Hello, and welcome to a short and sweet guide on the way I have found to successfully root our device, the blu studio energy 2!
DISCLAIMER - I am not a developer, and any knowledge I have has come from reading forums and tinkering with android devices I have owned. If you are reading this, you should know that I do not guarantee these steps will work for you, and will not be responsible for any damage this causes your device.
THINGS YOU WILL NEED
1. MTK VCOM Drivers Installed (Guide on XDA)
2. SP Flash Tool
3. Scatter file (modified from Gionee M4 version to match our partition table, attached)
4. TWRP Recovery ported to M4 by Hanuma50
5. SuperSU Flashable ZIP
PROCEDURE
1. Open SPFT, and load the modified scatter file
2. Click the Download Tab, and edit the settings as follows:
A. Make sure 'Download Only' is selected
B. Only Recovery Partition box is checked
C. Make sure correct scatter is loaded3. Double click in 'Location' field next to recovery partition(screenshot highlighted in blue), and select Gionee M4 TWRP recovery.img
4. Click "Download" Button
5. Download/Copy SuperSU zip to phone
6. Power off phone
7. With "Download" button clicked in SPFT, connect phone to USB without powering on (VCOM DRIVERS MUST BE INSTALLED FOR THIS TO WORK)
8. Wait for SPFT to flash, popup with green check-mark will display when complete
9. Disconnect phone from USB, hold power + volume-up keys until boot into TWRP Recovery
10. Install SuperSU zip from TWRP
11. Reboot into system, you are now successfully rooted and with custom recovery!
From this point on, you can install any app needing root, and also perform full nandroid backups using TWRP on Blu Studio Energy 2.
TECHNICAL INFO
For anyone interested in what I have done, it is all very simple, and any credit should go to Hanuma50 at Needrom for porting TWRP to Gionee M4!
The reason we can use Gionee roms/recoveries on our device is because Blu devices are just rebranded (usually Gionee) phones sold in the US. So, all that I have done is use SP Flash tools to load an M4 recovery on our device!
The only real change needed was to change the scatter file, because apparently Gionee uses some different partition sizes than Blu does. Don't worry though, the recovery partitions are exactly the same, and the scatter changes are only to avoid errors that show up without them.
I changed the scatter to reflect the partition sizes/locations found in /proc/partinfo on our Blu phones. This is very easy and if someone is getting 'PMT changed' error in SPFT trying to do this on another MT6735 device, try changing the scatter hex values to match your partinfo file :fingers-crossed:
Just followed your instructions and seems to be working flawlessly!
I didn't have to first flash the drivers because I had already done that previously. When you connect the blu studio energy 2 to your computer via usb, it popus up with a cd of the drivers which you can install.
Thank you! This will make this phone so much better. Also, I must have been using an old version of twrp, because this version has a beautiful UI!
Any suggestions for programs to free or remove, now that we have root access? I am looking forward to messing with this phone now.
I tried installing xposed but was unsuccessful. Have you tried this? Thanks again.
Glad it worked out!
Have just been starting to mess with I thyself to be honest, I actually have gotten xposed to install, haven't gotten gravity box working yet. I installed xposed arm-64 sdk 21.
On a friend's phone I have flashed gionee m4 stock rom, which works really well and seems nicer in some respects to the Blu stock, but I am hesitant to flash it since I haven't found a foolproof way to backup the stock before flashing.
EDIT - I actually got gravity box working, using sdk21 arm64 xposed installer. Everything works really well surprisingly I've had more luck than on my old nexus 4 running stock 5.1. Everything works fine for me, except for power menu, and i think that's just about it for everything else I've tried. QS remapping and navigation button remappiny works great, hope it works for you too!
Outer then that, I have installed adaway and some other apps needing root and they work well. Hopefully we can start getting some nice development for this phone or the m4 in the near future!
danageis said:
Glad it worked out!
Have just been starting to mess with I thyself to be honest, I actually have gotten xposed to install, haven't gotten gravity box working yet. I installed xposed arm-64 sdk 21.
On a friend's phone I have flashed gionee m4 stock rom, which works really well and seems nicer in some respects to the Blu stock, but I am hesitant to flash it since I haven't found a foolproof way to backup the stock before flashing.
EDIT - I actually got gravity box working, using sdk21 arm64 xposed installer. Everything works really well surprisingly I've had more luck than on my old nexus 4 running stock 5.1. Everything works fine for me, except for power menu, and i think that's just about it for everything else I've tried. QS remapping and navigation button remappiny works great, hope it works for you too!
Outer then that, I have installed adaway and some other apps needing root and they work well. Hopefully we can start getting some nice development for this phone or the m4 in the near future!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I thought I tried that version of the installer but I guess not. I'll give it another shot. Can't wait to see what kind of further dev work we get!
I flashed the 78 sdk21 64 zip for xposed but when I reboot it says optimizing apps and then reboots.
Any idea what I might be doing wrong?
portezbie said:
I flashed the 78 sdk21 64 zip for xposed but when I reboot it says optimizing apps and then reboots.
Any idea what I might be doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine did that too, you have to let it do it's thing. It will say optimizing, and keep rebooting, but after every reboot it SHOULD have 1 or 2 fewer apps listed that it says its optimizing. Pretty weird, but afterward it does seem to have installed correctly. It took my phone about 25 minutes of the rebooting, but afterwards I haven't noticed any issues with xposed/gravity box LP.
danageis said:
Mine did that too, you have to let it do it's thing. It will say optimizing, and keep rebooting, but after every reboot it SHOULD have 1 or 2 fewer apps listed that it says its optimizing. Pretty weird, but afterward it does seem to have installed correctly. It took my phone about 25 minutes of the rebooting, but afterwards I haven't noticed any issues with xposed/gravity box LP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh weird. Thanks for the explanation!
Just curious, have you had any trouble playing music on your phone? I have problems playing through aux and Bluetooth.
danageis said:
Just curious, have you had any trouble playing music on your phone? I have problems playing through aux and Bluetooth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What kind of problems are you having? I've only used my energy 2 with headphones and once briefly with a bluetooth speaker just to test it. I've had no trouble with headphones and my brief test with bluetooth audio seemed fine.
If you tell me what problems you're having I can try and test it.
portezbie said:
What kind of problems are you having? I've only used my energy 2 with headphones and once briefly with a bluetooth speaker just to test it. I've had no trouble with headphones and my brief test with bluetooth audio seemed fine.
If you tell me what problems you're having I can try and test it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thanks!
The problem I'm having with aux connection is that the phone thinks the connection is lost/reconnected every few seconds. So after a while, the music will either keep pausing itself, or cut out every few seconds. I have only had this problem with aux cables into stereos, but I have tried multiple cables with the results.
With Bluetooth, there are stutters in the audio.
I have actually returned the first phone I got to amazon because of this problem, and the second one did the same thing, but maybe I really did just get two duds in a row?
Thanks for your help!
danageis said:
Ok thanks!
The problem I'm having with aux connection is that the phone thinks the connection is lost/reconnected every few seconds. So after a while, the music will either keep pausing itself, or cut out every few seconds. I have only had this problem with aux cables into stereos, but I have tried multiple cables with the results.
With Bluetooth, there are stutters in the audio.
I have actually returned the first phone I got to amazon because of this problem, and the second one did the same thing, but maybe I really did just get two duds in a row?
Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I just used the bluetooth speaker in my shower for 20 minutes to listen to pandora. I did not notice any stuttering. I will try hooking up the phone to my stereo tomorrow and seeing what happens.
portezbie said:
So I just used the bluetooth speaker in my shower for 20 minutes to listen to pandora. I did not notice any stuttering. I will try hooking up the phone to my stereo tomorrow and seeing what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, weird... well thanks for your help!
danageis said:
Hmmm, weird... well thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Connected it to my stereo with a standard 3.5mm cable and listened to a podcast with pocketcast. Didn't experience any problems.
portezbie said:
Connected it to my stereo with a standard 3.5mm cable and listened to a podcast with pocketcast. Didn't experience any problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... Well, thanks for checking. I'm not sure why I'm having so many problems...
danageis said:
Hmm... Well, thanks for checking. I'm not sure why I'm having so many problems...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm trying to think what could be different. I haven't installed xposed on my phone, maybe it is something related to that, or some other change that you have made and I haven't?
portezbie said:
I'm trying to think what could be different. I haven't installed xposed on my phone, maybe it is something related to that, or some other change that you have made and I haven't?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure, I have tried it out with the same problems on both phones, right after I got them from Amazon, before I made any changes
danageis said:
I'm not sure, I have tried it out with the same problems on both phones, right after I got them from Amazon, before I made any changes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Crazy. I have no idea then.
I received this phone yesterday and have been playing around with it. My previous phone was a Samsung Blaze 4G (yes, really old but still chugging along) that was rooted and running Cyanogenmod 10. I am planning on rooting this phone, but was curious if anyone had tried using Kingoroot to do so?
Apologies if this doesn't belong in this thread, I was just curious about the various methods of rooting that might be available.
Cheers!
Update: Kangoroot does not currently root the Blu Studio Energy 2 phone (sorry, I was impatient). I will have a crack at it using your method listed by the OP.
Vinotas said:
Update: Kangoroot does not currently root the Blu Studio Energy 2 phone (sorry, I was impatient). I will have a crack at it using your method listed by the OP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried all the one click root methods I could find and none of them worked. Just use the ops method, it is quite easy and works like a charm.
On an unrelated subject, I tried installing xposed and after reading ops description it worked fine for me. Have had no issues since installing xposed although gravitybox didn't seem to work properly, but I think that is due to the phone's rom. Amplify works great and so does greenify. I am currently testing out powernap, and it seems to work so far.
I was trying to root my OPO by flashing SuperSU Beta_V2.52 but after each flash my OPO goes into a boot loop, flashed several builds of SuperSU (inc; beta's) and all of them result in a bootloop. To be on the safe side i did fresh installs of CM13 via bootloader, no result.
Pulling my hair what the solution will be. Dev's from "Cyanogenmod-team" are aware of this problem but find its not there problem to solve...:
It needs to be said that this issue with SU is something that is outside the scope of official support. We neither recommend or support SuperSU installs, as it opens the device up security wise in ways that most users (not all, some do the homework to understand what's going on) either ignore or are ignorant of. So if there's a bootloop happening, you are going to need to diagnose it on your own, or with others help here. You can also check XDA as well.
sandeman11 said:
I was trying to root my OPO by flashing SuperSU Beta_V2.52 but after each flash my OPO goes into a boot loop, flashed several builds of SuperSU (inc; beta's) and all of them result in a bootloop. To be on the safe side i did fresh installs of CM13 via bootloader, no result.
Pulling my hair what the solution will be. Dev's from "Cyanogenmod-team" are aware of this problem but find its not there problem to solve...:
It needs to be said that this issue with SU is something that is outside the scope of official support. We neither recommend or support SuperSU installs, as it opens the device up security wise in ways that most users (not all, some do the homework to understand what's going on) either ignore or are ignorant of. So if there's a bootloop happening, you are going to need to diagnose it on your own, or with others help here. You can also check XDA as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try SuperSU V2.76?
[CENTER[/CENTER]
sandeman11 said:
I was trying to root my OPO by flashing SuperSU Beta_V2.52 but after each flash my OPO goes into a boot loop, flashed several builds of SuperSU (inc; beta's) and all of them result in a bootloop. To be on the safe side i did fresh installs of CM13 via bootloader, no result.
Pulling my hair what the solution will be. Dev's from "Cyanogenmod-team" are aware of this problem but find its not there problem to solve...:
It needs to be said that this issue with SU is something that is outside the scope of official support. We neither recommend or support SuperSU installs, as it opens the device up security wise in ways that most users (not all, some do the homework to understand what's going on) either ignore or are ignorant of. So if there's a bootloop happening, you are going to need to diagnose it on your own, or with others help here. You can also check XDA as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Happened to me couple of times while switching from cm12.1 to cm13. Turns out marshmallow doesn't really support superSU v2.52. Try v2.76 instead. Worked like a charm for me
P.S.:update your TWRP to version 3.0.
So I am running beta 3 of Ressurection Remix from OpenKirin website. Everything is smooth even after heavy tweaks. But I want to root this ROM. Reason is I want to uninstall built-in apps and some of my apps require root access. I already tried rooting the ramdisk.img. it failed. Even though it was rooted root access wasn't available. So can I directly flash latest magisk via elemental ROM TWRP? Or is there any other method?
Like you, I'm on the same build from yesterday, and obviously the minimum that I'd like to do is to root the ROM, since that we already miss a fully working TWRP and a compatible Xposed framework.
I discovered just yesterday topjohnwu's thread about patching the stock boot.img with the custom Magisk Manager apk for Huawei devices, but before doing everything I've decided to make a search on XDA, and I've stumbled upon this. So neither patching the stock ramdisk.img works?? Dammit. Becsuse standing by what i know, flashing latest Magisk on an A only GSI works, but i haven't read successful cases rooting an OpenKirin ROM yet.
I'd like to test this method, but i still have to setup some stuff on this ROM, and so i don't want to try something that could mess up system, trashing all the time that I've spent on configuring the device.
I'll update ya as soon as i can, if something useful should come out. I hope to update you soon!
Dude. I have done it and would like to tell you that it can be flashed normally. Currently enjoying root with all modules working. If you have an honor 6x just flash TWRP from elemental room thread and then latest magisk. So far no issues, no bootloop. However after first installation I recommend you to install via direct patch once again to ensure everything works. i.eif you still wanna know. This is way simpler
Thanks for letting me know mate, yeah i have a 6X. Actually I've installed TWRP and flashed latest stable Magisk, V17.1. Magisk is correctly detected by Magisk Manager.
Now, the file that i should provide to patch on Magisk Manager is stock EMUI 8.0 boot.img, correct?
Nope. If you have magisk installed just direct install once again via magisk manager and you're good to go
Thanks Mannan, I'm enjoying root goodies too now.
I take the chance to ask ya if sound mods like Viper/Dolby Atmos will also work or not as a Magisk module, since that time ago (but even recently) i saw some users that was saying in a couple of threads that flashing one of these would corrupt system files, and so EMUI 8 had to be flashed again.
First of all we aren't on EMUI 8bso no corruption. We are on Android 8.1 so any Sound Mod for this Firmware should work. Now I haven't flashed it yet cause mainly I have to find a working one and of the risk of soft brick. But I will try and let you know if I find a working one. Same goes for exposed framework
Got it. Well it would be great, especially Xposed in systemless version.
EDIT - going off topic a while, even you notice a charging time much slower than on stock? Before, i usually charged something like 60-65% in one hour, now it tooks at least 1 hour and an half to achieve the same percentage of battery. Gotta tweak this someway.
Tried installing Viper4android. Gives IO error while mounting driver. Xposed I havent tried
Mannan Qamar said:
Tried installing Viper4android. Gives IO error while mounting driver. Xposed I havent tried
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the feedback. Sadly i think that Xposed won't work too.
Hi, my apologies if this has been posted already. I have successfully rooted my moto g8 plus. However, when I tried to install both Viper4Android and James (separately., of course) i could not get it to work and while playing around with it, the system crashed and I needed to do recovery.
The first time I installed V4A, I was able to get the drivers successfully installed, but it said that it was not processing even though audio was playing. I am wondering if it has something to do with Motorola's built-in audio equalizer, which is laughable but might conflict.
Any assistance, or a link to some add'l assistance, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Thanks
Preamble / RamblingHello dear xda-community,
I am a little desperate right now. After hours of searching for solutions I am sadly out of luck and afraid I might destroy the system if I try to solve this issue any further by my own. :/
By no means I am an expert in flashing / rooting mobile devices, so please forgive me if I did something stupid.
But with that out of the way I hope you can help me. Thank you already for your efforts.
Have a great day,
TheAverageUser
The ProblemWhen trying to connect to a WiFi the connection disrupts and apparently the entire network management component (?) crashes and restarts.
I suspect it of crashing because the connection to the internet via my SIM card is disconnected as well for a short period of time after the WiFi tries to connect to a base station.
How I got here
Upgraded from LOS 17.1 to 18.1 like so
Installed TWRP as described here
Installed Magisk as described in the "Custom Recovery" section of this guide
Additional Information
After upgrading to LOS 18.1 I noticed that Magisk did not work anymore, so I tried to find a way to re-root my device.
A long search later I decided that I needed TWRP in order to root the device as many guides I found required this to be the case. Sadly I can't remember how I rooted the device the first time.
The mentioned method for installing Magisk seemed to be the only one working for me. (I did not find anything better.)
I would love to fix my current OS without having to start over, because setting it up again is very tedious.
Previous Setup (Before Upgrade)
OnePlus 6 (obviously ^^)
Lineage OS 17.1
Magisk
Lineage Recovery
Updates:
#1 Okay. Now I am even more confused. The phone just connected to my WiFi and it seems to work. I didn't do anything as of yet. I am going to investigate further to find out when exactly the connections fail. Honestly I don't like a 50:50 chance of it working ^^ (Just to be clear. My problem is not fixed as of yet.)
#2 For some reason the WiFi is now working. The only thing that I can think of which might have solve the issue is that I have uninstalled and reinstalled the "F-Droid Privilgeded Extension" for Magisk.
TheAverageUser said:
Preamble / RamblingHello dear xda-community,
I am a little desperate right now. After hours of searching for solutions I am sadly out of luck and afraid I might destroy the system if I try to solve this issue any further by my own. :/
By no means I am an expert in flashing / rooting mobile devices, so please forgive me if I did something stupid.
But with that out of the way I hope you can help me. Thank you already for your efforts.
Have a great day,
TheAverageUser
The ProblemWhen trying to connect to a WiFi the connection disrupts and apparently the entire network management component (?) crashes and restarts.
I suspect it of crashing because the connection to the internet via my SIM card is disconnected as well for a short period of time after the WiFi tries to connect to a base station.
How I got here
Upgraded from LOS 17.1 to 18.1 like so
Installed TWRP as described here
Installed Magisk as described in the "Custom Recovery" section of this guide
Additional Information
After upgrading to LOS 18.1 I noticed that Magisk did not work anymore, so I tried to find a way to re-root my device.
A long search later I decided that I needed TWRP in order to root the device as many guides I found required this to be the case. Sadly I can't remember how I rooted the device the first time.
The mentioned method for installing Magisk seemed to be the only one working for me. (I did not find anything better.)
I would love to fix my current OS without having to start over, because setting it up again is very tedious.
Previous Setup (Before Upgrade)
OnePlus 6 (obviously ^^)
Lineage OS 17.1
Magisk
Lineage Recovery
Updates:
#1 Okay. Now I am even more confused. The phone just connected to my WiFi and it seems to work. I didn't do anything as of yet. I am going to investigate further to find out when exactly the connections fail. Honestly I don't like a 50:50 chance of it working ^^ (Just to be clear. My problem is not fixed as of yet.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it not because of your base OOS version?
Just do this and you are 100% okay.
1. Use MSM Tool here (it is like a full factory reset with a clean install - you have to unlock your bootloader again!!!)
2. Download latest OOS Full Update here, latest TWRP here, NikGapps here (Magisk if you like) and copy them into Device
3. Flash OOS, TWRP & Reboot to Recovery
4. Flash OOS, TWRP & Reboot to Recovery
5. Flash LOS-ROM, TWRP & Reboot to Recovery
6. Flash NikGapps (and Magisk) & get back to Menu
7. Select Wipe and just swipe to wipe data
8. Reboot to system
9. Done
Hello @tiga016 and @Pundy,
so here is an update on my situation:
For some reason the WiFi is now working. The only thing that I can think of which might have solve the issue is that I have uninstalled and reinstalled the "F-Droid Privilgeded Extension" for Magisk.
@Pundy
Thank you very much for this guide. For now I will continue to use my device in its current state, but as soon as I try to do a major update I will come back to your guide in order to install everything in a clean manner.
@tiga016
Thank you for your interest in my issue. For now I will consider this problem to be solved.
Pundy said:
Just do this and you are 100% okay.
1. Use MSM Tool here (it is like a full factory reset with a clean install - you have to unlock your bootloader again!!!)
2. Download latest OOS Full Update here, latest TWRP here, NikGapps here (Magisk if you like) and copy them into Device
3. Flash OOS, TWRP & Reboot to Recovery
4. Flash OOS, TWRP & Reboot to Recovery
5. Flash LOS-ROM, TWRP & Reboot to Recovery
6. Flash NikGapps (and Magisk) & get back to Menu
7. Select Wipe and just swipe to wipe data
8. Reboot to system
9. Done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Pundy,
I have updated from LOS 17.1 to 18.1 (clean install) sadly wifi was not working with 17.1 and also not with 18.1. Therefore I have installed OOS (without TWRP) one of the latest version and made an update via wifi to the current version. So wifi is ok. Following the LOS howto, I was successful in installing the latest LOS BUT again wifi is not working...
Sadly also using the MSM Tool is not working. The MSM Tool does not connect with the OP6 (Sahara problem). I have tried it many times...
Any alternative?
BR Martin