Greetings. Not sure if my question belongs here or under Development. I’ll post here first and see how it goes.
My question is this: Is it possible to revert from 5.0.1 to 4.3?
Long-winded background:
I bought an S4 about 2 years ago brand new. Loved the phone. I rooted it that day and I had full control over exactly how it was setup. I never felt the need to run anything but stock ROM. But I’ve flashed countless ROMs on other phones I’ve owned over the years. I’ve rooted probably 4 or 5 different phones – some easier than others. And I’ve performed jailbreak on iPhone and iPad. In summary, I’m not a total rookie to this kind of thing.
My original S4 took a swim when I had to jump into a pool to rescue my 2 year old, who fell into the deep end. The phone was in my pants pocket. The chlorine in the pool really did a number to the internal circuitry (not a huge surprise), and it's trashed. I liked my original S4 so much that I decided to just buy another one. Three days ago, I picked up a used S4, but it’s in EXCELLENT condition – looks brand new.
When I got home after purchasing the replacement S4, I realized that, beginning with Android 4.4, text wrap/reflow is gone. My phone is running 5.0.1. I found that Opera will still reflow text, but I’m not a big fan of Opera. To each his own, and Opera is not my own. I prefer Boat, Chrome, or Firefox. And none of those will wrap/reflow text.
This is a big deal for me, for what I do with my phone. I am pretty much willing to do whatever it takes to get back to 4.3 to enable this feature.
So, does anyone know a) if it’s even possible, b) how to do it?
Thanks in advance for any helpful advice/suggestions.
Related
Well, I got my early upgrade and it's time to retire the HD2 from active duty. It's been a helluva ride. It's hard to believe that i was about to send this phone back shortly after I got it. After looking for fixes online for the text messaging locking up and other issues, I found xda, and it changed my whole view of this phone and opened my eyes to what it was capable of. I would like to thank everyone who answered my questions and a special thanks to those responsible for CyanogenMod7, AmericanAndroid, and the Energy ROMS. I used this phone for personal and work use everyday with little to no issues. The Samsung Galaxy S II I'm replacing it with seems like an awesome phone so far, but the HD2 will always be the first phone that I've always wanted.
congratulations on your Galaxy S II. really awesome device. The device that took the iPhone head to head and overtook Apple as the world's biggest smartphone manufacturer...but your HD2 may not be be retired to a 'spare phone' just yet. you can still run Windows Phone in it if you want so that you will always be ready with both Android and WP!
Hi all been busy with life work etc not had much to do with phones but then I got the Note 3 its awesome but restricted, its a sim free version, I have now gained root access and
Want a nice vanilla KitKat Rom with all the note 3 needed bits (s-pen stuff) but non of the bloat ware. any recomendations???
Xda-Devs has changed a lot since I was last active on here and its giving me a headache making head or tail of whats going on. LOL. looking forward to some great custome ROMs and helping if i can with anything. Regards Phil
I may be a 'junior' member, but I have taken the plunge and signed up after many years of browsing and rooting etc...
You are correct, there is a lot of stuff to trawl through, and I think in part it's down to Samsung and the 101 different models! I started with an old Galaxy Ace that got CM'ed and things were definately easier back then!! Even the HTC One was a breeze, once you'd asked HTC for the bootloader unlock!
The rom's that I have taken a shine to are, obviously Cyanogenmod 11, The X-Note looks quite snappy, and the Echoe rom, but that's only because I'm a massive Pink Floyd fan and they name the roms after floyd songs!! I am sitting tight until a decent rom, minus the bloody TW, comes along. I would like something like the PacRom I had on an SGS2 and HTC One. I love the pac in black feature and the way they were laid out, along with the mountain of add ons. The Echoe rom for Note 3 seems to have a miriad of combinations using AOSP etc... Looks quite tidy, but I'm also bothered by the bloody knox thing! admittedly. Sadly, this will be my last Samsung Product. 3GB ram, Quadcore and you can't do F*ck all to them without potentially having issues with warranty!
Anyways Rant over.....
Hello XDA!
I'm about to purchase a note 4 tomorrow from Wind mobile here in Canada. I would have preferred the nexus 6 but its just not available with wind as of yet.
So my questions regarding the note 4 are:
1) The Note 4 variant would be SM-N910W8, will it allow rooting?
2) Does Samsung allow unlocking the bootloader to install custom roms or is just a root sufficient to do that.
3) I've heard of something called knox, and how it will trigger once you root the note 4. Will this have any adverse effects on app functionality such as tap2pay etc..? I know the warranty will be void, but if something goes wrong with the device its a 50/50 chance of getting it repaired replaced.
4) My reason of preference for the N6 was stock android, is there a ROM currently that is AOSP based?
5) Is there a specific thread i can go to find roms for my variant?
5) Is there a way to return back to a virgin note 4 (unrooted, stock ROM)? And even when that is done, will knox still reflect the trigger as 0x1?
6) Lastly, i havent been much of a fan of samsung because i felt they were pushing out "cheap phones" And i must admit, ever since they came with the metal band with their alpha and note 4. Ive taken a great liking to them. So my question (I do only expect general replies) , How are you guys/girls liking your note 4 so far?
Thanks in advanced!
(P.S sorry if some of the questions are stupid, i researched and dug around as much as i can but couldnt find definitive answers)
Rooting restriction is carrier based. Some carriers lock down from rooting, others dont.
Knox is a one way trip. Once tripped it stays that way. It is effectively a fuse.
Had my N4 for two weeks and am loving it. Came from a rooted S4. Not really missing root that much. Wish I could still turn GPS on and off with Tasker and wish I had better access to the SD card. Not big deals though. There is another thread here about non-rooted solutions to many things people want root for.
Might become more an issue in a couple years if Samsung/Verizon fails to do timely updates.
Best advice to new N4 users is learn to use the S Pen. It is what makes the N4 stand out.
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
1. No it doesnt allow rooting. get a 910U - so far it seems the least hassle.
2. no rooting.
3. yes once you try to root your warranty is void. for all purposes assume you will never get root. then again, you dont need root. in fact having no root and knox is much better. you can have a dual personality phone which works very well.
4. irrelevant. if you get the note 4 expect to run factory.
5. no. you cant have root.
6. you need a full case to hold it. its a thin glass panel. ive got an iblason armorbox for it. also would recommend buying the wireless back and wireless chargers. cables are too much of a hassle on this phone.
My recommendation would be little biased towards Samsung given my last four phones were all galaxy. I never had to root Note 3 but I rooted Note 4 in few days of owning it. Google must have thought let's give some punch to Samsung by disabling write access to external SD giving excuse of security as Samsung is the only high end phone manufacturer that still has it. And one of the most used function that was very important to me was copying files off network share to SD which no longer worked. Only for this I rooted.
I buy Note series not for amoled or big screen or good battery life or running AOSPs. I buy for SPen. I snap, print screen, doodle and write catchy text and share, adds that special touch. And that Microsoft One Note supported inking in android, I am loving it even more.
Note 4
Thanks for the input guys, much appreciated!
While it seems most of you use the note 4 for its main purpose of being a multitasking phone. I on the other end just need the good camera, screen and battery. Everything else is gimmicks (for me atleast). However, this opinion of mine could be due to the fact that ive never owned a note before.
I did see some guides of being able to root the SM-N910W8 with CF auto root, as well as a way of bringing devices back to stock as i can see form this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4/general/ref-stock-firmware-kernel-modem-recovery-t2920452
Now, is that really the case or is there somehting im not seeing?
you can NEVER bring it back to stock. the efuse blows once you root. Do NOT root a note 4 until youre familiar enough with knox to make the choice
By stock i dont mean resetting the knox fuse. I mean, if I am on a cusotm rom, i can bring it back to stock for warranty purposes (which I know after the knox fuse is blown, is a hit and miss)
So my question still stands, will I be able to root my phone based on the thread i mentioned above and be able to return it to stock afterwards, or is there something im not seeing there.
qwertyman007 said:
Hello XDA!
I'm about to purchase a note 4 tomorrow from Wind mobile here in Canada. I would have preferred the nexus 6 but its just not available with wind as of yet.
So my questions regarding the note 4 are:
1) The Note 4 variant would be SM-N910W8, will it allow rooting?
2) Does Samsung allow unlocking the bootloader to install custom roms or is just a root sufficient to do that.
3) I've heard of something called knox, and how it will trigger once you root the note 4. Will this have any adverse effects on app functionality such as tap2pay etc..? I know the warranty will be void, but if something goes wrong with the device its a 50/50 chance of getting it repaired replaced.
4) My reason of preference for the N6 was stock android, is there a ROM currently that is AOSP based?
5) Is there a specific thread i can go to find roms for my variant?
5) Is there a way to return back to a virgin note 4 (unrooted, stock ROM)? And even when that is done, will knox still reflect the trigger as 0x1?
6) Lastly, i havent been much of a fan of samsung because i felt they were pushing out "cheap phones" And i must admit, ever since they came with the metal band with their alpha and note 4. Ive taken a great liking to them. So my question (I do only expect general replies) , How are you guys/girls liking your note 4 so far?
Thanks in advanced!
(P.S sorry if some of the questions are stupid, i researched and dug around as much as i can but couldnt find definitive answers)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Note 4 with Bell so to answer your questions:
1) Yes. This is true for all Canadian carriers AFAIK.
2,4) Should be sufficient with just a root. I haven't been around for a week so I haven't caught up on new developments yet. I didn't see much in the way of AOSP last I looked.
3) This I can't answer but I know for example there is an XPosed module that will allow applications like GOOD to continue to work even with KNOX tripped/removed.
5) The W8 is similar to the 910T. I'm actually running DynamicKat with the KTNote4 Kernel. When you install DK part of the install script checks if your phone is a 910T or a 910W8 and installs the correct kernel. I had an issue with my initial flash of it bootlooping but I used the Stockish kernel from twistedumbrella that I had flashed when I still running stock rooted and backed up the boot image so I restored that boot image and it booted, then I flashed KTNote4 myself. Check here http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-tmobile/development and here http://forum.xda-developers.com/note-4-tmobile/orig-development for roms/kernels.
6) Yes you can just flash a stock rom (should be floating around somewhere) but Knox will still be tripped.
7) Overall I'm absolutely loving it. I came from an S3 that I was running CM11 on with KT's kernel (seriously, his kernels are amazing!) and I liked it for a really long time but it started to get really sluggish and it just can't handle multitasking the way I'd like it. I do still notice slow downs, and the phone does still get pretty hot sometimes, but that's the price you pay for multi-tasking. KTs kernel certainly isn't perfected (granted I'm on a build from 2 weeks ago) and sometimes it will randomly reboot and bootloop at the splash screen but once I clear cache it boots right up. Usually only does this once it's been pretty hot for a while. I love the multitasking windows, that's exactly what I want. The one thing that threw me off the most was the DPI. It's a big phone, I don't need everything on it to be gigantic. So I did end up using the XPosed module App Settings to scale the DPI down to 480 from 640. There are a couple quirks when doing that, like the task switcher is smaller (since it was designed for 640 DPI) and there are a couple apps that you have to set back to 640 as well like the camera but you can always fix those as you find them.
I'm a firm believer that Android is a dev's playground. I could not use this phone happily without root. In fact, I rooted it the same night I got it within a couple hours. I bought the phone outright since I would have had to change my plan if I wanted to early upgrade and my plan is too good to do that. Happy modding!
Just use Autoinput. Can trigger GPS.
Sent from my SM-N910F using XDA Free mobile app
Hey guys, I haven't been on XDA for years but I'm really in the need of some help... I wounder if you guys have some solutions!
I used to have a Sony SP, the thing broke and I decided to look for a replacement. Buying a new phone wasn't in my budget so I went and looked for a Samsung S4 that had a broken screen, bought the replacement OLED (I think it's an oled display), and took it to a technician to repair it. It was a good buy but little did I know that fixing the hardware on the device will disable my ability to update it! I've wanted to stay stock and not flashing any ROMs on it because I just want a phone that works. I don't want the hassle of having to worry about the latest firmware, and flashing new kernels, I just want a laid back experience. My phone was already rooted when I got it, in fact I had the SuperSU app already installed (which I thought was pretty weird but I didn't think much of it), everything else is stock. Is there any options so that I can update my device that don't require any flashing on my PC?
I have another phone with the same issue, my mothers Samsung S3. Full story, I live in Venezuela and smartphones here are extremely expensive, so obviously if something happens to them you much rather repair it then buying a new one because it's unthinkable to afford one, besides a Samsung S3 is still a good device. So one day the phones screen starts fading black, and it stops accepting touch input, we had to replace the digitizer (Touch Screen), and it functioned like normal! Problem is we needed to restore the device because it was getting a bit bogged down, low and behold, same issue as my Samsung S4. Now I can live without having my firmware updates, but I'd really like to at least help my mom get hers sorted out!
I want to thank everyone who took the time to read this, and that can help me fix my devices!
The reason you can't update your S4 is because you're rooted.
As for the S3, maybe there aren't any updates available.
Samsung stopped updating the S4 like two years ago at Android 5.0 and I don't think the S3 ever got Lollipop.
I'm also pretty sure that replacing a screen won't magically prevent your phone from receiving updates; The restore may have caused that.
Hi all,
I've got a developers edition Galaxy Note 4 that I bought directly from Samsung 7ish years ago and it's still my daily driver. I rooted it immediately upon getting it and have never updated it past the KitKat version of Android that it came with. I rely on Google Voice and just got a message saying that Voice would soon stop running on KitKat so I need to upgrade my version of Android.
I've been out of the scene for a long time (as evidenced by my still using a 7 year old phone) so I'm looking for advice on a ROM to move to. My requirements are:
Must have root.
Must support Google Voice
Battery life is very important to me. This is one of the main reasons I stayed with KitKat. When later versions came out people were reporting much worse battery life. Not sure if this is still the case.
Must support s-pen. I use this quite frequently.
I prefer to stay with something close to stock. I don't need flashy 3D launcher effects of anything. I've got a Galaxy Tab S7+ and I'm familiar with (and like) recent versions of Samsung's UI.
GPS must be functional. I use Maps and Waze for navigation same need to continue. This probably won't be an issue, but I mention it because I remember some ROMS having trouble with this years ago.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. It's been so long since I've done this stuff I don't remember where to start. In addition to being rooted, I've got what is probably a very old version (2.8.1.1) of TWRP installed. Not sure if it would matter, but I'm also still on one of Verizon's old truly unlimited plans.
I've been doing some research and unless anyone here has a better idea I'm guessing the best move for me would be to upgrade to one of the official Android 6 builds that Samsung released for this phone. From what I gather, custom ROMs do not fully support the S-pen. Is that correct?
Do any pre-rooted versions of the Samsung 6.0.1 release exist that I could flash with my existing version of TWRP? I've seen some discussion of updating bootloaders but I'm not really sure what that's all about. Like I said, it's been many years since I've done this stuff.
Any and all advice and instruction and links appreciated.
I'd leave it be and ditch Gookill Voice... enjoy the better battery life.
blackhawk said:
I'd leave it be and ditch Gookill Voice... enjoy the better battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would, but I've used Google Voice for everything. In all these years I've never given anyone my actual carrier phone number. They've all gotten my Google Voice number.
I'm glad you left your comment though. It reminded me that battery life getting worse was one of the reasons I never did the update.
Not real sure what I'm going to do. I might just limp along as it is for a month and maybe buy the Galaxy Fold 3 when it comes out.
I use the a Custom ROM which is Android 6.0.1 for my SM-N910P called Q15_Plus_TidBits_VB3.0.1. So far I get about 14 hours on the battery with average use, and that is without using the battery saving modes. It is stable, and quite honestly runs everything (including Google Voice which I rely on). The only complaint I can think of is that I don't have a 'power button flashlight' feature installed.
Unidave199 said:
I use the a Custom ROM which is Android 6.0.1 for my SM-N910P called Q15_Plus_TidBits_VB3.0.1. So far I get about 14 hours on the battery with average use, and that is without using the battery saving modes. It is stable, and quite honestly runs everything (including Google Voice which I rely on). The only complaint I can think of is that I don't have a 'power button flashlight' feature installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds great! Does this rom maintain support for the s-pen?
hacksaw999 said:
That sounds great! Does this rom maintain support for the s-pen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure does!