Database Users

Need advice

I have a verizon Galaxy s5 rooted running Eclipse rom. I'm pretty happy with my setup except for the locked bootloader. I need advice on 2 things, so please chime in. 1: What is the best phone on the verizon network? I was thinking nexus 6 but as I am somewhat new to rooting, modifying and themeing, I look to you for advice. I am looking for something with an unlocked bootloader and the screen size(or bigger) like the s5. Of course I want root. Any advice is appreciated. 2: should I take the ota? Now I'm on ni2 4.4.4. I want to still have root and since tw roms are all we can use, I would like to continue with Eclipse. Thank you in advance.

Cdmills said:
I have a verizon Galaxy s5 rooted running Eclipse rom. I'm pretty happy with my setup except for the locked bootloader. I need advice on 2 things, so please chime in. 1: What is the best phone on the verizon network? I was thinking nexus 6 but as I am somewhat new to rooting, modifying and themeing, I look to you for advice. I am looking for something with an unlocked bootloader and the screen size(or bigger) like the s5. Of course I want root. Any advice is appreciated. 2: should I take the ota? Now I'm on ni2 4.4.4. I want to still have root and since tw roms are all we can use, I would like to continue with Eclipse. Thank you in advance.
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1. Personal preference really as far as phone goes. Not many options that I know of with a screen larger than S5 that has unlocked bootloader. IIRC, the HTC One M7 and M8 have unlocked Bootloaders, screen size is comparable, but weight and holding style will be different.
2. Most will likely advise you to flash up to NK2, flash the older kernel ( I think either NCG or NE9 now, not sure 100%. Dig a little) root it, and then re-flash back to NK2.
Hope this helps you out some.

[Q] Should I root my LG G2?

Hello everybody,
I tried posting this same question on other various websites, but I have gotten no replies thus far. I am considering the idea of rooting my LG G2, (Sprint) but I am unsure if I want to. On one hand, the idea of not being able to get it serviced if any accidents were to happen frightens me a bit. The last thing I want to do is root it and totally regret it if I did something wrong. Also, I always hear about these (horror, I guess you could call them) stories of people have terrible luck with rooting even after doing everything properly as instructed. However, that being said, I am not a stupid user. I would not tinker with anything beyond my own capability and I would be very careful about it. If I were to root it, would it be stable? Is it safe? (I would most likely be using CyanogenMod as my custom ROM, just an F.Y.I.)
In conclusion, to root or not to root? Is it worthwhile? Is it something that the "pros" outweigh the cons?
Thank you all so much for your help. I am brand new to this site, so please forgive me if there were any formatting errors, etc.

I was in the same boat a few weeks ago and decided to take the plunge.
A few things to consider:
- Do you have the original stock rom that came with your phone?
- A you comfortable flashing this stock rom with LG Flashtool? (To get back to where you are now.)
- Have you backed up everything on your phone?
- Can you afford a new phone if things go very very wrong?
If the answer is yes to the above, go for it. :victory:
I'm sure a few of the more experienced people on here can give you more advice. I used ioroot and the process was quick and easy. :highfive:

Verizon S5, options for custom oms?

So I got a S5 from Verizon sitting here, would love to install a clean 6.0x rom. Just to ditch the touchwiz and clear up some bloat. I'm fairly noobish on this, is there a good guide to follow? What rom should I use? This would be for my wives phone so once it's flashed it needs to not be jacked up. She complains that her phone get slow and needs a factory reset every once in a while. Hoping this would put a stop to this.

What happens to the One Plus 5 if I unlock the bootloader?

Greetings! I have just ordered my new OP5 and now I hat a Sony Z5. If you were Xperia users, you know that after unlock the bootloader, you lost permanently (or you did a backup before) a speial partition where Sony put very important data for the device (like the camera quality for example).
I know myself ad I have fear that if I unlock the bootloader I lose some imoprtant data or something so my question is: which consequences do you have if you unlock the OP5? Do you lose something important like in the Sony devices or not?
Thank you very much and sorry of there's a thread where you must post this questions :crying:

Unlocking the bootloader basically resets your phone and you lose data plus any apps you installed but you don't lose anything like what you are describing --you just need to set up your phone again. The biggest problem you would encounter is that Android Pay probably wouldn't work unless you flash a custom kernel. Default Android behavior is that if you unlock the bootloader you automatically can't pass Safety Net and I don't think OnePlus or any other phone maker that runs Android is officially allowed to change that behavior --which is why you need a custom kernel to still pass Safety Net.

Oh, and you have a screen at boot that pretty much states that the bootloader has been unlocked.
Not sure why we still have to deal with this as this has been masked on a few other model phones, like the Axon 7, and with all the dev's available for the one+ it's surprising this hasn't been sorted for us too...

So far after unlocking my bootloader and rooting with magisk, android pay is unavailable. I didn't use it much anyways as out here in rural country midwest (USA) it isn't very widespread. As far as warranty goes it is still in effect and 1+ also has a guide for restoring your phone to stock too. It's definitely a great phone for customizing and trying new things with. I didn't apply a new ROM though as most ROMs available at this time are still a work in progress and not what I deem entirely stable. I'm sure someone here will contradict me, but I'm doing fine with what I've got so far.

prozo said:
So far after unlocking my bootloader and rooting with magisk, android pay is unavailable. I didn't use it much anyways as out here in rural country midwest (USA) it isn't very widespread. As far as warranty goes it is still in effect and 1+ also has a guide for restoring your phone to stock too. It's definitely a great phone for customizing and trying new things with. I didn't apply a new ROM though as most ROMs available at this time are still a work in progress and not what I deem entirely stable. I'm sure someone here will contradict me, but I'm doing fine with what I've got so far.
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Works for me on stock 7.1.1....
Sent from my OnePlus5 using XDA Labs

Essentially, if you're happy with how your phone is working, there is no need to unlock the boot loader and root. There is no point to unlock the bootloader and then not root .
Unlocking the bootloader allows custom recoveries and roms/kernels to be installed onto the phone.
It also allows such things as substratum, xposed and magisk to be installed as these apps generally require root priveliges that aren't available with a locked bootloader and being unrooted.
Customisation can be easier, Bloat can be removed instead of just frozen and tweaks can be applied BUT there is a downside too as this has effectively breached Googles security and will break certain apps (mostly banking but there has been reports of streaming apps being affected too on other forums).
Luckily as you have the One+5 you can, if you wish, revert to stock and relock the bootloader thus reverting all changes, unlocking most other phones which will destroy any hope of getting warranty or a relocked bootloader.
Just be sure you HAVE got it back to stock 1st however as having anything different, (kernel,rom or recovery) may very well brick your device once you relock the bootloader.

prozo said:
So far after unlocking my bootloader and rooting with magisk, android pay is unavailable. I didn't use it much anyways as out here in rural country midwest (USA) it isn't very widespread. As far as warranty goes it is still in effect and 1+ also has a guide for restoring your phone to stock too. It's definitely a great phone for customizing and trying new things with. I didn't apply a new ROM though as most ROMs available at this time are still a work in progress and not what I deem entirely stable. I'm sure someone here will contradict me, but I'm doing fine with what I've got so far.
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You need to flash a custom kernel to pass safety net. It won't work with the stock kernel. Blu Spark seems to be the official unofficial kernel and you could easily flash that one and forget it as it is pretty fast and smooth as is. Boeffla kernel is built for stability and is rock solid but if you don't tweak the settings at all you might notice a slight drop in performance from stock. Either one will allow you to pass Safety Net and can improve the speed and performance of the phone over stock. Boeffla also includes a fix for the auto brightness making the phone too dim by allowing you to set a minimum screen brightness that it won't go below.

If I only root the device, will I be able to use Android Pay?

Struziu said:
If I only root the device, will I be able to use Android Pay?
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You can't root without unlocking the bootloader

Hey,
I'm aware this is thread is pretty old, but I'm wondering how things are now? It's been quite some time since I've touched any bootloaders or custom roms and I'm interested in testing android 11 with my op5. What are the downsides with unlocking your bootloader and installing a custom rom?
Google pay not working?
Banking apps not working?
Netflix not working?
I tried searching this forum and googling around and I really could not find any answers. And none of the custom rom threads I checked mention safetynet.

H910 flash now or later

I bought a AT&T spec phone from ebay but because I'm not in the USA nor on AT&T the device is stuck on H91010I from Dec 1, 2016.
From my little reading it appears this old version is possible to root using some of the documented methods but I wonder if it would make sense to wait?
If Oreo does come to the V20 would it be worthwhile to skip going through the song and dance of following the myriad of guides now and save that until some good Oreo roms are available for the device?
1) I despise the AT&T branding and bloatware, I have no idea how they get away with putting so much **** on the phone, I would say nearly half of the apps on the device I will never use or have any interest in using
2) I find the battery life really poor, dunno if it's the stock rom, AT&T bloatware or some combination of the two, my ancient Sony Z3 gets better battery life but it's old as the dinosaurs, how is my new V20 so poor?
3) The guides for rooting and updating to a custom rom for the V20 looks pretty gnarly, run script, install files, sacrifice chickens, dance in a circle with a kiwi on your foot. I understand DirtySanta seems to provide access that I need but man the guides look pretty daunting
What do you guys think?

pr0cs said:
I bought a AT&T spec phone from ebay but because I'm not in the USA nor on AT&T the device is stuck on H91010I from Dec 1, 2016.
From my little reading it appears this old version is possible to root using some of the documented methods but I wonder if it would make sense to wait?
If Oreo does come to the V20 would it be worthwhile to skip going through the song and dance of following the myriad of guides now and save that until some good Oreo roms are available for the device?
1) I despise the AT&T branding and bloatware, I have no idea how they get away with putting so much **** on the phone, I would say nearly half of the apps on the device I will never use or have any interest in using
2) I find the battery life really poor, dunno if it's the stock rom, AT&T bloatware or some combination of the two, my ancient Sony Z3 gets better battery life but it's old as the dinosaurs, how is my new V20 so poor?
3) The guides for rooting and updating to a custom rom for the V20 looks pretty gnarly, run script, install files, sacrifice chickens, dance in a circle with a kiwi on your foot. I understand DirtySanta seems to provide access that I need but man the guides look pretty daunting
What do you guys think?
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Click to collapse
If you want to root I'd would do it now, no one knows right now if oreo will be rootable with the present methods. If you are weary using the dirty santa method I believe runningnaked has another root method here on the forum

If you want updates you will have to root. Att only pushes updates to devices with an active att sim. So your phone will stay on that old firmware indefinitely. The only root method for the device is dirtysanta. That's it. We have a fully locked bootloader with no fastboot so it is the only way to achieve root. Runninnak3ds guide is dirty santa so there is no difference between the two. Both use the dirtycow exploit to push a debug aboot to the phone. So either you root to stay up to date and debloat or you stay how you are. No other way around it

Clearly I have to bite the bullet and start doing some reading and see if I can follow one of the guides. Thanks for the info!

Followed @runningnak3d guide and it went pretty well. I wanted to try a debloated rom but I couldn't get it to work without seeing the crash screen. Stuck with the rom that was included with the guide and just debloated the installation with root as best I could. I have not tried tethering, which never worked with the legacy rom that came with the phone. Nonetheless, the process wasn't too difficult, the hardest part was downloading the kdz file from lg-firmwares.com which took well over a hour to download. I might try and rehost that file for other people stuck in the same situation.

Also when you root it wipes everything on your phone so might as well do it now instead of waiting for your phone to be full of important data.