MhfLyZwmkrkQ7OddepV7xQVBsRbQr1AhCLY
Any other important tweaks anyone has made to the treble pie image?
Factory Wallpapers are here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=79011562&postcount=2