Database Users

alt-w missing

I hope someone can help. Originally, when I downloaded Hero beta4 it came with a recovery file. Since I didnt know where it went, I did not adb it over. Now, everytime I wipe (i am now running rosie), it locks up at the Android screen and endless boots. I am sure it is because I am missing my recovery image. I presume I can use any update.zip and rename it recovery.something. My questions are
1. what is this recovery file named?
2. Where does it go? I have app_s installed to my ext2 partition for rosie.

If you boot up without holding down the home key (a normal boot in other words) the system doesn't touch your recovery partition. So having a damaged recovery is likely not the cause of your looping. If you want to install a recovery.img you can just grab it out of a full updater or as a separate file.

Thanks, but you said something interesting. You said recovery partition. Where is that? And would I use ADB to push the recovery file over to where ever?
it only boot-loops when i wipe. If I update, things go smoothly. Until I wipe again. Seems like i am missing the recovery image (since it came with the download but I never moved it).
Thanks jashsu for your prompt response.
pine

I don't think it's the recovery partition. I get kinda the same with tehseano's Hero theme 1.1. When I wipe before applying the update, I get problems with home app. And after, I get a bootloop..

Problems Rooting Nexus S 4G with Mac

OK, so I just got my Nexus S4G two days ago, and I'm ready to root. My phone out of the box has 2.3.4 on it.
I follow this tutorial: http://www.droidfiles.us/nexus-s-4g/root-nexus-s-4g/ the link to which was provided by a good XDA'er. I get the bootloader unlocked and install CWR (recovery-clockwork-3.0.2.4-crespo.img) and that goes fine.
That's when things stop going fine.
First, I try to create a Nandroid backup, and that process seemingly completes fine until i note that the process says it couldn't mount /data. I don't worry about it.
So, I go to Mounts and Storage to prepare to push SuperUser.zip and I tell CWR to "Mount USB Storage" and I wait as directed, but the USB storage never mounts. I try mounting USB Storage and mounting /sdcard, neither of which work, so I can't push SuperUser.zip.
Figuring I did something wrong, I decide to restore from Nandroid, only to have CWR tell me that the MD5 checksum is incorrect and now I have no clean, base Nandroid to restore to.
Then I do some digging, and discover that there's a new CWR for the NS4G at Koush's site and I download the file (recovery-clockwork-3.1.0.0-crespo4g.img) from there, push it to my phone using fastboot's recovery command and start it up.
It doesn't work.
Clicking any of the options (like mounting partitions, or restarting/powering down the phone) causes the screen to go blank and just display the CWR logo in the middle of the screen. The only solution to get out of those loops is to pull battery and restart.
So, now, I'm wondering what to do.
I go back into fastboot, relock the bootloader and I now wait for a reliable root method to root a 2.3.4 NS4G on a Mac.
My questions are:
Where can I get a stock ROM to completely start over from scratch and even remove the recovery I've installed <-- found a base ROM here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1078213
Is there a fully reliable way to root the NS4G on a Mac, and if so how? (I've looked at this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878446 and it looks problematic as well).

Look in the dev section, stickies at top, the one talking about ns4g cdma. You have the su zip already. Put the cwm 3024 img file in the same directory as fastboot. You won't use adb. Boot into bootloader and do the fastboot command to unlock. Phone is wiped. Boot into phone normally and log in with gmail. On the phone, mount the device as usb so you can just copy the su zip to the root of the sd card.unmount phone on the Mac side then the phone side. Boot phone into bootloader. Do the command to fastboot the cwm into the phone again. Once finished, choose recovery on bootloader. It will boot into cwm. Choose install zip from card. Choose pick zip. Install su. Reboot into normal phone. Download busybox and a file manager you like that can handle root. With file manager, go to /system/etc and look for the sh file mentioned in the guide and add .old to the end of the file. If su pops up asking for permissions then you know everything is working. Boot into bootloader again. Install cwm again then choose recovery again. Once in cwm do wipe of caches and factory reset and dalvik. Go back and do backup with nandroid. Boot into normal phone. Sign into google again. Update profile and prl them you should be set. Pretty much that's what I did and it worked the first time around.
Follow the Mac guide in the link

herbthehammer said:
Look in the dev section, stickies at top, the one talking about ns4g cdma. You have the su zip already. Put the cwm 3024 img file in the same directory as fastboot. You won't use adb. Boot into bootloader and do the fastboot command to unlock. Phone is wiped. Boot into phone normally and log in with gmail. On the phone, mount the device as usb so you can just copy the su zip to the root of the sd card.unmount phone on the Mac side then the phone side. Boot phone into bootloader. Do the command to fastboot the cwm into the phone again. Once finished, choose recovery on bootloader. It will boot into cwm. Choose install zip from card. Choose pick zip. Install su. Reboot into normal phone. Download busybox and a file manager you like that can handle root. With file manager, go to /system/etc and look for the sh file mentioned in the guide and add .old to the end of the file. If su pops up asking for permissions then you know everything is working. Boot into bootloader again. Install cwm again then choose recovery again. Once in cwm do wipe of caches and factory reset and dalvik. Go back and do backup with nandroid. Boot into normal phone. Sign into google again. Update profile and prl them you should be set. Pretty much that's what I did and it worked the first time around.
Follow the Mac guide in the link
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to give your method a try. Thank you for your rapid response...
I see the subtle change you suggested: simply rebooting after unlocking and pushing recovery, and moving SU to the device via USB. Wish I'd thought of that.
(I'm still concerned about the Nandroid issue I reported. But I'll have to avoid any new ROMs for the time being, until I can get an answer for my Nandroid problem...)

My first nandroid choked. After root and final recovery install, I cleared all the caches it was *****ing about the first time, went in normally to make sure everything was okay, then went back and nandroid and no errors the second time. I probably will just stay with rooted stock but I would not flash other stuff until the dust settles and many of the bugs are worked out of the roms and kernels before jumping in.

TonyArmstrong said:
I'm going to give your method a try. Thank you for your rapid response...
I see the subtle change you suggested: simply rebooting after unlocking and pushing recovery, and moving SU to the device via USB. Wish I'd thought of that.
(I'm still concerned about the Nandroid issue I reported. But I'll have to avoid any new ROMs for the time being, until I can get an answer for my Nandroid problem...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If cwm mount won't work then boot into the phone normally and copy over the file like usual is the only other quick and easy way to do it that I could think of at the moment the snafu happened. Yeah the way I did it might not have been the most efficient way but it got me past the hurdle that cwm made quickly. In the end, the result is the same so no big deal.
I don't know if cwm backs up wimax keys so I did it manually. There's a post on how to do it, I don't know if it's in this section. It might be dev?

Factory Reset wiped out the internal SD card! I thought it's not meant to happen?!

This is the first time I'm using a device that doesn't have an external SD card, but I've all along understood that the internal SD card does not get wiped when you do a factory reset, and I'm sure I read that again on another thread just the other day.
My N7 is rooted using Wug's toolkit, with CM10.2 and Bulletproof kernel.
Yesterday I decided to do a factory reset (under Settings, Backup & Reset, Factory Data Reset), but after I did it, all the stuff I had on the internal SD was gone, including my backup files, the ROMs I had transferred there, etc.
Surely this is not meant to be the case, is it??

internal sdcard used to be a different partition.
Now it is just a directory in your /data and the "sdcard" is an emulated sdcard.
I know stock ROM and stock recovery wipes /data and everything in it including the virtual sdcard.
TWRP recovery will only remove the /data user stuff, leaving the virtual sdcard alone.
Which recovery are you running?

sfhub said:
internal sdcard used to be a different partition.
Now it is just a directory in your /data and the "sdcard" is an emulated sdcard.
I know stock ROM and stock recovery wipes /data and everything in it including the virtual sdcard.
TWRP recovery will only remove the /data user stuff, leaving the virtual sdcard alone.
Which recovery are you running?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that! (Thanks coming your way). Well, better to know now than later! The down side is that I lost my CWM backups and my Titanium Backup files, but the good thing is that I think I have a TWRP backup that's on my computer.
I'm using TWRP, but not really liking it, cos I cannot boot into recovery from the phone and have to keep relying on the Wug Toolkit. I've just downloaded CWM and will be switching to that.
So the moral of this story is that if we are to do a factory reset, we should do it via recovery, correct? I'm presuming CWM will also leave the virtual sd card alone, yeah?

Oh one more thing, I think I lost root after the factory reset!!
I checked my All Apps and SuperSu wasn't there anymore. Just rooted it again using Wug kit.

oohyeah said:
I'm using TWRP, but not really liking it, cos I cannot boot into recovery from the phone and have to keep relying on the Wug Toolkit. I've just downloaded CWM and will be switching to that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure what issue you are having with TWRP, but you can flash it to the recovery partition and boot to it automatically. If that's the only reason you don't like it, I'd work on fixing the install rather than jumping to another recovery.
oohyeah said:
So the moral of this story is that if we are to do a factory reset, we should do it via recovery, correct? I'm presuming CWM will also leave the virtual sd card alone, yeah?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would probably do it from recovery. I don't know what CWM does on this platform as I've only used it on other platforms.

What do you mean you can't boot into recovery with twrp? I'm using twrp and have no problem booting into recovery.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

geckocavemen said:
What do you mean you can't boot into recovery with twrp? I'm using twrp and have no problem booting into recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I try to boot into recovery, it ends up showing a dead android with the red triangle "!" sign. I remember doing some searches and it seemed like this was normal. I remember the reason was that the N7 would always rewrite the recovery or something. From your responses, I'm guessing it's not normal?
The only way I could get into recovery was using the Wug toolkit using USB debugging/ADB, which really sucked, cos if it bootlooped and I can't get into the system to turn on USB debugging, then I'm not sure what I would do (though I read there's some way around it or something). I had never encountered any such thing with all my many other devices which all run CWM.
So what's up with all that?

"su" enter' next line "reboot recovery" in the Android Terminal window should also boot your device into recovery

User_99 said:
"su" enter' next line "reboot recovery" in the Android Terminal window should also boot your device into recovery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will work fine. If you have no aversion to installing apps, Rom Toolbox Lite gives you power widgets you can put on your desktop then go to recovery with one touch. I use Quick Boot PRO, although the free version of that all may do recovery also. One might work for you until you want to play with mods.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

oohyeah said:
When I try to boot into recovery, it ends up showing a dead android with the red triangle "!" sign.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is stock recovery.
You need to get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh
You can get rid of it by hand, or just install SuperSU from TWRP. Then flash TWRP to the recovery partition.

Thank you everyone for your input!
I'm happily back on CWM right now. If I revert back to TWRP next time at least I'll know what to do!

oohyeah said:
Thank you everyone for your input!
I'm happily back on CWM right now. If I revert back to TWRP next time at least I'll know what to do!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None of your blunders has anything to do with TWRP.

khaytsus said:
None of your blunders has anything to do with TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK let me get something straight.
Obviously, the factory resetting that wiped out all internal storage (the original point of the thread) has nothing to do with TWRP, and I never said it did. On this point though, I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to be more well known that a factory reset would do wipe out all your data (did several searches and only found 'confirmations' that your internal SD data would be left untouched), though I'm glad that I know it now.
The suggestions on different ways to boot into recovery were helpful, though I believe that I would still have encountered the dead android, or would I not have?
What's certainly still not clear to me though is regarding the problem of not being able to boot into recovery and getting the dead android with the exclamation/triangle. After the first few replies, I expected to hear that this was NOT meant to be the case and that I did something wrong in the process or whatever.
However, what I seemed to get was that this is the expected behavior, and what I needed to have done was to "get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh".
So let me ask these questions for clarification:
1. Is the dead android normal, given what I did/didn't do?
2. Is deleting /system/etc/install-recovery.sh part of the process of installing TWRP in order to be able to boot into recovery?
3. Would I also need to get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh if using CWM?
(so far it doesn't seem to. After installing CWM I'm not getting the dead android and I didn't delete the install-recovery.sh).
Thanks. And just to be clear, I hope no one takes it the wrong way that I'm bashing TWRP or anything, because I"m not. Just been a long time user of CWM and this is the first time using TWRP and encountering the dead android.

oohyeah said:
So let me ask these questions for clarification:
1. Is the dead android normal, given what I did/didn't do?
2. Is deleting /system/etc/install-recovery.sh part of the process of installing TWRP in order to be able to boot into recovery?
3. Would I also need to get rid of /system/etc/install-recovery.sh if using CWM?
(so far it doesn't seem to. After installing CWM I'm not getting the dead android and I didn't delete the install-recovery.sh).
Thanks. And just to be clear, I hope no one takes it the wrong way that I'm bashing TWRP or anything, because I"m not. Just been a long time user of CWM and this is the first time using TWRP and encountering the dead android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dead android = stock recovery, so normal there.
When you flash a custom recovery on a stock ROM, there is a file, /system/etc/install-recovery.sh, or I actually prefer just renaming /system/recovery-from-boot.p, which will automatically verify your recovery image and restore it to stock if it doesn't match. So you must always remove this file, or the ROM will restore the stock recovery on boot.
TWRP makes it easy to remove either file by mounting /system in read-write mode and using its built-in file manager to remove it. You can do the same in CWM using adb.
As for point 3, yes, try to reboot into recovery again. If you didn't remove (either file), you'll find stock recovery again.

Thanks, Khaytsus. I booted into recovery (long press power button, reboot menu, recovery), and it booted straight into CWM, like it always has with my other devices. (And to confirm, I have not even looked for the install-recovery.sh file, let alone removed or renamed it.)
So far it seems to me that TWRP requires removal of install-recovery.sh, whereas CWM does not, but this doesn't seem to be what you guys are telling me is supposed to be the case.

oohyeah said:
Thanks, Khaytsus. I booted into recovery (long press power button, reboot menu, recovery), and it booted straight into CWM, like it always has with my other devices. (And to confirm, I have not even looked for the install-recovery.sh file, let alone removed or renamed it.)
So far it seems to me that TWRP requires removal of install-recovery.sh, whereas CWM does not, but this doesn't seem to be what you guys are telling me is supposed to be the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really depends on what ordering you do your actions in.
/system/etc/install-recovery.sh doesn't exist on a stock factory shipped system.
It only gets put in place after you install an OTA. If you do all your upgrades using the factory images, you'll never encounter it.
What it does is during your boot process, it will check to see if your recovery is different than what it expects (ie stock). If so, it will install stock recovery by taking the stock kernel and patching it.
If any of the following are true, it will not overwrite your recovery:
/system/etc/install-recovery.sh is missing (or modified to not run as the original file)
/system/recovery-from-boot.p is missing
you are not running the stock kernel
The most common way for install-recovery.sh to be missing is you always used factory images.
The most common way for install-recovery.sh to be modified to not do the original function is if you installed SuperSU. It will overwrite install-recovery.sh with its own.
So in all the back and forth, it is quite possible you got rid of install-recovery.sh or had it modified simply by installing root.
If you then subsequently installed custom recovery, it would stay in place.
Previously you were installing TWRP and flashing it onto the tablet, but upon booting into android, install-recovery.sh realized it wasn't stock recovery, and overwrote TWRP with stock recovery.
That is why whenever you rebooted, you got fallen android (which is stock recovery)
If the way you installed cwm is to use "fastboot flash recovery cwm.img" then the only reason it is around is because something else you did got rid of or modified install-recovery.sh. cwm would be no more immune to install-recovery.sh than twrp was.

oohyeah said:
Oh one more thing, I think I lost root after the factory reset!!
I checked my All Apps and SuperSu wasn't there anymore. Just rooted it again using Wug kit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to clarify, you didn't lose root. You just lost the supersu app, a root permission manager, because it was installed to your /data partition. The su binary was still in /system, all you would have had to do was install supersu from the market.

I'm not sure what else you were expecting from a "factory reset"

creaturemachine said:
I'm not sure what else you were expecting from a "factory reset"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you read the thread? He explained his reason for expectation quite well.
I just started up on a Nexus 4, and was also surprised to see this. Coming from a Galaxy S2, the "sdcard" being left intact was pretty convenient when flashing from ROM to ROM. Albeit, leading to some messiness. When did Nexus change to this behavior?

Skaziwu said:
I just started up on a Nexus 4, and was also surprised to see this. Coming from a Galaxy S2, the "sdcard" being left intact was pretty convenient when flashing from ROM to ROM. Albeit, leading to some messiness. When did Nexus change to this behavior?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on which level you are looking at, it didn't really change the behavior, but rather how your data is organized.
Factory reset has always wiped out /data.
On older devices, they put the /sdcard in a separate partition and formatted fat32.
These are the ones that were surviving a factory reset.
On newer devices, the internal /sdcard is starting to migrate onto a directory in /data and the "sdard" you see is "virtual". Since it is on /data, when you wipe data, the virtual sdcard is also wiped.
Some recoveries try to simulate the previous behavior by doing a "rm" of every directory except the virtual sdard when you choose to wipe, instead of the erase/format that Android is doing.
The advantage of keeping the sdcard as a directory under /data is you don't need to decide how much space to split between the sdcard and your /data. Also permissions on files are more flexible being in an ext4 filesystem. Finally since everything is emulated and accessed via MTP, you don't need to unmount the filesystem, so your PC can access it.
There are also cons with this approach, but that is what Google is going with.

Create Stock Recovery.img from FTF File

Hi, I am in the process of preparing for upgrading from 7.0 to 7.1.1
I know I need to replace the Custom Kernel with the Stock Kernel. And I have to replace TWRP with Stock Recovery.
Can anybody tell me, which file inside the FTF is the stock recovery? I already found the kernel. Need help to find the stock recovery, thank you!

tempurastyle said:
Need help to find the stock recovery, thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We don't have one which is why we have to use TWRP.

So my only way is to flash via Flashtool without wipe?

tempurastyle said:
So my only way is to flash via Flashtool without wipe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do that then mod your own kernel. [How To] make your own XPERIA DRM-fix kernel.
And flash a TWRP.img to the recovery partition.

fotakernel.sin reside's where we flash twrp on stock. you do not need to flash it to upgrade, contrary you can exclude it in flashtool and keep twrp between updates.

realtuxen said:
fotakernel.sin reside's where we flash twrp on stock. you do not need to flash it to upgrade, contrary you can exclude it in flashtool and keep twrp between updates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is real knowledge, thanks! so just to be sure, this is what i will do in flashtool:
1) wipe: nothing selected
2) exclude: fotakernel.sin selected
can anybody confirm this is correct?
then after this, i will flash a custom kernel via fastboot and magisk via twrp.
one question regarding magisk: will it be deleted during the flashtool update?

So I ran into a problem...
The Upgrade to 7.1.1 via flashtool was smooth. Then, i flashed twrp via fastboot as usual. When I tried to enter twrp, i get a password prompt to decrypt the phone. So i don't know which password i need to type in. I tried the unlock PIN, doesnt work. Any suggestions?

tempurastyle said:
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To get round that you need to run the following commands...
Code:
fastboot format userdata
fastboot format cache
...so you'll need to backup all your data first.

XperienceD said:
To get round that you need to run the following commands...
Code:
fastboot format userdata
fastboot format cache
...so you'll need to backup all your data first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so I decided to keep my data and don't install twrp. Now I got another issue, is it possible to install Magisk without TWRP? I already got my kernel using my ta backup according to the instructions a few posts above, which really works great.

tempurastyle said:
Ok, so I decided to keep my data and don't install twrp. Now I got another issue, is it possible to install Magisk without TWRP? I already got my kernel using my ta backup according to the instructions a few posts above, which really works great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought you excluded fotakernel so you did not have to flash twrp again. Oh well anyway you can use twrp to flash zips just fine although /data is encrypted, most flash zips do not write to /data anyway some like supersu use /cache (which is not encrypted contrary to the info above) to get around encryption at next boot. And like magisk also patch the boot.img live on your phone, some write to /system which is not encrypted either, I never seen a flash zip that did write to /data. Only backup/browsing/etc on /data is affected.
So when presented with the password screen in twrp just press cancel and make sure the zip you want to flash is located on the external sd card (do not encrypt this in phone settings, your card will be unreadable from pcs to) then choose flash zip and choose the external sdcard to pick the zip from and flash magisk or whatever. You need to run your kernel through ta poc or rootkernel first and disable dm verity and sony ric. (you write you did this so just install twrp and flash away) Do not wipe cache before rebooting just in case magisk uses this in a similar way to supersu (I have no idea)

Also if you do the above fastboot format commands suggested in post#8 without disabling 'forceencrypt' for /data (fstab in the kernel image or with a tool) the phone will encrypt itself again as soon as you turn it on.
If forceencrypt is disabled the same can be achieved (clearing encryption) with a factory reset btw.
So if you did not bump into the password in twrp before you likely did a factory reset with a kernel with encryption disabled. Then, maybe after updating you rebooted stock and the phone encrypted itself again, then now you can not access /data in twrp. Thats also because we have no version of it that supports encryption on the X-compact though. Again do not worry, I have not meet a zip I could not flash, supersu, magisk, etc because they do not access /data anyway.

realtuxen said:
I thought you excluded fotakernel so you did not have to flash twrp again. Oh well anyway you can use twrp to flash zips just fine although /data is encrypted, most flash zips do not write to /data anyway some like supersu use /cache (which is not encrypted contrary to the info above) to get around encryption at next boot. And like magisk also patch the boot.img live on your phone, some write to /system which is not encrypted either, I never seen a flash zip that did write to /data. Only backup/browsing/etc on /data is affected.
So when presented with the password screen in twrp just press cancel and make sure the zip you want to flash is located on the external sd card (do not encrypt this in phone settings, your card will be unreadable from pcs to) then choose flash zip and choose the external sdcard to pick the zip from and flash magisk or whatever. You need to run your kernel through ta poc or rootkernel first and disable dm verity and sony ric. (you write you did this so just install twrp and flash away) Do not wipe cache before rebooting just in case magisk uses this in a similar way to supersu (I have no idea)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, after the first upgrade attempt, i let twrp untouched. then when entering twrp, i didnt have a password, so i skipped it. i couldn't find the sd card in the file browser, and after i hit reboot in twrp the phone restarted and got stuck in boot.
So I flashed again, this time deleting twrp. the initial boot up went fine. Then i flashed twrp again and once again, without having a password, i just skipped the password prompt. still couldnt find the sd card, and i rebooted out of twrp. and the phone got stuck again.
after 2-3 trials, i figured out that everytime i rebooted out of twrp, the phone gets stuck during boot. even after turning it off and on, so a reflash was needed.
now i have given up using twrp, so i have an unrooted phone with an unlocked bootloader. which does not allow me to use android pay. i think to solve my problem is:
1) i need to know which twrp version really works, i have tried
this version
and this version
both cause a boot failure for me
2) i need to find the sd card location in the twrp file browser (all the folders show empty for me)
if nothing works, i guess i need to wipe my phone, but that's what i would like to avoid. thanks for your help guys!

tempurastyle said:
Yes, after the first upgrade attempt, i let twrp untouched. then when entering twrp, i didnt have a password, so i skipped it. i couldn't find the sd card in the file browser, and after i hit reboot in twrp the phone restarted and got stuck in boot.
So I flashed again, this time deleting twrp. the initial boot up went fine. Then i flashed twrp again and once again, without having a password, i just skipped the password prompt. still couldnt find the sd card, and i rebooted out of twrp. and the phone got stuck again.
after 2-3 trials, i figured out that everytime i rebooted out of twrp, the phone gets stuck during boot. even after turning it off and on, so a reflash was needed.
now i have given up using twrp, so i have an unrooted phone with an unlocked bootloader. which does not allow me to use android pay. i think to solve my problem is:
1) i need to know which twrp version really works, i have tried
this version
and this version
both cause a boot failure for me
2) i need to find the sd card location in the twrp file browser (all the folders show empty for me)
if nothing works, i guess i need to wipe my phone, but that's what i would like to avoid. thanks for your help guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 2. issue with the sdcard is easy. After pressing 'install' button in twrp at the bottom left press the "select storage' button, a small window will pop up then select the 'micro sdcard' and press 'ok", you should see your files now.
The 1. ssue is really odd! I use the second twrp you posted, for some wierd reason the first one does not boot for me (twrp does not start). But I talked with another guy for him it was the other way around. It was really strange. I think most can use both though without problems
There is one more twrp 3.1 from bambamx, but I really do not get this, twrp boots from its own partition with its own kernel. They should be separated unless twrp does something to system ofcause which it very well shouldn't unless you ask it to, deleting a important file or flashing something. I have never heard of this sorry. One thing is certain our device sure could use a stable nougat encryption compatible twrp!
I will let you know if I find something, you can try the last available version, I have no idea if it will exhibit the same strange behaviour. But maybe its worth a shot although it seems something else is at play.
A couple of stupid questions sorry; You disabled dm verity and sony ric in ta poc right, and it does not happen if you boot your phone normal a couple of times.
Edit: sorry Mr. Sandman had not left so I did not read properly here from the morning. I will edit my post to actually answer as best as I can lol.

Just to let you know:
1. You do not need to install TWRP to use it! You can just do
Code:
fastboot boot <TWRP image>
to run TWRP on the phone (instead of
Code:
fastboot flash boot <TWRP image>
). The only drawback of this method is that you will always need a computer to enter TWRP. Btw. with this method you can also try out a custom kernel image before flashing it.
2. You do not need write access to /data partition to install Magisk. It was explained in another thread that Magisk can use /cache temporary when access to /data is not available. It will write to /data on first boot instead.
3. While using TWRP you can use adb to transfer files onto the phone, so you don't need to have them ready on the internal storage.

realtuxen said:
The 2. issue with the sdcard is easy. After pressing 'install' button in twrp at the bottom left press the "select storage' button, a small window will pop up then select the 'micro sdcard' and press 'ok", you should see your files now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did, but the SD card can't be selected, and the size shows as 0kb. I did a workaround though: i formatted a spare sd card and copied magisk on it. it was instantly recognized and selectable.
ypnos42 said:
Just to let you know:
1. You do not need to install TWRP to use it! You can just do
Code:
fastboot boot <TWRP image>
to run TWRP on the phone (instead of
Code:
fastboot flash boot <TWRP image>
). The only drawback of this method is that you will always need a computer to enter TWRP. Btw. with this method you can also try out a custom kernel image before flashing it.
3. While using TWRP you can use adb to transfer files onto the phone, so you don't need to have them ready on the internal storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GREAT advice! I launched TWRP from ADB and successfully flashed Magisk using ADB sideload. Thanks, my phone is rooted again!

Freezes on Google screen after attempted SU Install from TWRP

Ok I am sure I did this before without any problem, but this time, through TWRP on the NRTK, I installed Magisk, no problems, and then went back to install the SU with the zip file in TWRP again and then on the reboot it freezes on the Google startup screen.
I didnt even want to install the SU zip, but when I ran SU after Magisk installed after reboot, SU gave an error, so I decided to install SU from TWRP.
Did I do something wrong there, so I dont repeat the same error next time?
And how do I get out of this locked state?
I've tried wiping all cache to factory reset without deleting internal storage data... I am hoping I dont have to delete and wipe everything and start all over. I did not have a chance to eve install TiB yet.

Dathaeus said:
Ok I am sure I did this before without any problem, but this time, through TWRP on the NRTK, I installed Magisk, no problems, and then went back to install the SU with the zip file in TWRP again and then on the reboot it freezes on the Google startup screen.
I didnt even want to install the SU zip, but when I ran SU after Magisk installed after reboot, SU gave an error, so I decided to install SU from TWRP.
Did I do something wrong there, so I dont repeat the same error next time?
And how do I get out of this locked state?
I've tried wiping all cache to factory reset without deleting internal storage data... I am hoping I dont have to delete and wipe everything and start all over. I did not have a chance to eve install TiB yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash the stock boot.img from the image/rom you were using before this and reboot. You will have to re-root (properly) afterwards, but your phone should boot up. If you use Magisk, you don't need SU, and vice versa. Use only one method to root.

v12xke said:
Flash the stock boot.img from the image/rom you were using before this and reboot. You will have to re-root (properly) afterwards, but your phone should boot up. If you use Magisk, you don't need SU, and vice versa. Use only one method to root.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm ya I prob should have posted that SU error message instead of what I did, douche move.
But how do I flash the boot.img... I have an original copy of it on my PC... can I somehow while in TWRP on the phone connect to my PC via cable and run commands from my PC in CMD and execute that old boot.img flash? Or is there a location in the stock Nexus already I can use? Because there is no file in the root drive after I did the soft wipe.
P.S. Everything I have done so far has not deleted my whole storage, yet.... not sure if that is necessary at this point bec it seems reflashing the boot.img wipes absolutely everything again? If I have to it is what it is... just painful when this happens before I could get TiB running... unless my Nandroid backup file I have will restore and work after I do this?

Dathaeus said:
Hmmm ya I prob should have posted that SU error message instead of what I did, douche move.
But how do I flash the boot.img... I have an original copy of it on my PC... can I somehow while in TWRP on the phone connect to my PC via cable and run commands from my PC in CMD and execute that old boot.img flash? Or is there a location in the stock Nexus already I can use? Because there is no file in the root drive after I did the soft wipe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While in TWRP you have MTP (file transfer) so you can add files to your device. Transfer the boot.img over to your device via MTP and then use TWRP to flash. Just be sure to select flash IMAGE rather than ZIP. Lesson here is when you get back up and running, install fastboot/adb and make sure it is working well and communicating with your PC. Then you can learn how to use it. This would take literally 5 seconds to flash via fastboot (device in bootloader mode).
---------- Post added at 01:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:26 PM ----------
Dathaeus said:
P.S. Everything I have done so far has not deleted my whole storage, yet.... not sure if that is necessary at this point bec it seems reflashing the boot.img wipes absolutely everything again? If I have to it is what it is... just painful when this happens before I could get TiB running... unless my Nandroid backup file I have will restore and work after I do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NO, flashing boot.img will not delete any of your files. It will only write to the boot partition. If using fastboot the command is fastboot flash boot boot.img

v12xke said:
While in TWRP you have MTP (file transfer) so you can add files to your device. Transfer the boot.img over to your device via MTP and then use TWRP to flash. Just be sure to select flash IMAGE rather than ZIP. Lesson here is when you get back up and running, install fastboot/adb and make sure it is working well and communicating with your PC. Then you can learn how to use it. This would take literally 5 seconds to flash via fastboot (device in bootloader mode).
NO, flashing boot.img will not delete any of your files. It will only write to the boot partition. If using fastboot the command is fastboot flash boot boot.img
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I actually had those platform files already, and yes the MTP was active there, I just never tried that before so didnt know it was even a possibility or the right way.
So I tried via flashing my very old boot.img and also the one from
https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/general/stock-modified-boot-img-regular-root-t3306684
via TWRP "Install" via image install (not zip) and to the "boot partition"
and no change, same stuck on Google logo screen.
I tried the fastboot command from CMD and it says
< waiting for any device >
and doesnt do anything. I had it on the default TWRP menu screen.... I waited over 20 min although I know it shouldnt take near that long, just in case.
My bootloader is unlocked BTW, I dont want to assume anything here.

You need help getting the latest fastboot/adb binaries working on your PC. So many tutorials on how to do this. Ugh.

Dathaeus said:
Yep I actually had those platform files already, and yes the MTP was active there, I just never tried that before so didnt know it was even a possibility or the right way.
So I tried via flashing my very old boot.img and also the one from
https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/general/stock-modified-boot-img-regular-root-t3306684
via TWRP "Install" via image install (not zip) and to the "boot partition"
and no change, same stuck on Google logo screen.
I tried the fastboot command from CMD and it says
< waiting for any device >
and doesnt do anything. I had it on the default TWRP menu screen.... I waited over 20 min although I know it shouldnt take near that long, just in case.
My bootloader is unlocked BTW, I dont want to assume anything here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which OS security patch were you running? Flash the system (to the system partition in TWRP) and boot images (again) from the 6P factory image of the same name:
https://developers.google.com/android/images?hl=en
See if this helps.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

v12xke said:
You need help getting the latest fastboot/adb binaries working on your PC. So many tutorials on how to do this. Ugh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure what you mean... I JUST did all that when I redid my phone completely back to factory etc etc.... just few weeks ago and then again on my new replacement. But just to be sure, I downloaded all those files again today and it didnt make any difference.
Still stuck on the
< waiting for any device >
I have to be missing some other step or something else is wrong here.
FYI not sure if this matters but when phone boots to recovery there's a red error message
"Unable to mount storage"
but it loads to TWRP fine anyways.

SlimSnoopOS said:
Which OS security patch were you running? Flash the system (to the system partition in TWRP) and boot images (again) from the 6P factory image of the same name:
https://developers.google.com/android/images?hl=en
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep thats what I been doing.....
So the CMD command still doesnt work, which I think is weird in itself... and when I try to install from recovery, it goes through the whole process, both boot.img and system.img, but then it freezes on the Google logo again, so no change.
Sorry I am not sure what security patch, I just got this used from eBay, and one thing, not sure if this means anything, it says its a beta version or something and that message came up all the time when I rebooted when the phone was working.

Do I need to suck it up and redo the whole phone again........ :/