I got my S4 last week and am quite new to all this. I've roamed the forums and the information about rooting the S4 seems confusing. First of all, there was a way to root the S4 using motochopper am I right? I'm wondering if that's still relevant since the more popular solution seems to be Chainfire's CF-AutoRoot. Would using either one give me the same results?
All MDE and the before MDE firmwares can be rooted using CF root but the MDM,MDN and latter firmwares cant because of some security changes samsung made. I suggest you wait a couple of weeks or so.
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I know I can search so dont tell me please.
im no noob to rooting. have done it to every phone ive owned for longer than 2 weeks. but the s4 is new and experiences are hard to find.
I did find a method to root but wasnt sure it would work for what I wanted. I want to root and instalk custom roms. just like s3. i was flashimg atr roms. i always feel confused in the beginnimg as a canadian. will all root methods allow me to do this right now, ? im really unsure. I have sgh 1337m
s384 said:
I know I can search so dont tell me please.
im no noob to rooting. have done it to every phone ive owned for longer than 2 weeks. but the s4 is new and experiences are hard to find.
I did find a method to root but wasnt sure it would work for what I wanted. I want to root and instalk custom roms. just like s3. i was flashimg atr roms. i always feel confused in the beginnimg as a canadian. will all root methods allow me to do this right now, ? im really unsure. I have sgh 1337m
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http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2257
Use the above link this should be the one for u
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My question is I have a s4 without being on a contract and I let att unlock my boottloader can I install cwm or teamwin on my phone and I am looking to install the liquidsmooth rom. Or do you guys recommend any other rom that allows me to overclock the cpu and gpu??
What firmware version are you on? If you have MF3 or higher, no you can't unlock the bootloader. If you have MF3 or higher you can't install a custom recovery other than safestrap. Most custom roms have cpu control, and if they don't there are always root apps.
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The AT&T S4 does not have an unlocked bootloader. To find out more information about the phone and what you can or can not do, read the "pinned" threads in the General and Q&A sections.
Understand Its not unlocked but since im not under contract of any sort I figured I could get them to unlock it? That was my main question, I know you could go to AT&T before all the bs came up with there security pay a fee and get it unlocked? I am already rooted, I read up on safestrap as much as I could but still I hear its ok and not ok to do so. I root every phone I own and I now work with Verizon and getting the note 3 for my agent line and plan on rooting it as well. But right now I guess I would like to find a way to where I can get this thing where I want it. I had a htc one before the s4 but had tons of problems with the speaker blowing after 4 phones I requested to s4 and got it. I do have M3 software as well, if you have safe strapped your s4 what roms do you recommend? I know only some work with safestrap and I really like the liquidsmooth rom.
faststang71 said:
Understand Its not unlocked but since im not under contract of any sort I figured I could get them to unlock it? That was my main question, I know you could go to AT&T before all the bs came up with there security pay a fee and get it unlocked? I am already rooted, I read up on safestrap as much as I could but still I hear its ok and not ok to do so. I root every phone I own and I now work with Verizon and getting the note 3 for my agent line and plan on rooting it as well. But right now I guess I would like to find a way to where I can get this thing where I want it. I had a htc one before the s4 but had tons of problems with the speaker blowing after 4 phones I requested to s4 and got it. I do have M3 software as well, if you have safe strapped your s4 what roms do you recommend? I know only some work with safestrap and I really like the liquidsmooth rom.
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All your answers will be in this thread right here including links to download safestrap and what Roms will work for it. In the end its user preference than outing out who has the “BEST" ROM. Its all based on personal preference on what is good for you and not. Take your time to read and flash and play around with them.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2428254
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I believe AT&T unlocked your SIM not the bootloader as they don't do that at att
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May I suggest maybe changing the title of your thread OP? Its very mis-leading. I'm sure that with the knowledge of the people that responded to you and the links that were provided, you understand that you can not unlock the bootloader at this time.
I just bought the HTC One for $200, but then I saw that Best Buy had the Samsung Galaxy s4 on sale for $50. I did not know which one I wanted and was truly torn between the two and ended up buying the HTC but if I can save $150 I will gladly get the s4. My only problem is that as I've been reading up on cs4 forums to make sure that I would be able to unlock root and flash custom roms I had came across what seems to be the problem with an AT&T firmware update known as mf3. If I cannot root and flash custom kernels and roms I do not think I will take advantage of the offer from Best Buy. My problem is that even after all the reading I cannot figure out whether it is possible to root and flash custom ROMs and kernels to the new version from AT&T, known as mf3, or if it is still not possible, or if it will be possible very soon so that I'm may use Android 4.4 Kit Kat on the phone or any custom Rom I wish. Can someone please clarify this for me as soon as possible because my time to return the HTC One to AT&T is coming close to its end?
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You can root and flash some roms using safestrap. But it's very limited. Imo I'd stay away from the s4
It's there any progress toward cracking MF3? I've had a one x for pat year and kinda wanted a change and I love the screen on the s4. If you had to choose between the s4 and the HTC one taking into consideration the mf3 problem, which would you choose? And which would you choose if there was no mf3 problem?
Sent from my HTC One X using xda app-developers app
If you can find a S4 with MDL or earlier firmware it's a excellent phone. Personally if it has MF3 or later I wouldn't bother. But that's just my opinion.
You might as well get rid of the One as well. It's just as locked down.
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Untrue, about HTCone being just as locked down. It can have it's boatload unlocked quiet easily and if you want to, although it's not necessary, you can even do s-off to get full unbridled access. I previously had a HTC one x and also from everything I've read it seems AT&T went out of there way to lock down s4 tight , just like they did to the one x but eventually the devs got it. I do want the s4 though,even though this phone is awesome(HTC One), and I can live with no custom Rom for a while but I can't go without root. So if I get a s4 with mf3 will it still be able to be rooted ? I've read up on it but don't understand what everyone is talking about when they say if the phone is encrypted or notand it seems to be random.
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So sick and tired of reading about MF3, or MK2 constantly on these forums. If you want to buy an S4 on AT&T look for an MDL one on eBay. It's not that hard, really.
Or buy the T-Mobile variant or International version.
Thanks for your kind response to my honest question mattmjb0188. I can't get a t mobile or international variant bc I'm on a budget. I will use my upgrade to get the phone at best buy for $50, and the condition of this price is that it must be a contract renewal/upgrade, which is another reason I can't get diff version of the phone. Did you even read the op? I would love to get one brand new out of the box with mdl but the odds of that are slim hence why I asked the question in the 1st place. So if you can't help or don't like the question then don't respond, but I do thank you for your info about the other variants that don't have issues, it just doesn't help me.
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Rad ryan said:
Thanks for your kind response to my honest question mattmjb0188. I can't get a t mobile or international variant bc I'm on a budget. I will use my upgrade to get the phone at best buy for $50, and the condition of this price is that it must be a contract renewal/upgrade, which is another reason I can't get diff version of the phone. Did you even read the op? I would love to get one brand new out of the box with mdl but the odds of that are slim hence why I asked the question in the 1st place. So if you can't help or don't like the question then don't respond, but I do thank you for your info about the other variants that don't have issues, it just doesn't help me.
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Anyone new on these forums just asks over and over about MF3 and the Android 4.3 update. Basically, if you get an S4 with Mf3 or later firmware, you are pretty much stuck on stock. Then we have noobs who don't read and attempt to root their MF3 phones and brick them.
On pure stock, the S4 is a bad phone. The software is very laggy and needs a lot of improvement. I was one of the early adapters when it first came out. The phone was a nightmare with MDB and MDL firmware. Mf3 made slight improvements, but not enough.
I would not even invest in buying this phone right now. Most development for it has died down because of the restrictions. Developers are moving on. Those of us with MDL firmware (like myself) won't see much continued support for Loki nowadays anyway. If the bootloader could be unlocked, I believe it would have been unlocked by now. All these workarounds are very limited, and dangerous.
Personally, I wouldn't even buy the phone at this point. Scrape the funds together for either the T-Mobile S4 or Note 3.
Get the nexus 5, you'll be very happy
Thank you very much for that answer, that was an excellent answer. Although I'm not a noob bc I've been doing this stuff for years and been a member for years.I did the trading but I am not familiar with Samsung at all bc the last Samsung I had was a captivate. It's there a lot of active development for the t mobile variant? I'm guessing it's probably around $600, right? Lastly do you think that there will be a solution to the lock down of mf3 and later in the next few months?
Again thanks for your very helpful answer.
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Rad ryan said:
Thank you very much for that answer, that was an excellent answer. Although I'm not a noob bc I've been doing this stuff for years and been a member for years.I did the trading but I am not familiar with Samsung at all bc the last Samsung I had was a captivate. It's there a lot of active development for the t mobile variant? I'm guessing it's probably around $600, right? Lastly do you think that there will be a solution to the lock down of mf3 and later in the next few months?
Again thanks for your very helpful answer.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
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The development for the AT&T S4 has died down. In my opinion, no one will ever unlock the bootloader for it. Maybe someday with some future device, but not this device. The closest we got was with the loki method, which was great. But that's long gone now.
Look on negri for the T-Mobile variant. I think its M919. I'm not sure. T-Mobile developers have been able to make great roms for the device, instead of wasting so much time to find a workaround. Maybe even try T-Mobile out and see if they've improved in your area. They got a lot better in my area, but still a lot of EDGE.
If I were you, I'd go for the Nexus 5.
Rad ryan said:
Thanks for your kind response to my honest question mattmjb0188. I can't get a t mobile or international variant bc I'm on a budget. I will use my upgrade to get the phone at best buy for $50, and the condition of this price is that it must be a contract renewal/upgrade, which is another reason I can't get diff version of the phone. Did you even read the op? I would love to get one brand new out of the box with mdl but the odds of that are slim hence why I asked the question in the 1st place. So if you can't help or don't like the question then don't respond, but I do thank you for your info about the other variants that don't have issues, it just doesn't help me.
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Heres my suggestion, if you want the s4, get it from best buy than sell it unopened for as much as you can and than with the money you get buy a tmobile or i9505 international variant...(not i9500 or the verizon or sprint one)
The tmobile variant is probably your best bet, the tmobile variant supports all of ATT service bands so youll have no issues with reception or internet. The tmobile variant can flash roms from any of the other s4 variants (verizon sprint att i9505...just not any roms from the i9500)
So in other words if you get the tmobile variant you dont have to worry about a dead dev scene as you can always flash roms from a differnt carrier...only thing is you will probably have to set up your apns for att rom flashes
Hope that helps you
And on another note if you decide to stick with the ATT s4, every firmware can be rooted
Mdb has real recoveries, so you can flash anything as long as you "loki" the kernel - Unfortunately I do not think there are any stores that are selling phones with this firmware
Mdl has real recoveries, so you can flash anything as long as you "loki" the kernel...Unfortunately it is pretty much impossible to find a phone with this firmware in any store now
Mf3 has safestrap which is kinda like a recovery, with it you can flash any touchwiz based 4.2.2 rom (stock roms) or any 4.2.2 Google Phone Edition (aka GPE, which is an aosp experience S4, no bloatware no samsung features, its like having a nexus in the body of an s4) rom...NO CUSTOM KERNELS, NO AOSP ROMS (no cyanogenmod) - this is the firmware most phones come with
Mk2 (latest firmware) recently got a beta safestrap...as of now you can flash some 4.3 touchwiz stock based roms, alot dont boot yet, and the GPE 4.3 rom doesn't boot with it either. As it becomes stable it should work identical to the one for mf3 - phones will probably start coming with this one soon
In other words, safestrap allows you to run roms that are built off the same firmware version as your stock rom, safestrap flashes no kernel, so whatever rom you flash has to be compatible with the stock kernel of your current firmware
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---------- Post added at 08:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:40 PM ----------
Rad ryan said:
Thank you very much for that answer, that was an excellent answer. Although I'm not a noob bc I've been doing this stuff for years and been a member for years.I did the trading but I am not familiar with Samsung at all bc the last Samsung I had was a captivate. It's there a lot of active development for the t mobile variant? I'm guessing it's probably around $600, right? Lastly do you think that there will be a solution to the lock down of mf3 and later in the next few months?
Again thanks for your very helpful answer.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
They actually seem to be getting close to another work around which will allow you to flash any rom or kernel using safestrap...turns out theres a feature in the 4.3 mk2 kernel which allows unsigned drivers to run, in theory they can compile a kexec driver for the kernel which would allow you to use any kernel thus allowing the flash of any rom...theres a how-to thread in the original development section with more info, however...its not a guarentee we will see this anytime soon, as you never know what issues they may run into...but something to look into if your interested
EDIT: actually heres a post from the thread i mentioned which pretty much sums up how we hope this "exploit" will work as far as kernel flashing goes http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=48703510&postcount=10
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With all that said; how come I have the MF3 baseband my s4 (jflteatt), and I still have a custom recovery with the ability to flash different roms and kernels? Is it because I installed the custom recovery on an earlier baseband and then it got updated to a newer baseband but still kept recovery?
I only found out I had MF3 on my phone now because I couldn't flash a different recovery anymore.
Yes
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noel_leon said:
With all that said; how come I have the MF3 baseband my s4 (jflteatt), and I still have a custom recovery with the ability to flash different roms and kernels? Is it because I installed the custom recovery on an earlier baseband and then it got updated to a newer baseband but still kept recovery?
I only found out I had MF3 on my phone now because I couldn't flash a different recovery anymore.
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It is literally impossible to have officially updated through OTA while on a custom Recovery. What I suspect has been done is the same as my phone. I got an MDL device and quickly installed TWRP and a custom ROM. As new updates came out, I flashed just the baseband. So now, I have a 4.4 ROM with the MK2 baseband and am able to install anything I like.
If I were to have ever done an OTA, I would no longer be able to have a custom recovery because of a blown Qfuse.
Please don't try to say that what you have is the only phone with OTA MF3 and custom recovery.
The only way to have anything like that is through SS and that is not a true recovery. If you do have that, you can only install certain ROMs not including AOSP, AOKP, MIUI, or CM.
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When did I ever say I was the only one? I asked a simple question that I mostly had the answer to already; which in turn was answered by a simple "Yes" from HiTideBlastoise.
And I never said anything about OTA either. I said I had installed custom recovery on an earlier baseband and then my baseband was updated but recovery was still intact.
I never said you did say that. It was preemptive. Secondly, you make it out to seem like you did nothing to update your baseband. You are making it seem like it just happened. Well, that can't happen without either updating the entire phone or flashing it yourself. The funny thing is the baseband means nothing when it comes to recoveries and flashing ROMs. It can only be used as a possible sign on a stock device as to what version one is running. On a modified device, like yours, it is worthless information on the version of Android. Like I said before, I have 4.4 with MK2 as my baseband. How can I install ROMs. Not because it updated my baseband after I already have a custom recovery... But because I never took an OTA and made it do the stuff I wanted.
Basically what I am saying is that you need to be clear with what you say. Everything you said makes it sound like your phone did it all by itself without you or someone else making it the way it is. There is no other option. You have to have done something to have a custom recovery and an MF3 baseband with pre MF3 bootloaders.
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I agree with graydiggy that the only way to still have a custom recovery and mf3 baseband is that you either flashed an mf3 tw rom with a modem or a a standalone modem to your mdl software. If you took the "OTA" successfully, you will definitely have a locked down bootloader now.
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hello everyone this is my first post. I've done all my google searching and like almost no one else is looking for an answer to this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm looking for a root to the TAB 4 Att\lte version. That's the SM-T537AYKAATT. I tried kingo of root to no avail. Next on my list is motochopper....I am familiar with adb and can provide all of the necessary files needed for the research and development of said root. Thank you for any time and/or effort that gets put into this.
Have you looked into chainfire auto root?
Sent from my HTC One_M8
ATT locks their bootloaders....cfauto root wont work on locked bootloaders
Then he may be in the same boat as the AT&T Galaxy S5... No root
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Towelroot fixes it up no prob
I just found towelroot roots the 4.4.2 att tab 4 10.1....
That's great news
Sent from my SM-T330NU