Database Develop

Important Notice: Rooted and Removing stock apps

Hello my name is P3Droid,
We (TBH) have a lot of experience in Motorola phones and hacking. This experience dates back to the Razr days.
Here is a word of caution. Do no delete apps from the System partition, I would suggest you only rename them to .bak. When Motorola pushes updates each of the files undergoes a hash check, if the file has been manipulated or is missing the entire update will fail.
Until a system only sbf or similar is released, unless you make a back up with bootstrap and recovery, you will eliminate your ability to take updates moving forward.

You can remove many of the stock apps without rooting just by using the built in app manager.

Those apps are in /data it is the apps that are in /system that count.

jimmydafish said:
Hello my name is P3Droid,
We (TBH) has a lot of experience in Motorola phones and hacking. The experience dates back to the Razr days.
Here is a word of caution. Do no delete apps from the System partition, I would suggest you only rename them to .bak. When Motorola pushes updates each of the files undergoes a hash check, if the file has been manipulated or is missing the entire update will fail.
Until a system only sbf or similar is released, unless you make a back up with bootstrap and recovery, you will eliminate your ability to take updates moving forward.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i take it that all the apps you can delete through app manager are on /data therefore are safe to delete right?

This should definitely be sticky'd.

franciscojavierleon said:
i take it that all the apps you can delete through app manager are on /data therefore are safe to delete right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes anything that you can delete through the application manager is okay to remove, those have no impact on the update process.
And to complete my thought above. When an update is released, and they are coming, then you need to just change the file names back to normal to take the update.

Sound to me like we ned an ap that lets toys select programs to rename and then can change then back when needed. Would make it alot easier. Ill look onto this...also if some one else can confirm this info I might stick it.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

I can confirm that what p3droid is saying is true for all recent Motorola devices, but the point is really that you won't know until an OTA update is released how they have written the updater script in the zip file.
We have been through this with releases for every phone since the Droid X and many people got caught out by it and were stuck until we released SBF files that could safely restore the stock configuration and allow updating to official release versions.
This brings up another important point about modding your phone at this stage in the cycle. Without a full SBF to recover with in the event of a problem that renders the phone unbootable or unable to access recovery, or if you haven't made a complete nandroid, you will be again be stuck and have to return your phone to AT&T/Motorola for warranty replacement. This is never good for anyone.
When we mod our phones against the wishes of the carriers and manufacturers, we should really take responsibility for those actions and not produce a mountain of bricked phones whose cost is passed along to everyone in the form of higher ETFs for smartphones and other ways.
So, until a full SBF is released of the current build, people should be very careful what they change or remove from their phone's system and/or NVM and radio.
I also tried to warn users about this in another thread that was locked before p3droid started this thread. We have watched hundreds or even thousands of users destroy their phones in myriad ways and helped many of them recover them by providing SBF files as a safety net. It's not fun and if it can be avoided it is to everyone's benefit to do so and only requires care and forethought.

Is there anyway we could make a backup of this partition for later use? would each user need to make one or would one for all users suffice?

Assuming a bootstrapped custom recovery is possible, and we know Koush is already working on it, then a nandroid backup of at least the system, userdata and cache partitions would be the first and best step to take. Also assuming that the bootloader is locked/signed and true recovery is not possible, then the boot image and kernel will not be able to be backed up or written to by the bootstrapped recovery. It is always best to make your own backup for your device and store it on the sdcard where you have easy access, but users have also been able to use someone else's nandroid backup to restore their device in many cases as well. The recovery will give you the option to restore each partition separately in the advanced options so that you won't be restoring someone else's data to your phone.
We at TBH have also been able to create our own update.zip files and SBF files to help users recover from various mishaps.
This was because we had access to both official and unofficial files and tools to accomplish those things.
We have no idea if that will be the case here and we will not likely have the device ourselves to work with given we are VZW users primarily.
Again, there are many variables here that are yet to be determined and modes of access to the various partitions and radio baseband will be different with this phone as opposed to previous Qualcomm chipset devices.
All of this means that at this stage extreme caution is advised and being overzealous with root access is very dangerous right now.

I suggest everyone that is rooted use TITANIUM BACKUP to deal with their bloatware issues. The pro version, which you will need, is only a few bucks and is worth it. TB allows you to 'freeze' bloatware apps, which to my knowledge just blocks it fro the system, but does not delete it. The apps you choose to freeze are also removed from the app tray - so no more clutter. This way when an update rolls around, you can run down the list and simply touch 'thaw' to bring those apps back to recognition. This seems like a much more efficient and easy way to go back and forth, rather than renaming the .apk's.
I apologize if someone already mentioned TB in this thread - I just skimmed quickly.

I deleted all the bloat apps using the app manager without root. They were gone!
I did a factory reset on the phone and *surprise* the apps were back!

The things that were not part of the system come back during reset. On the other hand, im ****ed because I went crazy and deleted some actual apps that the system will check. Yay me.

pwndrone said:
The things that were not part of the system come back during reset. On the other hand, im ****ed because I went crazy and deleted some actual apps that the system will check. Yay me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ouch. Might not work, but have you tried a hard reset?
We should make a list of what's safe to remove like we did for the Captivate. Might be helpful.

I did a full factory reset and those apps that weren't part of the system came back but stuff like the help center are still missing.
Hopefully there will be a way to load the stock firmware sometime in the future.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

Would an app like "Autostarts" work in this case?

Guys, I can't emphasize this enough: use Titanium Backup to freeze the apps rather than deleting them, it will make your life much easier.

does this apply to using different font files as well? I'd like to use a ttf font that's a little larger than DroidSans. if i rename and use a different font will that impact OTA updates or anything else for that matter? thanks!

before reading about "freezing" apps, i reset my atrix back to factory settings. i need help rooting my atrix again. it keeps me in "Waiting for Device" where before i had no problem rooting. and another thing, when i had reset back to factory settings...i still have superuser installed. do i uninstall superuser in order to gain root access again?

I have not rooted yet. My question is can we use freeze to turn off BlurAccounts or is it fully baked into the Rom?

Unroot?

Is it possible to unroot after using the 1 Click Root? I'm coming from a rooted Droid Eris and I remember the first few people who rooted their Erises had lots of problems and I just wanna make sure we can go back and re-root if a better root process comes along later on...

magicelf said:
Is it possible to unroot after using the 1 Click Root? I'm coming from a rooted Droid Eris and I remember the first few people who rooted their Erises had lots of problems and I just wanna make sure we can go back and re-root if a better root process comes along later on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but you'd have to do it manually at this point.
You'd delete busybox and su, uninstall superuser.apk, and there may be a symlink you need to undo, but I think the latest one-click cleans that up. I'd have to go back and check.
And any bloat you froze needs to be unfrozen, or bloat removed needs to be restored.

Okay, first version of this tool, be kind and let me know if there are any problems with it.
Also: NO GUARANTEES. If it does something that breaks your phone, I am not liable. Use at your own risk. Etc., etc.
http://www.psouza4.com/Droid3/PetesMotorolaRootTools_v1.03.zip
UPDATE 9/1/2011: version 1.03

I'm trying the one touch unroot and keep getting an error about the /sdcard/d3unroot folder missing files.
I extracted all of the APKs from your link to my /sdcard/d3unroot directory, but for some reason one touch unroot will not work.
The root worked great

same error here...

Get that error as well

Same here.
Why does it even need that to un-root @ that point?

I'm getting the same error.

Is it really a one-click method?
I'm a dummy so I think I'm gonna wait for some clarity.
Thanks for doing this, man!

Fully re-written and should un-root and restore /system/app for both v5.5.959 and v5.6.890. Enjoy!
http://www.psouza4.com/Droid3/PetesMotorolaRootTools_v1.03.zip
This program is for Windows only and can:
root your device (most Motorola Gingerbread devices)
unroot your device
restore your /system/app, even if you deleted files
And a bit more, such as un-freezing apps if you un-root just like Titanium Backup can.

So how do I do this. Is it the same as the one click root meaning unzip the file and put my phone into charging mode and let it do its thing
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App

spacecasespiff said:
So how do I do this. Is it the same as the one click root meaning unzip the file and put my phone into charging mode and let it do its thing
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much -- this is an all-in-one. It'll tell you where to download files and where to put them when you begin.

I guess I'm just retarded I can't get this to work. I give up. Looks like I'm gonna have to get VZ to mail me a new D3

Yonnor said:
I guess I'm just retarded I can't get this to work. I give up. Looks like I'm gonna have to get VZ to mail me a new D3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why can't you? More than willing to help, but have to tell me what the problem is. And bear in mind that I put out a new version less than 2 hours ago that fixes a LOT (it's a full rewrite).

ok ive downloaded the file to my computer.

Keep getting the error for the Restore data not being in the right place. I've extracted the files to the right spot (I think)
is the restore folder supposed to be located in the Root Tools folder, and then all the apk's placed that Restore folder?

Yonnor said:
Keep getting the error for the Restore data not being in the right place. I've extracted the files to the right spot (I think)
is the restore folder supposed to be located in the Root Tools folder, and then all the apk's placed that Restore folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically, yes.
I'll use your desktop as an example, so if you have:
Desktop\New Folder\Pete's Motorola Root Tools.exe
Then you'll want to extract all the files for the /system/app fix to:
Desktop\New Folder\restore
So that you have:
Desktop\New Folder\restore\AccountAndSyncSettings.apk
Desktop\New Folder\restore\AccountAndSyncSettings.odex
Desktop\New Folder\restore\AdminFeedNotifier.apk
etc.
This assumes you are using my new version 1.03.

psouza4 said:
Basically, yes.
I'll use your desktop as an example, so if you have:
Desktop\New Folder\Pete's Motorola Root Tools.exe
Then you'll want to extract all the files for the /system/app fix to:
Desktop\New Folder\restore
So that you have:
Desktop\New Folder\restore\AccountAndSyncSettings.apk
Desktop\New Folder\restore\AccountAndSyncSettings.odex
Desktop\New Folder\restore\AdminFeedNotifier.apk
etc.
This assumes you are using my new version 1.03.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thank you, I'll give this a shot again.
EDIT: I have it set up as:
Desktop/PetesMotorolaRootTools_v1.03/restore/(all the apk's)
And I'm still getting the:
ERROR: /restore/ backup doesn't exist or is incomplete! etc etc

ok i just unrooted and all is good now im rooting agian. so thank you for this on click unroot meathod. its good to know that if i want to unroot i can. You should put this on every forum that you can. I will aslo tell people about it. You did a good thing for the people on this one. I think a lot of new people will whant to root now that they have a way to undo it.

Lol well like 8th try and I got it to work. Sorry for pestering you so much.

[Q] Creating a back door

Some of the recent posts have suggested that we may soon see a patch for the root exploit we currently have.
Being that we have root now is there some place we could hide SU where we could access it later should root be closed on us, allowing re-rooting of the device? It would have to be some place that does not get overwritten when an update is pushed...and I am not sure if that even exists on Android.

Not easily, since system is one of two partitions that doesn't have nosuid or noexec set.
Sent from my DROID3 using xda premium

Dunno about that, but I've been told there are a couple root methods being saved for later....

So I guess I am correct in assuming that the entire /system gets overwritten during an update?
I just played a bit with /root but cannot get anything to run with the current permissions of the mount.
For my understanding am I correct in the belief that all system directories get overwritten "/sys/ /system/"?

slow88lx said:
Dunno about that, but I've been told there are a couple root methods being saved for later....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank god for this!
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App

calash said:
So I guess I am correct in assuming that the entire /system gets overwritten during an update?
I just played a bit with /root but cannot get anything to run with the current permissions of the mount.
For my understanding am I correct in the belief that all system directories get overwritten "/sys/ /system/"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't get overwritten, but the update does reset all permissions. Thus, the su executable will still be there after the update, but will be chmodded 0755.

Just brainstorming so feel free to tell me I'm wrong
What about replacing a suid binary. Ping is the one I am thinking of right now. Would the update replace that file?
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

calash said:
Just brainstorming so feel free to tell me I'm wrong
What about replacing a suid binary. Ping is the one I am thinking of right now. Would the update replace that file?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looking at the permissions set in the update's script, it doesn't look feasible. If I'm reading them right, PING's permissions only allow it access to the NET_RAW group, which doesn't give us anything useful. Everything else is just as unhelpful.
Anyone know if it would be possible to fastboot flash an older recovery to a device with a newer bootloader, then temproot that and use it to permroot the device?

Xenoproctologist said:
Looking at the permissions set in the update's script, it doesn't look feasible. If I'm reading them right, PING's permissions only allow it access to the NET_RAW group, which doesn't give us anything useful. Everything else is just as unhelpful.
Anyone know if it would be possible to fastboot flash an older recovery to a device with a newer bootloader, then temproot that and use it to permroot the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to go off topic, but am I the only one who's wondering how ironic it is that a user named "xenoproctologist" is responding to a thread titled "Creating a Back Door"?
Freud would have a goddamn field day with this!

rynosaur said:
Sorry to go off topic, but am I the only one who's wondering how ironic it is that a user named "xenoproctologist" is responding to a thread titled "Creating a Back Door"?
Freud would have a goddamn field day with this!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, no... I only use pre-existing back doors. ^_^

I would rather have bugs than no root. I sat on my droid3 until root was available rather than activating it.
Would it be possible in that case to run FOTAkill on a rooted d3? If so, would it help?
I noticed a couple of OTA/update related apks while noodling with Titanium.... could those be frozen to prevent updates?

hiddenhandgun said:
I would rather have bugs than no root. I sat on my droid3 until root was available rather than activating it.
Would it be possible in that case to run FOTAkill on a rooted d3? If so, would it help?
I noticed a couple of OTA/update related apks while noodling with Titanium.... could those be frozen to prevent updates?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are only one or two lines in build.prop that need to be changed to prevent receiving OTAs or update notifications. Search on the DroidX forums and you'll find these values.

Editing the build.prop is not the best way to prevent OTA updates.
It will cause issues with Market and other functions that read those strings for various reasons.
Disabling by freezing or renaming BlurUpdater_VZW.apk and FOTA.apk is safer and will not affect anything else adversely.

cellzealot said:
Editing the build.prop is not the best way to prevent OTA updates.
It will cause issues with Market and other functions that read those strings for various reasons.
Disabling by freezing or renaming BlurUpdater_VZW.apk and FOTA.apk is safer and will not affect anything else adversely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I'll give that a go.

There is always something being worked on to retain/get root again after a patch. There is also a good reason it doesn't get talked about in any kind of detail.

[Q] Stock ROM (SBF) Available for Droid 4?

I ... may have bricked my Droid 4. I won't go into details unless somebody asks, but I don't think it's necessary. I AM able to get to the recovery mode though, I just have nothing to recover from.... I misplaced my back-up.
So, I need SOMETHING to flash my phone to. 4.0/2.0/I don't care, I just need any rom/SBF to make this bad boy boot again. Anybody have anything?
I saw and downloaded the first thing that shows up when you google "droid-4-system-dump-wallpapers-ringtones.html" (link doesn't work because I'm new) But, I was unable to make anything of it.... What do I do?

Just to help others avoid the same fate can you please let us all know what you did?

zeroibis said:
Just to help others avoid the same fate can you please let us all know what you did?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, in hindsight it was kind of dumb. I rooted it, and began to remove all of the VZW sponsored apps. Once I did that, it cleared out a lot of memory (storage AND ram) but seemed to come with the downside of preventing my "settings" activity opening up. As in, whenever I hit "menu" then "Settings" from the main launcher, it would force close behind the scenes (logcat showed the stack trace for the settings activity).
I spent the next day trying to fix that issue, copying "settings.apk" from that link I mentioned earlier to my root director, but that didn't fix it. So, I went and tried copying entire folders over. This is the embarrassing part... I hit a 'delete' button on the "system/apps" folder, got about 30 force close windows, and am now stuck in a bootloop.
Doing the "power + both volume buttons" still gives me the recovery menu, but I don't have anything to recover to, as I was stupid and didn't think to make a backup.

Dwebtron said:
Well, in hindsight it was kind of dumb. I rooted it, and began to remove all of the VZW sponsored apps. Once I did that, it cleared out a lot of memory (storage AND ram) but seemed to come with the downside of preventing my "settings" activity opening up. As in, whenever I hit "menu" then "Settings" from the main launcher, it would force close behind the scenes (logcat showed the stack trace for the settings activity).
I spent the next day trying to fix that issue, copying "settings.apk" from that link I mentioned earlier to my root director, but that didn't fix it. So, I went and tried copying entire folders over. This is the embarrassing part... I hit a 'delete' button on the "system/apps" folder, got about 30 force close windows, and am now stuck in a bootloop.
Doing the "power + both volume buttons" still gives me the recovery menu, but I don't have anything to recover to, as I was stupid and didn't think to make a backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No files are floating around at this time. You really screwed yourself over on this one. Go back to Verizon and beg. You chose to void your warranty.

Dwebtron said:
Well, in hindsight it was kind of dumb. I rooted it, and began to remove all of the VZW sponsored apps. Once I did that, it cleared out a lot of memory (storage AND ram) but seemed to come with the downside of preventing my "settings" activity opening up. As in, whenever I hit "menu" then "Settings" from the main launcher, it would force close behind the scenes (logcat showed the stack trace for the settings activity).
I spent the next day trying to fix that issue, copying "settings.apk" from that link I mentioned earlier to my root director, but that didn't fix it. So, I went and tried copying entire folders over. This is the embarrassing part... I hit a 'delete' button on the "system/apps" folder, got about 30 force close windows, and am now stuck in a bootloop.
Doing the "power + both volume buttons" still gives me the recovery menu, but I don't have anything to recover to, as I was stupid and didn't think to make a backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious about this too - I deleted a bunch of vzw garbage. I did make a copy of of everything with titanium backup first but when I tried re-installing one of them it just hung while another re-installed fine.

I had a similar issue with one app - I had to go into /system/app and change it form RO to RW. Once Read/Write was enabled, Titanium was able to restore the app.

I have been playing it safe and only freezing the apps, not deleting them. I have had no FC or any odd behavior. I figured with an allocated 3 gb to applications, at this time gaining an extra 100MB of storage space is superfluous...especially with no SBF available.

As mentioned above, try going to the VZW store and getting an exchange. I'm certain an .sbf will be released at some point but it could be weeks/months before that happens.
And for future reference/anyone else reading this thread...never delete system apps! Just freeze them. Yes they will still be taking up space, but they won't be using any memory and they won't show up in your launcher so it's basically the same thing...except with freezing it is 100% reversible and will still allow you to receive updates.

Can someone upload these files from D4:
/system/build.prop
/system/default.prop

Freeze Apps
SGMD1 said:
As mentioned above, try going to the VZW store and getting an exchange. I'm certain an .sbf will be released at some point but it could be weeks/months before that happens.
And for future reference/anyone else reading this thread...never delete system apps! Just freeze them. Yes they will still be taking up space, but they won't be using any memory and they won't show up in your launcher so it's basically the same thing...except with freezing it is 100% reversible and will still allow you to receive updates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the best way to freeze apps? I know you can do this with Titanium Backup. Do you need the pro version in order to do this? Are there other apps out there that also allow you to freeze apps?

kwyrt said:
What is the best way to freeze apps? I know you can do this with Titanium Backup. Do you need the pro version in order to do this? Are there other apps out there that also allow you to freeze apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do need the Pro version of Titanium Backup to freeze apps I believe. There are free apps that will do it (i.e. Bloatware Killer) but I am not really familiar with them.

Skrilax_CZ said:
Can someone upload these files from D4:
/system/build.prop
/system/default.prop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://db.tt/LymDelkf
That zip contains the 2 files you asked for. Anything else you need just ask and I can pull it for you. I havent done a dd of all the partitons yet but will be doing that as soon as I can.

cellzealot said:
That zip contains the 2 files you asked for. Anything else you need just ask and I can pull it for you. I havent done a dd of all the partitons yet but will be doing that as soon as I can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The link that I was referring to in the first post SHOULD have every file from the D4.

I meant if he needed any of the other partitions besides the system.
I wanted to give him exactly what he asked for because he is avery sharp guy who may help us out with this device.

Unfortunately I did the same (though not as bad...I just can't open any of my contacts). I changed the permissions for /system/apps but I still am hanging at restoring in Titanium Backup. Are there any other directories that should have changed permissions to get some of these apps restored?
Also, lesson learned....freeze no uninstall

mattlgroff said:
No files are floating around at this time. You really screwed yourself over on this one. Go back to Verizon and beg. You chose to void your warranty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah so what? Why do people feel the need to post condescending comments for no reason? Its because of mistakes and screwups that the community progresses. There will be files floating around by the weekend, I'm sure.

I'm in the same boat... I bricked by droid 4... now waiting for a sbf file... someone said go to vzw and beg... has anyone ever tried that, after bricking your phone? what did you say? and did it work?
I'm just trying to figure out how to get vzw to replace this phone.
---------- Post added at 09:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:56 PM ----------
reigndropz said:
Yeah so what? Why do people feel the need to post condescending comments for no reason? Its because of mistakes and screwups that the community progresses. There will be files floating around by the weekend, I'm sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The files will be released by the weekend? YAY... how do you know?
Also what does it take/what has to be done for someone to release these sbf files?

jgardner said:
Unfortunately I did the same (though not as bad...I just can't open any of my contacts). I changed the permissions for /system/apps but I still am hanging at restoring in Titanium Backup. Are there any other directories that should have changed permissions to get some of these apps restored?
Also, lesson learned....freeze no uninstall
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the only path I had to change. Do you recall if you happened to have moved an app to a different path (perhaps to the sd-card) then removed it?
Are there multiple apps you are trying to restore? If so, have you tried restoring them one at a time?

im going to wait for the sbf files before any major modifications to my phone, then we can all start the fun
i just froze apps to prevent them from running, im not worried about space since i put in a 32GB SD card

I think it's very wise to wait for the firmware to be released, but it's worth noting that the term SBF is a mistaken reference to the old format for firmware files and that all dual core Motorolas have fastboot support now and RSD Lite has been modified to support this and uses xml.zip files that are sets of signed images rather than the Single Binary File(SBF).
This is a very important distinction to be made as the new format and boot menu provide many more options for controlling the flash process for the end user and it is ultimately much safer and more flexible.

[Q] Permanently Removing System Apps

Just got my Verizon MotoMaker Moto X in, rooted it, and am trying to remove the ****-ton of horrible, bloated system apps.
Unfortunately, it seems like every time I delete the .apk's from /system/app (using root adb or TitatiumBackup) the damn things come right back after reboot.
Is there some backup directory copies of the .apk's are stored in to get restored?
I seriously need to figure out how to zap these apps, or I am just going to send this phone right back - I'm not paying $400 for a device that is completely compromised right from the start.

PityOnU said:
Just got my Verizon MotoMaker Moto X in, rooted it, and am trying to remove the ****-ton of horrible, bloated system apps.
Unfortunately, it seems like every time I delete the .apk's from /system/app (using root adb or TitatiumBackup) the damn things come right back after reboot.
Is there some backup directory copies of the .apk's are stored in to get restored?
I seriously need to figure out how to zap these apps, or I am just going to send this phone right back - I'm not paying $400 for a device that is completely compromised right from the start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has nothing to do with the phone , its an issue with your root method slapmymoto, you need to have the system set as r/w AFAIK
Sent on my Moto X

flashallthetime said:
Has nothing to do with the phone , its an issue with your root method slapmymoto, you need to have the system set as r/w AFAIK
Sent on my Moto X
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking the same thing. Gave up on sleeping, so now I'll have another run at this.
Figure I'll flash back to 4.2.2 and follow the steps to upgrade to 4.4 and then root. Hopefully I will have better luck.

PityOnU said:
Just got my Verizon MotoMaker Moto X in, rooted it, and am trying to remove the ****-ton of horrible, bloated system apps.
Unfortunately, it seems like every time I delete the .apk's from /system/app (using root adb or TitatiumBackup) the damn things come right back after reboot.
Is there some backup directory copies of the .apk's are stored in to get restored?
I seriously need to figure out how to zap these apps, or I am just going to send this phone right back - I'm not paying $400 for a device that is completely compromised right from the start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to make sure you are in r/w mode. Reboot to recovery first.

mjphillips1981 said:
You need to make sure you are in r/w mode. Reboot to recovery first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was the issue. This is my first experience with a firmware lock on a file system. Now I know!
Thanks for the help all!