Modifying build.prop without root, is it possible? - Essential Phone Questions & Answers

I'm stumped Android STILL has no option to increase the number of volume steps without rooting.
I've done this before on an unlocked, rooted Motorola, editing build.prop.
Now I have the Essential and I don't want to wipe it since I have over 90GB of data on it, time consuming to put it all back like it is....Is it possible to somehow pull and push build.prop without having root / unlocking the bootloader?
Just trying to do :
adb pull /system/build.prop C:\TEMP\build.prop
*add this line to the prop file*
ro.config.media_vol_steps=50
adb push C:\TEMP\build.prop /system/build.prop
But i'm obviously getting:
adb: error: failed to copy '/system/build.prop' to 'test.prop': remote open failed: Permission denied
Finally, another thing I was thinking, which might sound noob, is it possible to modify the official OTA zip before sideloading it so I can then get my modified build.prop?
Thanks for your time! :good:

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[Q] Editing Build.prop results in failure to boot [bricked]

As you may know, some Android games especially most Gameloft games are not compatible with the Kindle Fire. So in efforts to find a way to make certain Gameloft games to work such as Modern Combat 2 and Shrek Kart and others, I resorted to editing my build.prop in the systems folder to make my device compatible with the apps. So I copied the original build.prop file, renamed it, and saved it to my SD Card folder. I took the copy I made and I then replaced it with the build.prop from HTC Glacier. (I never knew what could possibly happen) So then to apply those settings you have to reboot the device. I rebooted the Kindle and now it won't boot up. It get's to the Kindle Fire screen when booting up but after several seconds it just shows a black screen. No physical damage has been incurred to it but I feel like my stupid mistake of modding the build.prop resulted in the Kindle Fire unable to boot up correctly. It also isn't recognized by the PC when I hook it up to a USB cable. So far I've found nothing that could help to solve this. I've seen a Factory Default Settings Cable which is a special cable to reverts the device to its factory default settings but I'm not too sure if that would work. I'm in desperate need of help as in I use my Kindle Fire for everyday work and play. Thanks.
EDIT: I've tried adb push and renaming and moving the build.prop into the /system/ but returns that it is a Read-File System Only. Also adb shell and su doesn't work as in it ends up with segmentation fault. I've tried to zergRush root it and permanently root it using KFU but it ends up with 'Cannot Access Package Manager. Is System running?' Also the mount -o rw,remount.....command doesn't work either as it says Permission Denied. All of this would be easy to accomplish if only it ADB allowed me to write onto the /system file.
EDIT**: The biggest issue I'm faced with is the permission settings that prevent my from editing anything. You cannot simply change it from RO to RW because apparently the ADB is not rooted. And I also can't root it because problems exist when accessing either Package Manager or Activity Manager. What I need is a way to access the /system files without a root (non-rooted). Either that or enable fastboot because I cannot access that either. On a reply on the second page is the resulting lines when changing bootmodes on the KFU.
Don't know how to fix your problem, but just wondering, did you just completely replace the kindle fire build.prop with the HTC glacier? Because you can't do that, it will, as you have learned, mess up your device.. Your supposed to edit the build.prop and just change a few things. Next time read up on the subject before deciding to mod the device you use everyday...
the cable you'r talking about is a "factory cable" it forces the kf to fastboot mode - it don't restore any settings !
you need fastboot mode to install fff (firefirefire - custom bootloader) and twrp (recovery)
do you allready have installed fff & twrp (or cwm) ?
if you have twrp installed and booted into then you have adb command available and can copy back the original build.prop
Did you remember to restore the read/write permissions to build.prop? It should be set to 644.
As already stated, your not supposed to replace the whole file, build.prop tells android which device you have, so now Android thought and configured itself to different hardware config. which is not available to it. Adb seems like the only option.
I should have really looked more into it before modifying the build.prop. I replaced the ENTIRE build prop with the build.prop of HTC Glacer. (I know, i know I was stupid) And referring to the factory cable, I don't think I'll resort to that: too time consuming. In regards to the last person that posted before me who said that my only option was ADB could you elaborate? Thanks for all your feedback.
gococogo321 said:
I should have really looked more into it before modifying the build.prop. I replaced the ENTIRE build prop with the build.prop of HTC Glacer. (I know, i know I was stupid) And referring to the factory cable, I don't think I'll resort to that: too time consuming. In regards to the last person that posted before me who said that my only option was ADB could you elaborate? Thanks for all your feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your going to have to use adb to basically remove the HTC Glacier build.prop and replace it with the original build.prop.
For example:
Adb remount <- allows you to mount system as rw
Adb pull /path-to-original/build.prop
Adb push build.prop /system
Adb shell chmod 644 /system/build.prop <- sets permissions to rwrr
Adb reboot
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium
You dont have access to recovery? Either TWRP or CWM?
daggy1985 said:
Your going to have to use adb to basically remove the HTC Glacier build.prop and replace it with the original build.prop.
For example:
Adb remount <- allows you to mount system as rw
Adb pull /path-to-original/build.prop
Adb push build.prop /system
Adb shell chmod 644 /system/build.prop <- sets permissions to rwrr
Adb reboot
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried doing that but it says something like Access Denied or Read-Only File System when i try to push the build.prop into it.
gococogo321 said:
I tried doing that but it says something like Access Denied or Read-Only File System when i try to push the build.prop into it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you use the 'adb remount' command? Sometimes, when attempting to push a file to the system, I get the 'read-only file system' and I have to issue adb reboot followed by adb remount and then push the file again. It seems after a time the mount system as read write automatically goes back to read-only.
Sent from my ADR6400L using xda premium
Have you got TWRP or ClockworkMod?
Because you could flash a new rom then.
abd - root mode
Perhaps, running adb in root mode will
allow you to push the original build.prop
back. Then execute "adb remount / rw" to mount the
root directory as read/write. Hopefully you will be able to push
it then follow daggy1985's instructions.
* In Win 7, type "cmd " at the 'SEARCH/RUN' and hold
shift + ctrl while hitting 'Enter' to put yourself
in Admin mode which apparently makes adb work in root mode when you launch it.
* Xda-dev is the coolest site for Android that I have seen. Kudo's to everyone participating.
sum1nil said:
Perhaps, running adb in root mode will
allow you to push the original build.prop
back. Then execute "adb remount / rw" to mount the
root directory as read/write. Hopefully you will be able to push
it then follow daggy1985's instructions.
* In Win 7, type "cmd " at the 'SEARCH/RUN' and hold
shift + ctrl while hitting 'Enter' to put yourself
in Admin mode which apparently makes adb work in root mode when you launch it.
* Xda-dev is the coolest site for Android that I have seen. Kudo's to everyone participating.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks but I have actually been running it from Administrator from the very beginning. I've used Kindle Fire Utility KFU and it says that ADB Server is Online and my Bootmode is 4000 but it says ADB root: No. And whenever I choose any bootmode whether it be Normal, Fastboot, or Recovery, it always shows this:
***********************************************
* Activating Normal (4000) *
***********************************************
Installing BurritoRoot, Courtesy of Jcase of TeamAndIRC!
1393 KB/s (1164225 bytes in 0.816s)
Error: Could not access the Package Manager. Is the system running?
Activating BurritoRoot...
Error type 2
android.util.AndroidException: Can't connect to activity manager; is the system
running?
Elevating the Shell...
* daemon not running. starting it now *
* daemon started successfully *
/data/local/tmp/BurritoRoot3.bin: permission denied
mount: Operation not permitted
mount: Operation not permitted
failed to copy 'files\rbfb' to '/system//rbfb': Read-only file system
Unable to chmod /system/rbfb: No such file or directory
Unable to chmod /system/rbfb: No such file or directory
mount: Operation not permitted
mount: Operation not permitted
***********************************************
* Root Activated *
***********************************************
The kindle is successfully running in root mode.
<idme> Invalid permission
reboot: Operation not permitted
Same goes for the Temp Burrito Root and installing FFF and TWRP. It always shows something about cannot access Package manager. I have no clue what the Package Manager even does but apparently I cannot find a solution to that.
I think you need to get a factory programming cable like we talked about on gtalk. I'm confident that will fix this.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
I used android commander for windows, mounted system in TWRP and used android commander to copy a new working build.prop to the right place.
With a cable from my htc desire.
would make a little test:
issue "adb shell"
if you get a error message your up to a factory cable because the system shell is messed up and you have no possibility to get to fastboot mode to install fff & twrp
if you get a $ or # prompt you can resume and try "mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system" to mount system in read/write mode
daggy1985 said:
Your going to have to use adb to basically remove the HTC Glacier build.prop and replace it with the original build.prop.
For example:
Adb remount <- allows you to mount system as rw
Adb pull /path-to-original/build.prop
Adb push build.prop /system
Adb shell chmod 644 /system/build.prop <- sets permissions to rwrr
Adb reboot
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey, I've tried to remount my rooted galaxy y, fall in for same problem.but there show this message; "remount failed: Operation not permitted"
my device's usb debugging mode was off in last entire.
what I have to do now?
how did u edit build.prop in the first place if u don't have root and this might help
http://yaseminavcular.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-get-bricked-kindle-fire-back-to.html?m=1
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk

Failed root attempt - what next??

This question originally got posted on the relevant thread in the Android dev forum, but didn't get any replies so am trying it here in hope....I'm looking for advice on what I can try next which would be safe to try.
I installed and ran the Google Nexus 7 TOOLKIT V4.0.0, but the root failed (and I was also unable to backup the ROM, probably because the root failed). I did the following using the toolkit:
- unlocked the bootloader
- tried rooting using the SuperSU Method (I'm running build JOP40D on a brand new tablet
- got the "downloading boot.img" message (OK), and it rebooted
- did the Android setup after the reboot
- selected USB debugging mode - the tablet rebooted.
During the above process I noticed the message "remount failed: operation not permitted" amongst a stream of other messages.
The subsequent install of BusyBox also failed, with the following messages amongst others:
Code:
Setting permissions..
Unable to chmod /system/xbin/su: No such file or directory
Unable to chmod /system/app/Supervisor.apk: No such file or directory"
...
Testing busybox has been installed properly
...
/system/bin/sh: su: not found
Sending the command 'ls -l /system/xbin/' to device..
You should see a list of all busybox commands
/system/bin/sh: su: not found
Completed
How can I establish what the current state of my machine is, and what is the safest next step in my attempts to root it?
unlocked the bootloader? then all you have to do is fastboot flash a custom recovery then flash the su binaries or a custom rom then reboot. btw, dont use root toolkits, especially if your not familiar with basic procedures. nexus devices dont need root toolkits, its just as easy to root your device the right way.
simms22 said:
unlocked the bootloader? then all you have to do is fastboot flash a custom recovery then flash the su binaries or a custom rom then reboot. btw, dont use root toolkits, especially if your not familiar with basic procedures. nexus devices dont need root toolkits, its just as easy to root your device the right way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I think the Unlock Bootloader part worked. How could I check if it was successful?
itm said:
Well, I think the Unlock Bootloader part worked. How could I check if it was successful?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems that my attempt to unlock the bootloader wasn't successful - when I re-tried the Root option from the toolkit I got a message saying that the bootloader was locked.
So....I tried to unlock the bootloader again (with the tablet in Fastboot mode). I got the Yes/No option on tablet and selected Yes. I saw red text at the bottom of the Fastboot screen saying "Lock state - unlocked". So I then selected the option to Root (option 2, using the Chainfire method. This failed with the following errors:
remount failed: Operation not permitted
(then a few "no such file" messages removing old root files)
Pushing superuser.apk and su binary..
failed to copy root\su to /system/xbin/su : Read-only file system
failed to copy root\Superuser.apk to /system/app/Superuser.apk : Read-only file system
Setting permissions..
Unable to chmod /system/xbin/su: no such file or directory
Unable to chmod /system/app/Superuser.apk: no such file or directory
It looks like it's not being allowed write access to the drive???

[Q] adb shell as root user by default

'adb shell' gives me directly a root console. I don't know if it is something that I've changed at some point or it is the normal expected behaviour, but I would prefer to login as a normal user, and use su afterwards to gain root access (and authorize it explicitly with SuperSu). But for some reason, adb shell takes me directly to a root console. So, that's my newbie question: is it something that I have done or it is the normal behaviour. And in any case, is there any way to change it?
Thanks in advance.
Up
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
Continuing with my monologue, I found my answer here http://android.stackexchange.com/qu...to-run-adb-shell-as-root-without-typing-in-su
It is managed by a flag in the boot partition, hence I did do something, I've flashed a boot.img with such a flag setted to allow accessing directly into root.
Therefore, in order to revert such a behaviour, I just need to flash a boot.img without such a flag.
Here is a quote from a reply in that stackexchange link (I modified it so it became the instructions to revert adb shell to give a normal user shell instead of a root shell)
Generally speaking, though, you need to pull your current boot.img from your phone, unpack it, extract the ramdisk, and find the default.prop file. This is a plaintext file, which you need to open in a text editor and then find the line that contains the value ro.secure. If the line says ro.secure=0 then you need to change it to ro.secure=1. After that you can re-pack the ramdisk and boot.img, then flash it to your phone. Once you reboot, you will be greeted with a $ prompt whenever you perform adb shell, having to run su to gain root.
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Click to collapse

Build.prop mod help

Hi everyone, I wonder what's done wrong with the following:
I try to change the build.prop without rooting nexus 6p with unlock and temp TWRP mounting the system/build.prop file with adb pull and push, everything looks good in notepad++ but the build.prop has gone back to original when I lookup the "build.prop edit" after phone restart.
So I designed to do it all again.... In my computer this time I found the new adb pull bp file has already been changed by my last attempt.
I Google and I find some said have to add " chmod 644 /system/build.prop" so I did.
Restart and build.prop edit lookup still with no luck!
I don't get it! I reseted the phone and doing it all again go back to recovery mode and the build.prop in my phone has show I changed the true to false already and saved in the system, but when boot back to the phone it goes back?

build.prop please upload

HI , im new here but i know a long time ago about this community, anyway, someone can help me uploading a build.prop of the moto g5 plus, i modify it and well... :/ i try to fix it whit a adb on the command promp but my phone still stuck on the boot, and i sorry about this topic maybe can help on the future
Which model do you have? What build are you on? Are you running a custom ROM?
It would probably be easier to post your build.prop and see if someone will look at it and give you some advice as to what is wrong.
willclein said:
Which model do you have? What build are you on? Are you running a custom ROM?
It would probably be easier to post your build.prop and see if someone will look at it and give you some advice as to what is wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks in advance for the reply, i can solve the problem flashing the firmware beacuse i have some troubles on the console using adb, but this happening beacuse i dont give it the correctly permisons, but i want share the way to fix that problem as well, therefore i bring the solution on the command prompt on windows, the solution is very simply but helpfull
step by step, there are been taked on the siteweb TAS beacuse i'm a new user and i cant post url's of the other sites
///
Setup ADB and Fastboot on your PC.
Boot your Android device into TWRP recovery.
Select Mount » and then select System from the list of partitions to mount the system partition and then go back.
Connect your device to the PC with an authentic USB cable.
Open a command window on the PC and issue the following command to pull build.prop file from the device:
adb pull /system/build.prop
The above command will download the build.prop file to your PC in the same directory where your command prompt is running from.
└ Tip: Make a copy of the build.prop file before you edit it so that you’ve a backup of the original file.
Download and install Notepad++ software on your PC.
Open the build.prop file on your PC using the Notepad++ program.
Edit the build.prop file as per your requirement and save it on the PC after making the changes.
Once you’ve saved the edits to the build.prop file, push it back to the device using the following command:
adb push build.prop /system/
Now set the correct permissions for the build.prop file with following commands (issue them one-by-one):
adb shell
cd system
chmod 644 build.prop
Once you’ve set the correct permission for build.prop file, reboot your device to system from TWRP’s Reboot » System option.
thanks and i hope this can help someone else
The number one issue I see with people modifying build.prop (myself included) is forgetting to fix the permissions once you are done. My preferred method for editing it is using BuildProp Editor. It makes editing easy as well as makes setting the permissions extremely easy without having to use ADB. Best part is you can do this on the fly instead of having to use your PC.

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