I've had my Note 4 for a while and after a few Lollipop update incidents I finally after a lot of hesitation decided to root my phone (with the TWRP bootloader) and disable the update notifier. Since then, I've always stuck to the latest stock version of KitKat 4.4.4.
Since I've rooted my phone, I made the following modifications that require root priviliges: I installed XPrivacy mod, YouTube AdAway mod, NoSafeVolumeWarning mod, PlayPermissionsExposed mod, and CrappaLinks mod for the Xposed framework. I also installed Titanium backup to freeze/uninstall the updater and AdAway. After XPosed was installed I had to change a line in /system/build.prop to 'ro.securestorage.support=false' to make 'S Health' work again. I did that with the 'FX' app.
That's it, I had made no more modifications and the phone seemed to work quite well for a month or so.
Two days ago I decided to try out Instagram, I've been quite wary with social apps but figured Instagram shouldn't hurt and everything was fine. Then I installed a bunch of dating apps, I started with Match.com and Tinder. Tinder didn't work because it required FB and Match didn't work because it refused to, probably because of denied permissions with XPrivacy so I gave up on them and uninstalled them.
But I also installed OkCupid and Motesplatsen and enjoyed playing around with these apps. They didn't seem to interfere with XPrivacy and worked rather fine. Motesplatsen was rather intense with sending me notifications of girls who watched my profile and sent me (rather strange) messages whereas OkCupid was rather calm.
Then something strange happened.
Yesterday I started noticing that the battery was draining considerably faster than normal during normal day. It was almost empty whereas it usually is half full after a full day, I also noticed that the phone was unusually warm. I forgot to put it on the charger and woke up today with a dead phone. I put it on charge and after about an hour the battery was full again.
When I tried to turn on the phone it was stuck on boot loop. I first tried disabling XPosed by "touch /data/data/de.robv.android.xposed.installer/conf/disabled" using the 'terminal' tool in the TWRP bootloader. It didn't help. I tried flushing the cache/dalvik cache but it didn't work either. Then I did a total factory reset, but that didn't work. I noticed that during boot, the phone froze so hard that it doesn't even respond to button pushes. I had to take out the battery to reboot (that's one reason why I never will buy S6).
So then I decided to flash the phone with stock KitKat once again using Odin and that finally restored the phone.
Now, here's one of my questions, how can things go so bad with a phone that not even a factory reset will fix it? We're talking stock firmware here, albeit it is rooted.
What boot logs could be worth looking into when such a thing occurs and what is the easiest way to extract them? The terminal tool in the bootloader seems promising, plus I saw a 'copy log to SD' option which I neglected this time.
I'm puzzled, does anyone know what happened? I made no root modifications in the process of installing these apps and they don't advertise themselves as needing root privileges. How can a seemingly inconspicuous app directly from Google play **** a phone up like that?
Related
Hey guys. I hate making my first post a really noobie question but here it goes.
I just updated my rooted Xperia Play to 2.3.3 and it erased and/or re-wrote all of my system apps. I stupidly converted some of my downloaded apps into system apps using Titanium (because system apps turn red on the list. It helped me quickly figure out what was external and what was internal. Stupid, yes, and more trouble then it was actually worth.) so those apps were lost. Didn't matter, I had backups but I lost my root so I couldn't access them.
Forgetting what I used to root my phone originally I decided to use z4root after reading about it somewhere. The site I got it from is usually trust worthy but when I downloaded the file my OfficeScan (its a school bought computer) warned me of a potential virus threat. I wrote it off as just the pop-up ad and un-zipped and transferred the file to my phone. I still am not sure if it was a virus or not... Running z4root it got up to "acquiring shell root..." or something like that before kicking me back to the home screen with no change. I, again, stupidly, re-ran it several times without rebooting between each attempt. Giving up I then realized to reboot. Strangely rebooting was A LOT faster then it was usually is and I don't know if that was z4 or 2.3.3.
Anyway I remembered that I used Gingerbreak last time and re-installed that. I made several attempts with that with no change either. Too many to count, but at least more than 8. Several attempts I got a call or a text and, checking them, ended the process. 2 attempts I left running for about half an hour (I know that the instructions say it will never take more then 10 minutes) and some I ended with a battery pull after more then 10mins(as per instruction).
So I guess I have several questions:
1. How bad did I f* up, If I did so?
2. Any suggestions on how to re-root/fix it?
3. Will switching to an empty SD card, successfully rooting it, and switching back to the full card still keep the root?
4. Does an in phone factory reset work the same as flashing the same rom or will I need to actually flash that new rom?
5. If I do need to flash, where can I find a regular Play rom? Or do you have suggestions about a better rom?
6. Is the fast reboot the work of the half done, possibly a virus, z4root process or just the 2.3.3 update?
7.Lastly Was this tl and you ;dr?
Normally, I wouldn't care if there was no fix; My phone boots much faster, I didn't lose all my apps and only some apps launch a little slower then before. But I made tons of progress on Zenonia 2 and I want my back ups for that... lol.
Any help appreciated. Also thanks for putting up with a noob that's writing way to formally
1. Messing with the system apps, and not backing them up probably caused you to not have an OTA update. I'm guessing you flashed it? Not restoring anything and not doing an OTA was mistake number one. Trying to use z4root was mistake number 2.
2. Get the generic UK firmware from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1097591
-Flash that with Bin4ry and Androxhyde's flashtool
-Put in your carrier's APN settings, configure your google account, wifi etc. etc.
-Get Gingerbreak 1.2, run it(I used Astro to open the apk, and you need uunknown sources enabled).
Gingerbreak only worked for me when I formatted an SD card right before running it. I used a spare that was lying around, not the usual one with all my data, and I suggest you do the same if you kept your titanium backups. Hopefully you'll get rooted after about 3-5 minutes. Do not mess with any apps/bloatware after you have the root.
-After you have root, go into the settings menu and start an OTA update.
You should now have 2.3.3 WITH root.
-Once the phone is updated, install Titanium Backup and start backing up your old apps from before you messed up the phone and lost root.
-At this point feel free to remove the bloatware, but make sure you back it up in titanium for later.
3. Switching SD cards won't affect root at all.
4. A factory reset will reset whatever ROM was installed last. In other words, you can't revert back to 2.3.2 with a reset, it'll just reset 2.3.3 - It's really just for wiping data and settings.
5.The regular play ROM is the UK generic I posted above. The only "better" roms are customs that you need an unlocked bootloader to install. Currently they're still buggy and in development and not worth getting unless you like incomplete ROMs with bugs, and wanna lose the ability to update normally. Both OTA updates and the Sony Ericsson Update Service will brick your phone once the bootloader's unlocked.
6. My phone was booting a bit faster after updating to 2.3.3, and became even faster after removing some bloatware.
-Root doesn't speed up the boot process.
-I highly doubt an Android phone would have a virus that makes it boot faster, it's probably just from the update.
7. No, it wasn't. No, I didn't.
Thanks for the (semi-)quick response. Been browsing around the web with this tab open, constantly refreshing like a creep. I'll try your advice soon but its like 3am, just wanted to say thanks and love your Stocking pic.
Btw is there a difference between A US, UK or CAN rom or do those even exist?
The only real differences are carrier specific apps, and some versions have different games installed.
Sent from my R800
Seems like I was to late to flash and the link to the rom you gave me may have been updated to 2.3.3 as well. I was looking for a Canada/Rodgers rom anyway but the forum search isn't turning up anything and google seems to hate me...
Help anyone?
The link was for 2.3.2 in the generic.
The only rogers rom available is for 2.3.3 so you won't be getting root without an unlocked bootloader with that one.
Just follow the directions and it should be fine.
The rogers apps are available in the android market separately.
Sent from my R800
Hi,
I have an i9505 which is currently running NF1/1854187. CSC is btu and this was a recent clean install (and I've done the same preiviously)
I did run rooted for about a year. titanium backup to shut off a lot of bloatware with fine grained control, the xposed framework to tweak, and of course root access to use tools like better battery stats, and on occasion a custom kernel. The end result was good stability and power usage. Very happy.
However more apps are blocking root, and some manage to even detect root when using various root blockers, temporary unrooting or EVEN permanent unrooting (supersu). In particular the worst is "skygo" which I like to use to catch some content like f1 when out and about. My corporate software also detects root and wipes all enterprise data the instant it's detected.. plus add in a banking app and comms app, and keeping root was getting tricky.
On to my issue. Quite frequently the phone batter drops far too quicly. Today's example?
- In one hour battery drop is 10% (100->90)
- "Android OS is taking 30 mins of CPU, and 30 mins keep awake
- GSAM confirms 90%+ of the power usage is kernel/android os
- pretty much every user-disable-able app is disabled
- android OS contains loads of processes, making it tricky to track cause
- full wakelock data is not avaulable when not rooted
- user wakelocks total is down in terms of a few minutes only
This doesn't always happen.. sometimes the phone will be well behaved. the drop was around 3%/hour, and then I tried battery guru to limit auto-sync, and it did seem to help when well behaved, dropping usage to say 1.8% , but the core issue occurs with/without
I'm aware of many of the hints/tips of saving power, though I've done many of these.
I've previously seen mediaserver go awol and spin cpu, and deleted my spotify cache. Since then that process has seemed ok
Very frustrating that these silly "can't be root" situations (after all I'm "root" on all my linux boxes and admin on my windows boxes!) actually result in a LESS USABLE handset.
Is anyone else currently going through a similar situation?
I've just again checked settings and disabled airview/sensor related stuff. Next step if that doesn't help is to remove all my corporate sw stack and see how thing go - a frustrating process of elimination. As above I've already gone through a full reset with no help
try rerooting the phone then install SuperSU and choose FULL UNROOT. if you need to have a phone that will work with Sky Go etc. I've done this hundreds of times on the phone and it works guaranteed to get SkyGo working, so long as you have STOCK KERNEL. I am yet to find a custom kernel that does NOT autoroot, or mess up SkyGo in some other way. So be sure to be on stock kernel then FULL UNROOT.
As for the battery drain, have you updated to the latest version of SkyGo? Most of the old versions had some SEVERE wakelock issues where the app would be constantly running in the background and draining battery like mad. If you update to the latest version I've had very good results with it. Failing that you can drag the apps icon to the top of the screen where it says "app info" and from there you can "force stop" the app. I bet that this is the app which is killing your battery at present.
try rerooting the phone then install SuperSU and choose FULL UNROOT. if you need to have a phone that will work with Sky Go etc. I've done this hundreds of times on the phone and it works guaranteed to get SkyGo working, so long as you have STOCK KERNEL. I am yet to find a custom kernel that does NOT autoroot, or mess up SkyGo in some other way. So be sure to be on stock kernel then FULL UNROOT.
[/QUOTE[
Many thanks for that very clear, specific information. I had applied a custom kernel, and unrooted that - a classic error, changing two things at once. That did not work, with sky complaining about root - though the other apps were ok (sky are smart....)
With that information it gives me much more confidence I can indeed root/unroot the stock kernel, so I'm going to try that - at least it will let me tweak what packages are enabled - ie disable some of the samsung stuff I don't want/need that isn't user-disable-able. Any other thoughts welcome
Gloris said:
As for the battery drain, have you updated to the latest version of SkyGo? Most of the old versions had some SEVERE wakelock issues where the app would be constantly running in the background and draining battery like mad. If you update to the latest version I've had very good results with it. Failing that you can drag the apps icon to the top of the screen where it says "app info" and from there you can "force stop" the app. I bet that this is the app which is killing your battery at present.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes I'm bang up to date - my issue seemed more with one of the ootb packages rather than skygo. I have had the sky go issue in the past, but only when it's previously been run. I'm very used to wakelocks, and the user app wakelocks were well under control. That being said it's still annoying you can't get the app level breakdown unless rooted.
Anyway thanks again, that info about sky go/stock kernel/rooting was so helpful
Nigel.
Just to confirm root, unroot worked fine...
I disabled more apps with titanium backup. I didn't quite get as far as installing the xposed framework again, this stint was purely to prune down the apps somewhat. If that works/is stable I can tweak further
A little shame it requires hooking up to the pc to root again, but it's better than nothing!
SkyGo is still working, and corporate email threw a wobbly (by design) but is working again after the reroot
you don't need a pc to reroot though......store the towelroot apk on your phones mem card and just reinstall it from the phone (go to file managed, mem card, select the apk and install). then download supersu from play store, update, reboot, update.reboot. done. that's the good thing about using this method to root/unroot, you can do it all from the phone directly, no need to use a pc at all
::EDIT::
1 - root with towelroot
2 - install SuperSU from PlayStore and attempt to open and update binary (it may fail)
3 - reboot and open SuperSU again, if it again asks to update binary it will work this time, reboot once more).
4 - set up your options in SuperSU (e.g. no notification, trust system user etc).
5 - do whatever you need to do with root
6 - to UNROOT just choose "Full Unroot" option within SuperSU app, THEN also uninstall towelroot.
7 - Reboot and you'll be UN rooted and apps like SkyGo etc will work perfectly.
8 - If you need to re-root, repeat the process from step 1.
Thanks again. I'd been using cf auto root for a few years. Hadn't tried towel root. Thanks for the tips. Very helpful
Less than a year ago I was messing around with my Alcatel OneTouch Pop C3 phone, I was trying to customize it so that the status bar would be similar to the one on Android L, where it was gradient transparent and it would go along with the color of the app you're on. My phone was rooted through RootMaster (and it is still rooted) without any problem whatsoever. I could install Superuser, busybox and other apps and even if I used an app that determines whether my phone was rooted or not, says it actually is rooted. Although I had no problem installing Xposed Framework, it worked perfectly, but the problem was that if I installed something from Xposed, my phone would brick out since when you install something from the app you have to reboot your phone and when i reboot my phone was no longer functioning and would stay on a bootloop, so I had to unbrick my phone over and over again. I kept researching on why it happens but I didn't find any solution or anyone who had the same problem that I had. (I don't think I searched it properly though) I did it about three times, bricking it and unbricking it, until i came to the conclusion of uninstalling xposed and and not customizing my phone any longer. Until now, but I'm still afraid that if I install xposed again and installed a mod from it it would brick out again. I have some files on my phone and messages, and contacts saved on my phone that I don't know how to back up without having problems since if I used the default backup app on the phone the file would be too big and wouldn't even restore everything.
What do I do to not end up bricking my phone if I install xposed and installed a mod? what do I do to fix the problem and won't end up unbricking my phone?
Howdy,
I got a new Note 4 from Bell Mobility about a month ago...
I updated the software, rooted it and installed the Wanam modified Xposed framework.
I have lost the automatic rotation, except for the built in camera software. Nothing else will auto-rotate. Checked the gyroscope and checked a few 'leveler' applications - all tests pass. Oddly I noticed the camera software still auto-rotates, no idea why it is special.
I tried the Wanam Xposed module to 'Enable all rotation angles' it has made no difference. With screen rotation software, currently have "Rotation - Orientation Manager by Pranav Pandey" installed. Auto-Rotate On and Forced Auto-Rotate neither option will rotate the screen when I turn my phone. If I choose Forced Landscape, it will go into Landscape mode. The only way to return to Portrait though is to use one of the Force Portrait options though.
My other issue is with turning on Device Encryption... Using SuperSU Pro for su..
If I just go through the prompts without changing anything, it reboots but doesn't encrypt.
First I tried installing as a system app so I could use the Disable function in the Android Application Manager, as I did with my Note 2, SuperSU tells me "Not (currently) available in system-less root mode".
If I turn off "Enable Superuser" in SuperSU, encryption enables properly, but I am unable to turn the "Enable Superuser" again, it says it has to update, but the fails. Suggests a reboot and try again. Sadly, this did not help.
I had success with one of the exploit root methods, KingRoot. While this worked when my phone was encrypted, it wasn't stable and kept popping up stuff. I tried to replace it with SuperSU, there are a few guides written to do just that, but they all indicate that it is very hard to get rid of, regardless, none of the guides worked for me. I ended up resetting the phone and starting over...
I tried the CLI command to start the device encryption from a # prompt..
vdc cryptfs enablecrypto inplace password 1234567890abcdef
The phone rebooted a couple times, but took a very long time (hour plus) to come back to the Android Lock-Screen.. But still a non-encrypted device. If I intrupted the process because I thought it had crashed, it started up and immediately told me something when wrong with the encryption and I need to use Recovery to reset the device..
As for root methods, I was using the CF-Auto-Root at first, trying to look for solutions to both issues, I tried a few ways of getting SuperSU installed.. The last time I reset I tried the "SkipSoft Unified Android Toolkit" method. 'Grasping at straws' to get SuperSU installed into /system so can use the Applicaiton Manager to disable and enable it...
My mobile's specifics, if it matters..
Samsung Galaxy Note 4
Model number - SM-N910W8
Android Version 5.1.1
Baseband version - N910W8VLU1COK3
Build number - LMY47X.N910W8VLU1COK3
Currently have the Team Win Recovery Project v2.8.7.0 recovery software installed.
I am looking for suggestions for both issues, but really want to avoid resetting the phone if I can at all possible... Yes, I have Titanium Backup Pro installed, but have never actually gotten a restore to properly restore all my applications and data... I rely on it now just for the Uninstall and Freeze features.
For an update,
I also noticed that rotation works on the Lock Screen and in the camera applicaiton.
If I rotate my screen on the Lock Screen, the red handset picture and camera icons rotate.
If I rotate in the camera application, nothing changes position, but all the icons rotate as well.
I'm still completely stuck though, open to suggestions...
For rotation, it is likely caused because you removed the com.thingy.facebook system app. I tried removing it because I thought is was bloatware but read somewhere that messing around with it cause the auto rotate and pedometer to fail. I fixed it by reflashing the rom without data wipe then never removed it again. Page Manager is safe to remove though.
uchihakurtz said:
For rotation, it is likely caused because you removed the com.thingy.facebook system app. I tried removing it because I thought is was bloatware but read somewhere that messing around with it cause the auto rotate and pedometer to fail. I fixed it by reflashing the rom without data wipe then never removed it again. Page Manager is safe to remove though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you,
I had it frozen for a while, completely uninstalled it, trying to see if lack of space was why I couldnt' get SuperSu to become a System App..
I will try to put the facebook app back to see if that helps. Hoping I don't need to do a ROM reset, but if that is what it takes.
kevinds said:
Thank you,
I had it frozen for a while, completely uninstalled it, trying to see if lack of space was why I couldnt' get SuperSu to become a System App..
I will try to put the facebook app back to see if that helps. Hoping I don't need to do a ROM reset, but if that is what it takes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=5047956
I tried installing FaceBook from the PlayStore, no change.. So I uninstalled it again.
Took a backup in Titanium Backup and in TWRP.
From the stock image, I extracted system.img.ext4 and used SkipSoft's application to make just this file Odin flashable..
Flashed it.. When I got back to Android, my phone hadn't reset (what I was going for ), rotation is working, SuperSU still giving root access
I went back into Titanium Backup, the freshly installed apps were listed on top, because there was no backup of them.
Froze each, one at a time and checked the rotation after each.. Froze all the apps with no backups, and rotation stayed working, which I thought was odd for what fixed it.
So.. The Facebook applications are all frozen, as they were before I erased them the first time, and rotation still works. Hurray..
Now for the device encryption, I will keep messing with it.. Trying FlashFire to mount System as RW and to write the newest version of SuperSU, hopefully it will install to System this time.
Thank you again.
kevinds said:
Thank you http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=5047956
I tried installing FaceBook from the PlayStore, no change.. So I uninstalled it again.
Took a backup in Titanium Backup and in TWRP.
From the stock image, I extracted system.img.ext4 and used SkipSoft's application to make just this file Odin flashable..
Flashed it.. When I got back to Android, my phone hadn't reset (what I was going for ), rotation is working, SuperSU still giving root access
I went back into Titanium Backup, the freshly installed apps were listed on top, because there was no backup of them.
Froze each, one at a time and checked the rotation after each.. Froze all the apps with no backups, and rotation stayed working, which I thought was odd for what fixed it.
So.. The Facebook applications are all frozen, as they were before I erased them the first time, and rotation still works. Hurray..
Now for the device encryption, I will keep messing with it.. Trying FlashFire to mount System as RW and to write the newest version of SuperSU, hopefully it will install to System this time.
Thank you again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is amazing, can you please post the odin flashable file? I am having this exact problem right now because I removed it in TB. Is it just the facebook file that are flashed? Thanks so much in advance, you're saving my life here
Hello XDA community,
I recently purchased the Nothing Phone 1 running on the latest version of Android 13. After rooting my phone using Magisk, I installed several Magisk modules which worked fine initially.
Here's a list of Magisk modules that I installed in chronological order:
Font Manager
NotoCJK
Fullscreen/Immersive Gesture
G-visual (later closed as I didn't see any effect)
Shamiko
DRM disabler
Revanced Youtube
Webview Manager (replaced with ungoogle chromium)
Nexus Media Before installing the 10th module, I took a full backup of my device using Titanium Backup. However, during the backup process, it got stuck while backing up a file named "Media 13-9427200." After several attempts, I had to cancel the backup for this file to complete the backup process.
Pix3lify (failed to unpack boot image and finally used slim mode)
Safetynet fix
After installing the 11th module, I went to bed and installed several applications before sleeping, such as Kiwi, Shizuku, App Ops, Buzzkill, Automate, Vmos, Brevent, and Greenify.
12.Audio Modification Library
13.Ainur Narsil
After installing the 13th module, I noticed that my phone started behaving abnormally, and it would automatically reboot. Every time I start the phone, the interface freezes after two minutes, and it restarts automatically after several seconds. This scared me, so I uninstalled all the Magisk modules and applications installed after the 11th module and disabled the two audio modules, but it didn't seem to work. So, I turned off the phone for a few hours, and it seemed to work fine after that.
When I tried to log in to my Reddit account, I found that I couldn't use "Continue with Google." When I went to the Google section in Settings, I found that I couldn't open it either.
I searched for solutions online and found that the problem might be due to the Webview. I replaced it with Ungoogle chromium and downloaded the latest version of Android Webview from the Play Store and disabled WebView Manager. But nothing worked. I tried updating the Carrier Services and clearing the Google Service's cache, but it didn't work either. (All Google apps can be opened and used normally.)
After updating the WebView, things got worse. I use a third-party launcher called Smart Launcher, and I have many customized app icons. I found that all customized app icons no longer work, only the native icons can open the app.
I am really frustrated and everything seems out of my control. I decided to restore all the data from the backup I made last night using Titanium Backup (in snap mode). Unfortunately, after the restore was complete and I restarted the phone, I found that my phone was bricked. I can see the boot animation and select the launcher, but once I choose the launcher, the screen goes black, and I cannot do anything. I am also unable to enter Safe Mode as it keeps restarting.
At the same time, I used a software control my phone. I can see NOTHING in sdcard.
What can I do? Is there any way to fix my phone and preserve my data? If not, I am willing to wipe all my data. Also, if I restore my phone to factory settings, can I still use the backup data I made with Titanium Backup?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Additionally, please find attached a screenshot of the only interface I can see on my phone after booting up.
Seems you've broken lot of system apks , clearly Nothing Launcher is first . See if you have a intact bootloader and use fastboot commands to flash the launcher but I'm quite sure there many culprits in system .
So maybe short way is to flash entirely system image shown here in one of all threads about phone unbrick
muppetz said:
Seems you've broken lot of system apks , clearly Nothing Launcher is first . See if you have a intact bootloader and use fastboot commands to flash the launcher but I'm quite sure there many culprits in system .
So maybe short way is to flash entirely system image shown here in one of all threads about phone unbrick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your advice!