Hello,
I have a MB525 that I purchased retail in the United States so it was never locked to any carrier. Currently I'm a T-Mobile customer and have no interest in changing that. I have to say I love this phone, mainly because it seems indestructible. Even years later the battery life is still good, but the stock 2.2.2 Froyo has become something of a problem because many of the Apps I would like to use have started requiring newer versions of Android.
I can't stay in the past forever, but I'm not quite ready to give up on this device so I started looking around at my options, and would you believe I found lots of other people who have this device and have worked very hard to produce updated Android OSes for it, and who have reported reasonably good success updating the device. I figured, Its already out of warranty, so I can't void a warranty I don't have. I also figured I'm a reasonably intelligent individual and have enough experience with Unix like operating systems that even if I get in trouble, I'll be able to ask the right questions to get out of trouble. Guess what point I have gotten to?
I started following the guide wikiDOTcyanogenmodDOTorg/w/Install_CM_for_jordan The Framaroot Gimli exploit worked great. I installed bootmenu 6.1 and Clockwork Mod Recovery. Fantastic. At this point, I was able to enter CMR and backup my mostly still factory ROM. If I understand correctly this is a nandroid backup. I copied that backup off of my SD Card to my PC. From this point I felt reasonably confident I could try things and in a worst case scenario restore to this backup.
Now I happen to have a stock ROM that seems to be a bit rare online, Blur_Version.34.4.806.MB525.Latam.en.01, so I figured at this point I'd do a service and create a backup using CWM after having done a factory reset. So I booted into the stock recovery, did a factory reset, restarted, and the OS was in a like new state. Perfect. Rebooted into CWM, and made a second backup of the factory reset state. I copied this off the SD Card to the PC. Now I figured I was ready for real fun.
I figured, I might as well put the most recent Android version I could find that people were reporting success with. This appeared to be @quarkx Kitkat build. The thread is almost a year old and has 500+ replies and so I guessed that most of the major kinks would have been worked out by now. I followed the directions on quarx2kDOTru and installed cm-11-20141015-NIGHTLY-mb52x.zip from Quarx2k.ru, and low and behold it worked. CM11 booted and everything looked great. WiFi worked. Gapps worked. Play store started installing my apps.
There was one small problem. The phone refused to connect to T-Mobile at all. So I did the reasonable thing. I searched and learned about base band switching, and consulted T-Mobile on what would be the correct APN settings. Occasionally it would connect to AT&T for emergency calling, but it never connected to T-Mobile no matter what I did. From my home I was normally getting excellent signal on the stock ROM, so I am reasonably certain that the actual signal in the area was not the problem, and that this had to be some kind of configuration or software issue. A wiser person probably would have gotten on the forum and asked for help, but wisdom be damned, I wanted to do it for myself.
So more research and at some point I thought, Well, I'll go back to the Stock ROM so the phone will be usable again, and I'll take another crack at CM11 again later. It was at this point that I realized that CMR had been replaced with Team Win Recovery Project. This recovery looked to be more feature rich and easier to use, so I accepted that. I backed up my CM11 install. then went to restore my original backup. Well you might have guessed by now that TWRP and CMR don't use exactly the same backup formats. I saw no obvious way to get back to my backup and couldn't find information that would allow reinstalling CMR. This was the first warning signal I foolishly ignored.
At this point I started looking around for slightly earlier builds of CM11 that might not have had the the problem connecting to T-Mobile. Here is where things get fuzzy about how things got into this state, since the work was spread over two days at this point. Somehow between all the flashing backing up and restoring, the device got to a state where the OS never actually finished could do here is yank the battery and reboot into TFRP.
At this point, attempting to restore would just result in the messages 'E: Unable to mount '/cache' and 'E: Unable to mount '/data' in the terminal. So After searching around I learned that I probably needed to format /cache and /data because somehow they were broken. Terminal commands, I can handle this. I start reading up and find the correct command and parameters for the format, and I type into the terminal inside TWRP and low any behold format can't be found. I start looking around the directories in my file system from inside TWRP and I've got a complete directoty structure, but no files in any directories other than on /sdcard. Well fuuuu.
Not sure what made me even try, but copying any file from my sdcard into /data somehow put /data into a state where a TWRP restore would work. So at this point I was able to restore the CM11 backup, and my phone now boots into CM11, 11-20141007-NIGHTLY-mb526. But.... the cellular network still doesn't work.
But now I am wiser and I am back to the point where a wiser person would have asked for help. So... Help?
Is 11-20141007-Nightly-mb526 the best rom an appropriate rom for my device? I'm guessing I missed something because other discussions on this forum mention newer builds, and also, my device is definitely a 525 not a 526.
Is my baseband version EPU93_U_00.60.03 right? The baseband selector allows me to pick from three T-Mobile settings: 3.4.2.-107-4, 3.4.2.-107-9, and 6.xx.0, none of which seems to allow me to connect to the cell network.
Thanks in advance for any assistance offered.
Sorry for the long potato.
Here is what I did to fix my problem.
I started with the original backup of my stock rom, and I used the unyaffs.exe from this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1199416 to convert my CMR backup into individual files. I then went into those files, and found \system\etc\motorola\bp_nvm_default\ and pulled out the original radio firmware from my device. From there I used advice from several pages to create my own update.zip, copied it to my SD card and I booted into TWRP and installed the zip there. Reboot and Voila, It connected right at startup to T-Mobile with the normal speeds I get from my home.
Bonus, I attached my zip in case anyone else comes across this and needs it.
My Device has an FCC ID of IHDP56LC1 if that helps anyone match their hardware.
If you want to read the below learning experience you may gain some knowledge but at this point I believe my method may have flaws. While it seemed fine at first the problem listed directly below could not be fixed without using Odin to flash a stock ROM back onto the phone. It had checked the hidden menu settings for MTP and ADB and PDA, CP etc and all were correct (I have another good working S5 to compare these values to). I tried an earlier restore of a TWRP backup and that just blew up with all sorts of FC's on boot. So thank goodness for Odin. After flashing the stock rom it booted fine and I can now write files from the PC to the phone again via USB. In the process right now of re-rooting, installing TWRP and doing a restore of my last backup.
Note : I have found one problem I am currently working on after using this method. I can hook up the phone to the PC and get a link, open folders on the phone and can copy file from the phone to the PC but can NOT copy files from the PC to the phone. More later .....
I've got a Samsung Galaxy S5 from US Cellular. Other than a few people in the Motorola subforum here trying this I haven't seen this exact method described here so apologies if I missed it somewhere - tried many searches. It seemed so easy - maybe it is just considered SOP for some - don't know so I'm going to run the details by here anyway in case it saves anyone some trouble. Do read my warnings below though before you attempt this.
1 - You want TWRP installed (or Philz CM Touch will probably work too - seems a bit more complex though) If you are flashing ROM's having TWRP or some other custom recovery is always a good idea and I'm sure most people have one of them.
2 - Always do a complete backup with TWRP before flashing anything new. You did a backup before going to Lollipop didn't you?
3 - So you are tired of the white screen, battery sucking, quirky Lollipop or maybe that Cyanogen Lollipop mod didn't quite work for you and you want the old Kitkat back. So fire up TWRP, go into Advanced wipe and wipe Dalvik Cache, System, Data and Cache. You aren't done wiping yet though. After you swiped to wipe those go back to the previous page and Swipe to Factory Reset. That may not actually make any difference but I just did it for good measure and my method worked great.
4 - Now without out even needing to reboot find your latest backup of Kitkat 4.4.2 that you have on your Internal SD or External SD card (you do keep one there don't you in case your phone glitches on you while you are out and about?)
5 - Do a Restore of everything - Boot, Recovery, System, Data, Cache.
6 - Reboot. You are done.
Firstly I need to add that I had flashed Cyanogen Mod 12.1 (Lollipop 5.1) after following directions here in the main Cyanogen subforum to flash that on my KitKat 4.4.2 Galaxy S5 phone. What may be noteworthy is that after flashing CM 12.1 I ran the App PhoneInfo Plus (made mostly for Samsungs) and the OS version showed as Lollipop 5.1 but some of the build numbers to my recollection showed 4.4.2. So this was not a stock Lollipop OTA - it was the Cyanogen mod of Lollipop made by developers here. I just assumed they started with Lollipop to make that latest 5.1 build but I haven't followed the Cyanogen mod much at all so I don't know if they have borrowed bits and pieces of Kitkat in their builds. If they have done that then this downgrade method may not work the same for an OTA Lollipop.
Another warning - I noticed in the Motorola subforum here that some people bricked their phone trying this type of downgrade with TWRP however I believe that is because they had Verizon phones with locked bootloaders and that is not the case for my phone (US Cellular) or any other phones beside VZ as far as I know. If you have a Verizon with locked bootloader beware! I will also add that on my first boot after restoring Kitkat 4.4.2 that the second the home screen was up I started quickly scanning through my app pages and the phone rebooted itself. I believe it wasn't fully done loading the OS and it just was a hiccup. It has not happened since after trying all sort of things. Everything is working great.
I saw most people recommending to use Odin to flash a stock Kitkat firmware back on the phone in order to downgrade from Lollipop. Then you need to re-install all your apps or maybe do a restore of a recovery but with this method using TWRP you bypass most of that and get it all done in one TWRP session.
Another note about what I read people having a problem with upon downgrading - some were losing their IMEI when using Odin to flash the original firmware. I still have my original IMEI with no problem. That is another reason I think this method may be better than using Odin for this downgrade. I'll add that there are a lot of people around here with a whole lot more knowledge about flashing and custom ROM's than me so don't take my ideas as hard fact without doing your own research for your particular phone and particular situation.
I can copy FROM the internal and external SD card to PC but not PC to either internal or external SD card and the permissions seem to be correct for the folders I'm trying to copy into. Anyone have any ideas on that? However I was able to use AirDroid (Wifi) to copy files to the phone from the PC - no real surprise there but it reaffirms that I can write to those folders - just not with the USB cable.
More info. I just decided to run the App KitKat external SD Card patch. It failed. I believe I ran that before flashing Lollipop and it worked but now it fails. ?? I don't know if it is related to this problem since both internal and external SD are having a problem - but only via USB.
I tried another Galaxy S5 with same computer and cable and that one works fine to copy to the SD cards so that eliminates the cable or computer. AirDroid - Wifi works but only a problem one way with USB - WTF?
droidzer1 said:
I tried another Galaxy S5 with same computer and cable and that one works fine to copy to the SD cards so that eliminates the cable or computer. AirDroid - Wifi works but only a problem one way with USB - WTF?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well thanks to TWRP AND Odin all is well once again in Androidland
So, I am new to the community and just recently created an account to make a new topic because something happened:
I have a N6P and I was disappointed with the whole "Pixel exclusives" thing, so I decided to root and flash some of the new features into the phone. Everything I wanted I could find in the threads of this forum and it was nice and easy. I did get to a nice point where I had all the features I wanted, and then, I saw that there was a beta update for the new android version 7.1.1. From there I realized how little I know about the android system, and for that reason I want to ask a few questions. First, I'll describe the steps I took and the result i got:
1 - Backed Up data with TWRP (Boot, System, System Image, Vendor, Recovery)
2 - Updated to 7.1.1 through the phone settings
3 - Reboot
4 - Checked everything (all working fine until here), I had lost my root and TWRP because the new system took place.
5 - Reflashed TWRP
6 - Patched again the Pixel Launcher and SuperSu through TWRP
7 - Reboot
From that time on, the phone did boot, but the default launcher didn't start and a system app presented errors: Everythime I closed the error box, if popped again, blocking me from doing anything.
After the inicial problem, I promptly went to TWRP and tried to restore the backup I made. Now the phone became unable to start the OS, it runs the boot animation forever and nothing happens.
Now I am downloading a Stock ROM to flash through fastboot and do everything again.
Now to the questions:
1 - What did I do wrong? Why didn't the Backup work? What should I do differently from now on to have a reliable restore point of my device(just in case I screw up again)
2 - What can I do (besides flashing stock room) in order to recover my system? It is annoying to have to start from zero again thinking i had a backup made just to prevent that.
3 - Where can I learn more about the Android filesystem and OS architecture? (I am a developer, but I'm also lazy as ****, so i'd appreciate "explain like i'm 5" links)
Thank you all.
I have Verizon Note 3, with Jasmine Rom and TWRP recovery.
I have posted a question about my phone started showing some sh** dialog over and over about facebook app not responding.
Till now i havent found any solution to it. So, seems as last resort, i will flash again with jasmine rom (if there is anyother better do tell me). But before that, i want everything (EVERYTHING) to be backed up, text messages, my games data, my installed softwares, cracked versions, everything. Is this possible???
Anyone coming to save the day????????
First you need to state whether you have a safestrap ROM or a unlocked bootloader and real custom recovery. Huge difference.
You should also bear in mind that if you are suffering from a corruption issue somewhere, a "complete" backup and restore merely records the corrupted data and restores the same corrupted data. What exactly would you gain that way?
Your hypothesis suggests you think a fix could be acheived by "refreshing" just the ROM (i.e. the /system mount). If you have any customizations in there, they will be lost unless you can identify them and re-create them after you have "refreshed" the /system mount. If you are unable to do that, you will lose them.
If you thought that you were unable to identify those changes and were going to plunge ahead and try anyway, theoretically you would get the same result by just flashing /system only and wipe the /cache mount without doing any backups at all. EXTREMELY RISKY MOVE THOUGH IF SOMETHING GOES SIDEWAYS. (You should always assume that something will go wrong and make backups... and get those backups off the phone in case the entire device needs to be wiped in a "start from scratch scenario)
Note that your apps have been under constant update all this time since Jasmine's release while it (Jasmine) has been standing still. There's no guarantee that what you are observing are not merely bugs in Jasmine uncovered by new application code.
A Herculean, careful and diligent backup & restore operation might fix nothing.
Hi,
I have a Oneplus 6T A6013. Yesterday my phone had this state:
bootloader u
nlocked
root installed with magisk
a couple of magisk module installed
latest stable
stock rom (10.3.0)
Then an OTA update (10.3.1) arrived to me and I installed as usual:
OTA full download and
installation, without reboot
Magisk installation o
n other partition and reboot
Here begin problems. My phone reboot and get stucked on OnePlus animation.
I can force shut down, enter stock recovery, enter bootloader.
I can not rely on
Code:
fastboot boot twrp.img
because phone reboots and stucks on fastboot logo.
I decide to do factory reset phone, with Google backup it is not a big problem, during configuration I obviously login in with the same account and obviously backup is on cloud, but phone says "no backup found".
Moreover it seems that magisk root files were still present on the phone, and even "uninstalling" them from magisk manager doesn't remove sucessfully them.
At this point I have tried to make a completely fresh install of the OS:
during configuration still no backup found, even if I have created more backup in the meanwhile, one of them jsut before fresh install and on Drive I can see all of them
Google Pay sais that my system is not right, maybe cause root
using Magisk Manager I have checked that this time root is no more installed, but I can see that "cts check" fails
Play Store -> settings also says to me that "my phone is not certified"
Maybe I am not able to recover backup cause cts check fails. I have still bootloader unlocked.
So here are my questions.
Someone knows beacuse my phone doesn't recognize its own backups?
How can I pass cts check?
In case I should relock bootloader, how can I check that everything is truly stock and avoid a possible brick?
Thank you so much for your future answers, I have searched on internet and made tries for a whole day and contacted OnePlus chat assistence twice, but without any luck.
You have to actually wait a few minutes after running "fastboot boot boot.img" command to boot the TWRP, and you MUST use the latest one (always use up-to-date tools) which in that case is TWRP 3.3.1-31 - you have to use "Q" version of bootable TWRP image for OxygenOS 10.3.1 which is obviously Android 10 Queen Cake so be sure to use the right one.
Tethered Fastboot TWRP boot works just fine for me, in fact I installed crDroid 6.2 ROM atop OxygenOS 10.3.1 on my converted T-Mobile OnePlus 6T.
As for the bootloader, once it's unlocked, I strongly recommend leaving it alone unlocked unless you really like to use MSMTools more often. Use SafetyPatch in Magisk's module manager, it will fix the CTS SafetyNet issues. Locked bootloader actually causes more problems compared to unlocked one in my experience.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
First of all thank you very much for your answer.
Is this type of twrp right?
I thank you really much for your suggestion about locking bootloader. I don't want to specifically remove root, the real problem Is that I am no more able to recover my old backup. I have just supposed that bootloader and root could be tha causes.
Before I fully reflashed OS I was able to Hide robot and pass all checks using Magisk, buy as I said I was not able to recover backup, neither a fresh and new just made backup.
I worry about the future. Now I could set again all the phone, but what will happens if tomorrow I will have to reset again?
Dr. Mario said:
You have to actually wait a few minutes after running "fastboot boot boot.img" command to boot the TWRP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used latest version by fajita downloaded from my previous link. I have waited for 10 minutes stacked on oneplus fastboot mode logo and nothing happens. Now I have the problem that I am no more able to flash magisk...
That doesn't sound good - MSMTools may be necessary. Did you back up all the files?
If your T-Mobile OnePlus 6T is converted, install OxygenOS 9.0.11 and unlock the bootloader once again (MSMTools usually relock the bootloader, so unlock it again), then update to OxygenOS 10.3.0 or 10.3.1 via update zip file (I don't trust OTA updates at all, they tend to cause problems), then install the TWRP once you're at it, and then reboot back into the recovery and install Magisk if you want to.
Unless... You want to install custom Android 10 operating system which then you must do that; First reinstall OxygenOS 10.3.x ROM (in all slots, it is mandatory because you will install the same custom OS on both slots so it boots properly) then boot into TWRP, and do factory reset and data wipe in the Wipe menu, then reboot back into recovery and then plug in the USB flash drive or copy the TWRP, OS installation zip and whatever else you want installed onto the phone via the computer. Then install crDroid, LineageOS or any of OS of your choosing, and TWRP, and reboot back into recovery once again and install the OS and TWRP one final time in another slot. After doing the last reboot, install Gapps and Magisk. Finally, after you are done and reboot the phone after the installation, it will reboot by itself once - that's due to Magisk doing some configuration.
Android 10 apparently have made installation of custom ROM difficult. I have managed to brick my OnePlus 6T eight - ten times before deciding to find out how to do it successfully, thus the instruction for installation of custom OS above.
As for failure to restore the backup, this is the artifact of the Android 10 UEFI bootloader encryption (which is occasionally buggy, and annoying - just installing the LineageOS 17 the normal way, the whole SSD just gets corrupted, so the trick to get it to work is to, yes, remove all SSD encryption keys via factory reset prior to installing any custom ROM). As of now, TWRP backup is broken on most phones running Android 10 which is due to how the encryption works in this OS version (to the point they are so touchy).
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Dr. Mario said:
That doesn't sound good - MSMTools may be necessary. Did you back up all the files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, my device is actually ready to be wiped and I have already the international version.
The problem is that MSMTools' link are down.
Dr. Mario said:
As for failure to restore the backup, this is the artifact of the Android 10 UEFI bootloader encryption (which is occasionally buggy, and annoying - just installing the LineageOS 17 the normal way, the whole SSD just gets corrupted, so the trick to get it to work is to, yes, remove all SSD encryption keys via factory reset prior to installing any custom ROM). As of now, TWRP backup is broken on most phones running Android 10 which is due to how the encryption works in this OS version (to the point they are so touchy).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you mean "manual backup" such as nanodroid, or "automatic Google backup"?
I have no manual backup, only that one saved on Drive, it should be restored automatically during configuration of operating system.
Any way you can back it up. TWRP backup (and any nandroid) in general are broken for many Android 10 phones because of the SSD encryption - I suspect that by each reboots, new cipher keys may be generated every time, thus making it hard to be able to successfully reinstall the Nandroid backup at any point in time - they're like the snowflakes, each and every EXT4 ciphers are different. (All that is meant to resist the hacker attack, even on the custom ROMs - Google wanted to be sure they cover everyone in term of computing security, so all that encryption Voodoos are also in the AOSP and LineageOS repositories for that reasons.)
As for MSMTools, I really wonder. OnePlus didn't object before.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Gabriel1495 said:
Yes, my device is actually ready to be wiped and I have already the international version.
The problem is that MSMTools' link are down.
Do you mean "manual backup" such as nanodroid, or "automatic Google backup"?
I have no manual backup, only that one saved on Drive, it should be restored automatically during configuration of operating system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this thread
https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-6t/how-to/op6t-collection-unbrick-tools-t3914746
Backup argumentation is now more clear, thank you
Dr. Mario said:
As for MSMTools, I really wonder. OnePlus didn't object before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About MSMTools I have still some problem, fault of my really bad English...
I have not understood your answer, what does it means "OnePlus didn't object before"? Actually I am simply no able to download the tool.
Thank you again for your kindness
Striatum_bdr, that will do. The unbricking tool collection looks good.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Wonderful, I will read the "unbricking tool" thread in order to understand how to install it
Hopefully you get it to work once again.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Here I am with some good update
I have used MSMTools to truly factory reset my phone. Initially I had "sahara connection" error, but install again both Qualcomm and Oneplus drivers do the trick. After execution of MSMTools phone reboot with bootloader locked and as it was out of box.
At that point on Drive I had 3 backup (9 Feb, 10 Feb and 10 Feb) and magically last backup of 10 Feb was seen! Saddly even deleting last two backups I am not able to recover my true backup of 9 Feb (at this point it doesn't matter).
Now I have a virgin and working phone. I have no root and can use Google Pay and banking apps.
Really happy and satisfied, thank you thank you thank you very much!!!!
Dr. Mario said:
Any way you can back it up. TWRP backup (and any nandroid) in general are broken for many Android 10 phones because of the SSD encryption - I suspect that by each reboots, new cipher keys may be generated every time, thus making it hard to be able to successfully reinstall the Nandroid backup at any point in time - they're like the snowflakes, each and every EXT4 ciphers are different. (All that is meant to resist the hacker attack, even on the custom ROMs - Google wanted to be sure they cover everyone in term of computing security, so all that encryption Voodoos are also in the AOSP and LineageOS repositories for that reasons.)
As for MSMTools, I really wonder. OnePlus didn't object before.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is up with that? I booted into TWRP the other day, figured I would make a backup before upgrading, and everything was garbled.
That's because of the onboard encryption; all Nandroid backup being attempted on Android 10 only hold half of the overall encryption keys, others just stays on the phone, so when you attempt to put it back on, it is already invalidated because also Android 10 ROM on some phones (particularly the Pixels, and a few OnePlus phones like this one) changes keys upon reboots for security reasons.
Google do not want anyone including the US Government to have their hands on the data thereon as it could be very bad if it falls in the wrong hands so they went extra miles to make it difficult to hack.
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk