Disclaimer: I know this could be a bit OT here, but these experiences could help my Z friends to avoid to brick their phones... so MODs, be patient... and read!
Yesterday afternoon I made my first "soft brick" of my "long" career... on an Oukitel C4!
(...*great* phone for the price! )
I after fixed it in less than an hour (including download time... ), BUT the interesting is *how* this happened.
I haven't done anything wrong BUT trust my TWRP... or, better, my twrp...
When I first time tested my new Moto Z I liked a lot the TWRP officially realized for it... now I'll explain better why.
There are some wide spreaded statements about TWRP (and recovery in general...):
- TWRP/recovery is not involved with normal system booting (e.g.: a not working one for-whatever-reason can't interfere with standard system boot);
- Kernel (boot.img) & system are not involved with TWRP (e.g.: you can even have formatted boot/system partitions and you can still boot to TWRP;
- boot.img & recovery.img are two partition where boot from in indipendent way. Normally of the same size. In some emergency cases, it is even possible to (with intention...) flash a recovery on boot.img to try to fix some soft bricks...
- more...
All these statement are often true *but* not ever, as I teach myself... the hard way! :silly:
If I should base my knowledge on what I've directly experienced on some LG (p880, d802...), Sony (X10 mini, Xperia U) and, *probably* on Moto Z, I will say they are right. Ever.
BUT then I've had some opposite experiences with other devices that I'll list with no comment for now:
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 3G: CWM recovery "hardly flicker" with some ROM versions become unusable. Fixed with successive update anyway...
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.1 4G: both stock & TWRP recovery suffer of "black screen bug until timeout" only with Lollipop+ installed ROMs...
- Oneplus X: first version of TWRP available is able to boot and/or can be flashed only to phones with Lollipop until a xx release. After that release a new TWRP version is mandatory, otherwise it doesn't boot (and will be substituted by stock one if just flashed at first system boot) and system is booted instead...
- and now yesterday, Oukitel C4: double!
1. flashing TWRP interferes with normal system boot, giving a continuous bootloop. Only way to fix it is by flashing SuperSU, then the system boots up fine again!
This weird behaviour is reported/confirmed on a thread on 4pda forum too (if you know russian... )
2. flashing Magisk v.9 (that, as developer says "it modifies only boot.img"...) produces a bootloop too (different from the above). Ok, this can happens...
No problem I said "...I've my stock TWRP full backup just in case... ". Yes.... problem is that this time bootloop affects TWRP too!
Only way to fix: flash again stock boot.img by PC... (recovery don't even needed..!)
This last one is the one which worried me most, since this could be happen on Moto Z too, during my "hacking experiences"...
How all this could happen?
I don't know for sure... but I've some theories...
One is that while some TWRPs are developed to be "fully indipendent" from boot/system firmware (LG d802, Moto Z??) other (let's call them twrps...) are developed not only "based" on a specific system software version (and this is often "declared" too, but it wouldn't be a problem...) but probably "call" some boot.img parts too, becoming "system (kernel) dependent" to work...
My knowledge is not so deep to give a "certain" answer (and if somebody with the needed knowledge wants to correct me/explaim better is the welcome!), BUT on the meanwhile, try to use needed cautions... :fingers-crossed:
@erfanoabdi, @janjan, any thoughts on this?
I know what you meant. In my moto X I flashed a boot of a Chinese version that was completely incompatible with the American model. And I have to wait until the boot of the Moto X pure version was updated. I think that the problem is when you mess with a "newer" bootloader that makes the system incompatible with older versions. In my experience by itself the TWRP doesn't mess with the boot unless you request it.
That's the reason when you make a full backup you include boot and system, to avoid incompatible things.
What are your thoughts?
Sent from my XT1650 using XDA-Developers mobile app
juliospinoza said:
I know what you meant. In my moto X I flashed a boot of a Chinese version that was completely incompatible with the American model. And I have to wait until the boot of the Moto X pure version was updated. I think that the problem is when you mess with a "newer" bootloader that makes the system incompatible with older versions. In my experience by itself the TWRP doesn't mess with the boot unless you request it.
That's the reason when you make a full backup you include boot and system, to avoid incompatible things.
What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This (probably true anyway...), would explain only a minimal part of the above issues...
Even I, in my "previous experiences", would have said for sure that "twrp doesn't mess with boot" too, BUT after what happened on C4 to me (AND confirmed on 4pda by another user too!), this is not true anymore too.
After a single TWRP flash C4 goes to bootloop on normal boot and only flashing SuperSU is able to fix it (how is still a mistery!). So recovery and boot are connected and not indipendent.
More, bootloop created by Magisk (that by what developer says, it touches only boot.img), affected TWRP too and remains even after reflashing it! Only a flash of boot.img is able to fix it!
So, again, recovery and boot are (both ways...) connected and not indipendent.
At least on that device/recovery combination...
On Moto Z I don't know, but some bricks occurred on Nougat are a bit suspect in that way too...
Just found that on C4 SuperSU v.2.78 installs in systemless (on boot.img) mode...
So, what flashing TWRP apparently breaks, SuperSU is then able to fix...
Definitely they are connected on (at least...) that device!
Strange is that SuperSU fixes it and instead Magisk breaks it totally (neither TWRP is still able to boot after flashing it!!)
Quite the opposite than on Moto Z where Magisk seems to have "good influence" even on SuperSU (in system mode!) installation too
I’ll make this short.
I was successfully rooted. But I couldn’t update to 9.5.6.
I updated but it keeps failing. I switch to slot A and I was on 9.5.6 but WiFi didn’t work and apps would crash randomly, and it was laggy. I would go back to slot b and WiFi worked and everything was great but I’m on 9.5.3. And I would try to update again and it would fail and sometimes I would have to have in fastboot and reflash twrp to reboot to restore. I restored the device multiple times, removed root but it still happens. I used to always use android but I was on iOS for years and I’m used to jailbreaking and Apple IOS. Please help me. How can I restore and start from scratch? Or how can I fix this? It’s very annoying. I have my info backed up so I don’t care what I have to do. I love this phone but I had the Verizon iPhone bug when people call me and I answer it fails on there end. Or else I would deal with 9.5.3. All help is greatly appreciated.
You need to read the threads better, it's already been explained that wifi can end up being disabled because the rooted boot.img is older than your current rom version. Flashing one of the kernels available usually fixes this. You can also extract the boot image from the rom you downloaded and patch that boot.img file using Magisk, then when you apply that everything should work correctly.
From reading your post it would appear you're on T-Mobile (US) so you would need to download the 9.5.6 package and then extract the boot.img, then patch that using Magisk and push it to the phone using fastboot, once you reboot everything should be rooted and working.
So, I've got this Moto Z4 XT1980-3 that I loaded the XT1980-4 VZW ROM onto so that I could have Wifi Calling and root. Applied my root and mistakenly flashed a wrong file from another phone that essentially bricked the device. Was able to get back into the device only by running the "flashall.bat" file located in the ROM package that the Verizon software updater downloaded. Great! I was back to normal minus root. Tried to root again and it will not boot. So here I am at square one with no root (root was successful the first time). Now, I'd really like to WIPE the device and start from square one. Does anyone have directions for manually fastboot flashing and wiping this thing? The flashall.bat (I've long since lost a lot of batch file skills) does a dirty reload only. Neither the VZW software updater or the Lenovo Smart Rescue Assistant will wipe and reload it as they do not seem to want to get past an error for checking model type. Help requested! Thanks
Since I rooted my OnePlus and I installed the Elemental X Kernel I´ve got some useful things like using PowerSave mode on the Ex Kernel Manager so I can have better battery life in tight situations and even some freedom that root now gives to me.
But if I want to do things like play Fortnite with my friends or just use NFC I just can´t. So I thinked about the option of flashing the original boot image of the current version on the boot a (which is not in use) of the Oxygen OS I´m using (11.1.4.4) and then leave the modified boot on the b slot. But if I try to boot into the a slot with that image I just can´t boot my phone.
This would be a great idea if it was working.
Is it possible to get it to work?
Note:About Fortnite, I´ve tried every single thing and nothing worked. Followed every guide and nothing worked. Except for Magisk Core, because it´s not available on the most recent version and downgrading Magisk Manager didn´t work too and also failed Safety Net
NFC problems are only caused by Elemental X
I have the ZTE 2050 which has the MT6771 chipset. It seems to well developed in Russia for some reason. The rest of the world hasn't really done much with it. After several battles with root and recovery, I finally got them both to stick. I downgraded the phone from Android 10 to the earlier Android 9 and have TWRP 3.4.0. Still have issues though. As soon as TWRP starts, it ask me for a password. I have tried using no dm verity force encrypt.zip, and I have a patched boot.img from Magisk. When I flash the no dm zip, the phone stays stuck on the boot screen. And the one time it it finally passed that screen, the phone told me the phone could not be decrypted. Another issue is that when I open my root file explorer and try to alter, copy, or do anything within that file system, the phone freezes and needs to be rebooted. I can use Magisk modules to do certain things, but not all that I am trying to do is made into modules. Even simple things like adding to my build.prop. Also, after debloating, when I try to open and read any file, no matter what file manager I use it tells me that my web viewer is no longer installed even though it is. Can anyone tell me what I may possibly be doing wrong in all of these situations? Thanks in advance.