Database Users

It's arrived! But need help!

Ok, so it came first thing this morning. I've spent the last few days reading up on the forum, and was wanting to flash a new rom (for the customised screens etc)
Now, I know I'm a NOOB in the biggest sense of the word when it comes to WM but some of the abbreviations in the guides are confusing me, can someone please explain them to me, or excatley what i need to be doing (just until i work my way round a bit!)
I know that there's a noobs guide, and i have read it honest, but i don't wanna be bricking it!
Pwweeease?

Make sure you have windows mobile device center installed on your pc. Connect the hd2 via usb to your computer (with the cable included with your hd2) and wait until windows mobile device center says it is connected.
To put an official rom on your hd2, download the rom and run the .exe included in the package. Follow the steps onscreen and you're done.
To put a custom rom on your hd2, you need to flash hardspl first. Steps are explained in detail here . Basically it involves connecting your hd2 to the pc, running the hardspl .exe file on your pc, and following the onscreen steps. Then that is done, and you will have to run the .exe file included in the custom rom package, and follow the onscreen steps again. To be safe you won't have any bugs, do a hard reset of your hd2 just after flashing the custom rom. Look here how to do that, it is explained at nr. 15. Pretty easy
good luck

if you make sure your hd2 battery doesn't run out (higher than 50% is usually said), and you make sure your pc doesn't shut down or do anything weird while updating, and you don't disconnect the cable while you are flashing, chances are practically 0 you will brick it.
What abbreviations are confusing you?

Cheers for the quick reply mate, i don't wanna come across as a complete knob (although i probably am already!)
TBH, it was things like hardspl and the other one, sspl or something?
If i put a customised ROM on it, is there any way of going back or is that it then?
Also, is windows 6.5.3 worth it? It's new out of the box, so have no idea whats what yet.
What, if any roms would people suggest? Also, do push notifications for twitter and facebook work? I've found already that the stock FB app that comes with it doesn't let you see people's comments on status's etc
All very confusing so far, but I'm still not reaching for the iphone back.....Yet!

northernneil said:
Cheers for the quick reply mate, i don't wanna come across as a complete knob (although i probably am already!)
TBH, it was things like hardspl and the other one, sspl or something?
If i put a customised ROM on it, is there any way of going back or is that it then?
Also, is windows 6.5.3 worth it? It's new out of the box, so have no idea whats what yet.
What, if any roms would people suggest? Also, do push notifications for twitter and facebook work? I've found already that the stock FB app that comes with it doesn't let you see people's comments on status's etc
All very confusing so far, but I'm still not reaching for the iphone back.....Yet!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
best to check what you have got on the device before you start upgrading..lol
when my phone arrived most of the updates from htc were on it already..

Forget about sspl (softspl), you don't need it. Hardspl is "better" (to keep things simple)
Flashing a new rom will delete all your settings, installed programs, etc etc. So backup what you need before flashing (you can use microsoft MyPhone -which is preinstalled on hd2's- to backup certain things).
About going back, yea you can 'go back', in case you can download the rom that is currently on your hd2. It is probably official hd2 rom version 1.48, but of course i'm not sure. But i don't think you would want to go back, there is no reason to. Unless you hate new roms, but you can always find one that is undebatably better and more up to date than the rom you are using now.
Yea windows mobile 6.5.3 is nice and in some ways a little better than 6.5, but it doesn't work 100% correctly with HTC sense. There are some graphical glitches with this on 6.5.3 roms.
I prefer Dutty's 0.3a rom (here) because it is basically the same as your stock rom, but with up to date software, up to date windows mobile 6.5, updated htc sense - and everything works flawlessly for me.
Haven't tried push notifications for facebook or twitter, so can't comment on that. 6.5.3 roms have some graphical glitches with HTC sense. Many other 6.5 roms have other customizations that I don't like.
Forget about the iPhone, the hd2 baby is miles and miles better (yes i've used the iPhone).
if you need more recommendations, shoot

Cheers for that mate. I'm gonna put sprog to bed and give it a go!
You are correct in the fact that it is a stock 1.48 rom shipped on the phone, please excuse my ignorance, this is my first wm phone! I'm an expert on the iphone now though lol!
I did read about flashing with bepe's thing, is that still needed?
Hopefully i'll find some decent FB and twitter apps that does push (I'm addicted lol!)
Umm, then to sort out google activsync again!

"bepe's thing" is hardspl, which is needed only once (ever) to unlock your phone to enable flashing custom roms. So yes, you need to do it when you want to flash a custom rom.

I don't want to be a damp rag or anything but I'd personally use the phone for a week or two before installing any custom ROMs. When I received my phone it was perfect, lasted 2 days easy on one charge (with everything set to auto update) and had no camera issues. I then installed the unofficial 1.48 and now the battery struggles to get 2 days even with most auto updates turned off and the camera developed the over exposure issue. Now I regret updating it and am slightly hesitant to do it again.
Also, most custom ROMs at the moment do not have very major upgrades to them and are usually just very slightly tweaked. I'm waiting for something more worthwhile to be released (like WM6.5.3 with a fully functional Sense) before I go and HSPL my phone. Take a look at this user for an example of what might happen.
But then again I may be acting over cautious and might not be enjoying the full power and epic-ness out of my HD2.

meegulthwarp said:
I don't want to be a damp rag or anything but I'd personally use the phone for a week or two before installing any custom ROMs. When I received my phone it was perfect, lasted 2 days easy on one charge (with everything set to auto update) and had no camera issues. I then installed the unofficial 1.48 and now the battery struggles to get 2 days even with most auto updates turned off and the camera developed the over exposure issue. Now I regret updating it and am slightly hesitant to do it again.
Also, most custom ROMs at the moment do not have very major upgrades to them and are usually just very slightly tweaked. I'm waiting for something more worthwhile to be released (like WM6.5.3 with a fully functional Sense) before I go and HSPL my phone. Take a look at this user for an example of what might happen.
But then again I may be acting over cautious and might not be enjoying the full power and epic-ness out of my HD2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is unofficial 1.48? There is an official 1.48, and most unofficial custom roms are based on a higher rom version than 1.48. I think you're being a little over cautious, I have flashed practically millions of roms on HTC devices and never experienced a problem. The problems you are having with battery and camera are probably related to your custom rom choice and/or your settings.
But you're right that there isn't a world of difference between the stock rom and newest custom roms, the hd2 is a relatively new device. Still, I feel you can't go wrong by updating the rom to a good custom one, and it will be better than the stock rom. Dutty's holy grail 0.3a is my recommendation, but to each one his own.

Slow down mate!
Northerneil,
I know you are dying to get into your device and flash roms like there's no tomorrow. I say STOP, slow down, take your time.
I would get to know how your device works the way it is first. One good thing about this is that if there any hardware problems you can return the device as an exchange without having to undo loads of changes that are NOT warranty friendly.
Next, READ, READ and READ again. Flashing roms sounds quite simple and the process has improved tremendously. The problem isn't flashing a rom; its knowing how to recover if it all goes wrong. Its getting to know the pitfalls and how to get out of them e.g your device rebooting for no reason, which is a problem some serial flashers are having right now.
Welcome on board, hope you heed my advice although I appreciate you are a big boy and can do what you want. However a bricked device can take a long time to fix, even if you know what you are doing, and if you are lvery ucky.
WB
PS: Feel free to PM me if you want to know more about certain functions and abbreviations. You need to know as much as possible before you start tinkering with your device.

barty22 said:
What is unofficial 1.48? There is an official 1.48, and most unofficial custom roms are based on a higher rom version than 1.48. I think you're being a little over cautious, I have flashed practically millions of roms on HTC devices and never experienced a problem. The problems you are having with battery and camera are probably related to your custom rom choice and/or your settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By "unofficial" I was referring to the 1.48 405 WWE that was available for download before HTC made it official on their website.
I am still running that "unofficial" 1.48 ROM with the stock settings so I doubt that these problems have anything to do with my settings.

[Q] Any way to get the N7 to a state where I don't want to throw it against the wall?

OK, I know this is a pretty old tablet but I'd at least like to be able to get a smooth browsing, email, and streaming experience out of it; I'm not looking to be able to play games or multitask on it.
I'm running the latest version of lollipop and the N7 is rooted. Experiencing frequent serious intermittent lags/crashes, I mean like 60+ seconds can pass before the screen responds, apps hang, and the device occasionally will reboot itself. Other times, the tablet runs smoothly. Was hoping that update to lollipop would resolve some of this but, if anything, it's gotten worse. I've tried the usual "fixes" of clearing the cache, forcing TRIM, closing apps manually, and even did a factory reset + cleared all caches and still the problem persists. The problem seems to occur more frequently when I run apps like the Chrome browser, which I now avoid using. Not really sure if there is a decent process documented on how to troubleshoot these types of issues to find the root cause but the tablet is presently very annoying to use at best.
What I'd like is either: a) getting some help in determining what the root cause of the issue is, or b) switching to a ROM that doesn't have these problems.
Any thoughts, suggestions, or pointers to an in-depth troubleshooting article/thread?

If you find a solution, let me know.. I've tried combos of lollipop and kernels, kit Kat and kernels.. f2fs etc.. I keep mine as a docked alarm clock and ereader for bed.. but even that takes forever.
- Sent from Spaaaaaaaaace

I don't know if this will help, but I book marked it for when I update.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nex...ndroid-5-0-t2999635/post58567333#post58567333

I gave up and went back to 4.4.4. I can FINALLY use my tablet again...

It's the flash memory in them. It's just degraded over time. I went back to 4.4.4 and it was excellent for about a week. Then it turned useless again.
That guide posted above seems to be a placebo other than the animation's being turned off. The n7 is absolutely fine after a fresh wipe, or a factory reset. For a week... I went through the guide and the only things it had that would make a real difference was animation speeds. I'll see how it does in a week.
- Sent from Spaaaaaaaaace

hi! I was having the same problem, my n7 was super laggy and sometimes rebooted itself. that was just after uprading to lollipop 5.0.2. it kinda solved after rooting, doing a factory reset and installing lollipop 5.1. I hope it helps!

4.4.4 stock with all-f2fs rom. M-kernel r69. Both can be found here on xda.
This is how I got mine running smoothly again, even after trying several lollipop roms including 5.1.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app

CM12 is not doing any better, I hope 5.1 could make a difference.

Stock 5.1 + Franco kernel with /data and /cache formatted to f2fs works beautifully for me. No problems at all.

I had all the same problems (and more) you and other spoke about when (a structure that holds back water and sounds like Ham) Google hounded and hounded me to install LolliCrap 5.02 (I ignored 5.0, which somehow disappeared). I HATED my #1 Nexus 7 16GB v2012. I also have a #2 Nexus 7 32GB v2012 (running HAPPILY 4.4.4) which I am still ignoring for "ham" good reason to install 5.02, an I never will install it or the latest 5.1!!
I have been exploring reinstalling the stock 4.4.4, but first I want know how to turn OFF future Google OEM Android updates and stop the "ham" badgering that there is a "new update available. But in the mean time, want to make #1 N7 useful again, I bite the bullet, backed up everything and did a factory reset and reinstalled everything. Even though I still HATE LolliCrap, my #1 N7 16GB is running pretty snappy again though some apps absolutely DON'T LIKE LolliCrap OS and are hanging and hanging and slow and crash (lazy Devs that aren't fixing whatever is causing that with 5.x). Apps I've noticed that are horribly slow with 5.x are Outlook, Skype, Yahoo Mail, Weather Underground, Drop Box, others
So, do a full reset and reinstall after backing up your data. You're gonna lose everything anyway when you Root and Boot Unlock to install an older version of Android or a custom ROM.
Hope this helps.

Glad to see another post here on the very topic I'm looking for. I'm currently running stock 5.1, completely stock, and it's just as bad as 5.0 was. I've read up enough to realize the issue is a flaw with the device, but am going to try and devote an evening or 3 to making this thing work before I completely give up on it. My goal is a minimal, feature poor but reasonably fast device for browsing, email, and some specific apps (a game or 2 and the Harmony Remote app)
Below are the areas I'm looking at, if anyone has advice or tips on any of these I'd really appreciate it:
Custom Kernel- Franco or MKernel r69? Need to investigate
F2FS - This is probably the best shot
Custom ROM - May stay stock, but if anyone knows of a lean, limited feature bloat ROM let me know!
Lightweight Browser - Can we get the original "Browser" App to install? Other options?
Basic EMail Client - not sure about this one..

The moment I saw the thread title, I knew I was not alone on this.
I remember the behavior first started with 4.4.4 actually, refusing to turn the screen on sometimes etc. I tried CM12+f2fs+mkernel 69 and it went well for a few days, then stuff broke again. I first suspected it's a RAM issue because I have two users running, but it constantly has about 150-200MB free (counting the cached apps, 400+ otherwise).
I guess I'll try slimkat 4.4.4 + f2fs modification, hope it can get the tablet running again.

Reapman said:
Glad to see another post here on the very topic I'm looking for. I'm currently running stock 5.1, completely stock, and it's just as bad as 5.0 was. I've read up enough to realize the issue is a flaw with the device, but am going to try and devote an evening or 3 to making this thing work before I completely give up on it. My goal is a minimal, feature poor but reasonably fast device for browsing, email, and some specific apps (a game or 2 and the Harmony Remote app)
Below are the areas I'm looking at, if anyone has advice or tips on any of these I'd really appreciate it:
Custom Kernel- Franco or MKernel r69? Need to investigate
F2FS - This is probably the best shot
Custom ROM - May stay stock, but if anyone knows of a lean, limited feature bloat ROM let me know!
Lightweight Browser - Can we get the original "Browser" App to install? Other options?
Basic EMail Client - not sure about this one..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. For some reason Franco never boot my tablet for me...I've been using mkernel r69 and that's working really well.
2. Yep, a must.
3. Tried several custom roms and came back to stock.
4. Opera
5. Stock email, the one can be downloaded via playstore?

Rastapop with Franco kernel runs great to me. Keeping this thing alive.

VintageGuitarz said:
[...] I have been exploring reinstalling the stock 4.4.4, but first I want know how to turn OFF future Google OEM Android updates and stop the "ham" badgering that there is a "new update available [...]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To remove the update questions you got to root the device and disable the SystemUpdateService service of Google Service Framework and Google Play Services applications (don't know, maybe only Play Service one is really required, but better block both of them).
To do that use this application http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cn.wq.disableservice
Reapman said:
Glad to see another post here on the very topic I'm looking for. I'm currently running stock 5.1, completely stock, and it's just as bad as 5.0 was. I've read up enough to realize the issue is a flaw with the device, but am going to try and devote an evening or 3 to making this thing work before I completely give up on it. My goal is a minimal, feature poor but reasonably fast device for browsing, email, and some specific apps (a game or 2 and the Harmony Remote app)
Below are the areas I'm looking at, if anyone has advice or tips on any of these I'd really appreciate it:
Custom Kernel- Franco or MKernel r69? Need to investigate
F2FS - This is probably the best shot
Custom ROM - May stay stock, but if anyone knows of a lean, limited feature bloat ROM let me know!
Lightweight Browser - Can we get the original "Browser" App to install? Other options?
Basic EMail Client - not sure about this one..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my experience best custom ROM is Resurrection Remix.. I tried all tilapia Lolllipop ones except AICP, which now I'm very curious to try.. but I flashed Paranoid Android 4.6 BETA 6 yesterday and I will not change it until Google releases 5.1 firmware for tilapia too and people say this build is finally smooth and nice (well, too much hope, I know.. Lollipop will never be smooth on Nexus 7 2012, I fear )

Sofar I'm about 24 hours in using SlimKat with F2F2 (followed this post here - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2678142) using "Browser" that it comes with, and so far just GMail. Initial findings are very positive, it's quite fast, but I'm sure that could change.
Next steps (thanks for the ideas all!):
Install Opera
There's actually an update to SlimKat, but i'm waiting to see how the tablet performs as is without touching anything
Install and configure EMail client from Play store
Kernel - looks like this version of SK already uses the M Kernel so should be good there

There is an updated, F2FS modified version of Slimkat in that thread around page 90 or something.
I'm using that at the moment and it's been fine I guess.
Word of warning: recents menu is bugged to secondary user acounts. Only shows apps if they have been also installed for the primary user.

Yeah, I'm going to give myself a week or so on this older build and make sure it's stable before doing that. Definitely some stuff I miss from Lollipop in this, but if this is enough to breath new life into the tablet.. I'm willing to accept that loss :good:

First impressions

I got mine from Amazon yesterday, I already bricked it a few hours ago by messing with the recovery. It should be an easy fix once I get hold of the stock firmware. I got another one coming tomorrow, so I'll focus on just extracting the rom from that one
Bricking aside, I got 20/10mbs down/up on speedtest using my T-mobile US SIM, and the signal indicator showed LTE. Forcing it off LTE I got 10/5mbs down/up.
Battery life is awesome, I used it constantly for 8hrs and only got down to 50%, my note4 would have been dead after that much use with the screen on. The overall feel of Android 6.0 was smooth, no stuttering. There is no bloatware, just a few utilities for fancy wallpapers.
The phone charges faster than any other phone I have. The included TPE case doesnt increase the thickness of the phone too much and I like that It keeps the camera lens off the desk when I set the phone down.
Dual SIM functionality works nice. It was one of the main features I was looking for, though I will miss T-Mobile wifi calling.
Some notes:
I used adb & fastboot in my attempts to root. After running
Code:
fastboot oem unlock
fastboot reboot
the display now showed
Code:
Orange state
Your device has been unlocked and can't be trusted
Your device will reboot in 5 seconds
So it appears that it is best to oem relock it when you're done updating, as the message goes away if you relock.

Backing up the ROM
I found SP Flash Tool v5.1632 for Linux and I've been practicing saving chunks of ROM from my bricked phone. I should be able to grab the recovery portion of the new phones' ROM tomorrow.
Based on the scatter.txt file I've found for the Gionee S8 AmigOS Marshmallow ROM, recovery starts at 0x8000 and is no more that 16Mb is size. So, in theory, I should be able to grab that range of the ROM and flash it using fastboot back to my bricked unit. I'm using the word "bricked", but its far from that, I should just say "unbootable" to be more clear.
Earlier today I was trying to get MTK droid tools to detect my Blu Pure XR so I could extract the scatter file, but It never was detected. All the drivers installed ok, so maybe its not compatible, I'm not sure yet. I'll get back onto that after my first unit is back up and working, hopefully tomorrow.
Edit: I just found a modified MTK Droid Tools for 64bit cpu phones, I'll give this a try too.
Edit next day: I got the second phone this morning. I used SP Flash Tool to grab the recovery.img portion of the new phone, then I used fastboot to flash it to the damaged phone, and it worked fine. The bootloader unlock/relock caused the phone to wipe itself and then re-encrypt the file system, so I lost a few test photos, no big deal. FWIW, I could have flashed the recovery back to the damaged phone using SP Flash Tool, but I wanted to make sure it worked with fastboot, which it did.
Heres the recovery.img for those that may need it and don't have two phones
View attachment xr-recovery.zip
Monday or so my mom gets her phone, so I'll be able to test LTE on AT&T with her SIM card. I just got 34Mbs download on a speed test (T-Mobile), which is is fine, considering all the naysayers reviewing on Amazon who didn't have the guts to buy the phone, saying LTE wouldn't work at all.

I just heard of this device today. I wonder how quick Android 7.x can be flashed over to this, but for $299 it's a good looking phone.

It may be a while since there's not much activity happening on this device yet.
I'm focusing on creating a rooted boot.img right now, as I'll be happy with 6.0 and root. I plan on having this done today. I've never created a custom twrp recovery, but I may try that next.
I need to figure out how to prevent the full wipe after oem unlocking/relocking, that's a real pain having all my setup deleted after every test, as it makes it hard to use the phone while developing.

Got root
Firstly, I'm still learning about Mediatek based devices, so I feel like a noob again. I haven't edited a ROM in several years and there's a lot of crap info on the internet. Most articles that write up "how to root a phone" basically say "Install twrp, then supersu", yeah, thanks
After struggling with all the selinux controls in 6.0, I switched to hack mode. As per phhusson's super-bootimg script, I used his sed technique to force the init in boot.img to not enforce security policy and added his bits to init.rc to load su. I put su and in system.img along with a suid root shell just in case. Its working, I have SuperSu installed, and it pops up to ask me to grant permissions. It won't update its su binary, I've got some permission problem there, but it's not a show stopper. Also,I found its easiest to just leave the bootloader unlocked while testing, I just have to get used to the annoying boot message and 5 second delay.
This week I'll start from scratch and document the procedure I used and hopefully make it repeatable for anyone else who may want to try it. Maybe someone will just port twrp and save me the time of learning how to do it
Some notes on the software I used:
Windows:
* SP Flash Tool with a bogus scatter file to grab the stock ROM sections of my phone as the Linux version would timeout reading large ranged of flash.
Linux:
* mktool to unpack/repack the boot.img
* loopback mounted the system.img to add su to it.
* used img2simg to convert system.img to a sparse image
* fastboot to flash the boot & system images to the phone.

AT&T Speed Tests
No good, ~500kbs up/down, even though signal strength showed 4 bars on 4G. No LTE at all. Changing the band set to 3g/4g had no real effect either way. Don't buy this phone I you plan on using it with AT&T, although my mother hasn't noticed the ****ty 4G in actual use yet (I'll switch her to T-mobile soon).
Update: After using the phone for 1 week, I am extremely pleased with it. I chuckle when I read the negative reviews on all the big phone web sites. Reviewers hate the wiggly button, LOL, but it doesn't bother me as I'm used to it on my Samsungs. Other than the wiggly home button, its a solid phone. I prefer the metal back as opposed to glass. By the way, who's brilliant idea was it who thought an all glass phone was a good idea?
It's not AOSP, but I find it's AmigOS Carefree launcher very pleasant to use, and I've used countless launchers over the years. It's got way better specs than the Nexus 5X and after struggling with the security in 6.0, I'm not in any rush to find out what security bull**** awaits me in 7.0 (for my benefit of course).
On the flip side, I don't use NFC payments, Google Pay, Google Play, no Google anything. All Google stuff disabled. I run my own calendar/contacts/tasks sync server, use oandbackup to save/restore all my apps and settings, the majority of my apps come from f-droid. I don't play games. So I'm not an average user. I've been using Android devices since the Nexus One and I have a pile of phones in front of me. Blu (or Gionee) has shown it can make quite a competitive device that I enjoy using all day, (though I wouldn't be using it at all unless it was rooted, so luckily for both of us that is the case).
Rant: Things that are actually more annoying than a wiggly button:
* Dozens of phone review websites that all publish a review of this phone within 2 days of each other after the phone was released on Aug 29th ,with all the same content. It's like they are all run by the same hack, just to get advertising dollars.
* Websites like rootoreviews.com that use a template on how to root this particular phone using twrp, when twrp doesn't exist yet for the device. WTF is that? Why would someone think this is a great idea? They have the same instruction set for every phone on the site with the make/model info swapped out. Are they just hoping twrp becomes available soon so they have the first post on the topic by default? Lame!

rotohammer said:
No good, ~500kbs up/down, even though signal strength showed 4 bars on 4G. No LTE at all. Changing the band set to 3g/4g had no real effect either way. Don't buy this phone I you plan on using it with AT&T, although my mother hasn't noticed the ****ty 4G in actual use yet (I'll switch her to T-mobile soon).
Update: After using the phone for 1 week, I am extremely pleased with it. I chuckle when I read the negative reviews on all the big phone web sites. Reviewers hate the wiggly button, LOL, but it doesn't bother me as I'm used to it on my Samsungs. Other than the wiggly home button, its a solid phone. I prefer the metal back as opposed to glass. By the way, who's brilliant idea was it who thought an all glass phone was a good idea?
It's not AOSP, but I find it's AmigOS Carefree launcher very pleasant to use, and I've used countless launchers over the years. It's got way better specs than the Nexus 5X and after struggling with the security in 6.0, I'm not in any rush to find out what security bull**** awaits me in 7.0 (for my benefit of course).
On the flip side, I don't use NFC payments, Google Pay, Google Play, no Google anything. All Google stuff disabled. I run my own calendar/contacts/tasks sync server, use oandbackup to save/restore all my apps and settings, the majority of my apps come from f-droid. I don't play games. So I'm not an average user. I've been using Android devices since the Nexus One and I have a pile of phones in front of me. Blu (or Gionee) has shown it can make quite a competitive device that I enjoy using all day, (though I wouldn't be using it at all unless it was rooted, so luckily for both of us that is the case).
Rant: Things that are actually more annoying than a wiggly button:
* Dozens of phone review websites that all publish a review of this phone within 2 days of each other after the phone was released on Aug 29th ,with all the same content. It's like they are all run by the same hack, just to get advertising dollars.
* Websites like rootoreviews.com that use a template on how to root this particular phone using twrp, when twrp doesn't exist yet for the device. WTF is that? Why would someone think this is a great idea? They have the same instruction set for every phone on the site with the make/model info swapped out. Are they just hoping twrp becomes available soon so they have the first post on the topic by default? Lame!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi theer just curious on how you get it to root then??

Thanks for potentially inspiring some activity here regarding this phone. It looks like an impressive device, but I won't pull the trigger until there're some solid rom options.

Hey brother hope you r doing well. Glad to see this thread with the smartphone similar to mine. My phone is symphony helio s20, mtk6755 helio p10 processors, 4gb ram 64gb rom with the similar system.img and boot.img of gionee s8 & blu pur xr.
I was desperately looking for a pre rooted rom or a custom, custom recovery and rooting tool for almost 2 months, requested so many times all around this site, but unfortunately didn't get any respons (really frustated). I just badly need to root my device but I'm just a noob on modding and tweaking with Roms. I got my stock rom from Service Center, when I bricked my phone flashing a custom recovery. Later I tried all the method found all over the website but non of them are working only misleading. Bricked my phone several times but luckily I managed to reflash the stock rom by sp flash tool. Please keep this good work up and help us root our devices without any hassle. You are doing a really great work so keep it up bro!
Here is the link of my stock firmware with sn write tool if you need it for anything bro.
Best regards
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BywTv6KKZO4jX3BMMGRGVUFRa28
http://www.mediafire.com/download/7...N_Writer_tool_exe_v1.0_1604.00_All_In_One.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/pa2f3wqpf24t0db/Helio_S20_flashtool.zip

thanks in advance
Hey guys, thanks a lot for all your info and everything you posted Could you be so kind to describe how did you root your Pure XR devices??? Big hug from Cuba

I'm going to guess something with KingRoot. This is a rebranded Gionee S8, so China is already no stranger to this phone.

Not surprised about AT&T performance considering I've never seen an unlocked phone support so few LTE bands (2, 4, 7). Ridiculous. It supports less than half of all the LTE bands AT&T uses. Unless your area uses primarily band 2 or 4 you're screwed if you're on AT&T. Even worse if you're on T-Mobile. It only supports ONE band on T-Mobile. Does Blu even realize it's 2016?

bailsafe said:
I'm going to guess something with KingRoot. This is a rebranded Gionee S8, so China is already no stranger to this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried every rooting tool, including KingRoot, none worked. There's an OTA update for the stock firmware, but I wont be able to install it until after I un-root. I probably retrace the steps I did the first time: backup all my apps, flash the stock firmware, do the OTA, then save/edit it to have root, then flash the result. The phone works so good right now that I'd hate to mess it up.

Tikerz said:
Not surprised about AT&T performance considering I've never seen an unlocked phone support so few LTE bands (2, 4, 7). Ridiculous. It supports less than half of all the LTE bands AT&T uses. Unless your area uses primarily band 2 or 4 you're screwed if you're on AT&T. Even worse if you're on T-Mobile. It only supports ONE band on T-Mobile. Does Blu even realize it's 2016?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was a Gionee S8 originally, which only supported FDD-LTE bands not in use in the USA. It's a miracle they got FDD-LTE in here at all, I guess, but if you're gonna sell in the US market... they really need more bands.
Rotohammer said:
I tried every rooting tool, including KingRoot, none worked. There's an OTA update for the stock firmware, but I wont be able to install it until after I un-root. I probably retrace the steps I did the first time: backup all my apps, flash the stock firmware, do the OTA, then save/edit it to have root, then flash the result. The phone works so good right now that I'd hate to mess it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's probably your best bet. I'm surprised KingRoot wouldn't work, even on the newer updates...

hey I was wondering for some reason my blu pure xr does not receive notifications at all except for certain apps and it keeps on disconnecting from messenger and such is there any remedy for this?

orlandotisk said:
hey I was wondering for some reason my blu pure xr does not receive notifications at all except for certain apps and it keeps on disconnecting from messenger and such is there any remedy for this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Press left button to bring up the running apps list, long press the button with 3 rectangles in it, then press "Clean white list". Here, you press"Add into white list" and choose "messenger" and any other apps you don't want "auto cleaned".
For example, my white list includes Alarm Klock, K-9 mail, CSipSimple, Silence (all apps that I want running all the time)

rotohammer said:
I got mine from Amazon yesterday, I already bricked it a few hours ago by messing with the recovery. It should be an easy fix once I get hold of the stock firmware. I got another one coming tomorrow, so I'll focus on just extracting the rom from that one
Bricking aside, I got 20/10mbs down/up on speedtest using my T-mobile US SIM, and the signal indicator showed LTE. Forcing it off LTE I got 10/5mbs down/up.
Battery life is awesome, I used it constantly for 8hrs and only got down to 50%, my note4 would have been dead after that much use with the screen on. The overall feel of Android 6.0 was smooth, no stuttering. There is no bloatware, just a few utilities for fancy wallpapers.
The phone charges faster than any other phone I have. The included TPE case doesnt increase the thickness of the phone too much and I like that It keeps the camera lens off the desk when I set the phone down.
Dual SIM functionality works nice. It was one of the main features I was looking for, though I will miss T-Mobile wifi calling.
Some notes:
I used adb & fastboot in my attempts to root. After running
Code:
fastboot oem unlock
fastboot reboot
the display now showed
Code:
Orange state
Your device has been unlocked and can't be trusted
Your device will reboot in 5 seconds
So it appears that it is best to oem relock it when you're done updating, as the message goes away if you relock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey bro how are you? How's family? I hope that everything is well for you and yours. Basically I just wanted to say thanks for sharing such great info. And I'm really glad that there's someone who's onto something like einstein. I just hope that you can figure out a way to get root with your own custom build of twrp recovery using chainfire's supersu to work with this smartphone. Cos that'll be super-awesome right? But I'm just a noob so all I can do is just wish you the best of luck. So best of luck until you crack the code. And I have complete faith in you. You will achieve it I know that for sure. Wish you and yours all the best. And thanks again in advance. Peace!

Does anybody succeed rooting ?
Please share the method!!

so no one knows how to root?

rotohammer was able to achieve root and said he would get back to us with the method on how it was done, but he hasn't posted it yet...

[Q] Worth to root it?

Hello guys, I just got my mi A1 like a week ago and I see that with magisk there are modules that fixes cam issues and other problems of the phone, so I would like to read some recommendations from you and if it worth to root it or wait to Oreo ?
Thanks and have a good day!

Mi a1 comes without features like night light, the button led sucks (for me), no Google dialer. Using magisk I can get these features, i also enabled navbars, and get good photos during nights using modded gcam. When Oreo update arrives, I'll uninstall magisk and get ota, so it is absolutely worth it.

I don't see why not...
zodiak43 said:
Hello guys, I just got my mi A1 like a week ago and I see that with magisk there are modules that fixes cam issues and other problems of the phone, so I would like to read some recommendations from you and if it worth to root it or wait to Oreo ?
Thanks and have a good day!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The way I see it, there's no harm in rooting now, and getting all these wonderful new features as they come out. (It's exciting!)
If you need to wipe your phone and loose root to get Oreo, it's pretty manageable.
I say this because you can backup most of your Android experience (apps, wallpaper, homescreen layout) through Google's backup services in Settings. So, when Oreo comes out, and you want to update, it's not too arduous to recover the experience of using your phone. HOWEVER, it's not a one-and-done deal.
1. The apps are restored from the Play Store, so they need time (and bandwidth) to download, and obviously no custom apks.
2. Android settings are sync'ed, but (as far as I can tell) app settings are not.
3. Data from storage (downloaded music in Spotify, shows downloaded from Netflix, podcasts, audiobooks) is NOT saved! Fortunately, since our phone has ​a MicroSD (TF) slot, you can either (a.) store it there in the first place, or (b.) move the appdata (say if it's like Spotify or something, where the music is encrypted and stuff) before you wipe and update.
It does sound tedious and scary, but honestly, I'd recommend you go through the process of backing up, rooting, wiping, restoring once or twice so that you feel comfortable with it. That way, when the Oreo update comes, you'll feel like, "Hell yeah, I got this!" and it'll be a breeze.
Also, toying around with your tech does take up some time, and sometimes you'll screw up. I know I've had some scary moments in my career of hacking, and sometimes I still get pissed off. When it happens, take a deep breath, walk around, drink some water, do some push-ups, whatever you need to do to take your mind and focus off it for a second so that you can come back calm headed, and clear minded. You'll have a lot more fun that way. If you feel adventurous, EXPLORE! It's what tech is for! But, asking first (like you're doing now) is always a good idea, and see if people have done, or know how to do what you have in mind. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches that way.
So, that's my spiel. Hope it works out! If you ever need help, (like you get stuck in a boot loop or something) remember to take that deep breath, and then come to the forums. We'd love to help.
Peace!

Hi.
Can you please point which mod are using for low light camera

If you use titanium backup, app data is kept and you don't need to download apps again.

Android 8.1 , Stop Updates

I had this Phone since September and never actually had a major problem with it. It was shipped to me with Android 7 . The first day i got it , i was setting everything up, installing apps ,etc. I think a week later , Android 8.1 Update popped up , I really don't like updating so i blocked the notification and everything was fine. Until Today that i realized the phone getting a tiny bit of lag , Overall uptime was about 1180Hours , So i decided to Restart. Which to my surprise updated the phone automatically to android 8.1.
I really DON'T like when Companies update your device without confirmation, I mean why do they really force the updates? (from when do they care about my device right?). Anyway , getting besides the point here, , I really wanted to ask if there is any way to force stop the firmware updates. I read that Android 9 Pie is getting close , and i really don't want to Update.
Is it possible to stop updates by rooting the device? In the end i was going to root my device soo,
(You can say whatever you want , but , Me as an 8 year android user (I had android 2 , 4,5 and now 7-8) I have to say , Every version makes it worse for the freedom of the user. Android 4(ICS and 5 - Lollipop) was the best

You can do it without rooting your device, Go to Developer options and untick Automatic system updates.

tarik880 said:
You can do it without rooting your device, Go to Developer options and untick Automatic system updates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:highfive: Thank you very much, I appreciate it . Why didn't i check at dev options the first time? (I didn't really have a reason to change anything from the Developer Options , That's why i didn't get there the first time). Is there any way to revert back to android 7 and do the same :silly:?

SeaZz said:
:highfive: Thank you very much, I appreciate it . Why didn't i check at dev options the first time? (I didn't really have a reason to change anything from the Developer Options , That's why i didn't get there the first time). Is there any way to revert back to android 7 and do the same :silly:?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dont revert to 7, its really not worth it. Oreo is in my opinion much more stable, used it all the time and nothing lagged or happened. I also recommend updating to Pie. Trust me or not but Pie is the smoothest and fastest version of Android I've ever had on this phone comparing to the Nougat and Oreo - animations and apps switching is much faster and fluent, same is overal performance of the phone.

SeaZz said:
:highfive: Thank you very much, I appreciate it . Why didn't i check at dev options the first time? (I didn't really have a reason to change anything from the Developer Options , That's why i didn't get there the first time). Is there any way to revert back to android 7 and do the same :silly:?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can. Try it, if you don't like it then download MI A1's Nougat rom and flash it with mi flash tool, if you never did it before, see some YouTube video tutorial before doing that and also keep backup of your necessary files from the phone.

do a clean flash of ocotber/november rom, i bet your lag is because you updated too many time without a clean flash.

TrueMS said:
Dont revert to 7, its really not worth it. Oreo is in my opinion much more stable, used it all the time and nothing lagged or happened. I also recommend updating to Pie. Trust me or not but Pie is the smoothest and fastest version of Android I've ever had on this phone comparing to the Nougat and Oreo - animations and apps switching is much faster and fluent, same is overal performance of the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some hours of using the phone with oreo , i've seen somehow better performance mostly on the ui but not on the apps. Messenger App Seemed to Lag a bit as well as the live view from the camera app. (When i say lag it's fine just not that smooth). I will run the phone for a while like this without changing anything . I'll maybe consider trying Pie after a while ,if it'll get a stable release on the phone.
Thanks for the recommendation :good:

Nougat (version 7) has several advantages - the spiritfm radio app works, can block network access per app using stock settings (no need for vpn/root etc), headphone volume is loud and can support high impedance headphones.
If you update to Pie on this device, you cannot flash earlier rom versions without problems according to Xiaomi.