I had done the CF-Autoroot for my wifes (already second) S4 when it was still on the 4.2.2 back in late September, simply for AdAway, Titanium Backup, and the HotSpot mod. Well, after much time had passed she didn't know it was pertinent, and decided to uninstall Superuser because she didn't know what it was and it was causing her to have "a whole extra page in her app drawer". Needless to say, Superuser was broken, and she no longer has root. I tried just installing the original SU to no avail. I haven't messed with it any further. It's been so long since I rooted it, and it has been a crazy 6 months. I'm a bit fuzzy on the do's and don't's, so I did nothing more in fear of doing something that will trip KNOX or similar.
I've been reading, but can't seem to find a definitive answer.
First Issue - I would like to get her phone back to being 100% stock, non-rooted, no flags tripped or anything. This is the second incident she's had, and I've decided that the few advantages root gives her isn't worth bricking a phone or ruining the warranty and not being able to get a replacement. She drops them frequently, and complains about the Otterbox, so she frequently takes it off...
Second Issue - I have an identical setup - SPH-L720 handset running the stock recovery and stock 4.2.2 ROM, but it is still rooted. Is there a way to bypass KNOX completely to get a custom recovery on there? It seems like every thread I come across is rather unresolved. Ideally I would like to remove KNOX completely, flash to a custom recovery, and install a de-bloated ROM of some sort (Play Edition Clone/SlimBean, etc). What is the easiest and safest way to go about this, with an option to flash back to full stock still being available?
If both phones are on 4.2.2 which is MDC,MDL,or MF9 then you do NOT have Knox bootlaoder so you are fine to Odin MF9 tar or what ever version of those three that you have. And bmake sure to back up anything important.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
Related
Does anyone know which is newer, and what changed between the two?
I have XXUAME2, and I've updated my firmware through Kies. I don't remember what I had before. This one must be newer.
Haven't noticed any change, apart from the blue default background in the wallpapers is now a bit darker without the sun flare. I might've noticed a few very minor things in the settings, though I don't remember what they were.
Well I was on XXUAMDC when I first got my handset, and flashed XXUAMDN via Odin when getting root access. I found it removed any carrier branding and fixed a bug with the standard launcher not allowing sorting apps in folders properly. Just wondering if XXUAME2 is newer and fixes anything else.
StuartTheFish said:
Well I was on XXUAMDC when I first got my handset, and flashed XXUAMDN via Odin when getting root access. I found it removed any carrier branding and fixed a bug with the standard launcher not allowing sorting apps in folders properly. Just wondering if XXUAME2 is newer and fixes anything else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll tell you a sad story about XXUAME2.
I rooted my phone a few weeks after I got it, everything worked fine. Then I saw the firmware update in Kies, sure I'll download! I already knew updating stock firmware would remove root, but I could always flash it again. So after I updated my firmware, I flashed root again. This time the phone couldn't recognise the superuser app, and kept alerting that there was a threat (meaning the superuser app) every 5 minutes but root still worked. So I removed superuser completely. The threat messages didn't stop, though. I flashed a clean stock ROM, everything was fine.
Until, an ancient evil awakens! (not really ancient, but...) My Group Play app started acting weirdly. It was constantly 50-70% of my battery drain, even above the screen, on my battery page. I freezed the app and hoped for the best, but it didn't work. I couldn't remove it because my root messed up. BetterBatteryStats didn't recognise anything odd. I asked XDA, but my thread only got 1 answer telling me to look for updates, and none were to be found. Google didn't tell me anything. So I gave up, and did a factory reset. I didn't really mind, I got the phone back running and looking the same in one evening, it's not as if I had years worth of stuff in it yet. This was 2 days ago, and everything seems to be pretty much normal.
I probably messed up somewhere, but thought I'd still write a cautionary tale about updating firmware while rooted. As I mentioned, probably nothing of importance was updated, so it would be a little safer to not update. You won't miss out.
Tozenator said:
I'll tell you a sad story about XXUAME2.
I rooted my phone a few weeks after I got it, everything worked fine. Then I saw the firmware update in Kies, sure I'll download! I already knew updating stock firmware would remove root, but I could always flash it again. So after I updated my firmware, I flashed root again. This time the phone couldn't recognise the superuser app, and kept alerting that there was a threat (meaning the superuser app) every 5 minutes but root still worked. So I removed superuser completely. The threat messages didn't stop, though. I flashed a clean stock ROM, everything was fine.
Until, an ancient evil awakens! (not really ancient, but...) My Group Play app started acting weirdly. It was constantly 50-70% of my battery drain, even above the screen, on my battery page. I freezed the app and hoped for the best, but it didn't work. I couldn't remove it because my root messed up. BetterBatteryStats didn't recognise anything odd. I asked XDA, but my thread only got 1 answer telling me to look for updates, and none were to be found. Google didn't tell me anything. So I gave up, and did a factory reset. I didn't really mind, I got the phone back running and looking the same in one evening, it's not as if I had years worth of stuff in it yet. This was 2 days ago, and everything seems to be pretty much normal.
I probably messed up somewhere, but thought I'd still write a cautionary tale about updating firmware while rooted. As I mentioned, probably nothing of importance was updated, so it would be a little safer to not update. You won't miss out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason for that is chainfire's root method doesn't work for newer versions (or should I say didn't, apparently it does now). The newer kernel didn't allow root access, making the su binary appear to be missing. The error messages are also normal on newer versions, since it detects something is trying to get root access. To get around the missing binary issue, you can use djembey's modified version of getting root instead, which afaik installs the older kernel again so it can actually get root. Then to get rid of the repeated error messages, you have to disable KNOX. Again, it says how in djembey's root thread.
XXUAMDN is one of the newer versions which didn't work via chainfire's method, yet I have root access with no issues after following djembey's thread. Might be worth a look to get yours sorted.
StuartTheFish said:
The reason for that is chainfire's root method doesn't work for newer versions (or should I say didn't, apparently it does now). The newer kernel didn't allow root access, making the su binary appear to be missing. The error messages are also normal on newer versions, since it detects something is trying to get root access. To get around the missing binary issue, you can use djembey's modified version of getting root instead, which afaik installs the older kernel again so it can actually get root. Then to get rid of the repeated error messages, you have to disable KNOX. Again, it says how in djembey's root thread.
XXUAMDN is one of the newer versions which didn't work via chainfire's method, yet I have root access with no issues after following djembey's thread. Might be worth a look to get yours sorted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting, very interesting. I might look into rooting one more time, then. Thanks!
Funny how you helped me instead of the other way around. Thanks again, I hope more people notice your thread and maybe you'll get your answer!
where is this new firmware xxuamdn, havent found anything about it..
im having camera, battery drain, slowness issuess still hope it fixes..
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda app-developers app
I have none of those issues, but never did even on the older version. All I did was Google for galaxy s4 update and I found a download link for it along with Odin. But there's also XXUAME2 out there and I don't know which one I'd be better having. Unless the only difference is the radio depending on where in the world you are?
Hi,
Given that I have had the misfortune (self inflicted) of 'upgrading' to the MH8 firmware I am finding that even rooted Tasker can no longer do the things it once did, e.g. reliably turn on/off bluetooth or even kill a basic app (even using root). I am wondering therefore whether I could use something like CM10.2 instead. My Knox warranty qfuse is stuffed as it is, so no point trying to stay true to stock any more and thought I might give CM10.2 a go.
The question I have is can this be done now that I have the Knox'ed bootloader?
If so is the installation the same as for a normal 10.2 install, and will I have to do a system reset? I am assuming yes to the latter, just wanted to make sure.
If someone is able to clarify that would be great - I don't expect warranty to be intact any more, clearly the boat has sailed, so would it be possible to run CM 10.2 or similar now?
I figured in for a penny, in for a pound so I went ahead and tried it anyway.
On the first attempt I noticed I only had around 2Gb of free space so did some digging and see that this is partly because you can't change the partition table on the S4 and, using a file browser, because it looked like I had some crud left over from before (despite clearing caches etc).
Using the recovery I tried formatting everything but that just soft bricked things, so I went ahead and re-flashed MH8 to get back to stock and then followed the steps to install CWM recovery and ultimately CM10.2 nightly. I now had the majority of the 9.25Gb available to me which is enough for my needs, although a shame you cannot just use all of the space as you wish and not as Samsung wants.
So far quite impressed with CM10.2, feels nice and snappy and obviously without most of the Samsung cruft. Just missing the S-View cover functionality at the moment but other than that I'm happy an will probably stick with it.
Well for starters, high everyone!
I have an issue with my S4 and I've searched all over but none of what has been recommended helps.
The issue I have is that my phone will restart about every 10 minutes (give or take). I used Reboot Logger to determine this. The phone only restarts when it is idle. It WILL NOT restart if I am using it (screen is on). The weird part is that it doesn't even go through the whole reboot sequence. The screen will stay black the entire time. The notification button pulses and the home buttons will light up like it was restarting though.
I had a bad battery and had it replaced with a stock Samsung battery. I've tried pulling the SD card, pulling the battery for 10 minutes, pulling the battery while the phone is on, and I've performed two factory resets.
The one thing I have noticed is that, after performing the factory reset, I get an "error" under the little android dude. This also happens if I do a cache wipe.
My model is the SPH-L720 running on android v4.3. The phone has never been rooted and there are no software or firmware updates that are found.
I was beginning to think that this was a hardware issue but the consistency in reboot intervals makes me believe otherwise. At this point I'm at a loss. I rooted my old phone but my experience in that area is very limited. I have read that the cache partition is bad from the factory on some of these (hence the error message) so I was thinking about rooting the phone and trying to use a good cache partition, but that's the only other option I could think of.
sounds like a voltage prob....or mem prob... id redownload a new rom..wipe wipe wipe..reinstall and that should fix it
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app
Insufficient voltage at idle was my first thought too, but if you haven't undervolted (since you aren't even rooted), that seems less likely. If I were you, I'd root the phone so I could do more to figure things out. Maybe try bumping up the voltage a little on the lower clock speeds.
Ok, first of all, do not root your phone. As you admitted yourself, you have limited experience in this area, and there is nothing that rooting will do for you. Not to mention, if you think you have a bad cache partition, you don't need root to fix it. Your phone is stock, running the stock kernel, there is no reason to suspect voltage issues that are not hardware related. If you root the phone, you will likely trip KNOX, and void your warranty.
My personal opinion is that your phone has a hardware problem. If you want to truly start over, either recover your phone through KIES, or better yet, download and flash via ODIN a stock MK2 ROM from this forum. Since this is a stock, signed ROM, you will not trip KNOX, and it will rewrite every partition properly on it's own. This is all assuming you don't have a hardware problem. But do not go ahead and try to fix anything yourself besides what I mentioned. You will not succeed, and likely lose your warranty in the process.
Edit: did you buy this phone new or used? If you bought it used, more than likely somebody ruined it for you. And more than likely, you can fix it. If this was a new device, more than likely it will be a warranty issue. That's why you shouldn't do anything to void the warranty.
If you're going to use odin for anything, just make sure you follow someone's directions step by step. Otherwise very bad things can happen.
im also having a slightly similar problem
Problem : The screen after a sleight amount of time of being on, or sometimes instantly when opening the lockscreen it freezes for 10-15 sec then shoots black lines across it, then reboots.
Things ive tried :
1. Installing a new rom ( from AOKP 4.4 and Triforce 4.3)
2. Changing modem (from MJA, MK2, NAE)
3. Changing the type
of Gapps i was using. (4.3 gapps for triforce, aokp 4.4 gapps, and pa gapps)
Current Phone Info:
Rom: aokp_jfltespr_kitkat_nightly_2014-02-08
Modem/Firmware: NAE
Gapps: Pa.gapps 4.4.x
Let me know if you need anything more! plz!
I'll look into Odin before I root. The phone was also purchased new. I spent most of today monkeying around with different settings to see if I could trigger the issue as well. As it turns out, the phone will only restart at idle if it's plugged into the charger, or the wifi is on. If wifi is off and it's not plugged in it's fine. I am also using the stock Samsung charger that came with the phone. Again though, if I'm actively using the phone it doesn't happen (charging or connected to wifi). I did turn the phone off earlier to charge it but would keep freezing at the sprint logo upon boot up. I thought it was bricked for a second... I wiped the cache (didn't do a factory reset) and that fixed it, but now I have that stupid issue where videos won't play on wifi, only on 4G or 3G. It's an issue I thought I had solved.
Le sigh. This is frustrating. The Odin option is looking to be my best bet it seems.
Tizamarou said:
im also having a slightly similar problem
Problem : The screen after a sleight amount of time of being on, or sometimes instantly when opening the lockscreen it freezes for 10-15 sec then shoots black lines across it, then reboots.
Things ive tried :
1. Installing a new rom ( from AOKP 4.4 and Triforce 4.3)
2. Changing modem (from MJA, MK2, NAE)
3. Changing the type
of Gapps i was using. (4.3 gapps for triforce, aokp 4.4 gapps, and pa gapps)
Current Phone Info:
Rom: aokp_jfltespr_kitkat_nightly_2014-02-08
Modem/Firmware: NAE
Gapps: Pa.gapps 4.4.x
Let me know if you need anything more! plz!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since you are running a custom source-built ROM, first thing to do would be to ODIN a stock ROM. If the problems go away, you have your answer. If not, this would likely be a warranty issue. Of course you tripped KNOX most likely already.
sputnik767 said:
Ok, first of all, do not root your phone. As you admitted yourself, you have limited experience in this area, and there is nothing that rooting will do for you. Not to mention, if you think you have a bad cache partition, you don't need root to fix it. Your phone is stock, running the stock kernel, there is no reason to suspect voltage issues that are not hardware related. If you root the phone, you will likely trip KNOX, and void your warranty.
My personal opinion is that your phone has a hardware problem. If you want to truly start over, either recover your phone through KIES, or better yet, download and flash via ODIN a stock MK2 ROM from this forum. Since this is a stock, signed ROM, you will not trip KNOX, and it will rewrite every partition properly on it's own. This is all assuming you don't have a hardware problem. But do not go ahead and try to fix anything yourself besides what I mentioned. You will not succeed, and likely lose your warranty in the process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright I'm a little confused as to what exactly I should be using. I found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2575470
which is a stock ROM. Although I also found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2259513&highlight=odin
which is the stock firmware.
Which one do I use, or do I use both of them?
Dfeeds said:
Alright I'm a little confused as to what exactly I should be using. I found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2575470
which is a stock ROM. Although I also found this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2259513&highlight=odin
which is the stock firmware.
Which one do I use, or do I use both of them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Neither. Use this one : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2601443
Follow instructions in the thread. This is a completely stock rom with no root or mods and will not trip the Knox bootloader. If you flash anything other than this, including custom recovery, cf autoroot, etc, you will void your warranty.
rebooting
i had this problem once and it was related to a corrupt file on my sdcard believe it or not. there are Defraggers out there for your android file system and internal SD card but your Ext sc you would have to do on your PC. it worked for me. the one i used is called CLEAN i got it off amazon app store.
cyberweasal
Dfeeds said:
Well for starters, high everyone!
I have an issue with my S4 and I've searched all over but none of what has been recommended helps.
The issue I have is that my phone will restart about every 10 minutes (give or take). I used Reboot Logger to determine this. The phone only restarts when it is idle. It WILL NOT restart if I am using it (screen is on). The weird part is that it doesn't even go through the whole reboot sequence. The screen will stay black the entire time. The notification button pulses and the home buttons will light up like it was restarting though.
I had a bad battery and had it replaced with a stock Samsung battery. I've tried pulling the SD card, pulling the battery for 10 minutes, pulling the battery while the phone is on, and I've performed two factory resets.
The one thing I have noticed is that, after performing the factory reset, I get an "error" under the little android dude. This also happens if I do a cache wipe.
My model is the SPH-L720 running on android v4.3. The phone has never been rooted and there are no software or firmware updates that are found.
I was beginning to think that this was a hardware issue but the consistency in reboot intervals makes me believe otherwise. At this point I'm at a loss. I rooted my old phone but my experience in that area is very limited. I have read that the cache partition is bad from the factory on some of these (hence the error message) so I was thinking about rooting the phone and trying to use a good cache partition, but that's the only other option I could think of.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sputnik767 said:
Neither. Use this one : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2601443
Follow instructions in the thread. This is a completely stock rom with no root or mods and will not trip the Knox bootloader. If you flash anything other than this, including custom recovery, cf autoroot, etc, you will void your warranty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That solved my problem, thank you! I spent the last couple days testing it just to be sure I wouldn't be crying wolf. The phone has yet to restart on me even while charging or using wifi. The error message I would receive after a cache wipe or factory reset went away as well. It makes me wonder if the bad partition was what caused my old battery to fail.
Dfeeds said:
That solved my problem, thank you! I spent the last couple days testing it just to be sure I wouldn't be crying wolf. The phone has yet to restart on me even while charging or using wifi. The error message I would receive after a cache wipe or factory reset went away as well. It makes me wonder if the bad partition was what caused my old battery to fail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, I am glad it worked out, and hopefully your problem is resolved. I doubt that your old battery failed due to a bad partition, and I have to wonder how your partition got messed up in the first place, but that's just a curiosity and is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Just remember that if you decide to root, cf_autoroot works but will trip the KNOX bootloader and potentially void your warranty.
Hello folks,
I have a S4 that I rooted back when it first came out. I'm on 4.2.2, I337UCUAMDL and want to update to hopefully stock 4.4 but with root and the ability to change to a custom rom later on. What's my best course of action?
Is there a stock rom that's basically pre-rooted and without Knox, or should I OTA to 4.4.2 and use Towelroot and Safestrap? I'll preface this a tad by saying that I currently can't seem to load CWM Recovery via ROM Manager. SU keeps force closing and I think regular recovery boots instead. I would assume there's a way to load it manually, like ODIN or something, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Thanks for your time and sorry if someone has asked this before! I couldn't find anything with some quick searches.
EDIT - I actually got CASUAL to fully process (kept hanging before) and got TWRP installed. So I guess my only question now is what ROM to load?
Have MJE and had stopped OTAs. Would like to move forward to lollipop on this phone. 2 different questions:
1. Would I be able to install a lollipop ROM from MJE or is it already locked down with no options
2. Phone is in "custom" mode. Can I just reenable OTA updates and let it receive updates OTA without bricking or does the knox need reset first? Not worried about warranty issues.
Please spare the flames, I dont know what I am doing much but can follow instructions and I am just looking for a little help. Dont want to blow my phone out and not be able to do anything with it. Thanks!
mwinschel said:
Have MJE and had stopped OTAs. Would like to move forward to lollipop on this phone. 2 different questions:
1. Would I be able to install a lollipop ROM from MJE or is it already locked down with no options
2. Phone is in "custom" mode. Can I just reenable OTA updates and let it receive updates OTA without bricking or does the knox need reset first? Not worried about warranty issues.
Please spare the flames, I dont know what I am doing much but can follow instructions and I am just looking for a little help. Dont want to blow my phone out and not be able to do anything with it. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im in the same boat with you. Im still on 4.3/MJE/Stock/Rooted. I rooted with RootMaster when i got the phone over a year ago and disabled OTA updates. Its been an awesome phone but recently been having glitches (screen flickers randomly when on and auto adjust brightness is turned off and google maps cannot find my location, the GPS icon never comes on anymore, other mapping apps still work fine) and ive had to disable my google play services from killing my battery. Also my music has been stuttering on poweramp (not sure if it is just a app issue). Another thing Ive noticed is when i restart my phone its been doing a double bootloop, it gets to the launcher screen then immediatly reboots, but then fully boots up the second time.
Any suggestions anyone? I want to keep root and dont mind stock. Go launcher gives me most of the customization i need, really only need root for AdAway (which doesnt work so well anymore), Gemini App Manager- so i can keep certain apps from startup upon boot, SD speed increase (which im not really sure actually does anything), and of coarse TITANIUM.
Do i need to do an ODIN flash or TWRP or CWM? Can i just hit the factory reset and keep my root? Maybe flash up to 4.4.2? I keep seeing that 4.4.4 and higher cant be rooted unless im mistaken.
Any direction from someone knowledgeable would be greatly appreciated.