Hi there,
Happy owner of a Nexus 4 runing stock ROM with Android ver. 4.4.4, I rooted it few days ago with Towelroot app and unlocked the bootloader (with BootUnlock app) in order to enable the LTE fonction. I dit it with LTE Nexus 4 Modem Flasher app and it works well (my mobile carrier uses AWE for 4G). The custom recovery TWRP has been installed by the app prior to allow the flash of the modem driver/firmware. Now I am wondering about the coming update Lollipop which I really want to get.
As I could read in the forum, even if the system offers me the OTA update option, I should decline it since my custom recovery has been changed. Am I right? I have a doubt because I also read that people successfully updated OTA their rooted Nexus 4 even before Towelroot was existing and I guess this imply that they necessary changed their revovery...
As you may understand, I'm a bit newbie, I just rooted my phone and unlocked the bootloader without using the toolkit, and ideally I would avoid to do so.
My main concern is the following: updating to Android 5 (stock ROM either fron OTA or the tool kit), will I lose the benefit of LTE, or in other words, will the update change the modem firmware/driver?
Nota Bene: I don't really care about loosing the root privilege but I want to keep the LTE capability.
Thanks,
Guillaume.
guigzmtl said:
Hi there,
Happy owner of a Nexus 4 runing stock ROM with Android ver. 4.4.4, I rooted it few days ago with Towelroot app and unlocked the bootloader (with BootUnlock app) in order to enable the LTE fonction. I dit it with LTE Nexus 4 Modem Flasher app and it works well (my mobile carrier uses AWE for 4G). The custom recovery TWRP has been installed by the app prior to allow the flash of the modem driver/firmware. Now I am wondering about the coming update Lollipop which I really want to get.
As I could read in the forum, even if the system offers me the OTA update option, I should decline it since my custom recovery has been changed. Am I right? I have a doubt because I also read that people successfully updated OTA their rooted Nexus 4 even before Towelroot was existing and I guess this imply that they necessary changed their revovery...
As you may understand, I'm a bit newbie, I just rooted my phone and unlocked the bootloader without using the toolkit, and ideally I would avoid to do so.
My main concern is the following: updating to Android 5 (stock ROM either fron OTA or the tool kit), will I lose the benefit of LTE, or in other words, will the update change the modem firmware/driver?
Nota Bene: I don't really care about loosing the root privilege but I want to keep the LTE capability.
Thanks,
Guillaume.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I honestly can't speak for OTAs, as I've never done one on my Nexus 4. When I got mine, it already had 4.4.4, and I've been using custom ROMs since, and never back to stock.
But I can tell you that the radio survives ROM flashes, so I suspect it'll survive flashing the official 5.0 Lollypop ROM. You don't need to do an OTA to upgrade stock ROMs, you can flash them from recovery. You just have to wait until Google makes it publicly available and someone makes the flashable zip, or you can do it with your computer and ADB. I won't go through the steps here, since we haven't gotten there yet.
Regardless, even if it's not immediately, you will be able to update to 5.0 and have LTE, but wait on accepting an OTA or flashing until it's clear exactly how it'll all work.
---------- Post added at 11:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:46 PM ----------
It occurs to me that people have been using the ported L preview on their Nexus 4s for a few months now. I haven't tried it, but maybe one that has could help you better. I'd search, but the L preview thread has 16000+ posts in it, and I'm just not that interested enough to try (I'm probably sticking with KK if/when Xposed works with ART).
OTA's often replace the modems, and since it can replace the entire /system directory it could potentially disable LTE enabler as well. And flashing stock images will replace your modems, and everything else in the phone like recovery, with the stock ones.
If LTE is really important to you, stay with what your using and do not OTA... wait until the new Lollipop radios are modified as a hybrid, then flash the stock Lollipop ROM, flash the radios and enabler, and you should be good to go. This is assuming they don't do something to break the OS so that hybrid radios are not possible.
Also, since you are on custom recovery, NEVER take an OTA... EVER... it will soft brick your device (it will be recoverable, just takes some work).
Personally, I was LTE for a while, and it was very hit and miss... would often drop to 3G and not go back to LTE unless I toggled in/out of airplane mode, and it destroyed my battery, cut my screen time in half. When I was on LTE my average screen time was 1.5-2.0 hours and I could not make it through a 16 hour day on a single charge, now that I removed them and want back to the stock 3G 1.03 radios, I get 3.0-3.5 hours screen time over 16 hours and it makes it though a full day, usually without a bump charge.
HI.
I really liked the idea of keeping pretty stock (ie no custom rom).. but just tweaking with root / xposed etc.
But.. doing that I now cant install firmware upgrades...
Is it possible to remove root so that ota firmware upgrades work? Have no idea as in the past I've just had custom roms..
Thanks!
llewelld said:
HI.
I really liked the idea of keeping pretty stock (ie no custom rom).. but just tweaking with root / xposed etc.
But.. doing that I now cant install firmware upgrades...
Is it possible to remove root so that ota firmware upgrades work? Have no idea as in the past I've just had custom roms..
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One of the mods will probably move this to Q&A as its where you should be asking this question.
Anyways if your sticking with stock and rooted but want to update the firmware as they come out you simply get it via a full firmware flash from Samsung's own Kies 3 software.
Doing this however breaks your root and any apps/mods that you've installed to the system partition however you can simply just re-root and reinstall any system apps/mods you happened to have installed there.
This is not a big deal and is generally quick and painless.
Also remember that if you use a custom recovery TWRP or CWM doing a full firmware flash will restore the stock recovery and you will half to re-flash that back as well.
You wont get notifications about updates however since your rooted and OTA gone. Just keep an eye on things for your specific device and region for updates. People generally post here on XDA about the new updates when their available as well as firmware update news from Sammobile.com
You can also plug your phone into your computer with Kies3 running and it will check to see if your on the latest firmware available as a way of manually checking.
II had the same doubt. Thank you for the clear explanation.
Hey everyone, I've been completely out of the loop for about a year now as far as updating and rooting is concerned, so if somebody could help me out I'd really appreciate it! I have a rooted Verizon galaxy S5 with Kit Kat 4.4.2, and it seems like Lollipop is now available to the S5. I haven't gotten any updates from Verizon or any other source for my phone for about a year now because I wanted to keep root and I know that updating often kills root. I literally disabled/froze all the Verizon updater apps with Titanium backup.
So what I want to know is what is the newest android version I can update to and still keep root, and what is the process of updating to ensure that I still maintain root permissions? Also, I use the xposed framework, so will that continue to work? I might have a custom recovery, I'm not sure but I can check if it matters.
Thanks so much for anyone's help.
Check sammobile dot com, instructions and ODIN to flash are under the download
*Detection* said:
Check sammobile dot com, instructions and ODIN to flash are under the download
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks man, would you recommend updating to lollipop? Is it a better version of Android in your opinion?
For me, it's much better, for others it's worse
I've switched back to KK to test, and I lasted 10 minutes before flashing back to Lollipop, much smoother, faster, and better looking IMO
Hello.
Ever since I bought a Galaxy Nexus and found XDA, my life changed. Without noticing I got infected a virus: addiction to Android.
My Nexus got outdated quickly and now is pretty done and I need a new toy. 3,5 years later I finally got some spare money to buy a new phone. Since here in Portugal the minimum wage is around 500€ and top flagship phones cost around 700€ (and there's no affordable contract to get something cheaper and still nice), I had to wait until now to get a used Note 3 for 300€.
I love the phone's design and above all the specs. There's no other phone with 3GB RAM and Snap 800 for this price and I always liked big sized phones.
Well, I write too much unnecessary info... I need to stop
Let's get down to the point. I will get the phone tomorrow!!
TL;DR
How do I check the bootloader version? I want to flash TWRP right away and maybe install a Note4/5 port or something stock Android, do I need to be careful with the bootloader?
I know from other phones (i.e LG G2) that any custom rom uses KK bootloader and the stock roms use their respective version bootloader. Is this also true for the Note?
Also, which version of TWRP should I flash? Does it depend on the stock rom version that I have?
Checking if the device has 2.3x GB of available RAM, if Odin and Recovery have their stock aspect and if the S-Pen works is enough to ensure that the Note I'm getting is truly original?
Well, that's all. I'm sorry if I'm asking the same questions everyone does. I'm used to Nexus so I'm afraid of bricking the Note with dumb moves. That's why I am taking my time to read every important thread and asking here some doubts that went into my mind while doing the required reading. I have no warranty (no box nor invoice) so I can't afford to mess up with the new babe
Cheers!
This app!
diogofd8 said:
Hello.
Ever since I bought a Galaxy Nexus and found XDA, my life changed. Without noticing I got infected a virus: addiction to Android.
My Nexus got outdated quickly and now is pretty done and I need a new toy. 3,5 years later I finally got some spare money to buy a new phone. Since here in Portugal the minimum wage is around 500€ and top flagship phones cost around 700€ (and there's no affordable contract to get something cheaper and still nice), I had to wait until now to get a used Note 3 for 300€.
I love the phone's design and above all the specs. There's no other phone with 3GB RAM and Snap 800 for this price and I always liked big sized phones.
Well, I write too much unnecessary info... I need to stop
Let's get down to the point. I will get the phone tomorrow!!
TL;DR
How do I check the bootloader version? I want to flash TWRP right away and maybe install a Note4/5 port or something stock Android, do I need to be careful with the bootloader?
I know from other phones (i.e LG G2) that any custom rom uses KK bootloader and the stock roms use their respective version bootloader. Is this also true for the Note?
Also, which version of TWRP should I flash? Does it depend on the stock rom version that I have?
Checking if the device has 2.3x GB of available RAM, if Odin and Recovery have their stock aspect and if the S-Pen works is enough to ensure that the Note I'm getting is truly original?
Well, that's all. I'm sorry if I'm asking the same questions everyone does. I'm used to Nexus so I'm afraid of bricking the Note with dumb moves. That's why I am taking my time to read every important thread and asking here some doubts that went into my mind while doing the required reading. I have no warranty (no box nor invoice) so I can't afford to mess up with the new babe
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.vndnguyen.phoneinfo&hl=en
this app will help you confirm your phone.
then you can proceed flashing twrp and supersu, things are so easy for N9005
and Welcome Aboard
Install phone info samsung from playstore. It could tell a lot about your phone.
To make it easy as long as the phone is running with android version 4.4.2 and above you should use twrp 4.4. If 4.3 use the right one for 4.3.
Sent from my SM-G925F
White Note3 do you have? There are several versions made by Samsung.
Regardless of the bootloader on the phone, I recommend using the latest TWRP as the latest TWRP can be used to flash all ROMs and zip files. Find your device from here: https://twrp.me/Devices/
Before moving to custom ROMs, I also recommend installing the latest bootlloader and ROM.
Not sure if your phone still has warranty but if it does, I would not change the ROM or root because doing either may trip the knox counter and void the warranty.
nijom said:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.vndnguyen.phoneinfo&hl=en
this app will help you confirm your phone.
then you can proceed flashing twrp and supersu, things are so easy for N9005
and Welcome Aboard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I will keep the link in my favorites and install the app when I get the chance to test things.
Rosli59564 said:
Install phone info samsung from playstore. It could tell a lot about your phone.
To make it easy as long as the phone is running with android version 4.4.2 and above you should use twrp 4.4. If 4.3 use the right one for 4.3.
Sent from my SM-G925F
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I'm pretty sure it has 4.4.x or lollipop. Should I update to any of those versions (just in case it comes with 4.3) first and then install TWRP?
audit13 said:
White Note3 do you have? There are several versions made by Samsung.
Regardless of the bootloader on the phone, I recommend using the latest TWRP as the latest TWRP can be used to flash all ROMs and zip files. Find your device from here: https://twrp.me/Devices/
Before moving to custom ROMs, I also recommend installing the latest bootlloader and ROM.
Not sure if your phone still has warranty but if it does, I would not change the ROM or root because doing either may trip the knox counter and void the warranty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone doesn't come with box nor invoice so I don't have any warranty xd
What is the number or version of the latest bootloader?
What is the model # of the phone? There is the n-900t, n9005, n-900w8, etc.
N9005, it's the european unlocked version
The model # is important when asking questions because the AT&T version of the note 3 has a locked bootloader so it's more complicated to flash custom recovery and to get root.
If you want to run custom ROMs, I recommend upgrading to the latest modem and bootloader, install a custom recovery, back up your stock ROM, and try some custom ROMs to see which one you like.
Look for the tar version of TWRP for your phone from here: https://twrp.me/Devices/
You can flash TWRP with Odin.
audit13 said:
The model # is important when asking questions because the AT&T version of the note 3 has a locked bootloader so it's more complicated to flash custom recovery and to get root.
If you want to run custom ROMs, I recommend upgrading to the latest modem and bootloader, install a custom recovery, back up your stock ROM, and try some custom ROMs to see which one you like.
Look for the tar version of TWRP for your phone from here: https://twrp.me/Devices/
You can flash TWRP with Odin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll get the phone tomorrow!!!!!
So, by upgrading to the latest official rom avaiable I'll have the most recent modem and bootloader, right?
Do I need to follow the order you mentioned: modem->bootloader->recovery->backup->croms or can I flash TWRP, backup every partition, flash most recent modem and bootloader (not sure if I can flash a bootloader) and then install croms?
No, only flashing a newer custom ROM won't update your Bootloader and Modem. You will need to flash those files separately via Odin. Then you can flash the custom ROM you want. The order is simple. Get a custom recovery first, TWRP. Then update your Modem and Bootloader. Then wipe the device from TWRP (full wipe, take backup beforehand if you need) and flash the custom ROM of your choice.
Safest way to upgrade the modem and bootloader is via ota update on a completely stock unrooted rom with stock recovery. After the phone is running the latest rom, then start with customization.
audit13 said:
Safest way to upgrade the modem and bootloader is via ota update on a completely stock unrooted rom with stock recovery. After the phone is running the latest rom, then start with customization.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the phone and managed to update it to 5.0 -> n9005xxugboa1
Is it the latest version or should I update it to another one?
BOD2 appears to be the latest according to sammobile.com: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SM-N9005/
audit13 said:
BOD2 appears to be the latest according to sammobile.com: http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SM-N9005/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm from Portugal but the phone is unlocked (no carrier) and they only have firmware for carrier notes... Which one should I download and flash?
Also... with a G2 I flashed a .kdz file (official rom) and ended up with a bricked phone (later fixed via warranty), but I have no warranty in this phone, how can I make sure that the file is safe?
Just check for software updates from your phone.
audit13 said:
Just check for software updates from your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It says the phone is already at the latest version. I've cleaned framework services and checked again but got the same result.
Try removing the SIM card and moving the date ahead by two days, then try again.
audit13 said:
Try removing the SIM card and moving the date ahead by two days, then try again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done that, no update avaiable. Connected to Kies3, no update avaiable.
Is it really in a old version? It's 5.0. Do I really need the latest version to start flashing a recovery?
Also, can I use the recovery without flashing it? I want to check if it works nicely before flashing if it is possible. TWRP can be used to flash any rom right? I'm interested in trying darklord first.
Yes, you can flash recovery without updating. I suggested updating because the update probably deals with the stage fright bug.
Just noticed that Bell released the 6.0.1 update for my phone (at least I think Bell is BMC, since sammobile stopped displaying the carrier names I'm not sure anymore http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/database/SM-N910W8/BMC/). How would I go about doing that? I'm assuming there's more to this update than software, they usually include stuff like radio/modem/bootloader firmware updates that I can't get by just using some custom MM build. So I have to install their update to get that. But I'm running 5.1.1, using some custom debloated version of COK3.
I've got lots of questions that I couldn't answer with my google-fu. Is the 6.0.1 build rootable? Does xposed work on it? Can I use Chainfire's Flashfire to update it? https://flashfire.chainfire.eu/ Or do I have to completely downgrade to stock to apply the OTA update? Chainfire's Flashfire says it won't work with a locked bootloader, but that only applies to Verizon Note 4's, right, not Bell? I'm pretty sure my bootloader is unlocked or I wouldn't have a rooted phone with a custom rom and recovery. And it says "things get tricky with a modified /system partition like if you're running xposed", which I am, so what does that mean for me?
Thanks for any help! I know a lot of these questions can be vaguely answered by google if I look hard enough, but I like to be absolutely sure of all the steps for my exact phone before I go do anything that could possibly hard-brick it.